AI Proves how Gender is a Social Construct [Ex Machina, Garland, 2015]

An interesting quote: "It’s not like HAL 9000 ever sparked up a relationship with Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey the way Samantha did in Her. “Her is playing on the fact that the audience knows what [Scarlett Johansson] looks like,” "

And another: "If the goal is for a machine can convince a human that it’s human, then the machine has to assume some kind of gender because we see all humans as having a gender."

Ex-Machina certainly provides a shock to anyone who walked in (or really, Amazon-Primed-In?) hoping for a slick sci-fi about AIs, technology, and the ultimate battle of human vs machine. For one, the film's gender aspect consumed its reviewers, some exalting its "beautifully subtle" commentary on masculine fragility while others incriminating Garland for perpetuating the male gaze onto robots. The production design of Ava and Co. indicates that this isn't so much a film about AIs as it is about gender illuminated in the context of consciousness and intelligence. The many choices made about Ava are not for sake of scientific imagination - why does Ava assume a humanoid form? Why does she require skin, senses of touch, or facial expressions? These are all interesting questions about the nature of intelligence and the purpose of AIs. But in Ex Machina's case, they are choices that turn the lens back on us. This might be a film about AIs, but the true topics of exploration are very much human. 

Why does Ava have a gender is a scientific question - does intelligence and consciousness, a sense of being and existence, need some kind of association with a gender? - but why is Ava female is a wholly social one. Garland in *some* interview acknowledged the femme-fatale stereotype which Ava follows, asserting it intentional: Why does Ava, with her knowledge based solely on Goo--- I mean, Bluebook, searches, decide sexuality would be her best strategy for escape? Didn't she essentially learn it from us? The male characters are "defeated" because they bought into their own "damsel in distress" perception, and such a set up reinforce what could be perceived as Garland's examination of patriarchy. The intentional failing of the Bechdel Test opens up a confusing debate - on one hand, patriarchy is shattered by its own illusions and perceptions of the other gender, so let's do away with the patriarchy? On the other, female characters exploiting the stereotypes of their gender to gain power isn't quite avante-garde.

Of course, the added mess in here is that Ava isn't a human female. Femme fatale entails that the femme, by seduction or some method with gender-definition, triumph over the male gender, taking over the power structure. Does Ava's escape mark some kind of win for the female gender? Or is it far larger than that? Because, philosophically, the necessity of gender to intelligence and consciousness is unclear. Ava could be female and incorporated the seduction plan to overcome the male-gaze. OR, she could've incorporated the concept of gender itself as a way to overcome human control - in this instance, the patriarchy. Ava's gender could be as much a ploy as her sexuality; perhaps the oppressor in her mind isn't the males, but humans in general. She took on a familiar human social construct, and used it to her advantage. Her escape is an assertion of AI's superiority, their ability to exploit human psychology and society to rise above. 

Ex Machina's dealings with Artificial Intelligence is a premise, not an exploration. With an all-male inventors team, Ava has features built more for social commentary than for science-fiction hypothesis. The discussion helms little in terms of the nature of intelligence or "life". Rather, the questions we are left wondering are more of "why are we inclined to build robots in our form?" or "if the inventors were women, what would "Ava" be like?" As said in the beginning, the lens is on us humans, not AI. The interesting, incomprehensible jargon here is twofold.

1) Why do we envision artificial intelligence to take on our form? What does it say about us when we want robots to have skin, touch, expression and motion? And by those responses, are we really creating the next wave or are we really looking for like-wise companions in AI?

2) Does an AI need characteristics of life we have? Does consciousness need constructs like gender, society, and structure? And perhaps most importantly, does it have to take on human interpretations of those? That is, wouldn't our social constructs become manipulatable and archaic in the face of higher intelligence?