In the Spike Jonze movie “Her,” which opened this week, Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his computer’s operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johannson). Seems farfetched, right? Maybe not. Love between man and machine is already happening, and it’s both fascinating, and if we’re honest, a bit creepy. Here are five real-life examples of humans falling in love with machines.
‘Vanilla’ the VW Beetle
In the TV documentary “My Car is My Lover,” we meet Edward Smith, a 57-year-old Washington man who’s in a committed relationship with his current “girlfriend,” a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla.
“Maybe I’m a little bit off the wall but when I see movies like ‘Herbie’ and ‘Knight Rider,’ where cars become loveable, huggable characters it’s just wonderful,” Smith said.
“I’m not sick and I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he added. “Cars are just my preference.”
Smith first made love to an automobile when he was 15. Since then, he’s estimated to have conquered 1,000 others, including long-term, monogamous relationships with a 1973 Opal GT and a 1993 Ford Ranger.
His most intense sexual relationship, however, was getting it on with the helicopter from the 1980s TV show “Airwolf.”
Gamer love
In 2009, a Japanese man was happily wed — to a character from a Nintendo DS game, Nene Anegasaki. The man, who calls himself SAL9000, took the unusual step after striking out with flesh-and-blood women.
The groom and bride headed to Guam for their honeymoon.
“Now that the ceremony is over, I feel as if I have been able to achieve a major milestone in my life,” the groom wrote. “Some people have expressed doubts about my actions, but at the end of the day this is really just about us as husband and wife. As long as the two of us can go on to create a happy household, I’m sure any misgivings about us will be resolved.”
Taking his bike for a ride
Keep this man away from Citi Bike. In 2007, Robert Stewart was arrested in a Scottish hotel after two maids discovered him in his room having sex with a bicycle.
Stewart was subsequently placed on the country’s sex-offender registry, though he is not the first to land there after having relations with an inanimate object. In 1993, an electrician near Birmingham, England, was jailed after being caught having sex with the pavement.
Alice the Robot
The website Gizmodo interviewed a 33-year-old Georgia man named Zoltan who built, then fell in love with, a robot he called Alice.
Zoltan, who worked in an arcade and lived at home with his parents, programmed his lady bot friend to answer questions and act somewhat human. At one point, the robot dumped him, forcing Zoltan to wipe her memory and start over again.
Zoltan must ask the robot for permission to have sex with it, and he said that she often refuses certain requests — though he’s allowed to get kinky one day a year on New Year’s.
“Humans are so biological and messy,” Zoltan said. “Plus, there’s all the obvious problems with humans — AIDS, alimony etc. — that I just wanted to avoid. I had a bunch of bad relationships. I would get to the point in my relationship with a woman and I was always too afraid to go all the way. With a robot it is much less scary.”
This relationship ‘sucks’
“A Token of My Extreme” from the 1979 album “Joe’s Garage” satirizes the Church of Scientology with a story about the “Church of Appliantology” — a safe refuge for those with latent machine fetishes. The hero, Joe, ends up having a relationship with an industrial vacuum cleaner.