Transhumanist Wish Fulfillment

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2015)

Ex Machina, one of the highly critically acclaimed films of 2015 has certainly lived up to the high praises. Like Her (2013) directed by Spike Jonze this film reveals the plan of merging AI with the anima mundi (collective unconscious) of the internet, primarily social networking data, to create a quasi-sentient being. As the prospects of creating a fully sentient AI is impossible, at least at present, this is what the technocrats have decided on.
Now on to the actual movie, the concept is interesting if not somewhat cliché in this era. The acting is quite bland aside from the standout performance from Alicia Vikander who plays the main AI character. The pacing is quite slow most of the time. The suspense only works partially towards the end of the film. All in all a quite mediocre film if one does not understand the symbolism and significance of it's narrative.
As I said at the start this story, although fictional, is very close to what AI is going to become in the near future. Quotes are used intermittently throughout the film to give the intellectuals some stimulation. The sociopathic nature of AI is also displayed in this film as a warning to those who are looking forward to this technology. Now in conclusion I will post some of the mystical connections found in this film.
Ex Machina purposefully leaves the "Deus" out of the title. The classic Latin phrase means "God from the machine," or the God manufactured as the solution to some system or problem, or that emerges out of the world or system. In Ex Machina, the "Deus" is missing because Ava is the "1." In platonic and Pythagorean numerology the One is God and/or the monad, and Ava is making clear the intention of the real-world A.I. planners, to replace the classic notions of "God" and in its place have the first God. In other words, Director/writer Alex Garland is laying out the transhumanist goal, not to dethrone God, but to become God, because there is no God, yet. In Ex Machina, the threat appears to be not a dull, drab HAL 9000, but a sexy, ruthless feminine principle, inverting the traditional order. Ex Machina can thus be read as either a feminist treatise against imagined patriarchal tyranny, or an actual warning of the dangers of the strategically planned and programmed A.I. takeover (because A.I. are not sentient).
Overall I enjoyed Ex Machina, and it's warnings were understood by those who have eyes to see.