Sloan Science & Film

In Alex Garland's Ex Machina, Ava (Alicia Vikander) is the creation of CEO-genius–madman Nathan (Oscar Isaac), a reclusive inventor who invites a young programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) to take part in a "Turing Test" to see if his lovely invention can pass as a human being. Like its predecessors, 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Terminator franchise, Ex Machina posits the notion that a highly functioning computer system may not be necessarily benevolent to mankind. But unlike those that came before it, the new film suggests humans can't be trusted much, either. Sloan Science and Film spoke with Dr. David J. Freedman, an Associate Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Chicago and member of the Center for Integrative Neuroscience and Neuroengineering Research, about how brains and machines learn and process data, if computers can attain consciousness, and, if they could, what the implications might be. Sloan Science and Film: Can you explain your specific area of research?