Essay: Blade Runner and Ex Machina – perceptions of AI

Why are we afraid of talking robots? The advent of artificial intelligence has become a highly misconstrued subject. The quick progression of technology has been negatively portrayed to even convey an apocalyptic sense of fear. Although these depictions may oftentimes be fictional, they uncover the very real concerns and relationships that many people seem to have with technology. The integration and rapid advancement of technology has been aimed to benefit humanity but have created a fluctuating balance. The films, Blade Runner and Ex Machina, give insight into this relationship by integrating ideas of fear, perfection, and emotion which are seen to sway the balance between the role of humanity and that of technology in the world.
2019 in Los Angeles is the setting of Blade Runner. Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, is a retired “Blade Runner” who returns to his job, as an officer, in order to hunt and kill four “replicants”. Replicants are a form of artificial intelligence who are used by humans as slaves to colonize other planets. Four replicants end up escaping and returning to Earth in order to find their creator after learning of their fate of a 4-year life span. In the film, Deckard visits Tyrell Corporation which is responsible for creating these replicants and this is where Deckard meets Rachel. She is a replicant girl who he ends up falling in love with Rachel. As the film progresses, we see Deckard hunt down and kill the replicants until the very last one. Roy Batty, the leader is the most advanced version of replicants called “Nexus 6”. In one of the final scenes, Roy has an opportunity to kill Decker, but decides to spare his life and instead speaks on his experience as a slave and the idea of a fleeting life. At the end of his conversation, Roy states “[a]ll those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die”. Lastly, Decker is seen taking Rachel and running away with her to start a new life.
Throughout Blade Runner we see how society has been integrated with technology. This movie, originally released in 1982, portrays the future in 2019 with advanced computers, human-like androids, and even flying cars. The relationship between technology and humans is quickly understood in the first few scenes of the movie. When a replicant, Leon, is seen killing a Tyrell Corporation employee there is a sense of imbalance and uneasiness as this scene is repeated in different forms throughout the movie. We quickly learn that technology’s role is understood to benefit man and be under the control of man. The latter is what this film directly deals with. In the scene near the end of the film, we see Roy tower over as Deckland hangs onto the ledge with his loosening grip. The camera is angled upward with the clouds and dark sky in the backdrop signifying an imposing and dominating connotation. This is the apex of the movie and is a representation of the tipping point of the balance. As the scene continues, the film brilliantly allows Roy to save Deckland. This moment brings Roy back down from his domineering position, giving the audience just enough of a glimpse of a loss of control. “Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave” is what Roy says to a dangling Deckland. His eyes are fixed on the camera, almost as if he is speaking to the audience. Although Roy was seen as a menacing character who is disrupting the balance between technology and man, this film brings light to a different idea. The mention of enslavement along with his conversation with Deckland draws attention to the nature in which we deal with technology. This sequence suggests the possibility of approaching the relationship with technology with mutualism rather than with dominance.
Ex Machina is set in present day, when Caleb Smith, an employee of a large technology company, “wins” the chance to spend a week with the brilliant CEO, Nathan Bateman. When Caleb arrives at the location of Nathan’s home, he is brought to the attention that he will be a part of testing the cutting edge artificial intelligence through the Turing test. As “sessions” with Ava, the artificial intelligence (A.I.), go by, Caleb seems to become more and more enamored with Ava as she seems to be falling in love with him. He comes to a very twisted realization after walking through Nathan’s home and sees the way other models of his A.I. are used. After seeing this, Caleb plans Ava’s escape. On the day of the supposed escape, Nathan confronts Caleb revealing that he was listening all along and knew his plans. He even tells Caleb that Ava was designed to fit the qualities and character traits that Caleb would find attractive and would be drawn to. This serves as a major plot twist as Caleb unveils that his plan was executed the day before and when Ava causes a lock down in the home, she will be able to escape. Nathan and Caleb are both in shock as they came to their own realizations. Nathan tries to stop Ava, but instead Ava and another A.I. model team up to kill Nathan. After this, the film shows Ava walking away and out of the house without glancing in the direction of Caleb, who is trapped in Nathan’s home with no way out. Lastly, as the helicopter which initially comes to take Caleb comes to the remote location, Ava gets on and the last scene shows her walk into the middle of a regular, everyday crowd.
