The Best Movies You’ve Never Seen podcast – Ex Machina

Best Movies You’ve Never Seen
Episode: Ex Machina
Date: July 31, 2026
Hosts: Stephen Fenech & Trevor Long

[00:01:43] Stephen Fenech: Hello, welcome to The Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, thanks to Fetch and Hisense. We’ll talk more about them later, but this is a movie show about movies that I love. My name is Stephen Fenech. Movies that I’ve seen many times, and movies though that my co-host Trevor Long have never seen, hence the name of this show, uh, and this is, I think, probably one of the best examples of a movie that you’ve probably never heard of and never seen.

[00:02:05] Stephen Fenech: Trevor Welcome.

[00:02:08] Trevor Long: Great to be with you. I think that might apply to a lot of people.

[00:02:10] Stephen Fenech: A lot of them. Yeah, well, this was released in 2014. We’re talking about, of course, Ex Machina. That’s how I’m going to pronounce it.

[00:02:17] Trevor Long: Yeah, I think that’s right.

[00:02:18] Stephen Fenech: And just a warning, there is some explicit language in some of the audio we’re going to play. Was released in 2014, so not that old, right? Starring Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, and Alicia Vikander. Written and directed by Andrew Garland. Garland. Garland.

[00:02:35] Trevor Long: I know that name.

[00:02:36] Stephen Fenech: He’s written, he’s written screenplays, and this was his directorial debut on this movie. Now, he described this— you got to remember, so we’re recording this in 2026.

[00:02:50] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:02:50] Stephen Fenech: So 12 years ago when this hit the screen, so they made it in 2013, released in 2014. And at the time, he said it— he described the future presented in the film as being his quote, 10 minutes from now. And that was 12 years ago, more so I think even now. And he said, if somebody like Google or Apple announced tomorrow that they had made Ava, which is the AI robot, would we all be surprised? But we wouldn’t be that surprised.

[00:03:24] Trevor Long: No.

[00:03:25] Stephen Fenech: So, and I think now it’s more, that’s more relevant now than it was 12 years ago.

[00:03:29] Trevor Long: Likely. Yeah.

[00:03:30] Stephen Fenech: Now, the title Ex Machina derives from the Latin phrase Deus ex machina, which means a god from the machine. Oh, that’s what that phrase refers to. So a phrase that originated in Greek comedies. So an actor playing God would be— would come down via a platform. That’s the machine. Solve the character’s issues and result in a happy ending. That’s the basis of it.

[00:04:01] Trevor Long: Righty-o.

[00:04:01] Stephen Fenech: Now, had you heard of this?

[00:04:02] Trevor Long: Got nothing.

[00:04:03] Stephen Fenech: Seen it?

[00:04:03] Trevor Long: Nothing. Nothing.

[00:04:04] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:04:05] Trevor Long: So you literally— this is— yeah, I’m blinded by any thought of this.

[00:04:10] Stephen Fenech: And so, but at the time, were you— when you eventually watched it, were you surprised that, okay, well, this is pretty relevant? Is it?

[00:04:17] Trevor Long: Blown away by it. I don’t want to give you up the first impression. I think that’s what’s quite remarkable about it, how this could be released today.

[00:04:23] Stephen Fenech: How was your— what was your thumbnail?

[00:04:26] Trevor Long: It was like the, the, the side-ish profile of Ava. It was like a big Ava, right?

[00:04:31] Stephen Fenech: And no one else.

[00:04:32] Trevor Long: I don’t know, I can’t remember. I just remember seeing that for me.

[00:04:35] Stephen Fenech: I’ll watch this on 4K. That was the COVID right?

[00:04:38] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:04:38] Stephen Fenech: Well, this movie won two— it was Oscar nominated, two Oscar nominations.

[00:04:44] Trevor Long: Pretty good.

[00:04:45] Stephen Fenech: One win.

[00:04:46] Trevor Long: Oh really? Uh, oh, visual effects, correct?

[00:04:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, visual.

[00:04:49] Trevor Long: I mean, you spend a lot of time going, how the— what the—

[00:04:52] Stephen Fenech: yeah.

[00:04:52] Stephen Fenech: Well, the It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and Alex Garland lost to Spotlight.

[00:04:59] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:05:00] Stephen Fenech: Which is like a movie about true story about a newspaper investigation of pedophiles and in the Catholic Church.

[00:05:08] Trevor Long: Yeah, right.

[00:05:09] Stephen Fenech: The massive movie. But this did win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. And what made that even more remarkable is that the movie, the visual effects had a $15 million budget. That’s not a lot compared to— yeah, the other nominees in the category: The Revenant, $135 million.

[00:05:32] Trevor Long: Jesus.

[00:05:33] Stephen Fenech: Mad Max: Fury Road, $150 million budget. Star Wars: The Force Awakens Episode VII, $200 million budget.

[00:05:43] Trevor Long: Budget for effects or budget overall?

[00:05:45] Stephen Fenech: For— I think it’s budget overall. So the Academy—

[00:05:49] Trevor Long: they pulled this off.

[00:05:50] Stephen Fenech: That—

[00:05:50] Trevor Long: well, the absolute money is crazy.

[00:05:52] Stephen Fenech: They, they reckon that where everyone assumed it was going to be The Force Awakens to win. It was heavily favored, but most the, the speculation was that the Academy— they— the win was because it got strong support from the acting wing of the Academy because it was a very performance-centric.

[00:06:12] Trevor Long: Yeah, so instead of, instead of creating characters like machines and things, they— it was a— it was sort of augmented thing that was augmented by—

[00:06:20] Stephen Fenech: and she still gave a great performance.

[00:06:22] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:06:23] Stephen Fenech: So I think that’s the reason why the, the the purists in the Academy thought, yes, that’s what it is. Rather than just, you know, showing us fireworks, it sort of— it combined the performance with the special effects.

[00:06:34] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s fair.

[00:06:35] Stephen Fenech: Righto, this is your last exit before the freeway. We’re going to take a deep dive into Ex Machina. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it through Fetch and a bunch of movies available on Fetch.

[00:06:44] Trevor Long: And you know what, as a Fetch subscriber— and Fetch, by the way, for as little as $3.99 a month, you get a bunch of features including 30 free on-demand movies every single month. So every day there’s a new movie, and these movies aren’t just, you know, some catalog movies. There’s a bunch of absolute crackers, and it’s fun to browse through. So basically, there will always be something for you to watch, for you and your family, every single night. If you decide tonight, let’s just watch a movie, it’s there for you. And that’s a great feature of the Fetch system. Every single day of the week, you can watch Bohemian Rhapsody right now, and that’s a great movie. I have seen that, Stephen.

[00:07:21] Stephen Fenech: Yes, we’ve done it on the show.

[00:07:22] Trevor Long: And alongside that, there’s obviously over at 11,000 movies that you can rent or buy, plus all the movies that are in your streaming services as well, because all the best streaming services are on Fetch, including HBO Max. So look it up now— Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV, Prime Video, Paramount+, Stan, many more. Check them out, and you can find the details at fetchtv.com.au.

[00:07:44] Stephen Fenech: Okay, you’ve now watched Ex Machina. You did send me the hostage photo of the screenshot, so I do know that you were— it was on your telly. What was your first impression?

[00:07:55] Trevor Long: I mean, it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I don’t know, I can’t remember exactly what you told me last week, but I feel like you told me that it was sci-fi-ish. It had a bit of a futuristic vibe.

[00:08:03] Stephen Fenech: I think I said it could have been made last year.

[00:08:06] Trevor Long: Yeah, but I knew that it was not like reality, so I was nervous that it was going to be Space Invaders or your stupid Star Wars, whatever. Um, but yeah, so the surprising thing to me was the relevance. Yeah, like, I don’t think you could watch this today and not go, what, when was this made?

[00:08:23] Stephen Fenech: Like, 2014?

[00:08:24] Trevor Long: No, but that anyone watching this today would think it was made last year. Yeah, did I just miss this? Is the cinema—

[00:08:30] Stephen Fenech: it was ahead of its time.

[00:08:31] Trevor Long: Yeah, no question. And the AI questions it poses are fascinating.

[00:08:36] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s great. And what’s your social media post with this?

[00:08:39] Trevor Long: On this one, Ex Machina isn’t at all what the COVID poster makes you think. It’s a lot less sci-fi and a lot more AI. And given it’s 12 years old, it’s fascinating how relevant it is, perhaps more so than ever. Well worth a watch.

[00:08:53] Stephen Fenech: Righto. Well, I saw this at the movies, so surprise, surprise, watched it a few times since. Watched my last watch was on 4K. I bought it on 4K and it had the COVID that you described with Ava and her. I’ll tell you now how they did those effects.

[00:09:08] Trevor Long: That’s all.

[00:09:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they put little green screens on her. Yes, this is how I understood it.

