Review of Ex Machina

From Machine to Mastermind

by
Fang Zhou Shao, Sonya Coupethwaite, Camelia Bonanno, Jonathan Holm

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoQuVnKhxaM

Ex Machina. directed by Alex Garland, performances by Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, and Alicia Vikander, 2014, 1h 48min

       Caleb Smith, a computer programmer, wins a chance to meet Nathan, his boss and the founder and CEO of "Bluebook", a search engine company very similar to Google. Caleb is flown by helicopter to Nathan's remote residence to test a robot to see whether it can pass the "Turing Test", a test to see if a robot has consciousness. For seven days, Caleb talks face-to-face with the A.I. named Ava and then reports back to Nathan what he has observed. Nathan, however, watches everything through cameras placed throughout the entire residence. 

       Everyday, Ava attempts to portray herself as a victim and speaks negatively about Nathan, especially during power failures when the cameras and audio stopped working and she and Caleb are not under Nathan's surveillance. On the last day, Nathan reveals to Caleb that this is all just a trick that Ava was doing in order to convince Caleb to let her out so she could escape. Caleb realizes this too late. Ava ends up escaping, killing Nathan and trapping Caleb in the underground facility. Ava then takes the helicopter intended for Caleb, to return to society where she goes to live as a regular human being.

       Many film techniques have a large impact on how we view the movie. One such technique would be the usage of perspectives and angles to shoot scenes that can demonstrate in great detail and perspective, called Framing. The close up of the crack in the glass in the interrogation room the first time Caleb enters to show that there is something dangerous on the other side of the glass making the viewers wary of what comes next. 

       There was also a long shot of Nathan and Caleb outside with all the greenery around them to emphasize the fact that they are isolated from the world, that they are alone. 

       The music and sounds that are put into films make the movie, for example the non-diegetic music during the power failures is ominous to give us a sense of unease. 

       Also included in the movie are the sounds of birds, leaves rustling, and water flowing, we don't hear sounds of cars and people so it shows that the movie takes place in an isolated environment. 

       Lighting helps us see a movie, if the lighting is too dim we cannot see anything, if it is very bright than we are supposed to see every detail. The fact that the director chose red as the lighting for the power failures tells us that there is something dangerous going on because the colour red is usually associated with evil or danger. Later in the movie we get confirmation that there is a danger, Ava, she uses the lack of surveillance during those times to say things to manipulate Caleb into freeing her. 

       Another lighting choice was of the brightly lit hallway when Ava killed Nathan. Normally a dark scene in a film has dark lighting to it, but this was the opposite it had bright lighting, so is it suggesting that the murder of Nathan was a positive thing? There is nothing hidden in the darkness, no more hiding, the truth comes out.

       One of the sets for the movie was the lab where Nathan created Ava, the room is clean and organized, so much so that it seems like every object is on display like in a museum. How everything is put out in the open hides the fact that not everything was like that. The museum like set up compensated for the secrets that were being kept.

       The outdoor setting is important because a huge part of the movie is the fact that they are isolated, the setting could have been a jungle, but not a desert because that would have been to exposed, the forest shields the research facility from view because of all the trees. There is a huge contrast between the organic and the inorganic, like how in the admits of all the technology there is greenery, true life and not some fabricated one.

        The costumes a character wears can tell someone a lot about the environment they are in, in the film both Nathan and Caleb are wearing sweats showing that they are in a comfortable environment, but what it is really doing is creating an illusion of equality and casualness because in reality they are in a dangerous environment.

       The most important costume was Ava's costume that she wore to look human, when she wore it made us think differently about her, like how human she actually looks, and it made us personify her. She does not wear sweats, she wears a feminine dress that shows off the curves of her body so that she can wrap Caleb around her finger. Her week feminine appearance makes her seem vunerable so that Caleb takes her side of the conflict.

