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Ex Machina review dazzling sci-fi thriller

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Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina: 'a note-perfect depiction of ever-so-slightly unnatural movement'.

At a key moment in novelist-turned-film-maker Alex Garlands provocative sci-fi flick, a naive young computer programmer asks the Colonel Kurtz-like creator of an impressively human artificial intelligence why he chose to sexualise his robot; to give it a gender, an attractive face, a flirtatious manner. The two-part answer is telling first, that everything in nature is gendered, that all thoughts and actions are (on some level) driven by a reproductive urge, and no biogenetic impulse exists without a priori acknowledgment of attraction. For a machine to attain the status of singularity (the point at which the human and artificial become indistinguishable) it must have a sexual component. And second, hey, its fun a primary pleasure that only the obtuse or uptight would wish to ignore or deny.

The same answer could be given to explain the form of Garlands directorial debut, a dazzlingly good-looking technological thriller that occasionally dresses its weightier questions of the nature of intelligence both artificial and natural in the clothing of a somewhat salacious exploitation movie, replete with titillating displays of synthesised (female) skin and generically disavowed voyeurism. Yet at its heart is an ironic absence of sexuality, a detachment from desire similar to that exhibited in Jonathan Glazers Under the Skin, in which Scarlett Johanssons predatory alien inhabits the form of an alluring young woman in order to prey, Species-style, upon unsuspecting humans. Just as Blade Runner wondered whether its lifelike replicants could really fall in love, so Ex Machina spirals obsessively around the question not of artificial intelligence but artificial affection, worrying away at the authenticity of attraction as an indicator of consciousness itself.

Related: Alex Garland on Ex Machina: I feel more attached to this film than to anything before

We first meet Domhnall Gleesons wide-eyed, lonely IT waif Caleb from the wrong side of a computer terminal, receiving a message that tells him that he has won first prize. It looks like spam, but the workplace reaction announces that this is something more akin to finding the golden ticket in one of Willy Wonkas chocolate bars. With admirable concision and clarity, Garland whisks Caleb to the vast estate of his CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac), Norwegian landscapes providing a suitably anonymous remote backdrop for the bosss imposingly modernist hideaway. Here, Caleb is to perform a Turing test (which crucially began life as a gender-identifying party-game) on Nathans latest creation; an elegant robot named Ava with humanoid face and hands affixed to a cyborgy body structure that allows us (literally) to see right through the artifice of its humanity. When Caleb complains that the test will be flawed because he can see that his subject is a robot, Nathan (who shows signs of having gone native in the absence of human company) replies that the real test is whether Ava can pass for human despite the knowledge that she is anything but. In short, will Caleb fall for Ava in the same way that Joaquin Phoenixs Theodore fell for Samanthain Her, his ardour undiminished by the absolute awareness that she is an operating system. And will she respond in kind?

The idea may be an old one but its execution is fresh and vibrant enough to conjure an attractive illusion of originality. Key to the films success is a trio of impressively nuanced performances that keep us constantly guessing as to each characters true motivations. As the perpetually drunken and bullish Nathan, Isaac is a mass of conspiratorial contradictions, his smile deliberately duplicitous, his self-mythologising manner carefully conniving, his dancing (to Get Down Saturday Night) genuinely alarming. At first glance, Gleesons Caleb seems Nathans polar opposite, an awkward geek out of his depth amid the sterile grandeur of his hosts home. Only when Ava enters the equation do Calebs true colours start to show, Alicia Vikanders note-perfect depiction of ever-so-slightly unnatural movement (think of Yul Brynners walk in Westworld dialled down by about 99%) triggering unsettling responses. Blending balletic physical performance with Double Negatives excellently rendered computer graphics, Vikanders Ava beautifully blurs the line between mecha and orga (in the lexicon of Spielbergs AI), inflecting the most natural gestures a tilt of the head, a roll of the wrist, a flicker of a smile with a hint of artifice, subtly accentuated by a whispered symphony of gyroscopic noise.

As for Garland, we should not be surprised that he approaches his directorial debut with such confidence and wit. After all, he has tackled these themes before in the living/dead juxtapositions of his 28 Days Later screenplay, in the conscious/unconscious dichotomies of the novella The Coma, and (most significantly) in the playing-God inhumanities of Never Let Me Go, which he adapted for the screen from Kazuo Ishiguros novel, and to which this alludes in a recurrent motif about automatic art (from robot reproductions to Jackson Pollock) and the search for evidence of a soul.

With its reflective surfaces, glacial soundscapes, and Kubrickian geometric compositions, this is knowingly seductive sci-fi cinema, its slyly subversive allegiances hidden by the two-way mirror of the silver screen, its androids dreaming of much more than mere electric sheep.

