IS on TRANS PARENCY T

Have you seen Ex Machina? Well, I hope you did, because otherwise, I will spoil it for you.

Ex Machina shows us a story of a young man testing an AI’s limits only to end up falling in love with her. She appears to reciprocate his feelings, but in the end, she uses them as a tool to escape her enclosure and live disguised as a human. This series of images depicts Ava - the AI - during her escape.

Even though Ava’s body is not of flesh and bones, she is still a victim of the male gaze, created to fulfill a fantasy of control, subservience, and devotion to her maker.

From her figure to her personality, her sexuality is used as a tool to “humanize” her. But the truth is, robots do not need to be conventionally attractive or sexual to replicate human behavior... unless that’s what you think gives us humanity... there’s a lot to unpack here...

While watching the film it is easy to root for Avawe want her to escape both her physical cage and the illusion of a relationship with Caleb. But when applying the same mindset to our society, we fall short. We are not as progressive as we think: if we could create hyper-intelligent, conscious robots, why do we feel entitled to their service?

Why is this service gender-biased? Why is AI either “rogue” or objectified?

Just take a look at Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant: you trap a bit of Ava in your pocket every day.