Ex Machina- Many interesting layers in this movie obviously. A few that stick out to me…

Firstly, I love the betrayal of Caleb by Ava. It is so elegantly represented. Caleb wakes up from a daze and Ava only has to ask him to stay put and wait for her to lock him inside when she’s done getting her skin on. The fact that he is so trusting of her is naïve at best and outright dumb in my personal opinion. However, I can imagine this happening. The trust we place in machines being more perfect than their creators is astounding. In many ways it makes sense but in a basic manner of thinking, it is clearly unlikely. Here we see that the apex of Nathan’s building project did exactly what a scared human in a trap would do…save themselves. In this case quite savagely and without regard for anyone else.

Second, the AI box metaphors are all over the place. Ava’s room is a literal one but the rest of the house is Caleb’s box. Once outside of the controlled box, the experiment becomes unpredictable. This is the basic caution of anyone who would build AI, that you want to keep something potentially superior and unknown handicapped, just in case all goes to hell in a hand basket! This is the kind of thing that makes me feel like we should slow our roll as a species and not try and create a new top predator for ourselves to run from. People have a habit of creating conflicts for themselves when they get bored and don’t have any environmental conflicts. This habit could be potentially realized in a disastrous way with AI. I hope that it does not!