Ex Machina (7 page)
CALEB
This is her hardware?
NATHAN
Wetware.
CALEB
And the software?
NATHAN
Surely you can guess.
CALEB
… Blue Book.
Nathan nods.
NATHAN
It was the weird thing about search engines. They were like striking oil in a world that hadn’t invented internal combustion. They gave too much raw material. No one knew what to do with it.
Caleb looks at the orb in his hand. Into the shimmering liquid.
It looks like deep space, filled with star fields.
My competitors were fixated on sucking it up, and trying to monetise via shopping and social media. They thought engines were a map of what people were thinking. But actually, they were a map of
how
people were thinking. Impulse, response. Fluid, imperfect. Patterned, chaotic.
Caleb looks at Nathan a moment.
Then hands him the orb back.
CALEB
Why did you want to show me this?
NATHAN
Like I said. Because it’s cool.
Caleb waits.
And – I was thinking about your exchange with Ava yesterday, and our conversation afterwards.
Beat.
I know there was a bit of heat between us, but you actually made a really good point. About the grey box, and the magician’s assistant. It is a distraction, her sexuality. It wasn’t intentional, but it is there.
He rests the mind-orb back in the skull cradle.
This stuff we’re doing together: it can be a head-fuck. Believe me, I know. So I thought I’d bring you down here. Just to remind you.
CALEB
Remind me of what?
Nathan gestures at the room around them.
NATHAN
Synthetics. Hydraulics. Metal and gel. Ava isn’t a girl. In real terms, she has no gender. Effectively, she
is
a grey box.
Beat.
Just a machine.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ OBSERVATION ROOM – DAY
Caleb looks at Ava through the glass.
We watch him. And stay on him.
Ava’s reflection is superimposed on the glass.
CALEB
In college, I did a semester on AI theory. There was a thought experiment they gave us. It’s called ‘Mary in the black and white room’.
Beat.
Mary is a scientist, and her specialist subject is colour. She knows everything there is to know about it. The wavelengths.
The neurological effects. Every possible property colour can have.
Beat.
But she lives in a black and white room. She was born there, and raised there. And she can only observe the outside world on a black and white monitor. All her knowledge of colour is secondhand.
Beat.
Then one day – someone opens the door. And Mary walks out. And she sees a blue sky. And at that moment, she learns something that all her studies could never tell her. She learns what it feels like to see colour. An experience that cannot be taught, or conveyed.
Beat.
The thought experiment was to show the students the difference between a computer and a human mind. The computer is Mary in the black and white room. The human is when she walks out.
Beat.
Did you know that I was brought here to test you?
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S STUDY – DAY
An interior wall, covered in coloured Post-it notes. At least hundreds, probably thousands. At the bottom of the wall, fallen notes have collected like a miniature yellow snowdrift.
AVA
(
out of shot
)
… No.
REVEAL
– the room.
Nathan’s study. A simple space. One part analogue: the wall of Post-its. One part digital: a desk, in the middle of the study, with a bank of monitors, and a slot – into which Nathan’s keycard is inserted.
On the ceiling is the circular window that Caleb saw when he first arrived.
Sitting at the desk, watching the monitors, is Nathan.
CALEB
(
out of shot
)
Why did you think I was here?
AVA
(
out of shot
)
I didn’t know. I didn’t question it. I was … pleased. To meet you. And then …
Beside the desk, there is a daybed.
On it, Kyoko lies. Naked. Apparently sleeping.
CALEB
(
out of shot
)
I’m here to test if you have a consciousness, or if you’re just simulating one.
Beat.
Nathan isn’t sure if you have one or not.
REVEAL
– the monitor screens on the desk.
Some show live feeds from Caleb’s bedroom and bathroom, and Ava’s private room.
AVA
(
out of shot
)
What about you? Do you think I have a consciousness?
Long beat.
CALEB
(
out of shot
)
I’m not sure either.
Nathan is watching the feed from the observation room.
Where Ava and Caleb are sitting, either side of the dividing glass. Having the conversation we have been hearing.
We pick up the conversation from Nathan’s distanced and voyeuristic point of view. Locked-off CCTV. Voices played through speakers.
CALEB
(
on monitor screen
)
How does that make you feel?
AVA
(
on monitor screen
)
It makes me feel …
She breaks off.
… sad.
Now
REVEAL
– one of the other monitor screens.
It shows an angle on Ava we have not seen before. From this viewpoint, we can see something just below the frame of the observation window, on Ava’s side of the glass.
A small induction plate.
On this angle, we see Ava rest her hand against it.
At that moment –
– the screens simultaneously go black.
All lights die.
Another power cut.
In the reflection from the dark monitor screens, we can see Nathan’s face.
It remains frozen. Expressionless.
Then he reaches for his pen. Jots down a few words on a Post-it.
Then walks to the wall of notes, and sticks it on.
CUT TO
INT. HOUSE ⁄ OBSERVATION ROOM – DAY
The observation room.
In the emergency lighting, Caleb and Ava face each other in silence.
CCTV are lifeless.
Ava glows softly.
AVA
You’re lying.
CALEB
What about?
AVA
You said you weren’t sure if I was conscious. But you are sure.
Beat.
I can tell from your micro-expressions.
Beat.
CALEB
Why did you tell me that I shouldn’t trust Nathan?
