In Ex Machina, the humanoid AI tested by Caleb Smith is named Ava.
Ava is the artificial intelligence at the center of Alex Garland’s 2014 film Ex Machina. Caleb Smith, a programmer employed by the search company Blue Book, is invited to the isolated home of its CEO, Nathan Bateman. Nathan asks Caleb to assess whether Ava demonstrates human-level consciousness in a variation of the Turing test.
Ava has a humanoid face, hands, and feet, but transparent sections reveal her mechanical structure. She can converse, draw, recognize emotions, and adapt her behavior. Her sessions with Caleb are repeatedly interrupted by power failures, which create private moments and make him question Nathan’s control over the experiment.
Kyoko is another artificial being in Nathan’s house, while Joi belongs to the later film Blade Runner 2049. Dolores is the central host of the television series Westworld. Ava’s name therefore identifies one particular film character, not a general term for humanoid artificial intelligence.