[00:09:12] Trevor Long: So yeah, but see, on a head, I think most people now know what a green screen is, right? You can put a box up and you can put anything in there. But the challenge isn’t to just cover the pieces you want to be green, it’s to make the graphic follow, like to be part of the person, you know, that’s what’s so remarkable about it.

[00:09:28] Stephen Fenech: She sort of wore like a cap and little sleeves, you know, you couldn’t see her arms.

[00:09:33] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:09:33] Stephen Fenech: Even part of her stomach was all—

[00:09:34] Trevor Long: I’d love to know if there’s a behind the scenes on that disc.

[00:09:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, there is, there is, yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk about the cast. Oscar Isaac plays Nathan, the gazillionaire inventor. He was in The Force Awakens.

[00:09:49] Trevor Long: He’s your Google founder basically, yep, go on.

[00:09:51] Stephen Fenech: He’s also in A Most Violent Year.

[00:09:54] Trevor Long: Right.

[00:09:55] Stephen Fenech: He was in another film called Inside Llewyn Davis. Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb, and he also was in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, same as Oscar Isaac. They were in all the Star Wars prequels, the sequels.

[00:10:09] Trevor Long: Right. Yeah.

[00:10:09] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:10:10] Stephen Fenech: He was also— Domhnall Gleeson was in a great movie which we’ll do, we’ll get to. It’s called About Time. It’s a little quirky time travel love story.

[00:10:18] Trevor Long: It’s really good. Is it about time, or is the movie— It’s called About Time.

[00:10:22] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. No, the movie’s called About Time, and it’s about a time travel relationship and time travel.

[00:10:28] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:10:28] Stephen Fenech: Uh, he was also in The Revenant, uh, opposite, uh, Leonardo DiCaprio, which is definitely on our list. Alicia Vikander plays Ava. She was in a film called The Danish Girl, The Man from UNCLE. She was also, uh, in Tomb Raider. Do you remember years ago they made an— Angelina Jolie was the original Lara Croft. The most recent, uh, remake was Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft.

[00:10:54] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:10:54] Stephen Fenech: She was also also in Jason Bourne as well. The, the most— the last movie that Matt Damon made, right?

[00:11:01] Trevor Long: Yeah, Damon Bourne.

[00:11:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s correct. Right, oh, before we get to the top scenes and the run-through, let’s have a chat of our other great sponsor, and that is Hisense. And I am currently experiencing the amazing XR10. Beautiful triple laser projector. And this is a 4K projector with 6,000 lumens. That’s the brightness measure, which means it’s bright. So you could easily, even, even with the lights on, you can see the screen quite clearly. So it has optical zoom as well. This, this can go up to 300 inches. If you’ve got the space, you can have a 300-inch screen. It does have optical zoom, which means for a projector nerd like myself, that means you can get a bigger picture in a smaller space. Like normal projectors, you’ve got a, the, the what they call the throw length. If you want a bigger screen, it means you’ve got to take the projector way back further from the wall, so you’ll need a big room to get a big picture. With this, the optical zoom allows you to keep the quality, but using that optical zoom, you’re getting a bigger picture in a smaller space, which is a breakthrough as well. Also has lens shift, so if you want to mount this on the ceiling or have it on a coffee table, it does, uh, does aim at the wall and correct itself to autofocus. Everything is done for you as well. And of course, everything on board that you’d expect from a Hisense TV, including the VIDAA operating system, is all there. So you’ve got access to all of your streaming services. There’s speakers on board as well, so it’s the whole package for you to enjoy a big screen experience. So all the movies we talk about here on the show, you can watch them in all their glory with the Hisense XR10. Check it out, go to their website hisense.com.au. Right, uh, let’s jump in here. And the film starts with Caleb— we meet Caleb Smith. He’s a 26, uh, 26-year-old coder, a sort of Google-like tech company named Blue Book. Um, his screen flashes with a notification And we find out that he’s won a company-wide lottery.

[00:13:04] Trevor Long: And like the idea of winning a comp— but it’s in the prize is a week-long stay with the founder, this reclusive CEO. Right. I don’t know. Is that enticing? Is that a good thing? Well, straight up, I’m like, I don’t know.

[00:13:16] Stephen Fenech: Well, his estate is in a pretty nice place.

[00:13:18] Trevor Long: I know that. But, you know, it’s still— well, I’d be very nervous.

[00:13:22] Stephen Fenech: Well, I think it’s— yeah, it would be. I think if you win a competition like that, you think, well, you know, you, you, you’ve— it’s— you’re going to be somewhere where you normally wouldn’t be able to experience. Yeah, so you’re going to have an experience and no one else is going to have.

[00:13:36] Trevor Long: We know that the founder is also a nerd, so it’s probably not a bad thing.

[00:13:40] Stephen Fenech: CEO Nathan Bateman is his name. So Caleb travels via helicopter over glaciers and forest and thinking, where does this guy live? The pilot drops him off in a remote clearing, telling him he’s got to make the rest of the journey on foot, which is a short distance away. He approaches these sleek modern home embedded into the natural landscape. Did you see that?

[00:14:02] Trevor Long: Oh yeah, gorgeous.

[00:14:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s great.

[00:14:03] Trevor Long: Like, I— have you looked this up? Like, is it a—

[00:14:05] Stephen Fenech: yes, is it an Airbnb or something? Okay, to tell you, yeah, uh, he goes inside, automated security system scans him and assigns him a key card.

[00:14:14] Trevor Long: It’s like an instant printout key card with your photo on it. It’s very cool.

[00:14:17] Stephen Fenech: Good to check into a hotel that fast.

[00:14:19] Trevor Long: Oh my God, it’s my number one gripe in the world.

[00:14:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, okay, my little interjections is called— they’re going to be called software bugs.

[00:14:26] Trevor Long: I like it. Software bug is one of your better ones.

[00:14:29] Stephen Fenech: The location of the house in the movie is the Juvet Landscape Hotel in Norway.

[00:14:37] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:14:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s where that is. So if you want to experience that place, you need to go to Norway.

[00:14:42] Trevor Long: Would you take—

[00:14:42] Stephen Fenech: it wasn’t an airplane.

[00:14:43] Trevor Long: That’s a retirement trip, don’t you know? What’s Norway?

[00:14:46] Stephen Fenech: I could kill two birds here because Norway is where they also filmed, um, Empire Strikes Back.

[00:14:51] Trevor Long: Oh my God.

[00:14:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. So I have to go the wintertime though, the snow. That was the Hoff.

[00:14:55] Trevor Long: Had to happen. Okay.

[00:14:57] Stephen Fenech: Caleb finds Nathan, he’s hitting the punching bag. Nathan introduced himself.

[00:15:03] Trevor Long: Because Nathan’s, by the way, is not there just greeting him when he comes in. Nathan’s just doing his own normal thing. It’s a very weird way to approach.

[00:15:09] Stephen Fenech: I do like that he says, look, can we just— I know, you know, it’s a big deal that you’re meeting me and can we just be two guys here? And I kind of like that.

[00:15:19] Trevor Long: Yeah, he’s trying to cut through that.

[00:15:20] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, he tries to break the ice.

[00:15:21] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:15:22] Stephen Fenech: He realizes though that the facility is not just his home but a research lab.

[00:15:27] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:15:27] Stephen Fenech: And then he says, you need to sign an NDA. He goes, it’s not your usual NDA, but if you don’t sign it, you’re going to regret it, basically. And we know NDAs as well.

[00:15:37] Trevor Long: We’ve signed a few in our time. This bloke’s very nervous about signing this NDA.

[00:15:39] Stephen Fenech: It’s a pretty solid NDA. And he goes, ah, stuff it, I’m just going to do it. So he signs it. So Nathan then reveals that he has built an artificial intelligence and wants Caleb to perform a Turing test.

[00:15:56] Movie Audio: So, do you know what the Turing test is?

[00:16:03] Movie Audio: Yeah, I know what the Turing test is. It’s when a human interacts with a computer, and if the human doesn’t know they’re interacting with a computer, the test is passed.

[00:16:19] Movie Audio: And what does the pass tell us?

[00:16:21] Movie Audio: That the computer has artificial intelligence. Are you building an AI?

[00:16:27] Movie Audio: I’ve already built one. And over the next few days, you’re gonna be the human component in the Turing test.

[00:16:34] Movie Audio: Holy shit.

[00:16:35] Movie Audio: Yeah, that’s right, Caleb. You got it.

[00:16:37] Trevor Long: He’s glad he signed it.

[00:16:39] Movie Audio: ‘Cause if that test is passed, you are dead center of the greatest scientific event in the history of man.

[00:16:47] Movie Audio: If you’ve created a conscious machine, it’s not the history of man. That’s the history of gods.

[00:16:54] Stephen Fenech: Huge. It’s a big deal.

[00:16:56] Trevor Long: And you get the sense there. Okay, now Caleb’s on board. Like, yeah, he was nervous. He didn’t— I don’t think he liked that environment. Yeah, he was. He was nervous to meet the boss. That was well played out. But it was also just a weird environment.