Ex Machina is a representation of the clear distinction between humanity and technology. Ava is locked in a glass room where she has been trapped since her existence, while Nathan manipulates her world. During a session, Ava states to Caleb that “[y]ou learn about me and I learn nothing about you” highlighting the idea of imbalance between the two and even gives a glimpse into Ava’s self-awareness. Early in the film, the relationship between Ava and Caleb is depicted in a fairly neutral, yet almost positive light as they are attempting to achieve a breakthrough in technological advancement. However, there is a gradual change in this attitude as we begin to see Caleb’s emotions drawn into Ava’s “plea” for freedom. At this point, we not only are presented a positive attitude towards technology, but a much more negative one towards humanity. This gradual evolution comes to completion as the final third of the film is reached. Nathan reveals, “[y]ou were right about the hot magician’s assistant” to Caleb. Caleb slowly comes to the realization that Ava has been manipulating him and using his emotions against him to set herself free. Further, once Ava kills Nathan, we hear “unreal” under his breath. This solitary word encapsulated the shift in balance between humanity and technology as what was conceived as reality has become something else. The final scene shows Ava standing in the middle of what looks like a busy downtown urban area. People, out of focus, blur past by Ava, who stands in the middle glancing at the world in front of her. Then suddenly, she turns and vanishes into the crowd. This is a final illustration of Ava’s freedom from her enslavement has left behind the oppression to enter into a new world.
In the critical essay, Why the West Loves Sci-Fi and Fantasy: A Cultural Explanation, Christine Folch delves into the idea of how cultural differences between the west and east have driven the types of ideas that are represented to them in film. Folch claims that those in the west are “disenchanted” or that their world has become mundane and that film and entertainment are a form to combat that “predictable and boring” life (379). Although this argument brings up a strong point about cultural aspects of western life, the underlying importance of these films is “through its promise…it offers the hope that we haven’t seen all that there is” (380). Blade Runner and Ex Machina both demonstrate this principle in their own ways. In a dystopian world run by a powerful company, the film chases the idea of “more human than human”. Each model of artificial intelligence seems to further advance itself in terms of abilities over the everyday human. This is distinctly underscored when Roy Batty is seen nearly killing Deckard, a skilled Blade Runner. The film intentionally addresses Folch’s notion of the undiscovered when Deckard states that “replicants are like any other machine – they’re either a benefit or a hazard. If they’re a benefit, it’s not my problem”. Since he is a Blade Runner, he makes the claim that replicants are not a benefit due to the fact that he is ordered to hunt and kill them. This mirrors the thoughts of many in society. Their perception of man’s relationship to machine is a very hierarchical and plays into the notion of the shifting balance. Ex Machina perfectly represents Folch’s argument as the film is set in modern day. The entire premise is based around a brilliant CEO of a technology company has created an opportunity for an advanced form of artificial intelligence. Most people today have some sort of understanding of artificial intelligence with the increase in popularity of IBM’s Watson and the common use of Google’s A.I. through its search engine. However, once we discover Ava’s ability to understand her own oppression and manipulate her surroundings through means of emotion, we are given a glimpse into something that has never been seen before. This new concept enchants those who watch, allowing for that “hope” to survive.
The scientific-fiction (sci-fi) genre has fed into this methodology of pushing the envelope for the audience to not only be entertained, but to also be enlightened by a possibly novel way of thinking. Both Ex Machina and Blade Runner do this with their utilization of a new concept for technology. However, they distinctly remove themselves from the common trope of how advancing technology is able to integrate into our lives and eventually wielded by humanity. This motif can be seen in films such as Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014) where technology is not necessarily seen as a combatant, but instead something that is for man to use as a tool. Ex Machina is a contradiction to this idea as technology is portrayed to be comparable to man while Blade Runner furthers this claim by suggesting that technology could not only be comparable to humanity, but could surpass it. Both of these films have created an unsettling imbalance in the minds of many of its audience members. However, as technology continues to advance and become more complex, its portrayal through film will be a reflection of what to expect next as we through our “hope” (380). The fears and criticisms of the current development of technology have become normal, moving the discussion to uncover our perception on a seemingly inevitable imbalance with technology.