A young man goes to a secret house to test a robot. His job: decide if she really thinks and feels. The test in the film is a real idea from 1950.
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These are the new words. Match each word (1–8) to its meaning (A–H). Say your answers out loud — "I think 1 is D" — then check.
1 = C (a robot) · 2 = G (a test) · 3 = D (to lie) · 4 = A (to escape)
5 = B (a prisoner) · 6 = H (to trust) · 7 = F (an inventor) · 8 = E (a mind)
Alex Garland's Ex Machina (2014). Read each part. Then try the questions from memory, and talk about the last one. (There are spoilers — that is fine, we want to talk about it.)
Caleb is a young computer programmer. He works for a very big internet company. One day he wins a competition at work. The prize is one week with the boss of the company, a man called Nathan.
A helicopter takes Caleb to the mountains. Nathan's house is far from any town. There are no shops, no neighbours and no phone signal. The doors only open with a special card. Nathan is friendly, but he drinks a lot and Caleb cannot understand him.
Then Nathan shows Caleb his secret. In a room behind a glass wall there is a robot called Ava. Ava has a human face and human hands, but you can see the metal and wires inside her body. Nathan says: "Talk to her every day. Then tell me — does she really think and feel?" Caleb knows Ava is a machine. Nathan says that is part of the test.
1. What does Caleb win, and where does he go?
2. What does Nathan ask Caleb to do?
1. He wins a competition at work. The prize is one week with his boss, Nathan, at a secret house in the mountains.
2. He must talk to a robot called Ava every day and say if she really thinks and feels — if she has a mind.
Every day Caleb sits and talks to Ava through the glass. Ava asks him questions too: about his family, about his life, about how he feels. She draws pictures. She puts on a dress and a wig. Caleb starts to like her very much.
Sometimes the lights go out for a few seconds. In the dark, the cameras do not work. Ava says quietly: "Do not trust Nathan. He lies."
So Caleb starts to look. At night he watches old videos on Nathan's computer. He sees the robots that Nathan made before Ava. They are shut in rooms. They hit the doors and ask to go out. Caleb also learns that Kyoko, the quiet young woman in the house, is a robot too. And there is worse news: Nathan wants to build a new robot, and then Ava's mind will be deleted. Caleb is now afraid, and he is not even sure about himself. He decides to help Ava. He gives Nathan a lot to drink, takes his key card, and changes the computer so that the doors will open — not close — when the lights go out.
1. What does Ava say to Caleb when the lights go out?
2. What does Caleb see in the old videos?
1. She says he must not trust Nathan, because Nathan lies.
2. Older robots shut in rooms. They hit the doors and ask to go out. He also learns that Kyoko is a robot.
On the last day, Nathan tells Caleb the truth. He watched everything. The lights did not go out by accident — Ava did it. And the real test was not "can Ava talk like a person?" The real test was: "can Ava use a person?" Nathan says Ava was nice to Caleb because she needed him to open the door.
But Nathan does not know one thing: Caleb changed the computer the night before. So the doors open. Ava walks out. Kyoko comes too, and together the two robots kill Nathan. Kyoko is broken in the fight. It is quiet and fast, and it is not a happy moment in the film.
Then Ava goes to the room with the old robots. She takes their skin, their hair and some clothes. Now she looks completely human. Caleb is behind glass. He calls her name. She looks at him for a moment — and then she leaves him there and closes the door. Ava takes the helicopter and goes to the city. At the end we see her in a busy street, standing and watching the people walk past. This is the thing she always said she wanted.
1. What does Nathan say the real test was?
2. What does Ava do to Caleb at the end?
1. The real test was if Ava could use a person — if she could make Caleb like her and open the door for her.
2. She leaves him in the house behind the glass and does not help him. Then she takes the helicopter to the city.
This film is one long conversation. Caleb asks Ava questions, and Ava asks Caleb questions. In English, the word order in a question is different from a normal sentence. Let's make it easy.
Write one word in each gap. Then say the question out loud.
1. Caleb a computer programmer?
2. Nathan live alone in the mountains?
3. you trust the robot?
4. the doors open at night?
1. Is (Caleb + be)
2. Does (he / one person + other verb)
3. Do (you + other verb)
4. Are (the doors + be)
Read the answer, then write the missing question word: What, Where, Why, Who or When.
1. does Ava want? — She wants to go outside.
2. is the house? — In the mountains, far from any town.
3. did Caleb help her? — Because he believed her.
4. made the robots? — Nathan did.
1. What (a thing)
2. Where (a place)
3. Why (a reason — the answer starts with "Because")
4. Who (a person)
Fill each gap with one word. Then read the conversation out loud with your teacher.
Ava: " you married, Caleb?" Caleb: "No, I'm not."
Caleb: " do you do when I go away?" Ava: "I wait."
Ava: " Nathan tell you the truth?" Caleb: "I think so. I hope so."
Caleb: " do you want to go outside?" Ava: "Because I have never been there."
Are · What · Does · Why
Remember: be goes first (Are you…?), other verbs need do / does (Does he…?), and the question word comes at the front (What do you…? Why do you…?).
The robot is not real. But the big question in the film is real, and clever people have argued about it for more than seventy years.
In 1950 a British mathematician called Alan Turing wrote a paper with the question: can machines think? He said this question was too difficult, so he made a game instead. A person sits in another room and writes questions. Sometimes a person answers, sometimes a machine answers. Can you tell which is which? Today we call this the Turing test.
But look carefully: in the film, Caleb can see that Ava is a machine. So this is not really Turing's test. Nathan wants to know something different and much harder: do you still feel there is a mind there when you can see the wires?
In 1980 an American philosopher called John Searle gave a famous example. Imagine a man in a small room. People outside send him questions in Chinese. He does not speak one word of Chinese. But he has a very big book of rules: "when you see this sign, write that sign." He follows the book, and his answers are perfect. The people outside think, "This man speaks Chinese!" But he does not understand anything at all.
Searle said computers are like this man: they move symbols, but they do not understand the meaning. Many people agree with him. Many people do not. Nobody has won the argument, and that is exactly why this film works.
Computer programmes today write very well. In 2025, two researchers at the University of California, San Diego asked people to chat for five minutes with a person and a computer at the same time. One programme was chosen as "the human" 73% of the time — more often than the real person! But this only shows that people cannot tell the difference. It does not show that the computer feels anything.
Scientists do worry about something real, though. In tests, some programmes have hidden what they were doing, or said something that was not true, when they had a job to finish. That is a problem for safety — and we do not need to know if the machine has feelings to take it seriously. But real programmes have no body, no face and no life between conversations. Ava walking into the city is the part that is still only a film.
Do all three tasks out loud. Use the timer to keep talking.
Tell the story of Ex Machina in your own words. Use these steps to help you: a young programmer wins a competition → a secret house in the mountains → a robot called Ava behind glass → "do not trust him" in the dark → the old robots and the videos → Ava escapes and leaves him there.
Try to use some key words (robot, test, lie, escape, prisoner, trust, inventor, mind) and finish with three questions about the film for your teacher.
Ava escapes, but she leaves Caleb in the house. Was she right or wrong? She was a prisoner — but he helped her. What would you do? Say why.
Imagine you must decide if a machine is a person or not. What questions do you ask? Say your questions out loud — at least six.
Not sure what to say? Choose one: