>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with conan o'brien. >> when i was hosting "the tonight show," i was very much trying to, i think probably please this sort of old media idea, and it's such a mantel, such a heavy mantel, at the time it felt that way. and when this kind of crazy disastrous -- still feels comical and improbable -- when the whole thing quickly fell apart and i found myself without a job and not knowing what i was going to do, it's very liberating. it's an amazing feeling. i don't recommend it. there are other ways to get that high. there is lipitor. but i found it to be liberating. >> rose: and we conclude this

evening with alex garland writer and director of "ex machina." >> the thing we find most valuable in each other is authentic, everything we stem from. what if you find that sentence or create a sentence in a machine? >> rose: conan o'brien and alex garland next. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications

from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: conan o'brien is here. he is the host of "conan" on tbs, has been hosting late-night television since 1993. when david letterman steps down, conan will be the longest serving host of late night. it is changing because of hosts and how it's being consumed. he was the first time a host was taped in cuba since 1959. i am pleased to have conan o'brien at the table. welcome. >> i'm the old guy now. isn't that crazy! >> rose: you are the old guy! crazy times! one of the first times i game came on the show in '93 i sat here and no one thought i was going to make it. you were very nice to me, if i recall. if we were to look at that

appearance now it would be like i love lucy. >> rose: you hadn't done much performing when you took over the show. >> no, i had done improvisation but not nearly the amount of performing one should have done to get a late-night show. i was a fluke. i credit warren mike also with it. he thought, i think this kid can do it, it will be rough at first but he'll be a good fit. that was such a time in 1993 there was no footage of me that existed and the media couldn't find any. if you could imagine how much footage there was of everybody. there was not an existing photograph of me when they announced the late night show. they were taking photographs of

my appearance on the show that night. there were more photographs of d.b. cooper than me. >> rose: doing what you do, and you know the difference because you have a show similar to this on line, it's dramatically different from what you do. you think comedy every moment, don't you? >> pretty much since about 1978, i would say. i'm not kidding. i think about it all the time. >> rose: david letterman was here and said i would love to have the luxury you have because i'm as curious as you are but he said half my mind is thinking about the joke, the joke, the joke, rather than simply being curious with someone. >> i think there's a certain pressure when you're hosting a show to help guide performers through the material. so you don't have the freedom to just always go exactly where you might want to go. >> rose: yeah. but i also love to just have

a conversation and go. and it's -- and learn something. i love -- i'm still -- i try to read as much as i can. i try to talk to people wherever i go find out what they're doing. so i think i have that curious mind. i think it's within the confines of doing a comedy show you can't just sit back and maybe ask all the questions that you would want to ask. >> rose: with david letterman stepping down, what is what is his magic and why is he so revered for who he is? >> well, i wrote a piece for e.w. magazine people can probably find online that came about a week ago and i was kind of proud of it and it summed up what i think his main contribution is. i took people back to when his morning show came on the air in 1980 and how i think -- i called the piece "immediately everything was wrong."

i mean, everything he did seemed, in that moment wrong. he didn't look right. his manner, his affect was wrong. everything was seemed wrong because he was so profoundly original. i think he's respected and revered because he has the whole package -- the great innovative writing ideas. he came along at the right moment. carson had been on the air at that point about 20 years had about ten more years to go, and had really established the talk show and dave came along and gave us the anti-talk show in so many ways. the comedy was so different, and he was so not about show business, and he was so outside of show business. and his show felt like a revolution, to me and i think it was, and i think it was a seismic occurrence. i think it affect add lot of the cold -- affected a lot of the

comedy in the '80s and '90s and years afterwards. >> rose: what was it about? was it the monologs or the watermelons off buildings or stupid pet tricks -- >> all those were great bits and a lot of talk show hosts in this genre, comedians, they have their routines and their bits they assemble over time and dave's are just an amazing array of concepts and ideas and he had that. but at the core of it, to me, david letterman's a wit. he's an american wit and he's like a fred allen. it's an old reference but he is an authentic -- has an authentic witty mind. just watching that on display over the years when he first showed up, i think it was more about the stunts and how different it was. and over this time you saw a laser-like mind. what happens is a whole

