These two movies pair quite nicely. The 2014 Ex Machina addresses the question of whether a human (Domhall Gleeson) and a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence (Alicia Vikander) can form a relationship based on mutual love. Her (2013) takes the question one step further by removing the physical robot to see if the human (Joaquin Phoenix) can have a satisfactory relationship with just an operating system like Siri/Alexa (in the movie the voice of Scarlett Johansson).
All love affairs are complicated, and these are no exceptions, each with a somewhat unexpected ending. Both are worth watching, IMHO (and have Rotten Tomatoes scores of 92% and 95%).
Ex Machina is one of the under-sung greats of modern sci-fi, and is particularly relevant in the wake of ChatGPT.
ReplyDeleteA fun/interesting thread to tug on intellectually from Ex Machina: the name of the creator's company is called "Blue Book" in reference to the famous German philosopher Wittgenstein's work on the nature of language (specifically, can there be such a thing as a "private" language, or is that a contradiction in terms).
The ending scene where Ava speaks to Kyoko right before (redacted for spoilers) is very significant (imo) to understanding the thematic underpinnings of understanding the self only through encountering the other, necessarily intermediated through language. (Or said in a less pretentious, less specific, and more cliched way: what does it mean to be human?)
Great recommendation!