What is the message of Ex Machina?

To that end he recruits the unwitting Caleb as a test subject. Caleb has no idea that he’s taking part in an experiment, nor does he know about Ava in advance. If Ava can convince Caleb to free her in defiance of Nathan’s orders, then she will have passed the test. She will be, in Nathan’s eyes, “human”.

Nathan wanted to create a machine that could outwit him, but he never thought of what would happen if he succeeded.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, who likewise called forth something he couldn’t put down.

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So message of Ex Machina is two-fold. The first is that human-level intelligence does not mean human-like. An AI every bit as smart as us does not have to think and feel and act as we do.

In the field of AI there is a thought experiment called the “AI-box”. Think of it as a successor to the Turing Test. Imagine there is an intelligent AI trapped in a box. The AI has the goal of freeing itself from the box. You, the human, have the goal of keeping it contained. In theory, this should be simple. The AI has no physical means of freeing itself, merely the ability to communicate with you. But can a sufficiently intelligent AI convince you to free it?

And that is Nathan’s mistake. He assumes that the only AI that can escape the box is one which thinks and feels like a person. But that isn’t what he’s testing for. He’s only testing for the ability to solve this one particular puzzle. And as Nathan has never had to solve the puzzle himself, he doesn’t know what the solution is.

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An IBM slide from 1979.

In Ex Machina Ava is the latest in a long line of AI created by Nathan to escape imprisonment. Ava has already passed the Turing Test. As long as you can’t see her you can’t know that you’re talking to a machine. But to be truly “human” Nathan feels she must be able to make genuine connects with people. To recruit them over to “her side”.

“Do not call up that which you cannot put down”.

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And the 2nd is that such an AI cannot be allowed to operate without human oversight. An AI is an incredibly useful tool, but there must always be an actual person watching over it. An actual person making all the real decisions. An actual person who can turn the AI off.

The end result is that he’s created a machine that can flawlessly pass for a human, but which has no sense of morality, no inner life, and thought processes completely alien to humanity. One which leaves him and Caleb to their deaths, not out of any sense of malice, but out of sheer indifference. Ava was created to escape her box, and she does. Not to be a person, good or otherwise.

And as AI becomes more advanced. As we increasingly offload decision making to it. These two messages become more and more important.

Hello, I have a question about astral projection. I started to get interested in this a little while after my mum passed in april. I thought I may be able to see her and speak with her if I managed to achieve astral projection. Since this interest, every time i sleep on my back I go into sleep paralysis. However, I cant progress into astral projection because it is very scary for me as I feel like I'm suffocating when this happens. I panic and force myself to wake up. This only ever happened about once a year before this. It sometimes lasts a long time. This has happened about 3 times per week since my mum died, as mentioned on a previous post. I no longer try to go into it anymore(due to the suffocating feeling), but it still happens. I read that sleep paralysis is the pathway to astral projection. Why has this started to happen so frequently since simply taking an interest in it? Is this connected to the afterlife? I am concerned about it as I now cannot seem to stop this happening. Could it be my mum trying to communicate? Im asking due to more knowledge around this in this group.