The world is a different place in the year 2025. It is full of large language models masquarding as artifical intelligence, and people unable to think for themselves. More disturbingly, people unable to differentiate machine generated and human generated artefacts, be they text, video, images, or music.
Large language models and the buzz word of AI has permeated the business world, the corporate world, advertising, and the daily conversations held by news broadcasters around the globe. Already, it is seeing job reductions.
But, we're not very far into that future yet. Sure, we've got Boston Dynamics robot dogs, robotic butlers in Japanese restaurants, and Tesla's upcoming humanoid robots.
We've got some uncanny valley prototype "companion bots" but we've got nothing the likes of what Ex Machina shows us. So what does this film show us?
We start with an email. A victory, then a helicopter ride to a lavishly appointed residence with plenty of fire wood for kindling. There's also a non disclosure agreement.
Then, there's a Turing test. That seems to be the whole point of this film.
Flipping back into reality, I think that a large part of humanity has failed the Turing test already. Perhaps, I too have already failed it, as some modern video models are incredibly convincing, and some AI written articles and stories are very convincing.
It isn't long until we meet the AI, who is portrayed by Alicia Vikander who introduces her robot body as Ava, behind a glass barrier. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) starts with a cursory interview, while his boss, Nathan - played by Oscar Isaac looks on.
Then that night, there's a black out in the middle of the night, after Caleb discovers the ability to watch Ava through the cameras.
Ava, the AI, is a machine in humanoid form. Her face is that of the actress Vikander, but her body is a formulation of mechanical contrivances moulded into a seductive female human analogue, leaving little to the imagination.
The interactions between Ava and Caleb continue. In some scenes, Vikander pulls off a Hepburn like innocence, but tempered with the incredible, intimidating observational skills that only a machine could resolve.
There's shades of Deckard looking for androids all throughout the film. It would be impossible to not draw such parallels without a reference to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and the masterful work of Phillip K Dick.
But is Ex Machina a masterwork that will endure through time? In Some scenes, the intensity is on the correct level. The ... science is inferred, but the social, psychological and chilling performance of Ava is at times unsettling. Questions are asked with curiosity that sounds like malice.
But is it malice because it is the second time I'm watching the film? Or is it malice because it is something that I become intimidated by?
There are times when even Caleb begins to doubt his own humanity, with a fairly confronting scene.
What you get with Ex Machina is a slow, sustained burn of a film. It begins with low stakes and constantly, and continually builds those stakes as the film meanders on, adding complexity to its characters and its plot.
In a world where humans have failed the Turing test (only recently!) - not that AI has passed the Turing Test, Ex Machina has the capability to bring about new fears and... now more than ever, an emphasis on the need for us feeble, fleshly sacks of meat and water to use our actual brains for critical thought.
