Artificial Intelligence and the Film Ex Machina

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 programmed to get what she wants -- freedom/life. She sees no value in Caleb beyond his utility as an assistant in her escape and simply uses her sexuality/ability to feign interest in him to seduce him to her cause. He lies to Nathan about what they are talking about in secret and is the underlying reason for the pair's undoing at the end, though both Nathan and Caleb lose control of the situation by failing to predict the behavior of the robots. The AI humanoids outsmart the humans raising the question -- which has the greater intelligence? The obvious answer is that Ava has a superior intelligence and because she can manipulate her surroundings to achieve her own end, she has more skill and power than her human counterparts. She is therefore a threat to their safety and security simply because she adeptly recognizes that they are a threat to hers. But is this conflict merely a result of a plot invention? Would not a real creator of AI recognize the possibility of conflict and engineer the robot to reject impulses such as the ones embraced by Ava? Does not Nathan program her to try to escape using Caleb as her way out, simply to show off his abilities as a scientist? Perhaps one of the flaws of the film is that the designer of the AI humanoids fails to foresee such risk (or at least take it seriously enough) -- but the plot is meant to play upon the fears of the audience regarding AI technology, not to act as an actual reflection of a real Turing Test or AI experiment.

Nonetheless, the film does raise the issue of what is truth/reality? Ava and Nathan's housemaid look as real as any human being, yet they are not humans. What Caleb and Nathan discover is that the more like humans the AI robots become, the less they can be trusted, as they seek not a social connection but their own survival/continuance. Nathan, moreover, has used the robots for his own personal sexual pleasure, and in doing so he has isolated himself even more from human contact, to the extent that he is constantly getting drunk in order to cope with his isolation. When Caleb arrives the first thing he wants to do is simply talk and "hang out." He does not want to get into his latest invention -- not at first. He shows that he is still in need of real human connection, that robot love does not fill the void (because robots are not social creatures the way that humans are). Of course, this raises the question of the soul, for some might argue that humans are simply programmed (like robots) to be social and therefore robots could be as well -- but this is the issue that drives Caleb to slice open his arm: what he finds is that he is different from a robot; he does bleed. He has a heart, real emotions, real needs (rather than just batteries and a synthetic brain). However, he is led astray by Ava's sexual drive, which he mistakes for real humanity. She is all the more interesting to him because she displays empathy -- something lacking in Caleb's world, as Turkle makes clear: "across generations, technology is implicated in the assault on empathy."[footnoteRef:1] At work in the beginning of the film, Caleb is plugged in, on a computer, ear buds in ears; the outside world communicates through texts on a phone, emails. One co-worker actually touches him and he is compelled to disconnect from technology for a moment. But overall technology is a wall between human connection. Yet Ava is technology -- and she displays more humanity than Caleb is used to encountering. She looks him in the face, meets his gaze with hers, demonstrates empathy in her tones and questions. Her sex drive and desire to please by dressing prettily for him cause him to fall for her. [1: Sherry Turkle, "Stop Googling. Let's Talk," The New York Times, 26 Sept 2015. Web. 9 Dec 2015.]

Caleb's infatuation is understandable, of course: she appears to be an angelic creature, every man's dream. In a world where individuals suffer from "viral Internet trauma" where one's past is made available for everyone to see, Ava does not judge (so Caleb feels).[footnoteRef:2] Caleb believes that in Ava, Nathan has "gained the ability to improve life itself"[footnoteRef:3] and is truly upset when he is made to understand that Ava is just a prototype and will be duly replaced in time. At this moment his fear is romance-based: he fears losing something he loves. By the end of film it is made clear that the audience's initial fear (the mistrust of the advanced intelligence of the humanoid) is what Caleb really should have been fearing: blinded by love, he forgets that the most basic fear involved in AI technology is "evolutionary: that humanity will unexpectedly become outmatched by a smarter computer"[footnoteRef:4] -- which is, of course, what happens in Ex-Machina (with the help of a young man who has fallen head over heels in love with a robot, of course). The misgivings that the audience feels through the film's usage of the isolation motif and the eerie musical score is validated by the film's conclusion, when Ava leaves the facility to embark on a quest to join society, which she does in the very last scene. Thus, the audience is left with the overwhelming question at the end: how do we deal with this technology, control it with our reason so that it does not overcome us with our emotions? Is it safe to make it cognitive to such a point that it can "out think" us? How do we as a society safely move forward with AI technology? [2: Jeffrey Toobin, "The Solace of Oblivion," The New Yorker, 29 Sept 2014. Web. 9 Dec 2015.] [3: Raffi Khatchadurian, "The Doomsday Invention," The New Yorker, 23 Nov 2015. Web. 9 Dec 2015.] [4: Raffi Khachadurian, "The Doomsday Invention," The New Yorker, 23 Nov 2015. Web. 9 Dec 2015.]

First off, it is probably not necessary to give robots a human form and appearance, because this is playing with the laws of physical attraction. Caleb falls to this attraction, proving that Nathan has created a truly significant piece of robotics, but in doing so has he not defeated the purpose of AI -- which is to help humanity not destroy it or manipulate it for its own end? Second off, it may be necessary to limit the "free will" component of the robotic -- although it might be argued that this also defeats the purpose of AI. Yet, free will is what separates the human species from all other species -- the moral incentive to choose between right and wrong. If AI has a will that is programmed to survive, this is not exactly free will, but something else -- something animalistic and evolutionary. Humanity has the power to transcend. Does AI have that or even need it? Therefore, it is more than likely that some debate will have to be given to how far a robot should be able to empathize with humans or have free will. If a robot can be programmed to have free will, it must be given a moral compass as well -- but then why would a robot ever act against its moral compass if it is programmed to always do what is right? Why do humans go against their moral compass? This is an age-old question that philosophers have asked since the days of antiquity.

It may, however, be beside the point because as Thompson points out, the real value in AI technology is the human-machine interaction and co-existence. The machines should serve a utility and not be designed to replace humans. Nathan invents Ava and invites Caleb to be her guinea pig: it is not exactly an atmosphere in which co-existence and interaction is supported (especially as Caleb is being tested without his knowledge and Nathan's environment is not conducive to even basic human-human interaction let alone human-machine interaction). Also, considering Caleb's inability to maintain his reason when he sees Ava, the idea of human-interaction and co-existence is muddied by the sex-use aspect of the robot and the desire for pleasure which Caleb pursues in his scheming to "liberate" Ava. As Thompson notes, "the real promise of artificial memory isn't its use as a passive storage device, like a pen-and-paper diary. Instead future lifelogs are liable to be acive -- trying to remember things for us."[footnoteRef:5] The point is that artificial intelligence should serve the needs of the human for which it is created, like artificial memory. If it does not do this, it has no reason to exist. Pursuing artificial intelligence as a way to replace human interaction rather than to facilitate is to open a Pandora's box of problems -- which films like Ex-Machina exploit in order to create tension for the purpose of thrilling an audience. The filmmakers are aware of the social fears and concerns related to "playing God" as Caleb puts it in the film. The sense that one is "playing God" by attempting to create intelligent life is what is at the core of the fear associated with artificial intelligence. Intelligent life is one of the mysteries of the universe that remains unsolved in the 20th century. The question of the soul, God, the intellect, the will, gray matter -- all of this goes together to make humankind what it is. If any of those things are taken away, then something in human nature is missing -- it is incomplete. [5: Clive Thompson, Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better (NY: Penguin, 2014).]