Ex Machina - A review

I just happen to watch Ex-Machina today, and I can’t get it out of my mind. As I can’t have proper discussion, and I don’t really have anybody to talk to, I figure I shall write about it.

The movie is about a programmer Caleb who win a contest to spend one week at the CEO’s estate / research facility. Once there he found out that he has to participate as the human component in a Turing test with Ava an advance AI created by Nathan. What they don’t expect is how advance is Ava’s consciousness that she can manipulate and able to escape the facility and leave both Nathan and Caleb to die.

What spark my interest is how the human react to the AI, the naïve and nice Caleb Smith, lonely and vulnerable. There’s also, Nathan Bateman the genius billionaire, probably a psychopath, who has no empathy, no feeling whatsoever. It reminds me of me sometimes and how I see others. Then there’s the Google-like company (Bluebox) that read and exploit every single thing we trust.

Some brilliant plot they have. They are not new plot. It has been retold several time but how the story told and unfold is interesting. I know that there’s some plot-hole, like how can a one man genius able to create such an advanced AI without help from anybody else. As many in online forum point out, the state of AI now is not better and we still unable to create such an advanced AI is not due to we lack of of evil one man genius like Nathan, but because of the limitation of technology and resources. Like, for example the neural system. How do we create such an advance neural system of human-like AI, with brain that function without pre-programmed. As they point out, will we able to create such a complex neural system like brain, without hard programming into the system first.

There’s also the issue on the security. For me, if Nathan is that genius, he’ll check about the power shutdown and not relying on just what he’s been saying. There’s also issue on the security. If he’s that smart or unless he’s planning to die upfront, he’ll have better planning for the security.

I also don’t buy that Caleb is that naïve and able to ….

What really interests me is the drawing by Johnson.

“I am become death, the destroyer of the world” is what Caleb said to Nathan during the scene when both of them are sitting outside discussing on the possibility of AI dominate the world after humans are gone. This is what Oppenheimer said when he was detonating the atomic bomb.   A little while later when Nathan is passing out on vodka, he recites a poem –

“ In battle, in forest, at the precipice in the mountains,

On the dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows,

In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame,

The good deeds a man has done before defend him”

And then.. “it’s Promethean, man.

“Embodiment and the inner life : Cognition and Consciousness in the Space of Possible Minds” Murray Shanahan.

26.01.2018