EX MACHINA: no gods here

EX MACHINA is a good film, though it is only about two-thirds as clever as it thinks it is.  The future it imagines is an uncannily plausible cocktail of Google Glass technology and sublimated narcissism.  The kind of future that all the money on earth buys the richest boys in Silicon Valley.

In short: Nathan, a Mark Zuckerberg-type young rich genius, invites one of his employees (Caleb) to his secluded complex to test the brain power of an android—an Artificially Intelligent fembot names Ava—with a “Turing Test” (not much of a ‘test’ really: does the flesh-and-blood human know this being is a robot, or not?).  Obviously Caleb falls in love with Ava’s perfect mechanical ass and, erhm, wit.  Obviously complications ensue.

Seamless (literally without seams—at what point did the hallmark of futurism become doors that don’t look like doors?) and inhuman, Nathan’s world is an exquisitely carved bio-dome seemingly plopped on Jurassic Park’s Isla Nublar.  Somehow you still need key cards to unlock doors, but whatever.  The technical wonder of EX MACHINA (and it is considerable—Ava is one of if not  the best-designed synthetic human I’ve seen in the movies) is a perfect foil for the stunning natural design of Nathan’s compound.  It manages to invoke certain questions of creation, erosion, and possibly limitless power.  In short, and very much on-theme, something godly.

I like movies with big ideas; especially great looking movies; especially great looking movies with amazing residential architecture, like this one.  I think people should see this movie—although don’t expect “I See Dead People” twists, much action, or even careful plotting.  The only intricacy here is Ava’s circuitry, considerable as it is.

But the real problem with the techno-babble and epistemological navel-gazing of EX MACHINA is that “A.I.” technology has been so beaten to death in pop-culture Sci-Fi that even dropping an Alan Turing reference and stirring in some Wittgenstein doesn’t change the fact that this is pretty thin soup (and metallic tasting, at that).  Robots, free will, somewhat facile mind games: been there, done that.

Ultimately, we expect the Greek-drama trope, the deus ex machina, from the get go: the craned-in god that will alter the course of the story, bring about the pat ending, deliver justice.  But, perhaps obviously in hindsight, this God never comes.  EX MACHINA clearly enough imagines a future without the deus, where sentient machines are their own gods. 

Where free will is a programmable, personal protocol.  God help us.