[ Here's a followup rap that I write purely for my *own* amusement, because
many (most?) people here have probably not seen the film in question. I've now
seen it three times, and think it's pretty interesting, so below I'll rap about
my experience of discussing it on another forum. I will do my best to avoid
presenting any terrible spoilers, for the benefit of those who have not seen it
but may plan on doing so. ]
Speaking of gobsmacked (in another thread, having to do with juggling Rubik's
cubes), you must color me gobsmacked because of a few replies to me having
posted this review of "Ex Machina" on another forum. There it was seen by a
number of people who then saw the movie. All of them had a great deal of
experience in computer science, and all of them had an equal amount of
experience dealing with thinking about consciousness, having been taught to
meditate by the Rama guy we all studied with.
Some liked the movie as much as I did, some didn't, and a few hated it. The
ones who hated it were all women. This struck me as odd.
Admittedly, one of the three main characters is kind of a gnarly,
male-chauvinist-pig kinda guy, with some odd, misogynistic ideas about women.
Just the fact that he is allowed to speak them probably pissed off women who
have been taught about male oppression for years. And on another level, the
characters played by female humans in the film are portrayed by really
*attractive* female humans, and I've noticed over the years that many women who
have thought of themselves as feminists for a decade or two very often display
an immediate (and often unrecognized) distrust and dislike of really attractive
women themselves. So there's that.
But what really gobsmacked me was when a couple of these intelligent,
successful, computer-literate women who didn't like the movie described it as
"just another pygmalion fantasy" and complained that it "didn't allow
sufficient character development in the female characters" to suit them. So
they wrote it off as just another misogynist movie.
Color me gobsmacked. I didn't get that at all.
First, technically, there aren't even any female characters IN the film. It's
about AI.
Second, these women seem to have been fooled by the *appearance* and *behavior*
of the AI into believing that it is not only human, but FEMALE.
Third, they didn't seem to realize that this made the character -- as presented
in the film -- clearly capable of *passing* Alan Turing's test for true
Artificial Intelligence. They "bought" the AI's "presentation layer" so
thoroughly that they were offended at how a misogynist guy thought of or
treated "her."
Finally, they seem to have missed the ending completely, in terms of how things
work out.
Anyway, I just thought I'd rap about this stuff for a bit, just for fun. The
whole thing -- film plus these women getting their feminist buttons pushed by
it -- has made me think back to the origins of the Turing Test, which was
created as a kind of party game trying to determine whether other players you
can't see and can only communicate with via writing are male or female. Turing
then took that concept and extended it, replacing one of the characters in the
game with a computer.
What I'm left wondering about, in terms of consciousness, is whether these
women would perceive a transsexual as male or female? All they're presented
with, after all, is the same thing they were in the film -- presentation layer.
I still think it's a good film, if anyone else agrees and wants to rap about
it.
From: "TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
To: FairfieldLife <fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 10:48 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Movie review: "Ex Machina"
Finally! After a long, long dry spell with absolutely nothing worth even
writing about, there's finally a movie worth raving about. It;s the directorial
debut of Alex Garland, who in the past has written several interesting films
with sci-fi themes, such as "28 Days Later" and "Sunshine" and "Never Let Me
Go." Suffice it to say this won't be his last film as a director -- Natalie
Portman has already been mentioned as signing on to star in his next movie.
He managed to shoot "Ex Machina" on a budget of only 11 million dollars. That
amount of money would barely have paid for five minutes of the recent
"Avengers: Age Of Ultron," and "Ex Machina" is by far the better movie. It's
intelligent, it's respectful of both the science of AI and the history of
science fiction about AI, and it's got a trio of acting performances that are
among the best of the year.
Domhnall Gleeson (who obviously inherited his father Brendan Gleeson's acting
chops) is tremendous as the young nerd mysteriously transported to an isolated
location to perform a Turing Test on a robot named Ava who just might have
achieved sentience. Oscar Issac is tremendous as the brilliant but more than a
little creepy mega-billionaire who created Ava. And then there is stunningly
beautiful Alicia Vikander as Ava; suffice it to say we'll be seeing a LOT more
of her. The shooting location -- in reality a beautiful eco-resort in Norway --
is almost a fourth main character, and provides a strong backdrop for the film.
I've included a fairly safe, low-spoiler trailer below. Avoid any others,
especially the one on IMDB, because they'll spoil the movie for you. You must
trust me on this. Just dive into this movie and allow it to tell it's own
story, with as few preconceptions as possible. It's the best film I've seen
this year.
Ex Machina - Official International Trailer 1 (Universal Pictures) HD
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| Ex Machina - Official International Trailer 1 (Universal... |
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