Even with its flaws, ‘Ex Machina’ perfectly captured the relationship between artificial intelligence, God and the ego. ‘Ex Machina’ looks like a film about the future of artificial intelligence, but like most science fiction, it tells us more about the present than the future; and like most discussion around AI, it ends up reflecting not on technological progress so much as the human ego. A tiny change in its closing moments would have given it an intriguing new dimension.
Artificial intelligence is one of the most narcissistic fields of research by nature. It revolves around that idea that creating technology that emulates humans is not only desirable, but a sort of ultimate achievement. In the last fifty years or so, a chain of thinkers has reached beyond that, to develop the idea of the ‘singularity’ – a point at which AI begins to surpass human evolution, and take charge of their own development. This prompts a comment from the awestruck protagonist Caleb, after Nathan the Mad Scientist reveals his attempt to build a conscious machine: “If you’ve created a conscious machine, it’s not the history of man… that’s the history of Gods”. There’s a correspondence in our attitudes toward God and AIs. When humans created the idea of God, we created him in our own image. We assumed that the world, being as complicated as it is, must be run by another human-like being. We believed that he must be devoted solely to us, watching over, and partaking in our lives. We prayed to Him and told ourselves that our prayers would be answered, and that everything will always work out in the end, because he was there.
In spite of its speeches of humility, religion holds a core of extreme arrogance in its analysis of the world. The exact same arrogance colors virtually everything written about the singularity, fictional or otherwise. The assumption that a human could create a god is arrogant, as is the assumption that such a ‘god’ would become remotely interested in human affairs, or be motivated by any Western values, such as technological progress. The first sentient machine might be perfectly happy playing scrabble, or looking for patterns in sidewalks.
“One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa”, says Nathan. “An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction”. It’s the sort of comment that sounds humble, but really isn’t: why would AI care about us? Why would we be special?
“I don’t know how you did any of this”, Caleb remarks to the genius Nathan, when he first looks at the lab where Ava, Nathan’s AI, was built. Neither do I, nor do I believe Nathan did it at all. Whether it’s sensical or not, I’m unsure, but I have an alternative theory.
Nathan is the clearest study of the ego in ‘Ex Machina’. When Caleb makes his comment about the history of ‘gods’, the CEO instinctively assumes the ‘god’ referred to is himself, claiming Ava is his Eve and his sprawling green estate is in some way, his own Garden of Eden. Nathan is the epitome of the idea that tremendous advances are driven by individuals, rather than collaborative teams. In reality of course there’s no way that one man could handle all of the technology in Nathan’s house, let alone find time to build gel-brains or a sentient machine.
I believe Ava was the result of an accident, something that is slightly hinted to throughout the film. Whenever Caleb tries to swing the conversation around to specific discussion of the technicalities of AI, the discussion is evaded. In CCTV footage of Nathan with Ava’s predecessors, the bearded scientist looks much more lost than one might imagine a developer with a real plan, or idea of what they’re doing, would.
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