After a week of illness that kept me on my back, I got out to see Ex Machina. I won’t spoil it for you, but it is a thought-provoking horror movie that will remind you of Skynet becoming self-aware , that Elon Musk quote (above) about the dangerous possibilities of Artificial Intelligence and what monster slavers we could will become when we create convincing sexbots. Musk might not be wrong, but we are also demons. Right now. As you’re reading this.
Mostly, Ex Machina is about how dangerous we are and our place in the continuum of existence. The self-awareness of AI will make you uncomfortably self-conscious of the evil we can do long past the time your popcorn runs out.
I loved the writing. The slow, grim foreboding builds and the villain of the piece is perfect. One thing I really enjoyed was that we got through the entire movie without speaking the word slavery aloud. There are no extra words in the script and it relies on the audience being smart enough to fill in the blanks. That’s kind of rare, isn’t it? Writers are often too deathly afraid of the dough heads in the audience saying, “I don’t get it.”
I also didn’t recognize a single actor. The Hollywood machine pumps out sequels with faces you’ve seen before (and that’s not all bad), but it was refreshing to see something original, intelligent and well…new.
You’ll see Age of Ultron. Make sure you catch Ex Machina, too.
I am almost fully recovered from my illness and I’m looking forward to sending you updates about my next book, a fresh podcast and the latest developments over the next week. Until then, don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter. We’ll talk.
(And, yes, I want to write about AI and cool robots, too!)