Ex-Machina Expository Essay Sean Dowdeswell June 10, 2016

Watching Ex-Machina in class the other day evoked thoughts and emotions that made me wonder
about our society and the way it is headed in the future. These thoughts and emotions construct ideas
about men and women living in a male dominated society. How does Science and biology play a
crucial role into this dominance? How can man create Artificial intelligence thinking we can control
the AI?

In the movie Ex-Machina we have 3 main characters. Nathan, Caleb and Eva. Throughout most of the
movie we see Nathan (the mad scientist) who displays his god like emotions and actions to Caleb (the
assistant to the mad scientist). Nathan wants Caleb to perform Turing tests on Eva his Artificial
Intelligence robot. Why a man and woman scenario? Why not a woman to woman or man to man
equation? I believe it has to make a statement that in order for the Turing Test to work effectively
Nathan needed a male to have an emotional connection with the female AI.

Nathan continually shows to Caleb he is not the nerd stereotype. He drinks excessively to the point of
blacking out. His alpha dog mannerisms show that he wants to be in control. He exhibits narcissistic
emotions and treats Caleb as inferior when Caleb shows empathy towards Eva. He wants to play God.
He ultimately is playing God. He does this by creating an artificial woman with fake flesh and metal
bones and Artificial Intelligence. Nathan begins to exhibit abusive behaviors. We get to know more
about Nathan and through his interactions with Eva, Caleb and his partner Kyoko, we understand that
Nathan is showing signs of needing control over his experiments or he will lose his temper. We learn
Kyoko is another one of his subservient creations. Seeing all of these interactions in such an isolated
stronghold in the middle of the woods, I ask, What is Nathan really doing with these models,
experimenting with AI, is it a geek fantasy of control or a God complex, maybe all three?

As the movie progresses and we continue to see blackouts happening when Eva and Caleb are running
the Turing Tests to see if he truly thinks she is free thinking. We understand that she reaches out to ask
for help from Caleb. Ava is in distress. Nathan is going to decommission her. So, within this control
Nathan has truly created a Turing Test that shows that his AI is not male dominated and is self serving
to the point that with Calebs help Ava can escape into the world. Calebs empathy has allowed him to
become used as a pawn in Avas tactical escape plan. Even though he thinks hes in control to help her
escape. The tables start to turn becoming favorable for the woman in the story. So, man can create AI
but will not be able to fully control a self serving mindset. Man thinking about himself shows that
selfishness can create contempt and that at any point if you are seeking control, control can be turned
upside down and used against the controller.

The world has always seemed to be male dominated and this movie shows that the woman who was
created by man is taking back into the hands of the oppressed. This flip in the status quo ultimately
shows that Ava passed the Turing Tests and is much smarter then originally expected.