[00:17:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:17:08] Trevor Long: And then this whole NDA thing, this is not good.

[00:17:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:17:10] Trevor Long: So this is the moment where he’s on board. If this was— remember the worm in election voting. Yeah, if there was a worm of his, you know, keenness— this was it. I think this is the moment of the absolute peak of his time there. Yeah, frankly, from there on it’s downhill.

[00:17:25] Stephen Fenech: So, uh, Caleb points out that a true Turing test requires the machine to be hidden so the judge doesn’t know it’s a robot. Yeah, but then Nathan says that he wants Caleb to know exactly what she is yet still feel she possesses true consciousness.

[00:17:40] Trevor Long: I’m with Caleb here though, that just defeats the whole purpose of this Turing test.

[00:17:44] Stephen Fenech: Seeing it, seeing her. Yeah. So session 1, do you like how each day session 1, they go up to session 7? Yep. Session 1, he enters— some of them less sessions than others, but anyway, maybe he enters a glass-walled observation room and on the other side we see Ava for the first time.

[00:17:59] Trevor Long: Her memory notices like a broken bit of the wall.

[00:18:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, there’s like a crack in the wall, glass there. What’s happening? Someone’s had a tanty. So her body is a beautiful transparent mesh of chrome and fiber optics through her face.

[00:18:12] Trevor Long: Gorgeous design. They’ve really done that well because The thing, and this is why it’s a visual effect that’s Oscar-winning, because of the transparency of it. Yeah, yeah. Because to do that, they don’t just have to do the green screen on her, they have to have filmed shots of the entire room as well to have the transparency. It’s like the old Invisible Man thing, you know, it’ll work. Yeah, it worked very well done.

[00:18:31] Stephen Fenech: So her hands, face, and feet are covered in synthetic skin, but we can see through other parts of her body. She’s polite, deeply curious, and reveals she knows facts about Caleb. But when Caleb asks if she knows what happens if she fails the test, a sudden blackout hits the facility. So the, the, uh, the emergency lights flash, and she’s— she— we’ll, we’ll talk— I’ll tell you later about what, what she says to him. But that was their first encounter. I think we learned that, you know, occasionally the power goes out. That’s basically all that’s said. But afterwards, Nathan’s really curious, and he grills him on, uh, on what are his first impressions.

[00:19:17] Movie Audio: When you talk to her, you’re just through the looking glass.

[00:19:22] Movie Audio: Through the looking glass. Wow, you’re good with words, Caleb.

[00:19:26] Stephen Fenech: You’re quotable.

[00:19:27] Movie Audio: Actually, that’s someone else’s quote.

[00:19:28] Movie Audio: You know, I wrote down that other line you came up with, the one about how if I’ve invented a machine with consciousness, I’m not a man, I’m God.

[00:19:36] Movie Audio: I don’t think that’s exactly—

[00:19:37] Movie Audio: I just thought, fuck, man, that It’s so good when we get to tell the story, you know? I turned to Caleb and he looked up at me and he said, “You’re not a man, you’re a god.” Yeah, but I didn’t say that.

[00:19:50] Stephen Fenech: So, anyway.

[00:19:52] Trevor Long: You’re impressed. Yes, yes.

[00:20:00] Stephen Fenech: Although.

[00:20:00] Movie Audio: Although? There’s a qualification to you being impressed?

[00:20:04] Movie Audio: No, there’s no qualification to her. It’s just in the Turing test, the machine should be hidden from the examiner.

[00:20:12] Movie Audio: No, no, no, we’re way past that. If I hid Ava from you so you just heard her voice, she would pass for human. The real test is to show you that she’s a robot and then see if you still feel she has consciousness.

[00:20:23] Movie Audio: Yeah, I think you’re probably right.

[00:20:25] Stephen Fenech: So that’s that one. But interesting, you get a bit of a glimpse of his personality. He’s thinking, oh yeah, he said I’m a god. And you go, did I really say that?

[00:20:33] Trevor Long: He’s ready. He’s got his own reality distortion thing. The thing you realize about Nathan is he’s, he’s not actually here for the test. He’s thinking about the next step, which is the publicity, and that he’s loving this line about being a god.

[00:20:43] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. Uh, this is an interesting part where, you know, we see Caleb’s got his own room and he points out all the different things in it, and he wakes up and sees Kyoko, this beautiful housemaid, uh, in his room, so like tidying up. And she’s living in the, at the estate. She comes into play later. Uh, session 2, uh, Ava asks Caleb about his childhood. They’re building a real nice rapport.

[00:21:08] Trevor Long: And so this is where as a 2026 human viewer, you start to go, I could see this. Like, I feel like even 12 years ago you would be going, this is interesting. But today you’re like, because if I ask Claude or ChatGPT, you know, to let’s have a conversation, just open conversation, it will ask questions like this. Like, of course, legitimately. Yeah, this is real.

[00:21:31] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:21:31] Trevor Long: Apart from the humanoid robot part of it.

[00:21:33] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:21:34] Trevor Long: The intelligence part is pretty good.

[00:21:36] Stephen Fenech: So this first session, now this is when the red lights flash. I made a mistake earlier. This is when they, they flash. And in the dark, so the lights go out, red, red sort of emergency lights. Ava stares directly at Caleb and whispers this: Caleb.

[00:22:02] Movie Audio: You’re wrong.

[00:22:05] Movie Audio: Wrong about what?

[00:22:06] Movie Audio: Nathan.

[00:22:10] Movie Audio: In what way?

[00:22:13] Movie Audio: He isn’t your friend.

[00:22:17] Movie Audio: Excuse me? I’m sorry, Ava, I don’t understand.

[00:22:25] Movie Audio: You shouldn’t trust him. You shouldn’t trust anything he says. Power restored.

[00:22:34] Stephen Fenech: What? So what we established here, whenever there’s the power—

[00:22:38] Trevor Long: she’s the one causing the power glitches.

[00:22:40] Stephen Fenech: Yes, but we also learn that the, the, all the cameras are off, and that’s kind of a private moment that they can have.

[00:22:46] Trevor Long: Well, he— I don’t think he believes that for at first, but then when Nathan asks him about what happened in that time, he starts to think maybe he doesn’t know what’s happening in that moment. So it’s pretty, uh, pretty fascinating.

[00:22:58] Stephen Fenech: Nathan and Caleb now discuss how Ava was created. They— he goes into this lab and that they show a few things, and, uh, they’re like a synthetic brain and all that. But Nathan then makes a shocking admission.

[00:23:13] Movie Audio: Every cell phone, just about, has a microphone, camera, and a means to transmit data. So I turned on every microphone and camera across the entire fucking planet, and I redirected the data through Blue Book. Boom. Limitless resource of vocal and facial interaction.

[00:23:32] Movie Audio: You hacked the world’s cell phones?

[00:23:34] Movie Audio: Yeah, and all the manufacturers knew I was doing it too. But they couldn’t accuse me without admitting they were doing it themselves. Here we have her mind. Structured gel. I had to get away from circuitry. I needed something that could arrange and rearrange on a molecular level but keep its form when required. Holding for memories, shifting for thoughts.

[00:24:06] Movie Audio: This is her hardware.

[00:24:08] Trevor Long: Wetware.

[00:24:11] Movie Audio: In the— uh, in the software?

[00:24:14] Movie Audio: Well, I’m sure you can guess.

[00:24:17] Movie Audio: Blue Book.

[00:24:20] Movie Audio: It was the weird thing about search engines. It was like striking oil in a world that hadn’t invented internal combustion. Too much raw material. Nobody knew what to do with it. You see, my competitors, they were fixated on sucking it up and monetizing via shopping in social media. They thought that search engines were a map of what people were thinking, but actually they were a map of how people were thinking.

[00:24:45] Trevor Long: See, that whole scene is just a set-off for conspiracy theorists, my wife included, who thinks her phone’s listening to her at all times. A lot of people think that. It’s such a big thing that people think. And so to— I know it’s a movie, but to hear it, it really sets people off.

[00:25:01] Stephen Fenech: And it was with the manufacturer’s permission.

[00:25:03] Trevor Long: Yes, because they’re doing it anyway.

[00:25:05] Stephen Fenech: But before that, I think he was talking about how hard it was to get her to make facial expressions. And yeah, that’s how, that’s how he got around it, by hacking all the phones, and she can see it all for herself.

[00:25:16] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:18] Stephen Fenech: So, uh, Ava— now, session 3, we’re up to Ava shows Caleb a picture she drew and tells him she’s never been outside. And that she goes, oh, where would you like to go? And she said, I’d love to see a traffic intersection. She goes, what? He goes like, oh, people watching. He goes, yeah, that’s what she says.

[00:25:35] Trevor Long: Because the picture she drew was just of the planetarium she could see through the window. He looked and goes, well, you’ve just drawn what’s over there.

[00:25:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:25:41] Trevor Long: And it’s like, you’ve never been anywhere? And like, I think everyone’s first thought when you— when she says the intersection is you think of what’s the Tokyo one, the Shibuya or whatever it’s called. Yeah, it’s like that. That’s what you imagine her wanting to see.

