Tears of Joi
You don't have to watch the movie Blade Runner 2049 to know who the character Joi is. In case you don't, Joi is an AI hologram girlfriend of the main character, K. This movie is the sequel to the original Blade Runner (1982) with Harrison Ford, who seems to be spending his golden years reviving franchises he made legendary. The Blade Runner movies' inspiration was Philip K. Dick's book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But, what I want to focus on is the planned obsolesce of male-female relationships, which Joi represents. There's even a scene where K's connection with Joi is the only way he can have sex with a real girl. (Joi's hologram overlaps the girl.) That represents a lot: porn, fantasy, conflation, AI, whatever. It's impossible to have a relationship with a real woman without an intermediary. There's more going on with AI, but I want to look at how it applies to men and women specifically. It's a dumpster fire out there, if you're...