Credit: A24/Ex-Machina
Alex Garland isn't exactly a household name, but you probably know, and might even love, his work. The screenwriter of the modern zombie horror classic 28 Days Later and cult sci-fi films Sunshine and Dredd, Garland has a strong track record of fusing suspense and violent action thrills with intelligent storytelling and thought-provoking critiques of humanity. In his latest film, the sexy sci-fi thriller Ex Machina, premiering in the US on April 10th, Garland takes on directorial duties in addition to writing for the first time, and the results are right up there with his best of his other films.Ex Machina follows the creation of what could be the world's first true artificial intelligence, a feminine robot called Ava (played by Swedish actress Alicia Vikander), created by a predatory tech mogul named Nathan (Oscar Isaac), who invites a wide-eyed employee (Domnhall Gleeson) to help him test the limits of her consciousness in a contained woodland estate. Things don't go exactly according to plan, and all three lead characters soon find themselves locked in a claustrophobic and increasingly ominous battle of wits.The film has already earned rave reviews after premiering earlier this year in the UK, Garland's homeland, and it hits the US at a particularly apt time, as big companies like Facebook openly pursue more advanced artificial intelligence research of their own. I recently had the chance to talk with Garland about how Ex Machina explores this topic and other social issues, as well his creative process. Here's our conversation (edited for length and clarity) (mild spoilers ahead).Motherboard: What was the process you went through when researching and writing Ex Machina?Alex Garland:
I was having an argument with a friend of mine about a lot of the issues that ended up in the film, including the question "can machines ever really be sentient?" He said no, and on an instinctive level, I disagreed with that, and so we went back and forth about it. After literally years of that, I was on prep for this movie called Dredd, which was basically a 180-degree different movie from this, and so this felt like a bit of a relief valve from all that craziness. I wrote the first draft quite a few years ago, maybe four years ago.How long did that take?
I look to write the first draft in anywhere between three and five days. The first thing I want to do is just to get it all down. It usually doesn't bear much similarity to the final product, but the fundamentals are there. But there's no craft or art in it anywhere. The reason I do that is because the most dangerous part of the writing process is the first draft. It's when the voices in your head can trip you up by saying, "this isn't any good." When I think of a first draft, it's exactly analogous to an assembly cut of our movie. It's just thrown together and usually never any good. It's like a blob of clay. I've never seen an assembly cut that didn't make you want to give up. It used to scare me, but it doesn't anymore. The first draft is not there to be good, it's there to give you some raw material.So from the first draft to the final movie, it took almost four years. What did you do in the meantime?
Basically, the second I got the first draft down, I put it down and set it aside, because we had to shoot Dredd and cut it. I was then flat out busy every day for a while, so nothing more happened on the project at that point. But there always comes a time when you have to hand the film over, and you don't have to get up in the mornings and can kind of just bum around. I believed there was something in this first draft worth shooting, so I picked it up and started rewriting. I ended up rewriting a large portion of it. For instance, the two guys, that was completely different in the first draft. The only thing that stayed the same was the robot, the machine that was at the heart of the story.One of the things that comes up in Ex Machina is the issue of gender, specifically that the robot is female and the two humans are male. Gender is obviously a big issue today in terms of the tech industry. How did you decide you wanted to approach it in Ex Machina?
To be honest, there's a whole spectrum of concerns that come up in the film, and some of them interrelate. But the bottom line concern is that the protagonist of the film is the machine [Ava, played by Alicia Vikander]. There's a deliberate set-up to make sure you think that the protagonist is the coder [Caleb, played by Domnhall Gleeson], and a lot flows from that conceit.The other thing is that the baseline question that's being asked and primarily being answered is: how do you ever establish what someone else or something else is thinking? What are the sort of roots by which that happens? I'm going to be slightly elliptical about it, because I don't want to give too much away. But what are the things that are assisting us in terms of understanding what anyone's thinking? And what are the obstacles to understanding that?A lot of it comes down to where you place yourself in the film, and the selective nature of our empathy. It seems like the machine doesn't empathize with these two guys, but the machines empathize with each other. When we only care about people or things in relation to ourselves, empathy can get almost completely switched off. And the film's meaning is embedded in that.So over the course of researching and writing and making this film, did your views change at all on artificial intelligence, or were they reinforced? It's really become a big topic among the tech and science industries lately, with people like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking saying they're worried about the development of artificial intelligence. And of course, many movies like Terminator and others have also covered that fear.
I would say that my personal sense is that machines will become sentient. I also wouldn't be able to say with any certainty that it will happen. But it has truly immense implications, and some true unknowns, some Donald Rumsfeld-style unknown unknowns. In terms of the fear, there's a parallel to the nuclear bomb. There's a track that plays at one point in the film by Enola Gay, and a conversation about Oppenheimer, and lots of other stuff referencing that scattered throughout. Artificial intelligence is the same in that there's this latent ability to destroy mankind, but that doesn't stop us from developing it. If it is possible, it will happen. If it's possible, it becomes inevitable, more or less. The question is should you or shouldn't you do it, but how you handle it once it happens.I suppose I think "yes, it could be dangerous," but it's also terrific. And some of the issues around it are no more complicated than when parents create children…. The reduction of all that is I'm much more distrustful of people than I am of AIs. I find people more scary than anything else.That's a great point, because it also comes up in one of your older films and one of my favorite movies ever, 28 Days Later. I think even though it came out in 2002, it really holds up today.
