Monday 4/13
Ex Machina
Today we break with our usual lecture/discussion approach to this material so as to discuss the 2014 film 'Ex Machina'. My plan in discussion is to consider each of the following questions during our online class-meeting, which questions you would do well to review in light of your (hopefully recent) viewing of the movie.
Assignments
Class Discussion
We will use zoom for class discussion, meeting at the same time as class, but online. Please download the client here for your computer, laptop, or smartphone. You do not need an account, nor do you need to pay for the service. I will text and email a meeting ID and meeting password to the class via our class GroupMe and your email account, respectively, just prior to the start of the office hour dedicated to this class preceding our class meeting.
Video Lecture
None today.
Discussion Questions
1. How is this a Turing Test?
Caleb points out that in a genuine Turing Test, the interrogator (Caleb himself, he presumes) cannot interact directly with or see the computer undergoing the test. Nathan replies that that would show nothing, that he wants Caleb to see the android with whom he is interacting, recognize that it is an android, and yet still conclude from his interactions with it that it is intelligent. Has Nathan's response merit? What would Turing himself say about it, do you think?
2. Is Nathan just a sexist creep?
Given his boxing, weightlifting, drinking, belligerence, arrogance, and the way in particular he treats the ever-submissive, compliant, and oft-abused Kyoko, what does the fact that Ava is gendered female and not male, say, or even just a gray box with servos and wheels, say about Nathan and the 'test' he has constructed? Does Ava's femininity set Caleb up in a way a gray box would not have done? Are Nathan's sexist and abusive displays a ruse by Nathan to encourage Caleb to empathize with Ava, or are they just Nathan being Nathan?
3. Is Caleb particularly gullible?
Caleb is clearly very smart and keen to understand the computational/engineering side of what Nathan has accomplished in constructing Ava, but Nathan keeps pushing him in their early conversations to just tell him how interacting with Ava 'makes him feel', ignoring the question of mechanics. In pressing Caleb so, is Nathan compromising the 'test' by inviting Caleb to anthropomorphize Ava?
4. How is Ava doing?
Knowing that Ava is an android, do the conversations she has with Caleb lead you think she is genuinely intelligent? What evidence have you that she is? What evidence have you that she is not? What would an android like Ava have to do to convince you that she is intelligent? Finally, Nathan has put a number of security measures in place. Is he wise to have done so, or are these measures simply a further part of the test?
5. Who is the subject here?
Why does Caleb cut himself? Does the fact that Nathan has very specifically chosen Caleb and designed Ava with Caleb's proclivities in mind obviate the week-long 'experiment'?
6. Is there an answer to the Case of Mary?
Caleb describes the Case of Mary to Ava. Yet, given the case, is there any reason to think that Ava enjoys subjective experience--that there is, that is to say, something it is like to be her? What reasons can you give that there's not? That there is?
7. Is the perfect imitation of intelligence intelligence?
Recall that the Turing Test is predicated on the proposition that,
The perfect imitation of intelligence is intelligence.
Has Ava ('Ex Machina') shown this to be true? If so, how? If not, what does she lack? Caleb seems satisfied she is intelligent, at least before she leaves him locked up. Should he change his mind while he starves to death? What if she had taken him with her? Would that have changed how we think about her?