Ex Machina Page #14

The LED turns blue.

56 56

INT. HOUSE/CONSTRUCTION LAB - DAY

NATHAN leads CALEB into a laboratory, filled with android

future tech.

Along the left-hand wall are sections of android bodies -

limbs, torsos, hands - lined in cabinets.

On the opposite wall are a collection of heads. Skull-forms,

some with complex carbon-fibre and pneumatic muscle

structures, ready to frown or smile, without their synthetic

flesh covering.

The synthetic faces are separate. Hanging on armatures, like

hats on hat-stands, waiting to be worn.

In the middle of the room is a kind of operating table.

62.

NATHAN:

So this is the virtual womb that

Ava was talking about. Where she

was constructed.

CALEB is stunned by the sight.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

Come in. Take a look.

NATHAN walks over to the synthetic faces, and picks one of

them up.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

If you knew the trouble I had

getting an AI to read and duplicate

facial expressions... Know how I

cracked it?

CALEB:

I don't know how you did any of

this.

NATHAN:

Almost every cell phone has a

microphone, a camera, and a means

to transmit data. So I switched on

all the mikes and cameras, across

the entire f***ing planet, and

redirected the data through Blue

Book. Boom. A limitless resource

of facial and vocal interaction.

CALEB:

You hacked the world's cell phones?

NATHAN laughs.

NATHAN:

And all the manufacturers knew I

was doing it. But they couldn't

accuse me without admitting they

were also doing it themselves.

NATHAN puts the face back on its armature.

NATHAN moves to one of the skull forms.

He moves the curved top plate, revealing the skull cavity.

Inside is an ellipse orb, the approximate volume of a brain,

filled with what looks to be blue liquid. Suspended in the

liquid is the neon jellyfish we glimpsed previously in AVA.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

Here we have her mind. Structured

gel.

63.

The axon-like tendrils glitter and flicker with tiny pulses

of light.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

Had to get away from circuitry.

Needed something that could arrange

and rearrange on a molecular level,

but keep its form where required.

Holding for memories. Shifting for

thoughts.

NATHAN removes the orb, and hands it to CALEB.

CALEB:

This is her hardware?

NATHAN:

Wetware.

CALEB:

And the software?

NATHAN:

Surely you can guess.

CALEB:

... Blue Book.

NATHAN nods.

NATHAN:

It was the weird thing about search

engines. They were like striking

oil in a world that hadn't invented

internal combustion. They gave too

much raw material. No one knew

what to do with it.

CALEB looks at the orb in his hand. Into the shimmering

liquid.

It looks like deep space, filled with star fields.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

My competitors were fixated on

sucking it up, and trying to

monetize via shopping and social

media. They thought engines were a

map of what people were thinking.

But actually, they were a map of

how people were thinking. Impulse,

response. Fluid, imperfect.

Patterned, chaotic.

CALEB looks at NATHAN a moment.

Then hands him the orb back.

64.

CALEB:

Why did you want to show me this?

NATHAN:

Like I said. Because it's cool.

CALEB waits.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

And - I was thinking about your

exchange with Ava yesterday, and

our conversation afterwards.

Beat.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

I know there was a bit of heat

between us, but you actually made a

really good point. About the grey

box, and the magician's assistant.

It is a distraction, her sexuality.

It wasn't intentional, but it is

there.

NATHAN rests the mind-orb back in the skull cradle.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

This stuff we're doing together: it

can be a head-f***. Believe me, I

know. So I thought I'd bring you

down here. Just to remind you.

CALEB:

Remind me of what?

NATHAN gestures at the room around them.

NATHAN:

Synthetics. Hydraulics. Metal and

gel. Ava isn't a girl. In real

terms, she has no gender.

Effectively, she is a grey box.

Beat.

NATHAN (CONT'D)

Just a machine.

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INT. HOUSE/OBSERVATION ROOM - DAY

CALEB looks at AVA through the glass.

We watch him. And stay on him.

CALEB:

In college, I did a semester on AI

theory.

(MORE)

65.

CALEB (CONT'D)

There was a thought-experiment they

gave us. It's called Mary in the

black and white room.

Beat.

CALEB (CONT'D)

Mary is a scientist, and her

specialist subject is colour. She

she knows everything there is to

know about it. The wavelengths.

The neurological effects. Every

possible property colour can have.

Beat.

CALEB (CONT'D)

But she lives in a black and white

room. She was born there, and

raised there. And she can only

observe the outside world on a

black and white monitor. All her

knowledge of colour is second-hand.

Beat.

CALEB (CONT'D)

Then one day - someone opens the

door. And Mary walks out. And she

sees a blue sky. And at that

moment, she learns something that

all her studies could never tell

her. She learns what it feels like

to see colour. An experience that

can not be taught, or conveyed.

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