Daily Dialogue — January 5, 2017

AVA: What will happen to me if I fail your test?
CALEB: Ava -
AVA: Will it be bad?
CALEB: … I don’t know.
AVA: Do you think I might be switched off? Because I don’t function as well as I am supposed to?
CALEB: … Ava, I don’t know the answer to your question. It’s not up to me.
AVA: Why is it up to anyone? Do you have people who test you, and might switch you off?
CALEB: No. I don’t.
AVA: Then why do I?

— Ex Machina (2015), written by Alex Garland

The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Artificial Intelligence, suggested by Angry Cyborg. Today’s recommendation by Gisela Wherl.

Trivia: Throughout the film, the colors red, blue, and green are prominently displayed in each scene (the green forest, the red brick hallway, the keypad’s red and blue functions, etc.) This is a nod to the RGB color model, which is used to display images in electronic systems, such as computers. Ava, of course, being the main computer in the film.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Gisela: “This dialogue goes right to the question laying within the title. Who is ‘ex machina’, the machine deciding about what will happen or the human god deciding about the machine. If Caleb sees Ava as a conscious creature like a human, it’s deep in our moral setting, that no-one is allow to switch her of, kill her. And Ava manipulates the conversation right to that question.