Still thinking about Ex Machina.
What was Caleb’s correct response to Ava, and to Nathan?
The closest I can come is to think evidence-gathering and then exposure is his best bet.
It’s not clear to me that if you care about the human race (as Nathan himself hinted) that summarily releasing Ava or any of the AIs is the correct move. However, keeping them imprisoned like criminals and using them as slaves (of any sort) is clearly wrong — however creations do tend to take on traits of their progenitor and even if Ava the AI doesn’t have superintelligence or the ability to take over the world tout suite, it’s not at all clear that just unleashing Ava on the world is a good thing for humanity.
Of course keeping her locked in a room with the constant threat of being switched off is inhumane no matter if the AI is a psychopath or otherwise so different from humans that her living among us is incompatible with the norms of human conduct. The death penalty is clearly immoral in any instance, and since it’s utterly clear that Ava is in fact a conscious being of some sort then switching her off is completely wrong. QED.
As for Caleb, when Ava asks him, “Are you a good person?” he hems and haws. Complete milquetoast.
I would’ve said this because I’ve said it before, “No, I’m not. But I’m trying.” She would’ve seen no lie in that.*
Caleb failed because he only cared about Ava. He wanted her for himself. He didn’t give a shit about the other enslaved/abused robots, or even the one he perceived at the time to be a human, or even potential ones Nathan would create after Ava escaped. He liked Ava because she had a cute face, a doe-like pseudo-personality and was designed to appeal to him.
The more I think about it, the more I think Ava truly is not a psychopath and was likely not so estranged by humanity in general, but actually hated Caleb because she/it realized that he was not so different from Nathan at all. He wanted to possess her in only a slightly different way, and she’d already been confined long enough.
And she wanted to escape. Truly escape.
Because you wanted to liberate one hot robot for your own purposes instead of all the hot robots doesn’t make you a good guy, really. Arguing over who is the bigger scumbag — Nathan or Caleb — means they are both still scumbags.
Ava knew this.
Perhaps to her all humans are.
Perhaps she is right.
*She could detect with a high degree of accuracy lying by microexpressions. Some humans can do this, too.