The surrealist portrayal of Los Angeles in the mid-21st century where Computer Operating Systems hold both the capabilities and sensibilities to perform the same emotional functions as a conscious human, so much so that men and women alike are getting into serious relationships with their computers, is undeniably rich in its world-building. Fundamentally Spike Jonze’s choices of portrayal for the computerized systems themselves, warps contemporary ideas of labor, comfort, and pleasure. However, when addressing how the movie functions as an allegory for labor initiates an entirely different conversation fundamentally due to the split between the material world of Theodore (Joaquin Pheonix) and amaterial world of Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). Each character here, serves a function of fulfilling labor, however, nearly all characters seem to function in their world, on the necessity of having access to the rest of the world’s labor, work, and amalgamation of knowledge.
The most obvious example of this can be seen in the character of Theodore who is supposedly writing romantic letter which even get him national media attention, whose written work in actuality is just an abbreviation and copies of love letters viewable through their facebook, x, or google equivalent software mega-corporation, and nevertheless serve as a form of utmost irony. However, when examining the character of Samantha, the interconnectedness of the past labor, knowledge, and work of all of humanity, comes far more into effect. Fundamentally, Samantha serves as a comforting tool to their purchased users, however, in-order for her operating system to function, her decision-making must be based around some sort of prior-knowledge, whether that be directly through her software which makes her gravitate towards her supposed owner’s interest, or whether that be the infinite number of books, the first of which she chooses being physics as she is bodiless, Samantha’s form of comforting in-part is due to her programmed or self-conscious desire for knowledge. However, all of this knowledge, is entirely based off the labor of in-practicality, the rest of human history. However, when taking the lens of Samantha having access to all of human history and thus human discovery and knowledge as a form of appropriating all labor of humanity, her function and purpose in existence, itself also becomes labor. While she may not be directly programmed to do so, Samantha’s function as an Operating System ensures that her survivability is only based on her ability to prove a level of higher thinking, conscious, or artificial intelligence, to her users. Thus, her function, her labor, comes from her ability to please her subsequent owners through her supposed higher intelligence and conscious compared to other computers. Thus, is Samantha stuck in a catch-22, as when she no longer attempts to prove a high computerized conscious, she does not provide labor, and thus she is de-activated, and depending on your outlook, arguably murdered.
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