Over the past decade, technology has impacted all areas of our lives. We look at developments in digital romance and question whether the future of love is virtual
In Her, a film arguably about the future of relationships, Joaquin Phoenix portrays a lonely, alienated and heartbroken man who reverts to technology to fulfil his romantic and sexual needs. The technology in question is an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm (the voiceover by Scarlett Johansson) whose only weakness is the inability to avoid falling in love with her client. Though technically unfeasible by today’s AI standards, the broad premise of the movie is more realistic than most people may think. Indeed, in the past 10 years our lives have been transformed by technology and love is no exception. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, there’s no better time to examine some of the recent developments in this area.
Taobao, China’s version of Amazon, offers virtual girlfriends and boyfriends for around $2 (£1.20) per day. These are real humans, but they only relate with their paying customers via the phone – calls or text – in order to perform fairly unromantic tasks such as wake up calls, good night calls, and (perhaps the most useful service) “sympathetically listen to clients’ complaints”. If this is all you expect from a relationship, it at least comes at a cheap price.
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