For all of humankind’s progress
in developing a scientific understanding of life, our efforts seem surprisingly
limited when we consider the questions we haven’t yet answered. Even concerning humans ourselves, we still
have not cracked the code of the most integral aspect of who we are – our own
conscious experiences. We may have an
excellent physiological understanding of how our bodies work, and even a
growing understanding of how our brains work to allow us to function as intelligent
beings, but the mechanism that allows us to truly experience and feel the world
around us, as opposed to being like, say, a machine that imitates true awareness
and emotions while really being nothing more than an inanimate object, is still
a mystery. The film Ex Machina tackles this mystery head on by seeking to answer how a
conscious being might be identified from a machine imitating one. If this is ultimately possible, then it would
be the first step in identifying where consciousness arises from. However, as the film suggests, no one test
can give a clear cut answer.
Ex Machina presents itself as a modern Frankenstein tale. A
brilliant and complex scientist isolates himself from society and focuses on
the singular task of creating a living being from scratch. But, unlike in Frankenstein, the scientist, Nathan, has created an artificial intelligence
and housed it in the body of a mechanical woman, Ava. Also, unlike Frankenstein, a novel which raises questions about the consequences
of creating intelligent life (Shelley), the film asks if creating intelligent
life is even possible in the first place.
Nathan selects an employee from his company, Caleb, to come to his remote
Alaskan compound to help him evaluate if Ava truly has consciousness or just an
imitation of it. He tells Caleb that he
will be using the Turing Test with her, a theoretical test in which artificial
intelligence is successfully achieved if a person observing its speech cannot
tell that it is really a machine. Caleb will take the test a step farther, by
seeing if he can determine her to be not only intelligent, but also conscious (Ex Machina).
This premise sets up for an intricate
exploration of different ways that one might be able to determine whether
something has consciousness or not. One of
the most intriguing things about Ava is thatNathan designs her brain using “wetware”. Essentially, instead of her control center
being made from wires and computer chips, it is composed of a sort of gel that
imitates our more fluid and complex brains.
If we assume that our consciousness arises somehow from the matter in
our brains, then it would seem that something with a similar structure may be
able to produce it as well for an artificial intelligence. Also, Ava does pass Nathan’s test, in a way. She is so convincing to Caleb that he agrees
to help her escape from the compound before Nathan shuts her down. At this point Nathan reveals that his real
test all along was to see if Ava could do just that, to use Caleb to find a way
to escape. This suggests consciousness
in a several ways. First, she exhibits
strong motivation to preserve her wellbeing.
Second, her escape requires complex problem solving skills. And third, Caleb truly believes that she’s a
conscious being, which is essentially a passing of the Turing Test. However, the twist at the end is that not
only does she kill Nathan once she’s given the opportunity to escape, but she
also leaves Caleb locked in a room in the compound where he seemingly could be
trapped until he dies (Ex Machina). This calls into question whether Ava has any
sense of morals or real understanding of the suffering of others, things that
should come natural if she is conscious.
Ultimately, the film
leaves the question of whether Ava has consciousness up for speculation. You can watch the movie over and over, analyzing
each of her actions and minutest behaviors, but there’s not meant to be a satisfactory
answer. This in part is good
screenwriting, as it leaves much for thought and discussion, but it also makes
the suggestion that determining consciousness is not as simple any single test. This is where the film succeeds
philosophically, because there is no possible way we can know if something has consciousness,
at least with our current scientific understanding. In fact, even if Ava had seemed completely
human-like, it would still be impossible to determine if it wasn’t just her
synthetic brain perfectly adopting and imitating the characteristics of a
conscious human. This is because we don’t
know the physical basis for where consciousness stems from. We assume that it is produced somehow by the
connections in our brain, but still when we observe the brain, it appears no
more than a physical lump of neurons, whereas our consciousnesses we know only
as things that seem to transcend physical explanation, much like a “soul”. Until we bridge this gap, which we are
nowhere near doing, consciousness will be no more than an elusive concept and
we cannot know if any artificial intelligence truly has it.
Many of the secrets of
life are still completely unknown to humans, and we will likely spend all of
our existence figuring them out. In
fact, the one most integral to who we are as living beings is also one of the
most mysterious. The term “deus ex machina”
is latin for “god from the machine” and is commonly used to describe a plot
device in which a sudden, unexpected event is used to conveniently resolve a
complex situation. The film Ex Machina suggests that there is no dues-ex-machina-like
convenient solution to the problem of consciousness. Instead it implies that it
is a highly complex conundrum which cannot currently be resolved with any
single test. Until we can develop a
physical understanding of consciousness it will seem to us no more than a
god-like entity arising from the machines of our brains.
Works Cited
Ex Machina. Dir. Alex Garland. Universal Studios, 2015. DVD.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Lackington, Hughes,
Harding, Mavor, and Jones, 1818. The Project Gutenberg. Web. 2015.
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