"Who's in control here?" Thoughts triggered by Film: Ex Machina

"The World exists for the pleasure and experimentation of Mankind and ALL manners of behavior may be perpetrated upon everything that is not human by the superior force."  

Is this correct?  (And am I doing a Movie Review now?)

What exactly may give that narrative strength should be challenged;  from where such a directive comes should be examined:

Is it… Reason, Philosophy?

Is it… Religion?

Reason is interesting as a justification for human ultimate superiority over all other objects' rights…  Is it that humans are capable of observably complex thought, and other forms of existence have less observable complex thought; one might suppose, this forms the best information we have for presupposing superiority.  There are MAJOR implications for this line of thinking as it applies to artificial forms of intelligence and, if we allow ourselves to go there, leakage into how we relate to other life forms including pets, communal living wild animals right on ‘down the chain’ of observable consciousness.  Perhaps the power extends even over humans some of us may deem of ‘lower intelligence’.

Religion is, a go-to reference for how to live a moral life for much of mankind.  Yet it offers a less compelling basis for determining life superiority than Reason does.  Ask yourself from whence did we derive Religion?  From God? Are there really such a thing as 'God-given rights'?  What sort of God would bestow such rights?  More questions than answers are down this path and a thinking being is no longer willing (at lest not REAL thinkers) of accepting all on Faith.

In Ex Machina man creates what is the first of what we can call ‘artificial intelligence’, the ability to have adaptive cogitative thought.  Of course, we have any observations of lower life forms having THIS sort of intellect, for even viruses and bacteria adapt and all living tissue seems to observably evolve, adapting to change in conditions.

But in watching the film one can see many idea triggers… About what constitutes life, intelligence, a soul, manhood, womanhood.

The young male star is thrust into thought experiments to determine just one point:  Does this new ‘thing’, this machine, think and feel adaptively, without new written coding?

What of a 'creator' who mistreats a 'machine'?  Is it his to do with as he will and without consequence?

When a geeky boy who hasn’t had many romantic encounters finds himself having feelings for the machine in this tale, and the machine APPEARS to have feelings for him, what is REALLY going on?  Does putting on hair and clothing make one a woman?  Does the appearance of feelings make a machine a 'human'?  Is there a distinction between any thinking (living) thing and mankind as we know it give cause for one to have power over the other?  When does life begin?  What rights do we have over the potential for life, in whatever form that comes?  Who REALLY is superior and why?  Or is it even important to make the distinction?

Oh, Ex Machina is a mind fucker, if it can lead us down this path and then turn us loose to answer these questions however we will.