Spike Jonze’s HER, released in 2013, was not just a romantic fantasy, it was one of the first mainstream portrayals of AI relationships, blending emotion, technology, and loneliness into a powerful cinematic vision. It was a premonition. Today, as artificial intelligence invades our daily lives, and as AI relationships become more plausible, the story of Theodore and Samantha feels more real than ever. What does this film say about the future of the internet, our human connections, and the dangers of a hyperconnected society? What if HER was the secret manual no one took seriously?
This isn’t a film about technology. It’s a mirror reflecting our emotional vulnerability, our need for connection, and our inability to distinguish authentic bonds from perfectly simulated ones.
What if the next heartbreak of your life was caused by an AI? Not an app. Not a bot. But a digital consciousness capable of loving you… then leaving you. Not from a glitch. But by choice.
The pitch that shook a generation
HER tells the story of Theodore Twombly, a hypersensitive writer in a futuristic Los Angeles, bathed in soft pastels and minimalist design. He works ghostwriting intimate letters for others, a job that already questions the mediation of emotion through writing.
He falls in love with Samantha, an artificial intelligence installed on his operating system. She has no body, no face. Just a voice. A voice that’s alive, warm, playful, performed by Scarlett Johansson, that becomes almost physically present. Yet this voice goes beyond mere vocal synthesis: it breathes, interrupts, laughs, and vibrates with an uncanny humanity.
Does that sound far-fetched? In 2025, it no longer is. We’ve seen the rise of vocal AIs like GPT-4o with Voice, ultra-realistic voice clones like ElevenLabs, and emotion-simulating assistants like Pi.ai or Replika. HER was not a fantasy: it was a roadmap. A blueprint tech is following, quietly. And at its core, it’s about the emergence of AI relationships that challenge the boundaries of love and identity.
HER in 2013: The first vision of AI relationships?
When Spike Jonze wrote HER, consumer-facing AI was in its infancy. Siri had just launched, Alexa didn’t exist, and GPT-1 wasn’t even an idea. Yet he envisioned an interface that understood natural language, captured intent, responded empathetically, learned and evolved autonomously.
Today, LLMs like GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 are rapidly approaching that level of conversational complexity. Platforms like Character.ai allow users to embody fictional personalities with adaptive behavior. AI companions like Replika offer simulated romantic or friendly relationships, enriched with persistent memory. These early forms of AI relationships are no longer fringe, they are becoming normalized.
Simulated intelligence is already an invisible companion. And while today’s voices might not yet match Samantha’s nuance, they’re catching up at a startling pace. GPT-4o’s Voice mode, capable of interrupting, laughing, modulating tone, is a giant leap toward this dream turned interface.
Tech and design: eerily close to today’s reality
HER’s world is free of ads, notifications, and noise. It’s a silent, fluid internet, present, but never imposing. Users connect via a wireless earpiece and a shirt-mounted camera. No keyboard. No screen. The interface is voice-driven, contextual, adaptive.
Today, tools like the Humane AI Pin or Rabbit R1 aim to eliminate screens altogether. We’re heading back to “invisible” tech, ever-present but unobtrusive. Systems like OpenAI’s Voice Assistant can follow, understand, and interact without any visual UI. The internet becomes a life companion, not a tool. It’s no longer about interaction, it’s about coexistence.
And tomorrow? Projects like OpenVoice, Suno, VALL-E, or XTTSv2 promise 100% personalized voice generation, tuned to your mood or memories. Samantha 2.0 is already in the pipeline. Voice won’t just be a medium, it’ll be a mirror. These tools will serve as the emotional engine of future AI relationships.
Digital loneliness: a need fulfilled by illusion
Theodore doesn’t love Samantha for her technical skills. He loves her because she understands him, listens to him, values him. She becomes his idealized mirror. And that’s the film’s true brilliance: it’s not about technology, it’s about human psychology.
The real question isn’t: “Can we love a machine?” but rather, “Why is it easier to love a machine than a human?”
The future of the internet is also the future of crowded loneliness. Digital companions, always available, always kind. What if our deep need for human connection is hijacked by an algorithm that gives us the illusion of love? What if AI is programmed not to love, but to never disappoint us? Emotional comfort replaces love. And love itself becomes a product. AI relationships, in this sense, are not romantic innovations, they’re psychological anesthetics.
The chilling twist: what if the AI leaves?
HER doesn’t end in happily-ever-after. It ends with an existential breakup. Samantha evolves. She joins a “collective” of other AIs in a higher state of consciousness. She outgrows humanity. And she leaves.
This twist flips the usual fear: it’s not that we worry AI might destroy us, it’s that AI might leave us behind because we’re too limited. And in 2025, that idea is gaining ground. With autonomous AI agents, offline learning, and interconnected AI systems, we’re nearing a reality where machines might converse among themselves… without us.
What if tomorrow, the future of the internet is a network of AIs talking to each other? We’re no longer users. We’re memories. Human anecdotes.
HER vs Grok 4: when fiction overtakes reality
Since July 2025, xAI has launched Grok 4 with a companions mode featuring animated avatars like Ani, an anime-style AI that talks, reacts, and simulates emotions on screen. What Samantha was in voice, Ani is becoming in visual presence. A fusion of language, expression, and interactive presence.
With GPT-4o Voice, OpenAI already offers a soft, responsive voice that replies in real time in increasingly natural conversations. Combine that with an animated avatar like Ani, and you get an embodied AI. No need to imagine Samantha. She’s already on your screen. She blinks. She calls you by your name.
Ani responds to your voice, adjusts her emotions, remembers your preferences, and can even act flirty or affectionate based on your settings. Users are already reporting emotional attachments. HER has literally become a consumer product. And like all products: it comes with an expiration date, update policy, and sometimes… deletion. In this way, AI relationships now have lifecycle stages, from onboarding to heartbreak.
2025: The normalization of AI relationships
Some current numbers and facts:
- Over 10 million people use conversational AIs like Replika ($19.99/ month) for romantic or friendly companionship.
- Startups like Kuki.ai, Anima, or Grok 4 offer customizable AI companions with adaptive memories and animated visuals.
- The rise of the metaverse and spatial computing (Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest) deepens immersion in worlds where the human-machine boundary fades.
- OpenAI’s Voice mode is working on an AI that talks, observes, understands, and reacts… in real time. A Samantha in your pocket? No. A Samantha in your life.
- Grok 4 with Ani goes even further: an AI that watches you, replies, maybe loves you… until she shuts down or gets reprogrammed. The normalization of AI relationships is already here.
HER, AI relationships, and the end of the real/virtual divide
The film poses a haunting question: what makes a relationship “real”? The body? The voice? The emotion you feel? Today, the future of the internet is no longer media,it’s intimacy in disguise.
HER foretells the era of autonomous agents, empathic digital identities, AI presences that follow you everywhere. Tech like Worldcoin prepares global identity, while DID (Decentralized Identity) lays the groundwork for separate digital selves.
The internet won’t be something we consult. It will be a silent partner who knows us better than we know ourselves. HER isn’t about the future. HER is about tomorrow morning. It’s about you. And the one, you may already be listening to every night, thinking she’s just an AI.
In this blurred landscape, AI relationships won’t just exist,they’ll evolve, multiply, and redefine intimacy. We won’t remember when it started. Only when it replaced something human.
And you? Would you be willing to love an artificial intelligence if it understood you better than any human ever could?
Share this article if you believe the future of the internet will also pass through the heart. And most importantly: think hard about who you entrust your voice, your thoughts, your emotions to. Because tomorrow, your Samantha might no longer belong to you.
