Debating the ethics and morality of artificial intelligence before machines do it on our behalf.

Written by Steve Pitcher

Have you ever seen Ex Machina? If you haven’t, here’s your spoiler alert in advance.

It’s a 2015 movie about a young programmer named Caleb Smith who wins a corporate contest to spend a week with the CEO of his company in a secluded, high-dollar fortress home in the middle of nowhere. Now, the most unrealistic part of the movie would be the initial premise: someone actually wanting to win a week-long one-on-one trip to their CEO’s home in the middle of nowhere. The CEO has built an attractive humanoid robot named Ava with artificial intelligence (AI), and the purpose of Caleb’s visit is to impartially evaluate Ava to determine if she is capable of independent thought and consciousness.