Ex Machina

Ex Machina (2014) is a science fiction thriller that tells the story of a genius programmer named Caleb who gets to spend a week in the mansion of his CEO Nathan Bateman. While there, Bateman introduces Caleb to his creation, an artificially intelligent robot named Ava, who has a robot body, but a human face. Bateman wants Caleb to judge whether Ava is capable of thought, and whether it is easy to interact with her despite her robotic limitations. Over time, Caleb and Ava grow close, and Ava expresses romantic interest in Caleb, as well as desire to leave the confines of her glass prison. She convinces Caleb that Bateman is a liar, but as we learn later on, this was all part of Bateman's test. He was watching all their conversations, and learned that Ava was capable of successfully manipulating someone.

I have seen this film once before, and the second time watching it is just as unnerving as the first (based on this and my reaction to Her, I guess I'm not a fan of realistic AI). The part where Ava feigns romantic interest in Caleb reminds me of what I said in my reflection of Her. Nowadays, it is easy to have a conversation with artificial intelligence like Siri and Alexa, or a bot on a dating app, as though it was a normal human. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly easy for robot interaction to provide the same comforts that human interaction does. However, this film shows the darker, more dangerous risks to artificial intelligence, and seems to suggest that they are not to be trusted.