Ex Machina and the Fears Surrounding the Implementation of AI Technology
The 2015 film Ex-Machina, written and directed by Alex Garland is a futuristic/dystopian film that is set "ten minutes from now" according to the director. What he meant was that the technology to create lifelike AI is at hand and no one would be too surprised to find out that Google or Apple had already taken the next steps in this direction. However, as the film shows, there are a number of fears and problems associated with the concept of artificial intelligence getting out of control or taking on a life of its own (through the development of consciousness). In effect, Ava the AI robot in Ex-Machina becomes like Frankenstein's monster, seeking to grasp the notion of existence and life and to be the one who decides whether she lives or dies (is shutdown and rebooted or allowed to escape and enter society).
The dystopian world imagined in Ex-Machina mainly takes place within the isolated compound of a young billionaire entrepreneur (Nathan) deep in a remote location in the wilderness. Here the start-up founder has developed an AI humanoid prototype that is programmed to read and exhibit human expressions. The compound itself is like a vault with access cards needed to go from one room to the next. By setting the majority of the film in this secluded fortress, the story evokes a paranoid response from the viewer, playing upon the audience's fears regarding advanced technologies that have the ability to "read" humans better than humans are able to read themselves. Indeed, this is the case of the main protagonist (Caleb), who is played like a puppet, by the "mad scientist" Nathan. Caleb falls deeply in love with Ava, the prototype, though he knows she is a robot. So convincing is she and another prototype (which he does not even realize is a machine until she pulls back her skin late in the film to reveal her parts), that Caleb has doubts about his own flesh and blood humanity. When he slices open his forearm to see if there are wires or blood vessels beneath, it is a moment of horror, suggesting that Caleb is losing his mind as he grapples with the mind-blowing concept of a real-life humanoid with emotional intelligence (EI) that is just as convincing as any human's. Ava's EI is a result of Nathan's hacking of phones all over the world and downloading facial images into Ava's mainframe, which plays upon the viewer's fear of being watched and having all of his personal data made available to others for their own secret purposes. Thus the film plays upon a number of fears associated with technology, spying, humanity, and even interconnectivity -- aka love.
Two of the most powerful fears of all, however, are the fears that machines/technology will be too smart (more intelligent than the average human) and that they will inevitably become too powerful (able to control and manipulate surroundings the way that Ava does with the compound's security/power grid). The first fear is well-founded as Nathan's robots show a tendency to seek freedom and survival: they put themselves first. The video footage of the robot hammering against its glass cage in protest against its imprisonment is an indication that the robot has been programmed to go beyond its function of servitude and interaction: it wants to assert itself. It is like a complex mix between animal, machine, and human -- and yet it is none of them, even as it has elements of all three. It is like a new species, created in a lab and given life yet not wholly understood by its maker. This is the fear: that AI will understand more of itself and of us than we understand of it. The film expresses this fear inherently in its plot design and the sympathy/horror that Caleb has for the robots.
When Caleb agrees to help Ava escape by stealing Nathan's access card and rewriting the security code (something Ava cannot do on her own), he imagines that they will run away together. But Ava has no interest in a real romantic relationship. She is simply using the sexual drive with which she has been...
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