In Spike Jonze’s latest film, Her, a mustachioed Joaquin Phoenix plays a man who falls in love with a Siri-like “digital assistant,” Her, played by Scarlett Johansson.
You’d think Siri would appreciate having a movie made about her, but instead, kitty’s got claws when it comes to her filmic counterpart: thanks to Apple’s cheeky and surprisingly timely programmers, if you ask Siri “Are you her?” she will respond: “No. Her portrayal of an intelligent agent is beyond artificial”, “No. You know that it’s just a movie, right?” and “No. In my opinion, she gives artifical intelligence a bad name.”
That might seem catty, but come on: Apple doesn’t want hordes of lonely Joaquin-likes to start whispering sweet nothings to Siri. Think about all the processing power that would waste.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