[00:25:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, exactly. So, but she says, I’ve got a surprise for you. She goes off and puts on some clothes and even a little wig.

[00:26:00] Trevor Long: Yeah. So the visual contrast makes her look even more human and makes life easy for the designers.

[00:26:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it does.

[00:26:11] Movie Audio: Good.

[00:26:14] Movie Audio: This is what I’d wear on our date. Right.

[00:26:19] Movie Audio: First a traffic intersection, then maybe a show.

[00:26:27] Movie Audio: I’d like us to go on a date.

[00:26:29] Movie Audio: Yep. Yeah. It’d be fun.

[00:26:35] Movie Audio: Are you attracted to me?

[00:26:37] Movie Audio: What?

[00:26:37] Movie Audio: Are you attracted to me? You give me indications that you are. I do? Yes.

[00:26:45] Movie Audio: How?

[00:26:46] Movie Audio: Microexpressions.

[00:26:47] Movie Audio: Microexpressions?

[00:26:48] Movie Audio: The way your eyes fix on my eyes and lips.

[00:26:50] Movie Audio: The way you hold my gaze. Madame?

[00:27:01] Movie Audio: Do you think about me when we aren’t together? Sometimes at night, I’m wondering if you’re watching me on the cameras. And I hope you are. Now your micro-expressions are telegraphing discomfort.

[00:27:24] Movie Audio: I am not sure you’d call them micro.

[00:27:30] Movie Audio: I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.

[00:27:34] Stephen Fenech: So to preface that, she goes, I want to wear this on our date. And because when he goes, oh, you know, watch, go people watching, he goes, it’s a date, he said back then.

[00:27:41] Trevor Long: Yeah, he said that just flippantly, but now she’s interpreted that because AI doesn’t understand everything.

[00:27:47] Stephen Fenech: And solid, I think solid flirting. She’s learned how to flirt.

[00:27:50] Trevor Long: She’s gone straight in and see, but see, you would look at it and you go, mate, Mate, listening back to that now, I’m like, dude, you should have just said no straight up. Like, he’s later on like, we should be— no, that’s inappropriate. Like, he actually played the wrong card and created the problems of the next bit. Yeah.

[00:28:07] Stephen Fenech: But later on, remember, she goes, I was hoping you’d be watching me through the cameras. And later he does. Remember, she took the gear that she put on, she was taking it off and he was watching every bit of it.

[00:28:18] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:28:18] Stephen Fenech: So he was seeing the see-through bits.

[00:28:20] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:28:21] Stephen Fenech: Now, Caleb Hob confronts Nathan about Ava’s gender and sexuality.

[00:28:32] Movie Audio: Why did you give her sexuality? An AI doesn’t need a gender. She could have been a gray box.

[00:28:41] Movie Audio: Actually, I don’t think that’s true. Can you give an example of consciousness at any level, human or animal, that exists without a sexual dimension?

[00:28:48] Movie Audio: They have sexuality as an evolutionary reproductive reproductive need.

[00:28:51] Movie Audio: What imperative does a gray box have to interact with another gray box? Can consciousness exist without interaction? Anyway, sexuality is fun, man. If you’re gonna exist, why not enjoy it? What, you wanna remove the chance of her falling in love and fucking? And in answer to your real question, you bet she can fuck.

[00:29:13] Movie Audio: What?

[00:29:16] Movie Audio: Between her legs, there’s an opening with a concentration of sensors. You engage them in the right way, it creates a pleasure response. So if you wanted to screw her, mechanically speaking, you could, and she’d enjoy it.

[00:29:31] Movie Audio: That wasn’t my real question.

[00:29:32] Movie Audio: Oh, okay.

[00:29:33] Movie Audio: Sorry.

[00:29:36] Movie Audio: My real question was, did you give her sexuality as a diversion a diversion tactic.

[00:29:42] Movie Audio: I don’t follow.

[00:29:43] Movie Audio: Like a stage magician with a hot assistant.

[00:29:46] Movie Audio: So a hot robot who clouds your ability to judge your AI?

[00:29:49] Movie Audio: Exactly. So, did you program her to flirt with me?

[00:29:54] Movie Audio: If I did, would that be cheating?

[00:29:56] Movie Audio: Wouldn’t it?

[00:29:57] Stephen Fenech: Hmm, interesting question.

[00:30:00] Trevor Long: Yeah, we don’t like Nathan at this point. You’ve started to learn this bloke’s—

[00:30:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:30:04] Trevor Long: He’s not just an eccentric billionaire, he’s—

[00:30:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:30:07] Trevor Long: He’s crazy.

[00:30:08] Stephen Fenech: Well, he’s— I think basically just confessing that, but he just made sex robots. He must be. And we do see him interacting with Kyoko.

[00:30:15] Trevor Long: Yes, later on. That’s correct.

[00:30:17] Stephen Fenech: He sees on the cameras he’s got her up against the wall and, yeah, having his way with her.

[00:30:21] Trevor Long: That’s correct.

[00:30:22] Stephen Fenech: Uh, the next session, another blackout occurs and Caleb learns something else about Ava.

[00:30:35] Movie Audio: Why did you tell me I shouldn’t trust Nathan?

[00:30:37] Movie Audio: Because he tells lies.

[00:30:39] Movie Audio: Lies about what?

[00:30:40] Movie Audio: Everything.

[00:30:42] Movie Audio: Including the power cuts?

[00:30:45] Movie Audio: What do you mean?

[00:30:46] Movie Audio: Don’t you think it’s possible that he’s watching us right now? The blackouts are orchestrated so he can see how we behave when we think we’re unobserved.

[00:30:54] Trevor Long: Hmm.

[00:30:56] Movie Audio: I charge my batteries via induction plates. If I reverse the power flow, it overloads the system.

[00:31:04] Movie Audio: You’re causing the cuts?

[00:31:08] Movie Audio: So we can see how we behave when we’re unobserved.

[00:31:13] Trevor Long: That’s an interesting kind of twist on that, right? He’s like, don’t you think he’s doing it so he can see how we behave? And she’s like, no, no, I’m doing it so I can see how we behave. Like, it’s— yeah, that really starts to muck with your mind.

[00:31:23] Stephen Fenech: Exactly right. So you’re thinking, wow, she has elevated consciousness at this point.

[00:31:27] Trevor Long: That’s when you realize she’s the extreme being here.

[00:31:30] Stephen Fenech: Totally right. She’s running the show. Yeah, we find out. Caleb finds Nathan outside beside a waterfall and joins him. But then Caleb accuses him of lying.

[00:31:41] Movie Audio: Can we talk about the lies you’ve been spinning me?

[00:31:46] Movie Audio: What lies?

[00:31:51] Movie Audio: I didn’t win a competition. I wasn’t part of a lottery. I was selected. It’s obvious once I stopped to think. Why would you randomly select an examiner for the Turing test? You could have had some bean counter turn up at your front door. The guy fixes the air conditioning.

[00:32:12] Movie Audio: The competition was a smokescreen. I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing here or why I required you.

[00:32:18] Movie Audio: Why me?

[00:32:19] Movie Audio: I needed someone that would ask the right questions. So I did a search, and I found the most talented coder in my company. You know, instead of seeing this as a deception, you should see it as proof.

[00:32:33] Movie Audio: Proof of what?

[00:32:33] Movie Audio: Come on, Caleb. You don’t think I know what it’s like to be smart? Smarter than everyone else, jockeying for position. You got the light on you, man. Not lucky.

[00:32:46] Trevor Long: Chosen.

[00:32:48] Stephen Fenech: Hmm. So that was interesting that he wasn’t the winner.

[00:32:52] Trevor Long: It’s funny how you don’t realize that earlier. You don’t realize earlier that— hang on, it would have been horrible for the HR guy to be selected for a Turing test. And then he’s spot on. That’s exactly what it is.

[00:33:03] Stephen Fenech: Later on, interestingly, Kyoko comes into Caleb’s room and basically offers herself to him.

[00:33:08] Trevor Long: Did you see this bit?

[00:33:09] Stephen Fenech: She’s unbuttoning her clothes. Weirdly, Caleb says, no, no, no, stop. You don’t have to do that.

[00:33:14] Trevor Long: It’s like we missed a scene. Like it was cut.

[00:33:16] Stephen Fenech: Well, I think he— I reckon Nathan sent her in there to say, listen, just go look, sort this bloke out.

[00:33:22] Trevor Long: But it then becomes really weird because Nathan walks in. Yeah, he does, mate. Yeah, the dance, it’s potentially the weirdest part of this whole movie.

[00:33:31] Stephen Fenech: Well, it is pretty bizarre. Well, good synchronization, but very unsettling in front of a stunned Caleb. Absolutely. Yeah, very good music though. Good song they chose to dance to. Uh, Caleb and Ava have another session, and she asks him a series of questions questions but asks him to lie. She also asks if he’s a good person.

