The Hidden Meaning of “Ex Machina”

The sci-fi psychological thriller film “Ex Machina”, released in 2015, was praised and highlighted for its outstanding stylization, intense and dark plot, and themes of humanity, artificial intelligence, and creation by man. But there is also a hidden meaning behind all of the lights, gears, and egotistical human need to create and control. YouTube channel Wisecrack breaks it down for us.

Without too many spoilers, the film plot centers around Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer working for search engine company Blue Book, when he wins a contest to visit the CEO of the company, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), at his rural luxury home; here he learns of Nathan’s work in AI and has created Ava (Alicia Vikander), an extremely humanistic robot. Over the course of the week, Nathan tasks Caleb with putting Ava to the Turing test – seeing if she was capable of human thought and intelligence. Ava surpasses this and ultimately shows her ability to manipulate and even murder at one point.

The film is obviously a presentation of humans playing God, with our strive to create intelligent artificial life, but the secondary meaning is also present. As explained within the video, the duality between human and machine is visually represented by the streamlined, unembellished, and dark, muted colouring with strict security is comparable to the lush nature setting that lies just outside the facility doors. Nathan within the film also defines human consciousness by using a Jackson Pollock painting: “not deliberate, not random, somewhere in the middle”.

Ava’s humanity is suggested at the end of the film to be transcended, but is she really exhibiting self-created human consciousness, or just mirroring her environment? The film is a narrative on creation and human nature, thus it can be implied Ava has not truly evolved and achieved human consciousness, but rather is mirroring her creator and the man he brought to meet her, the only humans who have interacted with her in her life. Thus, she was capable of manipulating a man into becoming attracted to her, murdering her creator, and escaping into society.

Whatever the case, the duality of human and machine provides commentary on how we may create things, but they may not be as we want them to. They may show aspects of humanity none of us enjoy, and they may turn against us.