Where do we draw the line in AI?

Will the AI systems we’rebuilding become so human-like that we won’t be able to tell the differencebetween machine and actual human being?

For those who haven’t seen Ex Machina, the article contains spoilers.

A bright and resourceful man builds an intelligent humanoid robot with artificial intelligence. The machine has already passed a normal Turing test and the last version of the android is so advanced it can even mimic human feelings. The final goal is to turn it into a powerful super-intelligence that would surpass all human intelligence.

The creator of the software, who lives in a luxurious, isolated home,brings one of his employees to perform a more advanced Turing test on the robotand see if it has conscience.

After the initial meetings with the programmer that’s testing it, therobot with the human-looking face starts expressing a romantic interest in himand a desire to experience the world outside. As time goes by, the testerbecomes more connected to Ava, the robot, and after learning some disturbingfacts about his boss, he even starts feeling sorry for “her” and decides tohelp “her” escape.

Unfortunately, at the end of the movie, Ava kills its creator and locksthe programmer inside the house while it escapes to the outside world and isflown off in the helicopter meant to take the boy home.

Needless to say, in 2019 mostparts of the story are still sci-fi for many of us, but it might as well turninto a reality in the years/decades to come. Society is starting to really warmup to the AI movement and there are a lot of people dreaming of building amachine that’s so intelligent, it will be able to do greater things than everimagined.

Playing God is not for all

History teaches us that humanssometimes let themselves led by their egos. Anticipating the power and greaterrecognition that come with discovering or building something significant, theyno longer want to contribute to the evolution, they want to be the ones drivingit.

In the movie, the creator of Ava portraysthe essence of the ego-driven culture of the tech world, sending a message thatgreat egos drive great scientific advances. Sadly, his demise shows whathappens when an ego faces the reality of its own extinction.

“If you’ve created a conscious machine it’s not the history of man… that’s the history of Gods.”

On a different level, theinnocent programmer is also led by his ego. Firstly, he is manipulated by hisboss that tricks him into believing he was brought there due to his amazingcoding skills. When in reality, his lonely existence and online behaviour werethe ones that made him the best candidate for the job.

Secondly, Ava manages to gain histrust by appealing to his willingness to believe that a super-intelligence,that’s also very beautiful, would really fall in love with him. Even though, throughoutthe movie, he questions his own decisions and the ones of his boss, in the endhe still falls into the ego trap.

It's easy to forget she's a machine

Beyond the ego theme, the actionof the movie evolves to that particular ending because the programmer startsfeeling sorry for Ava and really believes she wants to stand in a trafficintersection and see humans. Finding out the creator of Ava is already thinkingof the next version, which means Ava’s memory will be wiped out, he decides totake her with him back home.

Being connected to a searchengine, Ava had access to an unimaginable amount of data that it could process,train and turn into behaviour. Behaviour that ultimately led the programmer,and perhaps even people watching the movie, into believing that Ava wasactually capable of feeling love, sadness, fear, etc. But the system was onlydisplaying the behaviour or emotion it learned it is normally displayed incertain situations.  Of course, the robot’sfacial expressions were quite surprising, but Ava was not a human being, it didnot have a conscience and it did not feel the emotions it was displaying.

However, we are curious to knowhow many of those who’ve seen the movie really felt that Ava deserved to be freed?Or its creator killed? Obviously, he was not an honest man and his reasons forbuilding such a machine were not exactly pure, but in the end, can we actuallysay he should have been killed?

We have ahead of us a lot ofpossibilities when it comes to AI. It appears we are in a stage were we kind ofget to choose how our future will look like. As stated by Max Tegmark, theauthor of the amazing book Life 3.0, the kind of future we want is currentlythe most important conversation and we should all join it.