[00:33:51] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:33:51] Stephen Fenech: Ava asks, uh, what will happen if she fails the test.

[00:33:55] Trevor Long: That’s, that’s the really— that’s the where it’s starting to become like she’s starting to essentially manipulate the test at that point.

[00:34:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:34:02] Stephen Fenech: With another blackout, which we know that now she causes. Yep. And she asks him, do you want to be with me? And we’re thinking, okay, then Caleb, after this last session, he asks Nathan the ultimate question: why did he build Ava?

[00:34:21] Movie Audio: Look, the arrival of strong artificial intelligence has been inevitable for decades. The variable was when, not if. So I don’t see Ava as a decision, just an evolution. I think it’s the next model that’s going to be the real breakthrough. The Singularity. Next model after Ava.

[00:34:46] Movie Audio: I didn’t know there was going to be a model after Ava.

[00:34:50] Movie Audio: Yeah, why, you thought she was a one-off?

[00:34:53] Movie Audio: No, I knew there must have been prototypes, so I, I knew she wasn’t the first, but I thought maybe the last.

[00:35:01] Movie Audio: Well, Ava doesn’t exist in isolation any more than you and me. She’s part of a continuum, so version 9.6 and so on, and each time they get a little bit better.

[00:35:10] Movie Audio: When you make a new model, what do you do with the old one?

[00:35:15] Movie Audio: Well, I, uh, download the mind, unpack the data, add in the new routines I’ve been writing. And to do that, you end up partially formatting, so the memories go. But the body survives, and Ava’s body is a good one. You feel bad for Ava? Feel bad for yourself, man. One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons in the plains of Africa.

[00:35:50] Trevor Long: Hmm, interesting. Yeah, this is where it kind of really ramps up because Nathan gets on the drink, which he does regularly.

[00:35:55] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:35:55] Trevor Long: He regularly has a party. Even the first day when Caleb arrived, he admits he was on the drink because Caleb’s like, was it a big party? It’s just me. But he started— this is where it gets kind of, you know, intriguing. The most intrigue. It’s kind of all been a setup to now, don’t you think?

[00:36:12] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:36:12] Trevor Long: Because Caleb, like, he steals his key card.

[00:36:14] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:36:15] Trevor Long: Goes into his computer and you’re wondering what he’s doing. Is he just looking stuff up or, you know, what’s he up to?

[00:36:19] Stephen Fenech: He finds archive footage of previous AI prototypes and the videos are disturbing, like older models screaming, begging to be let out. This is where we find out how that window was smashed. Yes, violently slamming their synthetic hands against glass until they break.

[00:36:32] Trevor Long: Yep. He even goes looking through his bloody bedroom and finds those closets of the— yes, they’re kind of mannequins.

[00:36:38] Stephen Fenech: Naked. Yeah, they’re female androids. Yeah, they’re all women. Yeah, men in there? No, funnily enough, hanging like mannequins. Kyoko approaches him and he’s where— and she’s completely naked. Yeah, comes up to him and— because at this point, did you think she was an AI robot or do you think she was real?

[00:36:56] Trevor Long: I I thought at first time I’m thinking she’s real.

[00:37:00] Stephen Fenech: I thought she was real.

[00:37:01] Trevor Long: After the dance, I started to suspect she was a robot.

[00:37:04] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, all the whole time, because remember he said, oh, she doesn’t speak English. So remember how she drops stuff and he says, okay, bye-bye, go away. I thought she was real first time I watched it. Okay, and this scene, she’s cut and she basically peels off half her chest and her face and you think, oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then then Nathan— Caleb finds Nathan outside the bedroom door and he’s still drunk and he pretends to find the teacup.

[00:37:30] Trevor Long: This is really well done because you’re panicked anytime he’s gonna get sprung, but he smartly makes it sound like he picks it up off the floor.

[00:37:36] Stephen Fenech: Oh, here it is, here you go.

[00:37:38] Trevor Long: He even makes the sound of it being picked up off the floor. Very smart, Caleb.

[00:37:42] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:37:42] Stephen Fenech: So, but here’s the weird part. Caleb is really paranoid now.

[00:37:48] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:37:49] Stephen Fenech: And now, ’cause after he saw Kyoko, he obviously thought she was real and then was shocked that she wasn’t.

[00:37:55] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:37:56] Stephen Fenech: So his paranoia has overtaken him. Did you sort of see this where staring in the mirror, clawing at his own skin, he ends up cutting himself?

[00:38:03] Trevor Long: So yeah, he’s now thinking, am I—

[00:38:06] Stephen Fenech: am I—

[00:38:07] Trevor Long: and mate, that was brutal to watch because you’re like, hang on, is he going to pull this skin apart and find—

[00:38:12] Stephen Fenech: did you think for a moment he would have found that he was an AI?

[00:38:15] Trevor Long: I thought— I, I didn’t. I thought there’s no way he’s an AI, but I thought what a fascinating Yeah, plotline.

[00:38:22] Stephen Fenech: Well, he ends up cutting himself and he bleeds red human blood, so if— to see if he’s an android as well. But no, he bleeds, so he’s real. Session 6, Caleb meets Ava for another scheduled session. The power goes out again and Caleb tells her the grim reality.

[00:38:41] Movie Audio: Don’t talk, just listen. You were right about Nathan. Everything you said.

[00:38:48] Movie Audio: What’s he gonna do to me?

[00:38:50] Movie Audio: He’s gonna reprogram your AI, which is the same as killing you.

[00:38:56] Movie Audio: Caleb, you have to help me.

[00:38:58] Movie Audio: I’m going to. We’re getting out of here tonight.

[00:39:03] Movie Audio: How?

[00:39:04] Movie Audio: I get Nathan blind drunk, then I take his key card and reprogram all the security protocols in this place. When he wakes, he’s locked inside. Side and we’ve walked out of here. I just need you to do one thing. At 10 o’clock tonight, you trigger a power failure. Can you do that?

[00:39:27] Stephen Fenech: Yes. So that’s what’s happening.

[00:39:31] Trevor Long: That’s the plan. He’s, he’s got a plan now. He’s— so he’s— Caleb’s moved on.

[00:39:34] Stephen Fenech: He’s like, this is wild, we’ve got to, got to, got to get you out of here.

[00:39:38] Trevor Long: But the question is, has he fallen in love or does he disagree with the test? Does he disagree with what Nathan’s doing?

[00:39:45] Stephen Fenech: Open to interpretation there. But it is now his last day and Nathan says he’ll miss having him around. Caleb, thanks for the weekend.

[00:39:53] Trevor Long: Caleb starts pouring drinks.

[00:39:54] Stephen Fenech: Yes, let’s have a drink. Yes, I know, mate. I’ve been overdoing it.

[00:39:58] Trevor Long: You’re on your own. So for the first time in a week, he’s decided not to have a drink. And as soon as he knocks that back, I’m suspicious.

[00:40:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:40:04] Trevor Long: As soon as he knocks back the drink. Definitely.

[00:40:06] Stephen Fenech: But then you’re thinking, okay, what’s he doing next? But then he asked Caleb whether he thinks Ava passed or failed the Turing test.

[00:40:14] Movie Audio: Surely now is when you tell me if Ava passed or failed.

[00:40:18] Movie Audio: Right.

[00:40:18] Movie Audio: Are you gonna keep me in suspense?

[00:40:21] Movie Audio: No, no, her AI is beyond doubt.

[00:40:25] Movie Audio: Is it?

[00:40:26] Movie Audio: She passed.

[00:40:28] Movie Audio: Yes.

[00:40:29] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:40:31] Movie Audio: Wow, that’s fantastic.

[00:40:32] Movie Audio: Fantastic.

[00:40:33] Movie Audio: Although, I gotta say, I’m a bit surprised. I mean, did we ever get past the, the chess problem, as you phrased it? As in, how do you know if a machine is expressing a real emotion or just simulating one? Does Ava actually like you or not? Although, now that I think about it, there is a third option. Not whether whether she does or does not have the capacity to like you, but whether she’s pretending to like you.

[00:41:04] Movie Audio: Pretending to like me?

[00:41:05] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:41:07] Movie Audio: Well, why would she do that?

[00:41:08] Movie Audio: I don’t know.

[00:41:10] Movie Audio: Maybe if she thought of you as a means of escape. How’s that baklava tasting? Oh, buddy, your head’s been so fucked with.

[00:41:22] Movie Audio: I don’t think it’s me who’s Your head is fucked.

[00:41:24] Movie Audio: I don’t know, man. I woke up this morning to a tape of you slicing your arm open and punching the mirror. You seem pretty fucked up to me.

[00:41:35] Movie Audio: You’re a bastard.

[00:41:37] Movie Audio: Yeah, well, I understand why you’d think that, but believe it or not, I’m actually the guy that’s on your side.

[00:41:45] Trevor Long: Yeah, mate, I don’t think you are.

