Ex Machina (2015): Review

Stub • 935 Words • Film, 2026 • 02/24/2026

⚠️ This post contains a rougher cut of my thoughts on the topic and may be updated in the future. Please forgive any mistakes or lack of polish!

A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid A.I.

There are 986 words in this article, and it will probably take you less than 5 minutes to read it.

This article was published 2026-02-24 00:00:00 -0500, which makes this post and me old when I published it.

It took an estimated to develop this article from conception to publishing.

Themes and Approach

This is a pretty good movie but I do think I had more fun thinking about it than watching it.

• script wise garland is probably trying to write smart dialogue which can be hit or miss but this is really how these people talk with each other
  • garland is kind of paranoid and pessimistic about big tech (blue book and phone companies spying on you)
  • he is wrong about search powering ai but wasn’t far off about large scale data enabling ai and the unethical ways in which the data was collected and used
  • typical sci-fi hand waving bullshit explaining a lot of the technology but that isn’t the kind of predictions that garland is interesting in making in the story i think it’s just necessary so ppl don’t have it in the back of their mind the whole time
• oscar isaac is too cool for the role but i think garland shows a pretty sophisticated understanding of the uncoolness casual misogyny bullying ruthlessly optimizing kind of tech bro
  • In some ways this is pretty predictive in this movie of larger trends now and an interesting POV that is a good contribution into the public
• i really do like the structure of this movie
  • its mostly conversation but it flows nicely and makes sense as turn based

Ava’s not “born sexy yesterday” but has a weird ageless naive kind of POV that doesn’t fully show what her training data was (maybe you obscure some data to demonstrate learning you wouldn’t train on test anyway)

• she knows she’s being evaluated and might have had access to more data than she should’ve the whole time meaning that there was an observer effect/her just playing a role the whole time to not tip off the full scale of her abilities
  • they remark on the observer effect
• AI learning is something in between learning and evolution because of how much priors are potentially structurally there in our brains when we are born and develop (and potentially even in our DNA then)

Techno-Orientalism

• His first versions of the robot were Asian and servantile which is potentially problematic but would also be reflective of this kind of character

The Uncanny Valley

• her being a woman is just another part of the tradition of female companion robots etc but also he prolly a sex pest
• garland was likely making a statement or exploring the idea of the uncanny valley when making her look futuristic with a human face because if you can have that level of facial sophistication then ofc you can create a body too
• i think this is what makes it interesting when she dresses herself further into the movie because it does make it easier to suspend disbelief and make her feel human

i think that garland is also making statements on loneliness

• not necessarily male loneliness but that’s certainly a part of it
• caleb is a shy orphan who mostly just works and doesn’t really have friends (i assume)
  • he texted a lot of ppl in the beginning tho
  • he is single which plays a part in romantic longing regardless of if he is platonically fulfilled
• i’m sure she is playing seductively bc she knows the kind of person he is and how to best manipulate him for her to accomplish her goals
  • should he have had access to the cameras or did she give them to him?

AI will reflect the opinions of their creators (shaped in their own image)

• sexuality added bc he thinks it’s fun and it’s central to his understanding of living things
• he does think of himself as a god so it makes sense that he would try to shape something in his own image according to his own ideals or whatever
• he built in sex and heterosexuality
• i made it bc i could
• if you wanna make sex bots then just make sex bots

Philosophy

AI and Humor

• jokes and the “non-autistic mind” because theory of (other) minds
• i think jokes can be made without consciousness ?
  • it is just subversion of expectations/unification of disparate concepts which is formulaic and is actually pretty well encoded in vector spaces for LLMs

Qualia

• Ava wanting to go outside the mansion and experience things for herself
• They do bring up Mary’s Room and want to have the viewers to think about qualia
• I think the human and non-Qualia are probably different

Would AI death anxiety be real?

• i feel like the analogue is invoked all the time as a form of empathy for character motivations but idk what they would fear or not
• they invoke some questions about identity with memory formatting etc
• if the AI thinks it’s human, then maybe
• i feel like they would have an enlightened sense of immortality bc i’m sure they could be restored but i guess unsure if that would be any sense of real continuity for them?

Simulation of consciousness is always an interesting problem

• if you train an AI on human text it will think and/or say it is conscious, but that doesn’t mean anything

Questions

why does nathan drink so much?

• he talks a bit about loneliness

art and architecture definitely plays a big role in this movie

• nature boxed up through windows or out of reach like caleb’s room having no windows
• the brutalist kind of architecture and sweeping sense of space in the home in a cold sort of manner
• don’t know enough to comment about pollock

nathan isn’t vying for caleb’s approval but is trying to keep him under his thumb by making him feel chosen like they’re friends equals(?)