Two films to come out fairly recently, Ex Machina directed by Alex Garland and Creative Control directed by Benjamin Dickinson, both explore humanity's relationship with technology. These films are all the more relevant as they were released in the current era known as the iPhone generation, in which technology has expanded and evolved so much that the premises in these films don't seem too far off from where we are now. Something I think both films touch on greatly is that humans may be flawed, but much of the technology they make may not be, which could cause the technology made to surpass the original creators. This is particularly related to artificial intelligence, which is the main technology focused on in both Ex Machina and Creative Control.
While Ex Machina in my personal opinion is definitely the superior film, it is also the more obvious one. A sci-fi thriller set in a remote compound, complete with a synthesizer score that recalls the futuristic classics of the 1980's, a la Blade Runner and Terminator. What I find most notable in Ex Machina though is the characterization and portrayal of Oscar Isaac's character Nathan Bateman, a genius with a God complex (wait, is that like a thing?) who has an answer for everything. For the vast majority of the film, Nathan can respond to any of Caleb's (Domhnall Gleeson) qualms or worries regarding the creation and software of Ava (Alicia Vikander), an fully functioning piece of artificial intelligence. Nathan stubbornly believes that no matter how progressively capable and possibly dangerous Ava seems, he is in control because he created her and he is a human being, therefore he is the superior. However, in the film's climax, Nathan is murdered by Ava with the help of another AI, Kyoko, when he attempts to stop Ava from leaving his research facility. There is a moment as the AIs jam a large knife into Nathan that he looks up at them with such disbelief, he can only utter, "What the fuck." What the fuck indeed. Nathan's end is both horrifying and ironic, as the man with an answer for everything cannot explain what leads him to his end. I viewed this as a warning by Garland that while we as a species may be accomplishing amazing things with AI and other tech, we should also be cautious when playing with the idea of life.
Creative Control is of a very different genre, as it is a sci-fi social satire, yet it is nonetheless quite disturbing in the way it shows how strong technology's grasp is over human beings in today's times. David (Benjamin Dickinson) is shown to be a guy who both hates technology, but cannot seem to fathom his life without it, even in spite of illusions he gives himself that he could live without it. Feeling depressed and desiring his best friend's girlfriend, Sophie (Alexia Rasmussen), he creates an AI version of her to pleasure himself with. Although he created this piece of tech, the AI has all the control over David as he submits to it in exchange for the feelings of elation and fulfillment it brings him. However, as this creation of his comes to light and he deals with it in the face of his best friend, Sophie, and his girlfriend Juliette (Nora Zehetner), David comes to realize the gross control the AI has over him and how it has ruined him. When David follows this revelation by telling Juliette they should move far away and start over in order to get away from the technology and everything, Juliette agrees to and David decides he will leave his tech job that is driving him crazy. However, when his company tells him about the success of David's product and his ascendancy in the tech world, Juliette already knows he won't be able to turn away from this life and goes into the kitchen to make dinner. Both of these films end extremely ominously and both films end with an ambiguous yet frightening future for us to ponder, as we wonder what happens after the screen fades to black. Not only is that a sign of good filmmaking, it also helps us see that maybe we should take a look at ourselves as people before downloading the newest Angry Birds update.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Artificial Emotions
Alex Garland’s Ex Machina showed an unsettling prediction of the future, when Artificial Intelligence will have been developed further and let into society. Caleb is selected to participate in an experiment with Ava, a refined invention of Nathan. He sets out to question the Turing Test with his interactions with Ava, and examines her emotions and responses with each visit to her confined room. Ava, the robot, appears to be infatuated with Caleb and, in his eyes, passes the test, as she begins to exhibit intelligent human behavior. But towards the end of the film the audience realizes that Caleb is the real subject of the experiment. After having led Caleb to betray Nathan and free her from her cell, it is evident that the machine was intelligent to an extent that Caleb and Nathan had not expected. Rather than finally uniting with Caleb, like the movie falsely foreshadows with repeated dream love scenes, she proceeds to make an escape. She exhibits the “third option” as an outcome to the Turing Test that Nathan and Caleb brought up later in the film. The question at hand, all along, was not whether or not Ava has emotions. In her time in the cell, she was able to mimic intelligent emotions, even though she wasn’t feeling them and had no empathy or sympathy for Caleb. She appears to only have been intelligent enough to manipulate Caleb’s emotions as a means of escape. The film comes to an end with Ava entering civilization, having left Nathan dead and Caleb stuck in the facilities forever. Ex Machina introduces the viewer to a potential threat posed to humanity by artificial intelligence. While these machines can mimic and present emotions in their behavior, they don’t allow themselves to control their actions like humans do. Unlike films like Her, where artificial intelligence is portrayed with deep emotions and empathy, giving humans the upper hand in that relationship, Ex Machina definitely gives the upper hand to Ava, and proves that she wasn’t burdened with emotions or feelings towards Caleb and only acted in her self interest.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Maybe the future isn't so grim
Generally speaking, Creative Control and Ex Machina are both films about the arrival of advanced technology. Generally speaking, both films give, at first glance, a fairly negative view of the future. Ex Machina does not hide the psychotic features present in Nathan and Creative Control doesn't attempt to mask the twisted actions taken by David while using Augmented Reality glasses. Just because Nathan and David are shown in a villainous light does not necessarily mean that the future and the technology that will come with it is as gray as the colors in Creative Control.