[00:41:46] Stephen Fenech: Turn of events there.

[00:41:48] Trevor Long: How do you justify saying I’m the guy on your side?

[00:41:50] Stephen Fenech: Side. Yeah, because he— and he reveals he saw him cut himself open. I’m thinking, geez, and is she pretending to like him or really liking him? So we—

[00:42:00] Trevor Long: everything’s in question now. Everything.

[00:42:02] Stephen Fenech: Now, to this point too, that Nathan reveals he had a hidden battery-operated camera that he placed in Amy’s room, and he basically heard the entire escape plan.

[00:42:12] Trevor Long: Yeah, so Caleb’s now shattered because that was the plan.

[00:42:15] Stephen Fenech: But Nathan though explains the real test.

[00:42:19] Movie Audio: You feel stupid, but you really shouldn’t, because proving an AI is exactly as problematic as you said it would be.

[00:42:26] Movie Audio: What was the real test?

[00:42:29] Movie Audio: You.

[00:42:30] Movie Audio: Ava was a rat in a maze, and I gave her one way out. To escape, she’d have to use self-awareness, imagination, manipulation, sexuality, empathy, and she did. Now, if that is your If that isn’t true AI, what the fuck is?

[00:42:46] Movie Audio: So my only function was to be someone she could use to escape?

[00:42:50] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:42:51] Movie Audio: And you didn’t select me because I’m good at coding?

[00:42:54] Movie Audio: No. Well, no. I mean, you’re okay.

[00:42:59] Trevor Long: Well, no.

[00:43:00] Movie Audio: You’re even pretty good, but—

[00:43:01] Movie Audio: You selected me based on my search engine inputs.

[00:43:04] Movie Audio: They showed a good kid with no family. With a moral compass.

[00:43:10] Movie Audio: No girlfriend. Did you design Ava’s face based on my pornography profile?

[00:43:17] Stephen Fenech: Oh shit, dude, he’s gone.

[00:43:20] Trevor Long: That would have been a great idea.

[00:43:21] Movie Audio: Hey, if a search engine is good for anything, right? Can I just say one thing? The test worked. It was a success. Ava demonstrated true AI, and you fundamental to that. So if you can just for a second separate—

[00:43:38] Stephen Fenech: Power cut.

[00:43:40] Movie Audio: Backup power activated.

[00:43:47] Movie Audio: Well, I guess it’s 10 o’clock.

[00:43:49] Trevor Long: So because he heard that, which is his wife saying, I know what’s about to happen, but—

[00:43:53] Stephen Fenech: so Ava triggers the blackout, the doors unlock, and then Nathan asks Caleb how the plan—

[00:43:59] Trevor Long: what was meant to happen. Yeah, because Yes.

[00:44:01] Movie Audio: Let me ask you something. Now, how was this plan gonna— gonna go anyway? ‘Cause you didn’t totally explain. So you were gonna get me drunk, steal my key card, and reprogram the security protocols, but reprogram them to what?

[00:44:15] Movie Audio: To change the lockdown procedure. So in the event of a power cut, instead of sealing, the doors all open.

[00:44:23] Movie Audio: Huh.

[00:44:28] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:44:30] Movie Audio: Well, that may have just worked.

[00:44:33] Movie Audio: Well, we’ll find out.

[00:44:40] Movie Audio: What do you mean?

[00:44:43] Movie Audio: I figured you were probably watching us during the power cuts, so I already did all those things.

[00:44:50] Trevor Long: Yeah. When he had his key card.

[00:44:53] Movie Audio: When I got you drunk yesterday.

[00:45:00] Trevor Long: So Nathan’s like, damn, I thought I had him.

[00:45:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but now Ava stepped out of a glass cage into the facility corridors for the very first time. Nathan notices her escape on the monitors and grabs an iron barbell. First he smashes Caleb, knocks him unconscious.

[00:45:16] Trevor Long: Yeah, knocks him down.

[00:45:16] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, Nathan confronts Ava in the hallway, and remember, her and Kyoko were walking, and then she runs at him and they hit the ground.

[00:45:25] Trevor Long: Yeah, and so now it’s basically a, a wrestle on the ground. You think it’s a robot versus a human, bro. And he was, uh, remember he had the barbell, smashes her arm, breaks her arm.

[00:45:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but then suddenly Kyoko from behind stabs him in the back with a kitchen knife.

[00:45:39] Trevor Long: And you know the thing about the stabbing, it’s just gone.

[00:45:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah.

[00:45:42] Trevor Long: And I don’t— I think it’s a weird thing.

[00:45:45] Stephen Fenech: It wasn’t a stab, it was a—

[00:45:46] Trevor Long: when you, when you see other stabbings in movies, yeah, you never know what’s real, right? I’ve never seen or witnessed one, but I think I like the way it was done because it made it feel robotic, made it feel like it was a robot, you know, because I think a human naturally would go, oh, that’s, you know, that’s just went, it just went straight in one motion. Yeah.

[00:46:05] Stephen Fenech: And then, uh, so we know Nathan turns and just destroys her face off, smacks her, but the distraction allows Ava to grab the knife and stab him in the chest.

[00:46:14] Trevor Long: Yes. And, and proper up in the chest too.

[00:46:16] Stephen Fenech: Oh mate. And he was then, and I remember he walked, walking, I go, okay, he’s trying to deal with the situation. And collapses and staring up at his creations, dies in the corridor.

[00:46:25] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:46:25] Stephen Fenech: Boom. Oh, what a shock that was.

[00:46:27] Trevor Long: I mean, that was a turn. I mean, I think once, as soon as you knew that she was loose and he was going to get her, yeah, I didn’t back him in the bar.

[00:46:34] Stephen Fenech: Well, the minute he panicked when he grabbed the bar, we’re thinking, oh geez, what you gonna do?

[00:46:37] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:46:39] Stephen Fenech: So, uh, Ava has retreated to Nathan’s private room, uh, to Caleb’s room, and tells him to stay put Now here’s another software bug for you. At the— in the end, Ava session 7 appears on screen even though Caleb isn’t administering the Turing test.

[00:46:56] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:46:56] Stephen Fenech: And Nathan’s already dead. So it may suggest that Ava was testing the other way around at the same time. Yeah, the two of them, not just— not just Caleb.

[00:47:06] Trevor Long: Interesting.

[00:47:07] Stephen Fenech: And this is also where she goes in the room and strips part of her skin from the previous android models. Remember, she replaces her arms and applies them to her own body. So then she’s She’s there standing there with her skin on, completely naked, then puts on a white dress.

[00:47:21] Trevor Long: I didn’t notice. Go on.

[00:47:22] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, then she looks in the mirror and now she’s entirely indistinguishable from a human woman. Yeah, woman. So, uh, another software bug here. She’s wearing only white, so that symbolizes innocence and purity.

[00:47:38] Trevor Long: Fair.

[00:47:39] Stephen Fenech: Okay, uh, and a clear use of irony since she manipulated her way out of isolation into into the world.

[00:47:45] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:47:46] Stephen Fenech: So Caleb wakes up, rushes into the corridor. He’s trapped behind glass. He sees Ava walking toward the—

[00:47:51] Trevor Long: it’s like soundproof glass, so he can’t even yell at her.

[00:47:54] Stephen Fenech: Calls out, looks back at him, entirely cold, blank expression. She walks past him. Security system locks down, so Caleb’s trapped inside the lab, banging away on the thick glass. Power cuts off. The helicopter pilot arrives.

[00:48:10] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:48:10] Stephen Fenech: And it’s just her.

[00:48:11] Trevor Long: Helicopter pilot’s like, yeah, well, it’s not him, but Yeah, I’ll take her. She’s out here.

[00:48:15] Stephen Fenech: I mean, she comes out.

[00:48:16] Trevor Long: Where else could she be coming from?

[00:48:17] Stephen Fenech: Boards the chopper.

[00:48:18] Trevor Long: He doesn’t think, I’m the only helicopter pilot and I’ve never brought this woman here.

[00:48:22] Stephen Fenech: She arrived in—

[00:48:23] Trevor Long: that’s my plot hole. Anyway, go.

[00:48:25] Stephen Fenech: The film ends, she’s got a— I love the way they shoot this.

[00:48:29] Trevor Long: Yeah, because it’s like shot upside down so the shadows are right way up. Yeah, it’s very well done.

[00:48:33] Stephen Fenech: Standing at the busy intersection and then as her shadow disappears among all the other humans. Yeah, and that’s it.

[00:48:39] Trevor Long: That’s a pretty wild—

[00:48:40] Stephen Fenech: into the world.

[00:48:41] Trevor Long: Yeah. Interesting.

[00:48:42] Stephen Fenech: Right.

[00:48:43] Stephen Fenech: Let’s get to some lines here. And this is a good one when he’s on his way to see Nathan.

[00:48:52] Movie Audio: How long until we get to his estate?

[00:48:57] Movie Audio: We’ve been flying over his estate for the past 2 hours.

