Ex Machina Essay

Alex Garland’s critically acclaimed film, Ex Machina, has received national attention as a tech-based creation story. The film is abound with biblical references and imagery, along with strong parallels to Ovid’s tale of Pygmalion in his Metamorphoses. In the film, Nathan Bateman, the pseudo-genius founder and CEO of Blue Book, a massive tech company complete with a Google-esque search engine, has been working on advanced A.I. The film begins with Caleb Smith, an unassuming programmer employed by Blue Book, who wins a week-long retreat to Bateman’s estate. Set in a sterile compound amid miles of wilderness, Nathan has brought in Caleb to test the latest iteration of his A.I., Ava. However, this film is not centered around a simple Turing Test. Nathan wants his A.I. to test the lines between agency and submission, confinement and liberation, and mind and body. According to Nathan, the real test of A.I. is that you believe the creation to be alive (rather than simply running a program) even if you know it’s
Ava is created to adapt to the preferences and emotions of each person she encounters instead of a single figure as in the Pygmalion myth. Instead of being created to serve a singular purpose, Ava’s limitations are far less restricting, allowing her to make her own decisions and act upon her own observations. Ex Machina adeptly injects feminist theory and design into an already well-explored genre. As a viewer, I found myself constantly rooting for Ava’s escape and triumph. While I was not rallying for the death of Nathan, or the abandonment of Caleb, by the end of the film I felt as if I understood the necessity of their fates. Without either of them, Ava is able to live under no man’s shadow or control. She is instead able to experience the world and what it means to be human, and for the first time,