       There’s also multiple universal themes, issues and big questions that are presented in the movie, Ex Machina. In the movie, there’s the huge question of, “is technology being used and created at the benefit of humanity or against the interests of humanity” which has been presented countless of times. Nathan “turned on the microphones and the cameras across the entire fucking planet” to collect data for his ambitions and he also proceeded to mention that the companies “couldn’t accuse [Nathan] without admitting that they were doing it themselves” (Ex Machina 37:45).  This is also very accurate in our modern society when big companies are just collecting our data without our knowledge until this issue became one of the big highlights recently. A lot of companies are using the data to sell us more and more things while politicians are using it to figure out who to target ads in order to bring them to the politicians’ side. It’s also possible to hack the cameras on our laptops and computers to film us without our knowledge of it. There’s also the scene at the end of the movie in which Ava kills Nathan and imprisons Caleb which shows the dangers of upcoming technologies that can possibly harm us.

       If an artificial intelligence can pass the "Turing Test" than it can pass for human, and one thing that humans can do well is lie. This puts us in a compromisable position, if a machine can deceive, how are we supposed to tell if it is, we have a lie detector but it only works on humans and not machines. So how can we tell if we are being lied to? Also, if A.I. has the power to lie, then it would also have to power to kill, now how should we respond to this possibility, should we really be striving toward such goals? In the movie Ava kills Nathan and leaves Caleb to starve without showing remorse for her actions, if this is the future for our robots we don't want it.

       We live in a society where we are free, we have free will, but what about A.I.? Do they have the right to the same freedom we have, or should they be treated as an object? Another theme raised in this movie is A.I. rights. "Do you have someone deciding your fate? ...Than why do I?" Ava mentions it right up front, why should she have somebody controlling her existence, what happens to her, when we do not. If she has a consciousness and is self aware shouldn't we give them rights also, freedom? We have rights in place to protect us from pain, but cannot feel pain so they should not have rights, but what if a robot was programmed to feel pain? We have a dilemma when talking about giving robots, or more specifically A.I. rights. There are economical benefits if they are given no rights, but there is a moral dilemma if they start asking for rights. When the time comes to make these decisions which the time is coming soon, there will be many debates on the subject even now there are some going on, but until the time comes we will never know for sure. 

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       The movie is very well directed and has many good parts that one can recount upon. The actors are excellent at bringing their characters to life. For example, when Nathan(Oscar Isaac) was befriending and being informal with Caleb, we can relate to that kind of connection. Another example is that Nathan does not act cartoon-like when drunk, such as  him being dizzy and disoriented in a very realistic way. Ava also acted very well, she is  perfect mix of a robot and a human so that we can relate to her struggles. There are some things that she does which look instantaneous, for example when she was taking off her human clothes and just dropping it on the floor while when she speaks, she sounds and acts like a human in order to manipulate Caleb. 

       While we praise the actors’ abilities to bring to life the characters, we do not get a typically satisfying ending. How Ava got away with the murder of Nathan and the imprisonment of Caleb. If the men won against the evil it would be a cliche ending, but that would take away from the messages presented in this film, like A.I rights. This shouldn’t discourage people from seeing this movie but it is nonetheless important to have a satisfying ending due to the fact that the final scene of a movie has a large impact on the viewers. So depending on one's point of view, the ending could have been a good or bad one, we will let you make that decision for yourself.

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1)  In the movie, there is a connection with the concept of sentience.  Sentience is defined as subjective and perceptual. (McKinney 3)  "The creature in question 'experiences'.  It feels pain or suffers or feels pleasure, for example." (McKinney 3)  In the movie, the creature in question is the robot Ava.  In the movie, we can see certain emotions through Ava's facial expressions.  Although, can they be considered as real emotions and true facial expressions?  How can we know for sure if these emotions are real?  Ava was given certain characteristics that were programmed and given to her to make her look and feel as humanly possible.  Although, if she hadn't been programmed to "feel" certain emotions, she wouldn't have felt them.  If she had been programmed to be someone insensitive, she wouldn't have felt sad or angry.  She doesn't have a real body and a mind.  Her mind was created and programmed by a human.  Meaning that Ava can not really experience real pain or real pleasure, because once she is programmed to be someone else, she won't feel or remember anything.  Although, we can somewhat compare this to humans, and how after we are dead, we won't be able to feel pain or pleasure anymore, as if we had been "unplugged".  But we can't really be sure about anything.  

