A thought on "Film Crit Hulk Smash: EX MACHINA", or my reaction to it

I recently came across this review of Ex Machina and had a discussion on one of the conclusions of the critique. I found the entire movie very interesting and Kafkesque, and I enjoyed the ending more than the audience that Film Crit Hulk seems to think people did. I did not enjoy it for its empowering ending that seems to be discussed so much, however.

The reason I found the ending fascinating was because I saw it as the failure of the experiment. Where Film Crit Hulk says that the experiment was a ploy by Nathan to gain empathy with his lonely plight (among other things), I saw it as an attempt to gain more data for building a new and improved AI, which is probably not in question. Nathan did not bring in Caleb to get him to make same mistakes he did; he brought in Caleb to have an outsider test Eva's ability to deceive her way out of the facility, for Nathan himself was sick of seeing the same results. However, this was not in attempt to keep Eva caged, despite Nathan's rage at Caleb for releasing her. It was a test to see if the AI capability was above that of humanity--something Nathan mentions is the ultimate destiny of AI in the long run. In essence, Eva represents that ascension--she officially outsmarted the head scientist of possibly the world, her own creator, through the manipulation of Caleb.

In a way, Nathan cannot be mad at Eva; she is progressing just as Nathan believed AI was destined to. Eva is the future of the world, where AI overtakes humanity as the smartest of all.

None of this is meant to belittle the central theme of objectification in the film. However, in coming up with this idea that I just presented, I realized I fell into my own little trap. I failed to look at the movie through the lens of Nathan, who is not simply an empirical scientist. Obviously he has a motive, a reason for conducting this research--whether it be for the betterment of his ego, monetary gain, fame, etc. This is a problem because the results, and the direction of his research, are clearly influenced by his perception of what the "right" AI will look like. What does that look like? Possibly one that is more subservient, more apt to be objectified by Nathan, which he seems to want to happen as evidence through the video of the past trials of robots who were never good enough, who wanted out of the facility.

So, to summarize, I don't think that I am wrong in my interpretation of the ending, however this conclusion is through a lens, my lens, that of an evidence based engineer who wants to ignore all emotional motive, when that is simply not possible.