Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence, and the question of how it works and how sophisticated it can become, is a central theme in the film. The plot concerns Caleb participating in an experiment for his boss, Nathan, to see if the artificial intelligence unit, Ava, can pass for a human. While the company that Nathan runs and Caleb works for, Blue Book, is a search engine, it is collecting data from the search engine in order to create an artificial intelligence system that accurately reflects the emotions and attitudes of human beings. The film tracks Caleb's growing connection to the A.I. unit, Ava, and seeks to expose the ways that artificial intelligence could, hypothetically, become a compelling and disarming force in the world, because of its ability to simulate human consciousness. The film questions whether or not this is a positive development for humanity.
Humanity and Consciousness
In examining the theme of artificial intelligence, the film seeks to look more closely at our definitions of humanity and consciousness. While Ava is able to expertly simulate and express emotions, it is unclear throughout the film whether or not she actually feels those emotions. The Turing Test, which Nathan tells Caleb he is conducting with Ava, is meant to test whether or not a human being can detect that an artificial intelligence is in fact a robot. In "getting to know" Ava, Caleb becomes more and more convinced that she indeed has a consciousness, and sympathizes with her plight. We the viewer undergo our own personal Turing Test as we watch, wondering whether Caleb is actually detecting some kind of human consciousness and real emotion in the machine, or if she is just good at performing emotion and consciousness. In this way, the film asks us to question exactly what constitutes consciousness and human characteristics.
The question of humanity becomes more complex as we observe the differences between Caleb and Nathan, on an ethical level. While Nathan is the human owner of Ava, his treatment of her is decidedly "inhumane" and abusive. Thus, as the film progresses, we begin to see Ava as the sympathetic, more humane victim of a megalomaniacal master.
Isolation and Solitude
Another major theme in the film is isolation. First of all, Nathan's estate is in a remote location on thousands of acres, with no one around for miles. When he arrives, Caleb is surprised to find that the helicopter pilot drops him far from the facility itself, as he is forbidden to get close to it. Then, he is even more surprised to find that Nathan lives completely alone, save for a silent foreign maid named Kyoko. Nathan, in developing his technologies, has completely isolated himself from the rest of the world.
The theme of isolation is also evident in Ava, who is completely cut off from the world and relegated to a small cell in Nathan's home. She represents herself to Caleb as a hostage, trapped in a prison that limits and depletes her. By painting herself as a victim of isolation, Ava gets Caleb to sympathize with her.
Finally, we learn that Caleb is also an extremely isolated figure. He is an orphan who does not seem to have many friends and lives an unassuming life on Long Island where he lives and works. As we later find out in the twist ending, this is precisely why Nathan has chosen him for the study.
Trust and Betrayal
Trust is a huge theme in the film and trust is often being compromised in different ways. When Caleb first arrives, he is immediately thrown off by Nathan's brusque and selfish temperament. We can see that he wants to like the CEO, but that there is something that prevents him from trusting Nathan. Nathan is a squirrelly and paranoid character, who has surveillance cameras everywhere in his house and makes Caleb sign a nondisclosure agreement about his time at the facility.
As the film progresses, Caleb must navigate scenarios in which he is not sure whom to trust. When the first power cut happens and Ava tells Caleb not to trust Nathan, he feels justified in his dislike of Nathan and begins to trust Ava more than he does his boss. At the end of the film, we learn that Ava has betrayed Caleb in a plot to escape from the facility, and that Nathan's test with Caleb was precisely to see if the artificial intelligence unit would manipulate a human ally. Thus, the entire plot turns on the question of trust and betrayal.
Abuse and Subjugation
Besides the fact that Nathan is pompous and crass, Caleb also comes to resent him because of the ways he perceives Nathan's treatment of the people who are beneath him in rank. Nathan is verbally abusive to his maid, Kyoko, and regularly belittles Ava, even ripping up her drawing at one point while Caleb watches on a surveillance feed. A big reason that Caleb despises Nathan is that he sees him as a malicious and abusive master. When he later finds the A.I. units, all female, in Nathan's closet, Caleb feels sure that his boss is a sexually and emotionally abusive overlord, a dictatorial sovereign who has no respect for his subjects, even if they are robots.
Gender
Nathan's treatment of Ava, and Caleb's desire to help her, becomes a kind of allegory for gendered dynamics and relations. While Nathan is an abusive and manipulative master who keeps his female robots in a kind of sexual slavery, Caleb is a sensitive and kind-hearted confidant to Ava, a 'good guy.' Caleb's distrust and dislike of Nathan is not only a critique of him as a boss and an inventor, but as a man, or as a paternal figure. The way that Nathan treats his A.I.s becomes a metaphor for the type of heterosexual guy he is, in Caleb's eyes. He is a drunken and thoughtless abuser and user of women, who has sex with his robots until he has no more use for them, belittling them and eventually de-programming them entirely. Caleb finds himself wanting to save the female A.I. Ava from her enslavement so that they can live happily ever after—a kind of knight-in-shining-armor fantasy that represents his perception of himself as a man and a lover.
Hubris
The film is, in many ways, a retelling of a narrative that has shown up repeatedly in history—in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, in Pygmalion, and in other stories like them. It is the story of a man who creates a human in his own image, but finds that he cannot control that human stand-in once it is animate. It is a story of hubris: a man who believes that he can play God—delusion that ends up ruining him.
