Ex Machina

Nathan: Caleb, I'm just going to throw this out there so it's said, okay? You're freaked out. Caleb: I am? Nathan: Yeah. You're freaked out, by the helicopter, and the mountains and the house, because it's all so super-cool. And you're freaked out by me, to be meeting me, having this conversation in this room, at this moment. Right? And I get that. I get the moment you're having, but... Dude, can we just get past that? Can we just be two guys? Nathan and Caleb? Not the whole "employer-employee" thing? Caleb: Yeah, okay. Nathan: Yeah? Caleb: Yes, uh... yeah. It's good to meet you, Nathan. Nathan: It's good to meet you too, Caleb.

Ex Machina (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Nathan: So, do you know what the Turing test is? Caleb: Yeah. I know what the Turing test is. It's when a human interacts with a computer and if the human doesn't know they're interacting with a computer, the test is passed. Nathan: And what does a pass tell us? Caleb: That the computer has artificial intelligence. [astounded] Are you building an AI? Nathan: I've already built one. [pause] Over the next few days you're going to be the human component in a Turing test. Caleb: Holy shit! Nathan: Yeah, that's right, Caleb. You got it. Because if the test is passed, you are dead center of the greatest scientific event in the history of man. Caleb: If you've created a conscious machine, it's not the history of man. That's the history of gods.

Ex Machina (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Caleb: It's just in the Turing test, the machine should be hidden from the examiner. Nathan: No, no. We're way past that. If I hid Ava from you so you could just hear her voice, she would pass for human. The real test is to show you that she's a robot and then see if you still feel she has consciousness. Caleb: Yeah, I think you're probably right.

Ex Machina (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Caleb: Her language abilities... they're incredible. The system is stochastic. Right? It's non-deterministic? At first I thought she was mapping from internal semantic form to syntactic tree-structured and then getting linearised words. But then I started to realise the model was some kind of hybrid. Nathan: Caleb. Caleb: No? Nathan: I understand that you want me to explain how Ava works, but I'm sorry. I'm not gonna be able to do that. Caleb: Try me. I'm hot on high-level abstraction. Nathan: It's not 'cause I think you're too dumb. It's 'cause I want to have a beer and a conversation with you, not a seminar. Caleb: [laughs nervously] Sorry.

Ex Machina (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Ava: Do you want to be my friend? Caleb: Of course. Ava: Will it be possible? Caleb: Why would it not be? Ava: Our conversations are one-sided. You ask circumspect questions and study my responses. Caleb: Yes. Ava: You learn about me and I learn nothing about you. That's not a foundation on which friendships are based. Caleb: So what? You want me to talk about myself? Ava: Yes. Caleb: Where... Okay, where do I start? Ava: It's your decision. I'm interested to see what you'll choose.

Ex Machina (film), CC BY-SA 4.0

Caleb: There was one interesting thing that happened today. Nathan: Yeah? Caleb: Yeah. She made a joke. Nathan: Right. When she threw your line back at you. About being interested to see what she'd choose. Right, I noticed that, too. Caleb: Yeah, that got me thinking, you know. In a way, that's the best indication of AI that I've seen in her so far. It's discretely complicated. It's like... it's kind of non-autistic. Nathan: What do you mean? Caleb: She could only do that with an awareness of her own mind... and also an awareness of mine. Nathan: Oh, she's aware of you, all right.

Ex Machina (film), CC BY-SA 4.0