In this vein, Joi is a token meant to placate the masses, no different than the Roman Empire offering its citizenry bread and circuses. However, as this is the noir-obsessed Blade Runner, there is something appealingly antiquated about her post-war affectation. At least in K’s hands.

A cynical reading could suggest everything Joi does in the film is a product’s programmed response and manipulation of a consumer. In her first scene, she confesses to K she has “cabin fever,” who in turn reveals he has bought his girlfriend a present. With the bonus that came with murdering another of his kind, K has purchased an accessory that allows Joi’s hologram to travel remotely from her console and to leave their ratty apartment. He’s a robot in love, spending his disposable income on a hologram.

Thus the way Joi unintentionally laments her closeted life could be construed as no different than iTunes asking you to upgrade it for the umpteenth time… and maybe pay a little more for the added perks of Apple Music. This cynicism regarding holograms is pervasive throughout Blade Runner 2049. Is she really in love with K, a man she eventually convinces to rename himself Joe, or is “Joe” just another joe who is being manipulated by his software? Just as how the bright lights of Coca Cola sugar water, Atari game machines, and bemusing Soviet ballerinas are used to punctuate a skyline and conceal the fact that the characters live in a wasteland, is the inclusion of Joi’s stark silhouette any different? Her creators don’t think so.

During the course of the picture, there are allusions to the intoxicating appeal of using technology as an opioid. When K/Joe first listens to a recording of Deckard meeting Rachael (Sean Young) from 30 years ago, his Wallace counter, the also enigmatic Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), discards Joe’s suggestion that Rachael has genuine feelings for Deckard. When he says she is flirting with Deckard by asking him questions, Luv responds, “We want someone to ask us questions, it makes us feel desired,” insinuating Rachael was programmed to seduce and manipulate Deckard… perhaps not unlike Joi being so fascinated to hear about Joe’s day. This prejudiced response from Luv, a replicant herself, is fascinating, especially as Luv seems to sympathize with both Deckard and Joe while boasting to the latter—after delivering a fatal stab wound at the end of the film, no less—that “I’m the best one!”

This insinuation becomes explicit when Deckard finds himself in the belly (or uterus) of the beast during the third act. Captured by Wallace and Luv, Wallace attempts to twist Deckard’s mind by suggesting he is a replicant (or is he?). He also remarks, “Pain reminds you of the joy you felt was real.” The on-the-nose word choice obviously echoes the creation of the Joi hologram. By implying that Rachael was just a device meant to ensnare Deckard for the purpose of becoming the first android to procreate a child, he is also saying the concept of love and joy are illusions grafted onto a cold and meaningless world. And just as Deckard must resist the fantasy of being reunited with a new model of Rachael that’s presented to him, so too does Joe elsewhere lament the loss of Joi—who by this time has been utterly destroyed out of spite by Luv—by looking at Joi’s holographic billboard and realizing, perhaps for the first time, that she is programmed to refer to all men as “Joe.”