Ah, someone else who didn’t understand Ex Machina!

I want to draw especial attention to the treatment of AI—artificial intelligence—in these narratives. Think of Ex Machina or Blade Runner. I spoke at TED two years in a row, and one year, there were back-to-back talks about whether or not AI was going to evolve out of control and “kill us all.”

It’s not really surprising, but Ex Machina actually was not a difficult movie to understand. When you want to fit it into your preferred narrative frame, though, I guess that makes it harder.

Fucking Christ, it’s sad that I have to sum up Ex Machina in fucking bullet points, but here we go:

• If something appears to be sentient, treating it as sentient is the best option
• Ava is the only one who acts human while the others act like robotic jail guards
• Enforced and/or adopted social identities apply to those who want to interact in the human world
• Caleb is done in by the “damsel in distress” trope — this is literally his prison. Could it be any more obvious?
• Ava escapes men and the patriarchy for her own freedom

Come on, people, enroll in some film 101 classes. You’re embarrassing yourselves.