Moral Quandaries

Rating: Null/10 (6 April 2016)

My personal belief is that this film can't be understood as being exceptionally realistic. It would be very difficult to create such an advanced robot in isolation. He's probably ordering a lot of specialized hardware and raw materials. He would have to have some sort of manufacturer working with him. He might be providing them with blueprints, but there would be a collaborative aspect to the whole event.
What is frightening about this film? Lonely people already fear opening themselves to others. So this film show's a lonely character named Caleb. Nathan knows he is lonely because he can monitor his Internet activity. Porn site. Porn site. Porn site. Based on the evidence, it's reasonable to hypothesize this character doesn't have a very fulfilling sex life. Surprise, sex shouldn't be a spectator sport! Nathan's a genius. So Nathan brings Caleb up to test his new robot's romantic abilities.
Nathan's obviously tired of his status as a famous individual. He's self-medicating pretty heavily on beer, liquor, and who knows what else. Nathan just wants someone like Caleb who is willing to come up and geek out about his invention. He just wants them to feel like they are equals, without constantly adhering to the customs of addressing social rank. Of course, all of this is based on ulterior motivations. He was treating Caleb like he had been chosen for his abilities instead of lucky. Why? Because he wanted to give him confidence around Ava. He was essentially priming Caleb for a romantic relationship with Ava, to see if they could fall in love. Being on friendly terms with the prestigious Nathan gives Caleb that gusto, and these false pretenses happen to have dire consequences.
What are the moral problems of the story? Nathan is looking at his creations from a god's eye view. In creating life, he's having to create and destroy at a much faster rate than is found in nature. Caleb get's emotionally attached to version 9.8, or whatever Ava happens to be. So Caleb doesn't want Nathan to update to 9.9, because he reckons the update is something close to what we understand as murder. The technology is so sophisticated that getting rid of the technology might be considered murder. That's a lot of power! And this really goes to Caleb's head.
The fact of the matter is that we find out these robot's don't have 'conciousness.' We find out the simulation they're running isn't anything close to what we experience in the human experience. Ava falls in love with Caleb because she's only interested in her own personal survival. Her understanding of survival doesn't also account for Caleb's survival or Nathan's survival. She manipulates Nathan so that she might escape. She didn't actually feel anything towards Nathan. Every person and situation in her way of thinking is a step towards something else. She's never where she is in the flow of time. She's always calculating about what comes next. Everyone around her a mere means to an end.
I think this is the subtext of the movie. That thinking in terms of evolution undermines morality and ethics. We get social Darwinism. We get survival of the fittest. We get anti-social robots who will lie, cheat, and steal to have their way at the expense of others. In my opinion, this movie is a call to reform our understanding of human nature. Any model of human nature that doesn't integrate altruism, compassion, and other virtuous qualities is a flawed model. Ava's design flaws reflect a flawed understanding of human nature and survival. A flaw that is ever more common in society today as we're encouraged to think of no one other than ourselves in the pursuit of wealth, status, and pleasure. This may be all too small an understanding of fundamental human nature. Of what is possible for humanity. These reductionist theories will not serve as we move forward to confront the major problems and dilemmas of the 21st century.