preview

Gender Stereotypes In The Film 'Ex Machina'

Decent Essays

Alex Garland, the director of the film Ex Machina, showed a different method of the Turing Test, a test in which a human subject talks to an AI and a human without knowing which is which. If the subject cannot distinguish between the AI and the human, then the AI would pass the test as conscious. Instead in the film, the tester gets to see the AI and talk to her through her a glass window. Other than the technology, Ex Machina also shows some societal views of gender roles. The views being in which males are typically seen as the violent ones in relationship and woman as the weak. It shows how abuse and mistreatment of the creator of the AIs, can lead to his downfall by his creations. The AIs being mistreated by their creator show how manipulation led to maleficent actions and how the way they communicate their “feelings” is their way of showing consciousness. Ex Machina is a science-fiction film where a coder wins a “competition” in which he gets to reside at the CEO’s luxurious real estate for an entire week. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) then finds out that he has to test an AI called Ava (Alicia Vikander), on whether she’s conscious . As the week progresses, Caleb realizes that …show more content…

At the end of the film, Ava left Caleb alone, locked up in a room. She manipulated Caleb with feelings of attraction and care and was basically just using him as her means of escape. She probably came up with the idea that if she pretended to like Caleb and acted like a damsel in distress, she can get Caleb to help her escape. Coming up with such a deceiving plan to manipulate someone and appeal to their emotions to pretend to show love and affections towards someone, in my opinion, means you do have consciousness. If you weren’t conscious, you wouldn’t think of creative ways to use someone in your favor. Leaving Caleb locked up was probably also a way to show that she’s done using him and she doesn’t need him

Get Access