Film x Philosophy: Ex Machina

The shy programmer Caleb (Gleeson) is invited by the eccentric internet billionaire Nathan (Isaac) to his remote villa. Nathan asks him to subject the first robot with superhuman intelligence to the Turing test, which examines whether the interrogator realizes they are talking to a computer. A visually stunning science fiction thriller with great performances from the entire cast: especially Isaac is brilliant as the manipulative drunkard.

Film x Philosophy

How do we distinguish robots from "humans"? The Turing test was designed to test whether an artificial computer can make someone believe they are talking to a real human. But what if we already know we are talking to a robot? Can it still mislead us and give us a sense of real, human interaction? Can it evoke emotions in us? Can we fall in love with it? With the development of similar technologies in our own world in recent years (A.I. chatbots, or more precisely, Large Language Models), these questions are more relevant than ever.

Introduction by Jacob Boorsma.