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"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”
– Nelson Mandela

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Essay 8

Essay 8

Q Eighth Philosophical Essay For your eighth essay I am asking you to watch the film Ex Machina which is available on Netflix. Concentrate on the question of personhood. What makes a person a person? Who counts? Who decides? Draw on the range of philosophers, texts, and voices that we examined this week to inspect the film. Your job this week is to put your entire skillset to work. I want you to read the film as a philosophical text with a clear argument: a thesis, premises (reasons for believing the thesis), and evidence to support the premises. You should organize your essay to answer the following questions in approximately 750 words: • What do you think the text is arguing? • What evidence is there in the text to support your reading? • What is the meaning of the text's argument? Why? • What implications are there if the argument is true? Why? • Could the text be read as meaning something else? • What reasons might someone give for holding this alternative reading of the text? • Why do you find your original account of the argument and meaning of the text more persuasive than alternative readings? Finish your essay by taking a position of your own. What is your thesis? What are your premises (reasons for believing the thesis is true)? What evidence do you have? Why might someone disagree with you? Why are you unpersuaded. This articulation of your own position should be approximately 250 words in length, and should refer back to the preceding philosophical analysis. Please treat this assignment as one 1000 word essay. Be organized. Consistently follow a stylesheet like MLA, APA, or Chicago. You are encouraged to reference the work of Weston in providing an analysis of what is going on in the text.

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The movie Ex-Machina is not just another science fiction product. On the contrary, it does investigate various aspects of human life and the idea of personhood is definitely sought to be understood in different ways in the movie. The movie involves a computer programmer, Caleb, who is able to secure a victory in a context, only to be awarded the opportunity of spending a week in the remote estate of the CEO of his company, Nathan. While on this vacation, he soon discovers the real intention behind his visit as he was selected to interact with a robot (Ava), made by Nathan who was working on Artificial Intelligence and wanted to evaluate Ava on the premise of the Turing Test which could indicate the degree of her humanness.