Although sci-fi teems with cautionary tales of machines growing smarter than humans and taking over the world, on the basis of Her, I think Jonze yearns on some level for what futurist Ray Kurzweil calls “the singularity,” when machines will take on human characteristics and our minds will be expanded by machines.

Jonze began with what could have been a one-joke idea, and in the course of getting it on screen, discovered the wellspring of love. […]