ChatGPT and the movie “Her” are only the newest example of the “sci-fi feedback loop.”

In May 2024, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sparked a firestorm by referring to the film “Her” to spotlight the novelty of the newest iteration of ChatGPT.

Within just a few days, actress Scarlett Johansson, who played the voice of Samantha, the protagonist’s AI girlfriend, within the film “Her”, accused the corporate of abusing her voice after turning down their offer to be the voice of ChatGPT's recent virtual assistant. Johansson sued OpenAI And was invited to testify before Congress.

This dispute highlights a broader exchange between Hollywood and Silicon Valley often called “Science fiction feedback loop.” The topic of my PhD thesis, the science fiction feedback loop, examines how science fiction and technological innovation influence one another. This dynamic is bidirectional and might sometimes extend over many many years, leading to an infinite loop.

Fiction awakens dreams of moon trips

One of the best-known examples of this cycle is the trip to the moon.

Jules Verne’s 1865 novel “From the Earth to the Moon“ and the fiction of HG Wells inspired one in all the primary movies to visualise such a journey, “A visit to the moon.”

The novels of Verne and Wells also influenced future rocket scientists resembling Robert Goddard, Hermann Oberth and Oberth’s better-known protégé, Wernher von BraunThe innovations of those men – including the V-2 rocket von Braun during World War II – inspired works of science fiction, resembling the 1950 film “Target Moon”, which included a rocket that looked exactly just like the V-2.

Films like “Destination Moon” would then proceed strengthen public support for the generous government spending on the space program.

Creative symbiosis

The science fiction feedback loop generally follows the identical cycle.

First, the technological climate of a selected era will shape the science fiction of that point. For example, the Personal Computing Revolution of the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties directly inspired the works of cyberpunk authors Neal Stephenson And William Gibson.

Then the science fiction that results will encourage technological innovations in the actual world. In his 1992 classic “Snow crashStephenson coined the term “metaverse” to explain a three-dimensional, video game-like world that will be accessed through virtual reality glasses.

Entrepreneurs and innovators from Silicon Valley have tried to create a version of this metaverse since then. The virtual world of video games Second Lifewhich launched in 2003, tried this: Players lived in virtual houses, went to virtual dance clubs and virtual concert events with virtual friends, and even got virtual dollars for showing up for virtual jobs.

This technology was the breeding ground for other fictional works. During my research, I discovered that science fiction creator Ernest Cline had spent quite a lot of time in Second Life and had used it to create the metaverse of his best-selling novel “Ready Player One.”

The cycle continued: Employees of Oculus VR – now often called Meta Reality Labs – received copies of Ready Player One once they were developing the corporate’s virtual reality headsets. When Facebook modified its name to Meta in 2021It did so within the hope of being on the forefront of constructing the metaverse, although the corporate’s grand ambitions have softened somewhat.

Another sci-fi franchise that has its fingerprints throughout this loop is “Star Trek,” which first aired in 1966, in the midst of the space race.

Steve Perlman, the inventor of Apple’s QuickTime media format and player, said he was inspired through an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation by which Lt. Commander Data, an android, searches through several audio and video streams. And Rob Haitani, the developer of the Palm Pilot operating system, said that the bridge on the Enterprise influenced its interface.

During my research I also came upon that the holodeck of the show – a room that might simulate any environment – ​​influenced each the name and the event of Microsoft’s Augmented Reality Glasses HoloLens.

From ALICE to “Her”

Which brings us back to OpenAI and “Her”.

In the film, the protagonist Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, gets an AI assistant named “Samantha,” who’s voiced by Johansson. He begins to develop feelings for Samantha – a lot in order that he starts to think about her his girlfriend.

ChatGPT-4o, the newest version of generative AI software, appears to give you the chance to create an identical relationship between user and machine. ChatGPT-4o can’t only talk over with you and “get” you, but it could accomplish that compassionately, like a romantic partner would.

There is little doubt that the depiction of AI in “Her” influenced the developers of OpenAI. In addition to Altman’s tweet, the corporate Promotional videos for ChatGPT-4o show a chatbot that talks to a candidate before his interview, supporting and inspiring him – like an AI friend would do. The AI ​​within the clips, Ars Technica observedwas “disarmingly lifelike” and able to “laugh at your jokes and your silly hat.”

But you could be surprised to know that an earlier generation of chatbots inspired Spike Jonze, the director and screenwriter of Her, to put in writing the screenplay. Almost a decade before the film's release Jonze had interacted with a version of the ALICE chatbotone in all the primary chatbots with a definite personality – within the case of ALICE, that of a young woman.

The chatbot ALICE won the Loebner Prize thrice, which was awarded annually until 2019 to the AI ​​software that got here closest to passing the Turing testhas long been considered the edge for determining whether artificial intelligence isn’t any longer distinguishable from human intelligence.

The science fiction feedback loop has no expiration date. The ability of AI to construct relationships with humans is a subject that continues to be explored in fiction and real life.

A couple of years after “Her”Blade Runner 2049” showed a virtual friend, Joiwith a holographic body. Long before the recent drama with OpenAI, corporations had begun Development and placement of virtual girlfriendsa process that may undoubtedly proceed. As science fiction creator and social media critic Cory Doctorow wrote in 2017“Science fiction can do something higher than predict the long run: it could do it.”