The Artificial Spouse

In the short film, Be Right Back, a woman named Martha experienced the tragedy of losing her husband, Ash. Initially, the couple appeared somewhat happy and in love. Yet, Ash seemed to enjoy using his phone for social networking more than interacting with his wife. While on his phone, Ash left their house and never came back. Because he did not return, Martha became worried. Sometime later, it was revealed that Ash was dead. During Martha’s bereavement, a friend suggested a program that reconnects her to Ash. But once realizing that she was pregnant, the program instantly appealed to her even though she showed no interest in technology.

In the beginning, Martha is content with messaging and calling within the program, but eventually this type of comfort becomes insufficient. In my opinion, her situation becomes even more creepier; she orders a robot version of Ash. The first sight of the duplicated Ash makes Martha uncomfortable and she is certain that he is not human. Since Martha decides to continue with a duplication of Ash, she mentally damages herself by thinking Ash wasn’t dead. This is unhealthy because she doesn’t accept death and learn to move on in life. As a result, the experience with robot Ash is nothing like the one with original Ash.

As the film progresses, Martha realizes that the robot Ash lacks major components. For example, the robot cannot express feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Because of Ash’s programming, his responses were disliked by Martha and caused her to react in a different manner. Her expectations were perceived from memories of the original Ash and not the information that robot Ash had access to. In their conversations, robot Ash’s answers were reflected from digital information of past events, videos, and pictures. Therefore, he would say things found in old posts on the internet.

Ultimately, the technology in Be Right Back is a little frightening. Plus, the advancements of technology of today’s world in which we in live doesn’t seem far from those in Martha’s and Ash’s life. Nevertheless, I hope that our society never has to use technology to duplicate humans. Personally, I think Martha didn’t fully comprehend what it entailed to produce an equivalent to Ash. She was more focused on having a physical presence, not realizing that he would lack the full capacity of Ash. Even though robots can be programmed to function as humans, they can never replace humans.