Ex Machina: AI, Ethics, and Consciousness

Part of the Control + Collapse Event Series

Presented by Naked Eye Collective

Where does science fiction end and our technological reality begin?

Join Naked Eye Collective for a special screening of Alex Garland’s acclaimed sci-fi thriller Ex Machina (2014), followed by an expert-led post-screening Q&A with Postdoctoral Researcher Huw Day, exploring the questions the film raises about artificial intelligence, consciousness, ethics and control.

Part of our ongoing Control + Collapse event series, this evening explores humanity’s desire to create, control and ultimately surpass the technology we build.

The Film

Caleb, a talented young programmer, wins a seemingly extraordinary opportunity: a week at the secluded home of Nathan, the brilliant and reclusive CEO of the technology company he works for.

But this isn’t a holiday.

Nathan has created Ava, a humanoid artificial intelligence, unlike anything Caleb has encountered before. Caleb is asked to determine whether Ava is truly intelligent. Can she think? Can she feel? Can she understand? And, most importantly, does she possess consciousness?

As Caleb spends more time with Ava, the boundaries between experiment and relationship begin to blur. What initially appears to be a straightforward test becomes something far more unsettling, as questions of trust, manipulation and control begin to emerge.

And as Caleb starts to question who is really testing whom, Ex Machina leaves us with a much bigger question:

If we create something that appears to be conscious, how will we know whether it truly is?

From Fiction to Reality

Following the screening, we’ll take those questions beyond the film in a live Q&A with Huw Day, examining how close Ex Machina’s vision is to the world of AI we are building today.

We’ll explore:

Can a machine actually be conscious?
As large language models and neural networks become increasingly sophisticated, are we witnessing genuine intelligence or simply an incredibly convincing simulation of it?

Who controls the creation?
Ex Machina is as much about its human characters as it is about AI. What happens when extraordinary technological power is placed in the hands of a small number of people?

What happens when control is lost?
The film’s central experiment raises questions about autonomy, ethics and the consequences of creating something we may not fully understand or control.

Ex Machina was released in 2014. More than a decade later, many of the questions it posed feel less like science fiction and more like questions we are being forced to confront in real time.

Join us for an evening of unsettling cinema, fascinating questions and a conversation about how close we really are to the world Ex Machina imagined.