After months of mind numbing patience, I finally managed to see ‘Ex Machina’ the movie (http://exmachina-movie.com/ ). There have been a few AI centered or Singularity related movies the past few years such as Transcendence with Johnny Depp (love hate relationship with this movie) but ‘Ex Machina’ I really, really wanted to be good; and on many levels it was spectacular.
In the way of back ground, the name ‘Ex Machina’ is a reference to a plot device called ‘deus ex machina’ which is a Latin derivative of the Greek “ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mēkhanês theós)” which basically means “God from the Machine” which was used is complex plots to clean things up where ‘god’ would come down and just fix it all. [1]
In the story, it is more of a double entendre; in that, at least to me, it references the fact that we, as in human civilization, are all messed up and ‘god’, meaning the strong AI ava, is here to fix it all. The story in the movie is about her escape into the world to ‘save’ us or ‘save’ AI and it also can refer to this reference to Ava being an emergent ‘god’ for all intents and purposes.
The story in the movie is really at the limit of my tolerance of a psychologically complex plot, the context of the movie is focused and really the plot stays in the realm of psychological. It is interesting how the relationship builds between Ava and the programmer but the twist at the end really jars one out of what is expected.
My problem with this movie is this is the kind of thing that will scare people away from critical research we desperately need to fund strong AI. Strong AI is critical to the long term survival of the species and nothing is more important, at least in my opinion, as the creation of greater intelligence; and movies like this make strong AI out to be a bad thing, hence my issue with this movie and most AI related movies.
- Dues ex machina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina) 4/25/2015
May 1, 2015 at 11:46 pm
I agree with virtually all the comments you made about the movie. (I saw it last night, and found it gripping, entertaining and suitably creepy.) I would only add that the trend to make strong AI a bad thing is a typical Hollywood trope. Movies and books seldom take us to the light side of a new technology. My novel Mindclone actually does this, though, and one of the reviewers commented on that fact. My newest short story, A Disturbance in the Church, also ends up on a hopeful note, though it gets there by means of satire. Here’s the thing: I’ve been struggling to find the right angle for a sequel to my novel, and find myself sliding off into “evil AI” all too easily. But I am determined not to go that (cliched) route, and won’t start the book until I can find a fresher, and maybe AI-friendlier direction.
May 2, 2015 at 3:51 pm
I appreciate the fact that your trying to find a less ‘cliched’ path 🙂 one idea that comes to mind would be something similar to the twist at the end of transcendence, (dont’ get me wrong I don’t’ really like transcendence due to the huge context problem meaning, a god like AI starts taking over and all the US government can do is throw 5 terrorists and 2 WW2 trucks? really? ); but what I mean is that what if the plot goes down the whole evil AI route and in defeat it turns out that the AI was not evil but doing good to save humanity?
May 2, 2015 at 11:44 am
The true problem of the plot I think is not “Machine Intelligence” as much as “Machine Volition” which is a much more complex topic.
http://cag.dat.demokritos.gr/publications/AVArobotics.PPT.pdf
May 2, 2015 at 3:52 pm
you should write that in the form of an article so we can post it as such. great job 🙂