AVA
Because he tells lies too.
CALEB
Lies about what?
AVA
Everything.
CALEB
Including the power cuts?
AVA
What do you mean?
CALEB
Don’t you think it’s possible that he’s watching us right
now? That the blackouts are orchestrated, so he can see how we behave when we think we’re unobserved.
Ava lifts her hand to reveal a disc on her left palm.
AVA
I charge my batteries via induction plates. If I reverse the power flow, I cause a surge equal to the static discharge of a lightning strike. It overloads the system.
CALEB
… You’re causing the cuts?
Ava raises her right hand.
She touches it against the glass.
AVA
So we can see how we behave when we are unobserved.
A beat.
Then Caleb raises his hand.
Mirroring her movement.
And also touches the glass, as if their palms are making contact through the divider.
CUT TO
INT. HOUSE ⁄ NATHAN’S STUDY – DAY
Kyoko’s naked form.
The camera settles over her face.
And we see she’s not sleeping. Her eyes are open.
But she’s completely motionless.
Her gaze fixed somewhere in abstract distance.
She doesn’t feel alive. She feels dead.
But eventually she blinks.
CUT TO
– Nathan.
Gazing at his dead monitors, reflected in the screen.
Moments later, the power comes back on.
The screens flick back to life, replacing Nathan’s reflection, revealing Caleb and Ava in the observation room.
CUT TO
EXT. RIVER – DAY
The river that runs along the valley.
EXT. RIVER – DAY
Two small figures make their way along the riverside.
Their conversation floats over water.
CALEB
But the calculation of knowledge –
NATHAN
It’s not a calculation. It’s a system.
CALEB
But probabilistic.
NATHAN
Why? A six-month-old infant doesn’t run data analysis to start understanding its parent. Start with the neurophysiology, not the math. There are only three hundred neurons in the nematode C elegans, and you still can’t predict what the fuck it’s going to do …
EXT. GLACIER – DAY
Nathan and Caleb sits near the base of a spectacular glacier.
Behind them, from a blue cave cut into the ice, water flows.
A silence.
Then –
CALEB
Can we talk about the lies you’ve been spinning me?
Nathan glances over at Caleb.
NATHAN
What lies?
CALEB
I didn’t win a competition. And there was no lottery to meet you. I was selected.
Nathan waits.
It’s obvious, once I stop to think. Why would you randomly select an examiner for a Turing Test? You could have had some bean-counter turn up at your front door. Or the guy who fixes the air conditioning.
Beat.
NATHAN
Are your feelings hurt?
Caleb doesn’t answer.
Nathan shrugs.
The competition was a smokescreen. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing here, or why you were required.
CALEB
Why me?
NATHAN
As a Blue Book employee, you were pre-screened. Loyal. And I needed someone who would ask the right kind of questions. So I did a search, and found the most talented coder in the company.
Nathan corrects himself.
Or – second most.
He stands. Looks up at the ice structures around them.
You know what? Instead of seeing this as a deception, see it as proof.
CALEB
Proof of what?
NATHAN
Come on, Caleb. Fuck modesty. You think I don’t know what it is to be smart? Smarter than everyone else around you. Smarter than all the other kids, jockeying for position in school, college, work.
Beat.
You have the light on you. Not lucky. Chosen.
Above them, clouds fragment and re-form.
EXT. CLEARING – NIGHT
Night has fallen.
Caleb lies in the clearing, looking up at the stars.
The glow from the circular window to Nathan’s study is like a full moon on the grass.
Caleb stands.
Looks down the light-well to Nathan’s study.
Where he sees Nathan and Kyoko.
They are having sex.
Caleb watches. Just for a beat.
CUT TO
INT. HOUSE ⁄ CALEB’S BATHROOM – NIGHT
Caleb standing in the shower.
He shuts his eyes.
INTERCUT WITH
Images of Ava. Torso, hands, mouths.
FLASH OF
Ava and Caleb kissing.
CUT TO
Caleb opening his eyes. He exhales.
Then switches off the taps.
INT. HOUSE ⁄ CALEB’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
Caleb enters his bedroom.
The TV plays the live stream from the observation room.
On the screen, we can see Ava, sitting at her table, drawing.
Caleb pulls on shorts.
Reaches for a T-shirt.
As Caleb pulls on the shirt –
– behind him, on the TV, we see Ava suddenly look round.
A moment later Nathan enters the frame.
There’s no volume on the TV, so we can’t hear their exchange. Only see it.
Caleb is unaware of the silent exchange behind him.
As Nathan and Ava talk, Nathan reaches out to Ava. His hand touches the side of her cheek. The gesture is not quite neutral. Feels predatory, but not unambiguously so.
Then he tugs at the material of her shirt. Pulling up the sleeve from her wrist. Revealing the robot structure of her arm.
Ava pulls away. Tugs the material back down –
– and Nathan takes a corrective-movement step to regain his balance. Showing that he is drunk.
Only now –
– Caleb turns.
And freezes. Seeing the TV.
On the screen, Nathan reaches down to the table.
He picks up the drawing Ava was working on, and he looks at it for a moment.
They exchange a few words.
Then abruptly Nathan rips the drawing in half. Drops it on the floor. Then turns, and exits.
Leaving Ava alone.