I Am Once Again Asking Our Tech Overlords to Watch the Whole Movie
Today OpenAI announced GPT-4o, a new AI model that will be available to free and paid users alike. Among its many upgrades—faster response times, enhanced memory capabilities, better parsing of images—is a conversational voice that tries its level best to sound like a real live human. It laughs, it jokes, it maybe flirts a little. “It feels like AI from the movies,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a Monday blog post. “It’s still a bit surprising to me that it’s real.”
To be honest, it felt like AI from one movie in particular: Her, the 2013 Spike Jonze sci-fi film that correctly foresaw a future in which AI relationships could handily substitute for human connection—well, it felt like and sounded like. In the demo, ChatGPT's voice is remarkably similar to that of Her star Scarlett Johansson. In case there was any doubt as to the reference point, Altman tweeted “her”—just the one word—shortly after the event.
Her is a terrific movie. Its view of AI is surprisingly nuanced, and its depiction of the techno-human relationship at its core leans more utopian than knee-jerk skeptical. Still, a plea to anyone trying to manifest Jonze’s world—or that of any sci-fi touchstone, for that matter—in this one: Watch it just one more time. All the way through. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page about what future we’re careening toward.