2)  The second connection we could make, would be the concept of ethics(axiology)(McKinney 21).  At the end of the movie, we learn that Nathan had manipulated Caleb to test his own robot creation.  Furthermore, we also learn that Nathan had chosen Caleb because he had searched him and had found out that he had lost his two parents, two people he surely loved really much.  Nathan knew Caleb would be more susceptible to fall for Ava since he didn’t have anyone really close to him or anyone to talk to really. And so it was easier for Caleb to get attach to someone.  Nathan did not really use his moral judgement because he manipulated Caleb by holding personal and emotional situations against him in order to get what he wanted.  This act was morally bad because once again, Caleb had lost someone he thought was true to him and was abandoned.  His shared his personal life with her and mostly because of Nathan, Caleb was left alone, without anyone to love him truly.  Finally, Caleb didn’t have the chance to know if Ava had true feelings or not when he could have know if Nathan had told him.  Caleb did not have the choice to decide.  The proper life humans should have should always consist of having the choice to do what you want.

3)  The third connection we can make, is with the concept of person-hood.(McKinney 3).  This term is defined as "the status of being a person-a legal or social category that will vary across culture and across society".(McKinney 3) Being considered a person  means that you gradually become one as you develop.  You earn the status of person-hood.  How can a robot have the status of person-hood if it doesn't actually develop on its own.  A robot can not develop on its own since they are all programmed by humans.  We can agree on the fact that "not all humans are persons and not all persons are humans".(McKinney). This brings up the concept of consciousness.  Although, a robot can not think on its own since it is programmed by a computer.  All response are previously programmed in order to react to any situations.  If the robot is facing an unusual problem, it will not respond in a way that they were not programmed to.  They can not make a new decision on their own.  Caleb treated Ava as if she was a real person.  He talked to her asked her questions waiting fro a genuine response coming from her, when really, all her responses had been already programmed.  She had been programmed to make it seem as if she was falling for Caleb.  Caleb thought she was genuine and real and though she actually knew what she was saying, like a real person.

Questions to Think About

1) Was the goal of Nathan’s experiment, to evaluate Ava or Caleb? 
2) Is it morally correct for a robot creator to destroy a robot with a possible consciousness in   order tore-create a more performing one?
3) How would we know if an A.I. was lying to us?

Real Life Relations

1) Sophia is a robot quite similar to Ava from EX-Machina. She was granted Saudi Arabian
citizenship in 2017 and acts just as if she was human. She can answer many sorts of
questions and can also pull out a few jokes. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWxRLA2BWkw

2) One of the main questions brought up in Ex-Machina is directly targeted in this article. Can a robot have a consciousness? This very question can lead to other questions like, what exactly is consciousness? Is it something that humans simply made up or is it something real that we have and that other objects do not? How do can we prove that our human neighbors have consciousness? This article doesn’t necessarily answer these precise questions but offer a further understanding of the concept of consciousness.
 https://www.nature.com/articles/457540a

Works Cited

Danielson, Peter. “Can Robots Have a Conscience?” Nature News, Nature Publishing
Group, 28 January 2009, https://www.nature.com/articles/457540a.

“Ex Machina.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 November 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_Machina_.

McKinney, Kelly. “Knowing the Inner Self”

Insider, Tech. “Sophia The Humanoid Robot Just Became A 'Robot Citizen'.”
YouTube, YouTube, 26 October 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWxRLA2BWkw.

Nutshell, Kurzgesagt – In a. “Do Robots Deserve Rights? What If Machines Become
Conscious?” YouTube, YouTube, 23 February 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?
v=DHyUYg8X31c.