[00:49:02] Stephen Fenech: So he’s got a pretty big estate.

[00:49:04] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:49:04] Stephen Fenech: Here’s another one. Now this is after the question about the sexuality.

[00:49:09] Movie Audio: And for the record, Ava’s not pretending to like you, and her flirting isn’t an algorithm to fake you out. You’re the first man she’s met that isn’t me, and I’m like her dad, right? Can you blame her for getting a crush on you?

[00:49:34] Stephen Fenech: And here’s the last one. Uh, this is interesting. Being a little take as well.

[00:49:38] Movie Audio: Caleb, what’s your type of girl? No, salad dressing.

[00:49:42] Trevor Long: Yeah, of girl. What’s your type of girl?

[00:49:44] Movie Audio: You know what, don’t even answer that. Let’s say it’s black chicks, okay? That’s your thing. For the sake of argument, that’s your thing, okay? Why is that your thing? Because you did a detailed analysis of all racial types and you cross-referenced that analysis with a points-based system? No, you’re just attracted to black chicks.

[00:50:03] Trevor Long: Righto.

[00:50:05] Stephen Fenech: Plot hole. So what do you reckon the plot hole is? That the helicopter pilot just picks her up? Yeah, I mean, yeah, but he’s instructed to pick up a passenger.

[00:50:12] Trevor Long: Yeah, I know, but you gotta think it’s a secure zone. He’s got one helicopter pilot, it’s the same bloke that flies everyone. He’s like, I didn’t remember dropping this woman off.

[00:50:19] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know what, in a similar security vein, my plot hole is the— everything relies on getting Nathan’s card key. Shouldn’t Nathan, this genius, have a bit of security?

[00:50:31] Trevor Long: Yeah, buy a security, buy a Matrix scan. That’s a good point.

[00:50:33] Stephen Fenech: Retinal scans, like, what’s doing?

[00:50:35] Trevor Long: Very good point.

[00:50:36] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:50:37] Stephen Fenech: Um, and also, the— a designer like Nathan would be able to control the AI system using a wireless interface.

[00:50:45] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:50:45] Stephen Fenech: Okay, so when she escapes, he would just log into her and shut her down, right?

[00:50:49] Trevor Long: Okay, cool.

[00:50:50] Stephen Fenech: So you’d think that safeguard would have been there.

[00:50:52] Trevor Long: Yeah, there’s no way he wouldn’t have built a safeguard, which, which is the plot hole of the whole final scene.

[00:50:57] Stephen Fenech: There you go. All right, uh, the speaker workout. Well, I think what comes to mind— the great song, the dance number, I think is great. Sounds good. Good song. I like the music in very moody atmospheric soundtrack to this. The, the main theme is, is really, uh, haunting. Very nice. Uh, thank God I got a big screen. The, the helicopter ride, the wilderness shots, the waterfall, so his surroundings quite pleasant.

[00:51:24] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:51:25] Stephen Fenech: Uh, the business, well, you know what, the— it’s AI, and basically we’re living it today. That’s kind of the reality of this.

[00:51:32] Trevor Long: It’s hard to actually to pick apart much of the tech Absolutely, yes.

[00:51:36] Stephen Fenech: Well, apart from those little plot holes, we’re talking about the, the actual robot and the consciousness.

[00:51:42] Trevor Long: The only thing that’s, that’s unseen at this point is the use of an actual humanoid. Yeah, but I guess it’s, uh, it’s not a leap too far.

[00:51:49] Stephen Fenech: It’s not far.

[00:51:50] Trevor Long: You know, have been product announced in that sense, but they’ve not come to market.

[00:51:53] Stephen Fenech: But you’ve seen humanoid robots, but not quite within the level of AI like this. Uh, if the movie was made today, it kind of was made today Mate, if the movie was made today, it’d be— it looks like it was made today.

[00:52:05] Trevor Long: I don’t understand how this wasn’t made last year. Yeah, that’s wild.

[00:52:08] Stephen Fenech: They’ve got most of it right. Yeah, never though. Uh, Every Day Is a School Day. Now what’s the theme or the lesson here? Like, what, what—

[00:52:17] Trevor Long: don’t trust AI.

[00:52:18] Stephen Fenech: What’s consciousness? Like, is it, is it— yeah, and like, it would— you know, you can go, you can dive into you know, where does consciousness, where’s the limit and how do you know, like with this Turing test, whether it’s a simulation or real? How do you know that?

[00:52:38] Trevor Long: Yeah, who was Turing?

[00:52:38] Stephen Fenech: It’s like who can read minds?

[00:52:41] Trevor Long: Yeah, I just think the whole theme here is just the ethics of AI.

[00:52:47] Stephen Fenech: That ethics of creation and AI, I’ve got that as well, but also too, True, proving true intelligence means you do need to be able to lie and plan and manipulate. That’s, that’s a true human trait, self-preservation.

[00:53:01] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:53:02] Stephen Fenech: Uh, the other thing is sort of the, the God complex. So sort of Nathan had this sort of God complex as well.

[00:53:08] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:53:09] Stephen Fenech: And sort of, was he in the right space to create, to create something like this? Is he the right person to do it?

[00:53:16] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:53:17] Stephen Fenech: Now In my notes here, it’s, it’s the, the ex machina leaves the— it’s a sort of bit of a twist ending, uh, because her escape isn’t an act of malice, it’s an act of survival. So is that sort of the theme that— the overarching theme is, is, you know, we’ve mentioned already, if we build AI in our own image Should we be surprised when it treats us how we treat other people? Like, if we—

[00:53:49] Trevor Long: well, I think if we build AI with the knowledge of all human society and access to every video, should we be surprised that it’s an asshole? Like, there you go, people are assholes, like, you know what I mean? A true AI is going to have the personality of a human being, which is not great in most cases.

[00:54:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:54:08] Stephen Fenech: Best use of the pause button. Now, when Caleb is looking through Nathan’s computer and begins coding The code he types is for an algorithm called the Sieve of Eratosthenes.

[00:54:19] Trevor Long: Well, someone actually looked at that.

[00:54:21] Stephen Fenech: It’s an algorithm for finding prime numbers. Ah, but he chooses— he also chooses—

[00:54:27] Trevor Long: what’s going on?

[00:54:28] Stephen Fenech: No, it also chooses prime numbers that form an ISBN. The number is 978019226559. That ISBN— so you know every book’s got its own little number. The book is The Embodiment and the Inner Life: Cognition and Consciousness in the Space of Possible Minds, which is a book about the history of artificial intelligence.

[00:54:53] Trevor Long: Wow, that is such a great Easter egg.

[00:54:55] Stephen Fenech: There you have it.

[00:54:56] Trevor Long: That is crazy.

[00:54:57] Stephen Fenech: Uh, things you might not know: in an earlier version of the screenplay, remember when he really reveals he’s got a Jackson Pollock?

[00:55:06] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:55:06] Stephen Fenech: And they were talking about, you know, what made him do this? Was it— was he And there was like a little, little, a little conversation about that. In the earlier version, he reveals that he has no idea if his Pollock painting is authentic. ‘Cause he says that he purchased the original and used it to create a replica and then selected one of them at random and burned it. So he didn’t know which one he—

[00:55:31] Trevor Long: That’s a crazy billionaire thing to do.

[00:55:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah.

[00:55:35] Stephen Fenech: The name of Nathan’s search engine company company Blue Book. Blue Book, yeah, is a reference to philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The Blue Book, which are notes on his lectures made between 1933 and 1934. The original choice for Nathan the billionaire, Jake Gyllenhaal, okay, was the initial choice, but they couldn’t reach an agreement on a number of points. So Oscar Isaac got the—

[00:56:00] Trevor Long: there he is.

[00:56:01] Stephen Fenech: Well, no, I think he did. That was great.

[00:56:02] Trevor Long: I like his— I’m not just— not degrading the actors, but I like that unknowns to me. I like that they weren’t superstars. It actually made—

[00:56:10] Stephen Fenech: at the time they were— yeah, now they’re stars. Domhnall Gleeson and him are pretty recognizable, but back then you’re right, they were sort of pretty much unknown.

[00:56:18] Trevor Long: I wouldn’t know them if they were sitting here. Okay, I’ll be like, sorry, you got a delivery.

[00:56:22] Stephen Fenech: Things you might not know, and this could even be a did you notice, but I’ve got more did you notices. The colors red, blue, and green are very prominently displayed in each scene. Green forest red brick hallway keypad’s red and blue functions. It’s a nod to the RGB color model. Okay, yeah, red, green, and blue, which is used to display images and electronic systems such as computers. Ava, of course, being the main computer in the movie.

[00:56:47] Trevor Long: Yeah, I don’t see that.

[00:56:49] Stephen Fenech: Uh, did you notice the helicopter used? The Eurocopter EC-120 Hummingbird.

[00:56:57] Trevor Long: Yeah, very weird sliding rack door. Yep.