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Ex Machina review dazzling sci-fi thriller

Perspective on artificial intelligence and Elon Musk & Co open letter on safety – Video

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Perspective on artificial intelligence and Elon Musk Co open letter on safety
Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence: an Open Letter - http://futureoflife.org/misc/open_letter No need to panic artificia...

By: Sanjin umii

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Perspective on artificial intelligence and Elon Musk & Co open letter on safety - Video

‘The Beach’ author Alex Garland on artificial intelligence | Channel 4 News – Video

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#39;The Beach #39; author Alex Garland on artificial intelligence | Channel 4 News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9WhTr1qAHU Alex Garland, author of The Beach, talks toTom Clarke about the benefits to mankind of artificial intelligence. H...

By: Channel 4 News

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'The Beach' author Alex Garland on artificial intelligence | Channel 4 News - Video

Researchers Create ‘self-aware’ Super Mario With Artificial Intelligence – Video

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Researchers Create #39;self-aware #39; Super Mario With Artificial Intelligence
Mario just got a lot a smarter. A team of German researchers has used artificial intelligence to create a "self-aware" version of Super Mario who can respond...

By: WochitTech

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Researchers Create 'self-aware' Super Mario With Artificial Intelligence - Video

Artificial intelligence future wows Davos elite

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Davos (Switzerland) (AFP) - From the robot that washes your clothes to the robot that marks homework: the future world of artificial intelligence wowed the Davos elite Thursday, but the rosy picture came with a warning.

Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at the University of California Berkeley, painted a futuristic vision for those who hate the chore of washing.

"We have already developed robots who can do the complete laundry cycle. It is able to pick up a big bin of laundry, sort the clothes according to the sort of wash it needs, put them in the washing machine, take them out, sort them again, fold them," he told a bewildered Davos panel.

"The one thing it hasn't figured out is where is the missing sock," he quipped.

Anthony Goldbloom, a young tech entrepreneur from the United States, said that algorithms were being developed that could correct pupils' homework.

"It is possible to train machines to grade essays more reliably than a teacher," he said, while acknowledging that the technology remains "a long way off from being deployed in schools."

Several advances in artificial intelligence are aimed at the ageing baby-boom generation, which will be the fastest-growing market in the coming years, the experts predicted.

Driverless cars are one of the key trends, allowing an increasing elderly population better mobility.

"There's no need to park your car, because your car will just go home and come back when you need it. That changes the situation for public transport, because you'll just get taken to the station and then your car will go back home," said Russell.

"You can even imagine your car going to the supermarket and doing your groceries," he added.

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Artificial intelligence future wows Davos elite

Davos 2015: Robots less dangerous than stupid people

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At a session at the World Econoimc Forum in Davos, Stuart Russell, a leading expert on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, made the bold prediction that AI would overtake humans within my children's lifetime.

The potential benefits are huge, since everything that civilization has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools AI may provide, but the eradication of disease and poverty are not unfathomable. Because of the great potential of AI, it is important to research how to reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls, the letter said.

However others on the panel were were more sanguine.

Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who was also on the panel, said afterwards that robots could not even mimic two-year-olds yet, let alone cause damage.

Her Berkeley colleague, Ken Goldberg, predicted that a robot would not be able to tell a joke in his lifetime.

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Davos 2015: Robots less dangerous than stupid people

Musk donates $10M to keep Artificial Intelligence friendly

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American entrepreneur Elon Musk has announced that he would contribute $10 million to the Future of Life Institute (FLI) for a global research program aimed at ensuring that artificial intelligence (AI) remains safe for humanity.

"Here are all these leading AI researchers saying that AI safety is important. I agree with them, so I'm today committing $10M to support research aimed at keeping AI beneficial for humanity," Musk is quoted as saying in a statement on FLI's official website.

Funding research on artificial intelligence safety. It's all fun and games until someone loses an I http://t.co/t1aGnrTU21 - Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 15 2015

Musk, the founder of space transport services company SpaceX and chief product architect of Tesla Motors, has spoken out against AI and declared it the most serious threat to the survival of the human race.

"I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence," The Guardian quoted Musk as saying back in October, when talking to students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the AeroAstro Centennial Symposium.

"If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful," he then said. "I'm increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish."

According to Forbes, in tweets and multiple public appearances, Musk has compared the dark potential of unfettered artificial super-intelligence to "summoning the demon."

The Guardian says the technology entrepreneur considers his investments in AI research a way of "keeping an eye on what's going on," rather than as something which would offer a viable return on capital.

His recent decision to donate $10 million comes in response to an open letter signed by leading AI researchers, calling for a study that would ensure the safe and beneficial work of all AI systems.

FLI's research program will be conducted worldwide with AI researchers, who will be awarded grants through a competition.

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Musk donates $10M to keep Artificial Intelligence friendly


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