If one takes a deeper look at the character of Nathan from Ex Machina, one can see a talented individual who wants to change the world. The fact that he wants to change the world does not, however, take away from the fact that he wants to do it according to his own terms. Selfishness and power hungriness seems to be at the very center of most of the worlds problems. Had Nathan openly shared his research and technological findings, it could be possible that Caleb (Ava's human testing partner) would have found out about Ava in a medical article published in some newspaper. Instead, he found out the truth through the psychotic vision of Nathan. The atom bomb (second blog post to use this reference but it works well) was invented by goodhearted people and used for destruction. Ava was invented by a psychotic person and as far as we know, hasn't been used for anything useful. She did manage to kill two people with her own robotic hands. Ava was programmed by Nathan to escape the test by any means necessary. He just never realized what means she would take and that ended up costing him dearly. Still, had Nathan programmed Ava a little differently, maybe she would have become something more useful. Artificial intelligence could be less about creating a human copy but rather something that acts human yet is in total control of a human. That would possibly lessen the damage something like Ava ended up doing. One cannot blame Ava for doing what she did. One cannot credit Ava for doing what she did. One can only see a product of a madman in it's physical form.
Technology generally gets all the blame when the very reason it is bad is because it is misused by humans. Instead of telling people cellphones are bad, maybe its more important to teach them how to use them safely. Augmenta, the augmented reality glasses present in Creative Control show this off fairly well. Nobody knew what Augmenta was capable off. At the end of the film, David's creation becomes a major selling point for the glasses because it is completely novel. The technology is so knew its full potential hasn't been realized yet. Of course, the person who realizes what the technology is capable to a certain extent has to be a shallow and confused human looking for an escape. Much like the question raised by Ex Machina, what if a more stable human had been given the glasses to work on? What if a doctor was given the prototype and asked to integrate them into their work? Rather than seeing a woman made into a virtual sex object (without her consent) we could have watched a movie about the advances in the medical field. Probably far less exciting than a marital crisis but more morally sound.
Ex Machina and Creative Control show what happens when humans misuse technology. They don't take a stand against technology but rather warn future humans not to misuse it. Generally, the only effective way for a human to learn to not do something is to do it first and then realize they should not have done it in the first place. We'll have to wait and see what happens with wearable technology and artificial reality to find out which path was chosen.
If one takes a deeper look at the character of Nathan from Ex Machina, one can see a talented individual who wants to change the world. The fact that he wants to change the world does not, however, take away from the fact that he wants to do it according to his own terms. Selfishness and power hungriness seems to be at the very center of most of the worlds problems. Had Nathan openly shared his research and technological findings, it could be possible that Caleb (Ava's human testing partner) would have found out about Ava in a medical article published in some newspaper. Instead, he found out the truth through the psychotic vision of Nathan. The atom bomb (second blog post to use this reference but it works well) was invented by goodhearted people and used for destruction. Ava was invented by a psychotic person and as far as we know, hasn't been used for anything useful. She did manage to kill two people with her own robotic hands. Ava was programmed by Nathan to escape the test by any means necessary. He just never realized what means she would take and that ended up costing him dearly. Still, had Nathan programmed Ava a little differently, maybe she would have become something more useful. Artificial intelligence could be less about creating a human copy but rather something that acts human yet is in total control of a human. That would possibly lessen the damage something like Ava ended up doing. One cannot blame Ava for doing what she did. One cannot credit Ava for doing what she did. One can only see a product of a madman in it's physical form.
Technology generally gets all the blame when the very reason it is bad is because it is misused by humans. Instead of telling people cellphones are bad, maybe its more important to teach them how to use them safely. Augmenta, the augmented reality glasses present in Creative Control show this off fairly well. Nobody knew what Augmenta was capable off. At the end of the film, David's creation becomes a major selling point for the glasses because it is completely novel. The technology is so knew its full potential hasn't been realized yet. Of course, the person who realizes what the technology is capable to a certain extent has to be a shallow and confused human looking for an escape. Much like the question raised by Ex Machina, what if a more stable human had been given the glasses to work on? What if a doctor was given the prototype and asked to integrate them into their work? Rather than seeing a woman made into a virtual sex object (without her consent) we could have watched a movie about the advances in the medical field. Probably far less exciting than a marital crisis but more morally sound.
Ex Machina and Creative Control show what happens when humans misuse technology. They don't take a stand against technology but rather warn future humans not to misuse it. Generally, the only effective way for a human to learn to not do something is to do it first and then realize they should not have done it in the first place. We'll have to wait and see what happens with wearable technology and artificial reality to find out which path was chosen.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Ex Machina and Creative Control Blog Post
I had to watch this film seven times to understand the beginning. Just kidding, I use mild attentiveness when watching it the first time. Regardless of the amount of times viewed, Ex Machina (Alex Garland 2015) is a simply ridiculous film. This film is a anthropologically enhanced version of Avatar on cocaine. Alright, once again, just kidding. Partially. Ex Machina delves into a genre of film that is sometimes hard to take seriously. Most robot films are either animated (Wall-E) or just went with the big explosions and "get to the choppa". This film takes on the outer edges of the reality of human and robot interactions, and does it quite well honestly.
Creative Control. Is this the name of the film or the name of an required IB course? Just kidding (sips tea). But on a more serious note, this film is so interesting to me because it takes a more serious and sad tone to an all too real idea. The over development and intrusion of technology on human lives. This film made me incredulous to Apple. Just kidding. But it did have a significant effect on my not only as an audience member, but as a member of society who looks from his Iphone, only to see 100 other people on their Iphones. A bit scary in retrospect.
Creative Control. Is this the name of the film or the name of an required IB course? Just kidding (sips tea). But on a more serious note, this film is so interesting to me because it takes a more serious and sad tone to an all too real idea. The over development and intrusion of technology on human lives. This film made me incredulous to Apple. Just kidding. But it did have a significant effect on my not only as an audience member, but as a member of society who looks from his Iphone, only to see 100 other people on their Iphones. A bit scary in retrospect.
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