Thanks for saying that. I'm glad to hear it. I wouldn't know it though. I actually haven't seen it since it came out. I've never seen a film I've worked on since the tail-end of the filmmaking process, after it's all cut, and you watch it in the dark to make sure the sound is right and all that stuff.Why not?
The truest thing I can say about it is that I'm just not interested in doing it. I suppose I'll see something I wish I could change and feel frustrated that I can't change it. Like, how would I even do it? Is it just 28 Days Later comes on TV and I start watching? And I think part of it is not being clingy and letting stuff go. It's just the way things have ended up. You've got to keep moving.
Advertisement
I was having an argument with a friend of mine about a lot of the issues that ended up in the film, including the question "can machines ever really be sentient?" He said no, and on an instinctive level, I disagreed with that, and so we went back and forth about it. After literally years of that, I was on prep for this movie called Dredd, which was basically a 180-degree different movie from this, and so this felt like a bit of a relief valve from all that craziness. I wrote the first draft quite a few years ago, maybe four years ago.
Advertisement
I look to write the first draft in anywhere between three and five days. The first thing I want to do is just to get it all down. It usually doesn't bear much similarity to the final product, but the fundamentals are there. But there's no craft or art in it anywhere. The reason I do that is because the most dangerous part of the writing process is the first draft. It's when the voices in your head can trip you up by saying, "this isn't any good." When I think of a first draft, it's exactly analogous to an assembly cut of our movie. It's just thrown together and usually never any good. It's like a blob of clay. I've never seen an assembly cut that didn't make you want to give up. It used to scare me, but it doesn't anymore. The first draft is not there to be good, it's there to give you some raw material.So from the first draft to the final movie, it took almost four years. What did you do in the meantime?
Basically, the second I got the first draft down, I put it down and set it aside, because we had to shoot Dredd and cut it. I was then flat out busy every day for a while, so nothing more happened on the project at that point. But there always comes a time when you have to hand the film over, and you don't have to get up in the mornings and can kind of just bum around. I believed there was something in this first draft worth shooting, so I picked it up and started rewriting. I ended up rewriting a large portion of it. For instance, the two guys, that was completely different in the first draft. The only thing that stayed the same was the robot, the machine that was at the heart of the story.
Advertisement
To be honest, there's a whole spectrum of concerns that come up in the film, and some of them interrelate. But the bottom line concern is that the protagonist of the film is the machine [Ava, played by Alicia Vikander]. There's a deliberate set-up to make sure you think that the protagonist is the coder [Caleb, played by Domnhall Gleeson], and a lot flows from that conceit.The other thing is that the baseline question that's being asked and primarily being answered is: how do you ever establish what someone else or something else is thinking? What are the sort of roots by which that happens? I'm going to be slightly elliptical about it, because I don't want to give too much away. But what are the things that are assisting us in terms of understanding what anyone's thinking? And what are the obstacles to understanding that?
One of the things that happens is this guy [Caleb], is tasked with trying to understand what's happened in this robot's head. At a certain point, he stops doing that and starts thinking about himself in relation to her. And the question is, "why does that happen?" Why does he completely lose track of what he was supposed to do?I suppose I think "yes, it could be dangerous," but it's also terrific
Advertisement
I would say that my personal sense is that machines will become sentient. I also wouldn't be able to say with any certainty that it will happen. But it has truly immense implications, and some true unknowns, some Donald Rumsfeld-style unknown unknowns. In terms of the fear, there's a parallel to the nuclear bomb. There's a track that plays at one point in the film by Enola Gay, and a conversation about Oppenheimer, and lots of other stuff referencing that scattered throughout. Artificial intelligence is the same in that there's this latent ability to destroy mankind, but that doesn't stop us from developing it. If it is possible, it will happen. If it's possible, it becomes inevitable, more or less. The question is should you or shouldn't you do it, but how you handle it once it happens.I suppose I think "yes, it could be dangerous," but it's also terrific. And some of the issues around it are no more complicated than when parents create children…. The reduction of all that is I'm much more distrustful of people than I am of AIs. I find people more scary than anything else.That's a great point, because it also comes up in one of your older films and one of my favorite movies ever, 28 Days Later. I think even though it came out in 2002, it really holds up today.
Thanks for saying that. I'm glad to hear it. I wouldn't know it though. I actually haven't seen it since it came out. I've never seen a film I've worked on since the tail-end of the filmmaking process, after it's all cut, and you watch it in the dark to make sure the sound is right and all that stuff.Why not?
The truest thing I can say about it is that I'm just not interested in doing it. I suppose I'll see something I wish I could change and feel frustrated that I can't change it. Like, how would I even do it? Is it just 28 Days Later comes on TV and I start watching? And I think part of it is not being clingy and letting stuff go. It's just the way things have ended up. You've got to keep moving.