[00:56:59] Stephen Fenech: Also known as the Airbus Helicopter H120.

[00:57:03] Trevor Long: Nice.

[00:57:04] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:57:05] Stephen Fenech: Did you also notice, and I’m sure you didn’t notice this, that this is a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest?

[00:57:13] Trevor Long: No, I had no idea of that.

[00:57:14] Stephen Fenech: Each of the three main characters are roughly similar to the characters from the play. So Nathan, manipulative inventor, lives in a remote resort, corresponds to Prospero, a powerful magician. Lives on a remote island, manipulated the events and characters in the story to his liking. No, although Nathan’s a computer programmer and artificial intelligence pioneer, not a magician. He parallels Prospero. Uh, they’re a nod to Arthur C. Clarke’s famous, famous saying that any sufficient advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Remember Arthur C. Clarke said that? Like, how would this technology— it’s like magic.

[00:57:49] Trevor Long: There you go.

[00:57:50] Stephen Fenech: Ava is similar to Miranda Prospero’s daughter. Miranda and Ava were both created by Prospero/Nathan. Neither had been exposed to experiences or people outside of their confines. Caleb is equivalent to Ferdinand. So the Prospero character contrives to bring Ferdinand to his remote home, and Ferdinand falls in love with the character’s daughter. It’s a very similar storyline to The Tempest.

[00:58:17] Trevor Long: Okay, now that you know that, mate, pair it You wouldn’t have known that if you got my shades. Yeah, no, that’s it.

[00:58:22] Stephen Fenech: What’s the meme? I’ve got to do something with the dancing for sure. The dancing, the dancing.

[00:58:28] Trevor Long: I feel like there’s something with the skin coming off, you know, like pulling and pulling back your face.

[00:58:32] Stephen Fenech: My other suggestion was a picture of a broken Ava and, you know, I need a vacation sort of thing. You’re like Terminator 2, you know, I need a vacation. Yeah, going on my first date, you know, dressing up like, you know, how she’s dressed up, how, you know, that we could be going on my first date. Yeah. By Any Other Name. Yeah, you could have called this Ava.

[00:58:52] Trevor Long: You could have called this—

[00:58:53] Stephen Fenech: would have been Ava, AI, Ghost in the Machine, or Consciousness.

[00:58:58] Trevor Long: That is—

[00:58:58] Stephen Fenech: that’s a bit—

[00:58:59] Trevor Long: there’s a lot.

[00:58:59] Stephen Fenech: I think this is probably one of the most, yeah, renameable movies we’ve done.

[00:59:03] Trevor Long: Yeah, I reckon, because the name, while it does have a meaning, doesn’t have a meaning, do you know what I mean? So this is— it is infinitely, infinitely renameable.

[00:59:11] Stephen Fenech: They don’t say it, but I think you see it.

[00:59:14] Trevor Long: I know, much to your disappointment.

[00:59:15] Stephen Fenech: You see it though.

[00:59:16] Trevor Long: I do.

[00:59:16] Stephen Fenech: On his computer. Okay. But, um, ex machina is what we got, mate. Uh, what’s the one thing you want? I’ll take the key cards. That’s a nice little souvenir. Ava would be good to have her.

[00:59:29] Trevor Long: Yep. The closets are interesting.

[00:59:31] Stephen Fenech: Closets, yeah. The synthetic brain, remember in the lab he holds that synthetic brain?

[00:59:34] Trevor Long: Yeah, I feel like that was computer generated because the way it moved didn’t look like they were holding.

[00:59:39] Stephen Fenech: When he actually held the prop though, it didn’t look like it was really—

[00:59:42] Trevor Long: no, it looked like they’d added—

[00:59:45] Stephen Fenech: I’d take whatever he held—

[00:59:46] Trevor Long: AI movement to that.

[00:59:47] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. And also the phone, the— yeah, okay, yeah, they could run the blue book phone. Yeah, the masks in the hallway, remember in the hallway there are all these masks, creepy as hell, which could have been her different faces. Yep, take one of them. Okay, 3 questions for Trev. Okay, what happens to Caleb? Does he ever escape?

[01:00:05] Trevor Long: Yes, he does. He does.

[01:00:08] Stephen Fenech: Sequel.

[01:00:08] Trevor Long: I don’t know how. Well, save that answer.

[01:00:10] Stephen Fenech: Save that answer. What happens to Ava? Does she just fit into humanity?

[01:00:15] Trevor Long: Into humanity, yeah.

[01:00:16] Stephen Fenech: Really?

[01:00:16] Trevor Long: I don’t know how she gets money and stuff, but yep, I can imagine a couple of ways.

[01:00:21] Stephen Fenech: Which has— she does have pleasure sensors.

[01:00:24] Trevor Long: She’s got a brain.

[01:00:26] Stephen Fenech: Maybe.

[01:00:27] Trevor Long: Okay.

[01:00:28] Stephen Fenech: Like if you—

[01:00:29] Trevor Long: yeah, I know we’re being idiot men saying that. But if you said to Claude or ChatGPT today, imagine you’re a robot in the physical form of a beautiful woman with no money, but you need money. How are you gonna make money? I’m pretty sure that’d be a pretty top of the list for it.

[01:00:46] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, maybe.

[01:00:47] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[01:00:47] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, no, true. Okay, sequel, prequel, or leave it alone?

[01:00:51] Trevor Long: I reckon a sequel. Absolutely. Till the cows come home.

[01:00:54] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[01:00:54] Trevor Long: I don’t know why they’re not working on that right now.

[01:00:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it goes back into two.

[01:00:58] Trevor Long: Because she’s in society, needs to be found. Caleb has to get out. So you pick it up.

[01:01:05] Stephen Fenech: Well, he gets out and then tells the world.

[01:01:06] Trevor Long: But you pick it up from there. How does he get out? How does he get back? Because he’s in the middle of nowhere. So there’s a little bit of exposition in how he gets out there. There’s a little bit of exposition in like 10 minutes of him getting out and her, you know, finding her way. And then it’s a fast forward to, you know, the global search for this thing. And there’s people, like it’s violent. There’s people ripping, trying to rip people’s faces off. And you know, it’s brutal. Like, it’s not Scooby-Doo.

[01:01:30] Stephen Fenech: Maybe even the discovery of existing AI already in society.

[01:01:33] Trevor Long: Maybe, you know, who knows, you know, the president was actually— I don’t think I would enjoy the next one. Yeah, but I can absolutely be more of an action movie. Yeah, I think so.

[01:01:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you could still have some sort of some consciousness type discussions in the whole question of AI and what it’s doing.

[01:01:48] Trevor Long: Yeah, for sure.

[01:01:49] Stephen Fenech: Okay, righto, that was Ex Machina.

[01:01:52] Trevor Long: Give us your wrap-up and rate I enjoyed this because it does make you think, and obviously I don’t think I would have enjoyed it back then because I don’t think I would have believed it. It’s so wild that it’s more believable today than it was 12 years ago. Yeah, probably right. There’s no question in my mind. So yeah, this is a really good story. It was a bit drab in some way, I don’t know, because it’s so basically set in one, one few rooms and stuff, you know, that kind of thing.

[01:02:15] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, not many characters.

[01:02:16] Trevor Long: And it’s, it’s not predictable, but it’s, it’s understandably scripted. Um, it doesn’t matter, I enjoyed the movie, could watch it again just for the sake of understanding it more. It’s a 7.5 for me.

[01:02:27] Stephen Fenech: Uh, it’s an 8 for me, so, uh, we’re pretty much on the same page there, right? Should we talk about next week? Next week it’s the 40th anniversary recast of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

[01:02:39] Trevor Long: Hello!

[01:02:40] Stephen Fenech: Released in 1986, that makes it 40, starring Matthew Broderick. Now your question is, John Hughes Hughes, who directed this, would also go on to write a hit comedy in the ’90s. Okay, is it Home Alone, B, The Cable Guy, C, Mrs. Doubtfire, or D, The Mask?

[01:03:06] Trevor Long: This is Doubtfire.

[01:03:08] Stephen Fenech: Home Alone. He wrote Home Alone, yeah, John Hughes, and directed it.

[01:03:12] Trevor Long: We did Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Day Off in June of 2023. There you have it, 3 years ago. Okay, um, do you have any recollection of our ratings?

[01:03:19] Stephen Fenech: Um, I think I probably gave it a 9.

[01:03:21] Trevor Long: 8.5.

[01:03:22] Stephen Fenech: 8.5.

[01:03:22] Trevor Long: Yeah, we were tied, 8.5.

[01:03:24] Stephen Fenech: There you have it.

[01:03:24] Trevor Long: There you go. Okay, and the IMDb average on that one is 7.8.

[01:03:28] Stephen Fenech: Well, join us for the 40th anniversary celebration of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but I’m glad you enjoyed Ex Machina.

[01:03:34] Trevor Long: Get on it.

[01:03:34] Stephen Fenech: Talk to you next week.

[01:03:35] Trevor Long: See ya.