Problematizing the Human-Technology Relationship through Techno-Spiritual Myths Presented in The Machine, Transcendence and Her

The fraught relationship between humans and technology providesmany a storyline within popular cinema. One of the most common ways the human-technology tensions are portrayed is through explorations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the female machine-human in Metropolis (1927) used to provoke an oppressed working class into protests to the cybertronic mecha child of A.I. (2001) abandoned by his adoptive mother just as he begins to express human emotions. Portrayals of computer technology in cinema have often been framed within dystopian narratives, showing the human relationship to technology as being adversarial. These tensions between humanity and technology are often linked to broad assumptions about what it means to be human, which I argue are grounded in quasi-spiritual narratives about the nature of technology.This paper focuses on the problematic relationship between humans and technology often portrayed within AI films. These films often focus on questions of human uniqueness and agency, which I suggest are essentially religious questions. One way to explore the core tensions arising from portrayals of the human-machine relationship is through unpacking the techno-spiritual myths that often underlie these framings. This paper explores three common techno-spiritual myths presented in three recent films. These techno-spiritual myths are drawn from recent philosophical work on the relationship between humans and computer, which highlights the roots of different conceptions of the perceived spiritual nature of technology. Applying these myths to recent films, focused on narratives about Artificial Intelligence, helps us identify some of the most common narratives used in cinema to depict an inherently problematic relationship between humanity and technology.In this paper we focus on the AI characterizations in The Machine (2013), Transcendence (2013), and Her (2013), where human-created computers are presented as initially offering salvation from human limitations, until these creations eventually overpower their creators and threaten humanity as a whole. Within each film we see the techno-spiritual myths playing an important role in justifying and shaping the marrying of technology with the human, and they also help us identify the common tropes regarding human fears about technology's ultimate trajectories that are portrayed within popular films. In The Machine British scientists produce cybernetic implants in order to heal brain-damaged soldiers, but these human-machine hybrids turn into unpredictable, volatile cyborgs. Transcendence focuses on artificial intelligence researchers who download the consciousness of their leader into a computer when he faces death, creating a sentient computer that eventually tries to control the humans around it. Her follows the life of a man who develops a relationship with an intelligent computer operating system personified through a female voice who eventually betrays his trust.I suggest each film is underwritten by a techno-spiritual myth including: "technology as divine transcendence" (where technology is shown to endow humans with divine qualities), "technological mysticism" (framing technology practice as a form of religion/spirituality) and "techgnosis" (where technology itself is presented as a God). Each myth highlights how the human relationship to technology is often described and framed in spiritual terms, not only in cinema, but in popular culture in general. These myths, which emerge from previous work highlighting how religious language and imagery are often employed to frame digital technologies as possessing spiritual characteristics, can often be easily seen in contemporary science fiction film narratives (Campbell & LaPastina, 2010). Here I explore how these three myths inform the storylines of several recent sci-fi films, and spotlight common concerns and debates about the outcomes of human engagement with new technologies. By identifying these myths and discussing how they are manifest in these films, we can also note that many current AI films are grounded in a "posthuman discourse. …