In the 2014 film Ex Machina Nathan, a brilliant scientist and entrepreneur, has created an android with artificial intelligence that he calls Ava. She has an artificial “brain” made of blue gel and her programming incorporates millions of interactions on the internet. Nathan invites Caleb, one of his employees, to investigate whether she can pass the so-called Turning test. According to the Turing test, if an interviewer cannot distinguish a human from an artificial life form, then the artificial life form is thinking and has a mind. However, Nathan makes no effort to disguise her metallic limbs, even though her face is indistinguishable from a human. After several days of “interviews” Caleb observes that she exhibits independent thinking, seems self-aware, and seems to exhibit emotional responses. In short she passes the Turing test.
Is Ava a person?
Does she have a mind? Can Ava
think?
