As technology like Apple’s Siri and self-driving cars ease their way into the cultural landscape, subtler cultural depictions of artificial intelligence are becoming much more intriguing. (One notable exception is Gerty from Moon, who subverted expectations of the evil AI trope beautifully: He really was a nice robot.)īut the growing demystification of artificial intelligence makes these stories feel dated.

Picture the cold detachment of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey the mutinous plotting of Ash in Alien the finely tuned self-preservation instincts of Skynet in the Terminator films or the chillingly effectual Machines of The Matrix, who turned humanity into one giant battery pack. As such, fictional representations of AI to date have largely been framed either as cautionary tales or broader commentary on the perceived perils of modern technology.

The fear of autonomous forms of technology turning against people has historically provoked both fascination and terror, being symptomatic of a deeper anxiety about war, intelligent weaponry, and nuclear annihilation that emerged in the 20th century. Recommended: The Math Question That Went Viral It imagines AI as something without catastrophic consequences for humanity, that instead questions our understanding of what it actually means to be human. But rather than seeking to simply exploit cultural anxieties about artificial intelligence, the film attempts to steer the conversation in a new direction. Still, Tinder Ava captured what Ex Machina is actually about: a machine who can think, feel-and manipulate people-just like a human being. The SXSW stunt succeeded in fooling a number of people, many of whom eventually caught on to the fact that Ava’s questions felt less like flirting and more like a Turing test turned on them.

Ex machina screenplay online