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.
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