Mix and Match

I recently watched the movie Ex Machina directed by Alex Garland. The movie consists of a man named Caleb Smith a programmer at a huge Internet company, who wins a contest that enables him to spend a week at the private estate of Nathan Bateman, his firm’s brilliant CEO. He is asked to be the human element in a test of the abilities and consciousness of a robot named Ava. The point of the test is for it to feel like Ava is actually a human and can pass as one. An important note to make is the meaning behind the title. The title comes from Deus ex machina a Latin phrase that means god from the machine. It’s when a person or thing that appears or is introduced into a situation suddenly and unexpectedly and provides an artificial or contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty. Ava is being used as an artificial solution and Nathan the creator is being portrayed as “god” in the sense that he is creator of “human life”. I find this interesting with what we are learning because what if one day this is our norm? Can one-day artificial life be real life? Can a robot have a consciousness how what it is doing and feeling? I personally think no. Humans are not perfect and what makes us imperfect is our ability to know about the conscious and subconscious mind. We feel and think about what we say and do create obstacles for ourselves and others. If artificial life is mimicking us will it mimic making mistakes? Or will it strive for perfection?