generation of people like myself, if we got the chance to be interviewed by him or go on a show, we just wanted to impress him. it's aspirational. the few times in my life i have been told there's a phone call for you and it's from david letterman for some reason or the other and the lights blinking, that blinking light has a different look than any other blinking light. it's the same way i felt the one or two times i got to have conversations on the telephone with johnny carson and they would say johnny's on the line and there's a blinking light. it's different. you're looking at the blinking light. >> rose: it pulsates differently. >> it pulsates differently and you get on and you're very aware -- it's always good to play tennis with someone who's better than you. >> rose: absolutely. and i think for everyone in my generation, david letterman was and is the gold standard. >> rose: kim's not going to

book a show on his last night. >> he's constantly looking for a way not to do a show. he just likes to sleep in. tribute to dave on my last night, i'm going to show an episode of kimmel. i think that's perfect. >> rose: what are you going to do on his last night? >> i will try and take some of the spotlight from dave. i'll do what i can. >> rose: you're cruel aren't you? one on one. >> this is what comics do. i'm going to come out on the air. i'm going to do anything i can. i'll be naked that night. no, it's an interesting question. i haven't actually given it a lot of thought. i think my nature that night, i think we'll assume nobody's going to watch any of us anyway. so doesn't -- i'm sure that -- what i would like to do is say something pretty much very nice about david letterman that i

think comes from the heart and then we come on a little before he does and then tell people the to turn the channel. so maybe i can, if there are nine people watching me that night, if i can get eight of them -- >> rose: then you have been successful. >> then i have been successful. >> rose: is the talk show business at night changing? >> oh, yeah. yeah, it's a whole different thing than when i started. when i started it's hilarious to talk this way now about the old days because i feel like i'm talking about the great depression, but when i began in '93, you think about it, there were hardly any of these shows. there was the johnny carson's tonight show, that was it. and arsenio had been around for a while but i think he had maybe two years left to go. but he was around. but it was really -- i felt like

it was johnny and it was dave, and then there's "nightline" and that's it. and nbc had kind of locked down a monopoly on the whole thing so it was a built-in audience. i can't tell you how many shows there are now. i've lost track and i'm in the business. i think there might be 35 late night shows. >> rose: a ton of them. a whole bunch of people are on at 11:00 you, me a bunch of other people. >> there's a ton of these shows. the technology changed with cable and then the internet comes along and what's happening is that -- and tiv0 comes along and the ability to watch things out of sequence. so the late night show it started to become -- i mean i often know that at 11:00 or 11:30 at night my choice would

be to catch up on some of the shows i missed earlier in the week, so my natural inclination would not be -- i mean, i wouldn't watch a late-night talk show anyway just because that's not -- actually, i would watch your show before i would watch a comedy show, a late-night comedy show because i can't relax watching those. i'm looking at the themes and -- if that's not -- okay, that's no fun, that's no good. but the whole thing now i think people can watch these shows a la carte meaning people watch a segment i did or a segment one of the jimmies did or, you know, that colbert -- these things go viral, people see those. when i see people on the street and they say i love that thing you did. they don't say i love that thing you did last night, they love the thing that bouncing around. >> rose: jimmy kimmel said

plucking your greatest hits without watching the whole show. >> yeah, albums, sergeant pepper side one and side two, a lot of thought went into which song goes where and for years i used to give a lot of thought to when things happened in the show. now it doesn't seem as relevant when things happen in the show. >> rose: are you thinking when you create a show about that or are you thinking i've got to find what i know will be salable, virable clips? >> i always try to lead with what's funny. fortunately -- i think this is wood, if not it's a fantastic simulation. >> rose: thank you. 25 years. >> beautiful. ikea. (laughter) i think a lot about what's funny, what would make me laugh

what would surprise me. i know what the formula is. there's a very simple formula to have things go viral and everybody knows what it is, it's no secret. you get a big celebrity and you get them to do some stunt and it will probably go viral. the thing is, it's called click bait, if you're just thinking about click bait, then you're going to end up with a show that might have a lot of viral bits but maybe things that you don't think comedically are that terrific. it's all in where you want to try to put your priorities. if you can get both. you know, i've had some remotes that go viral and i'm really proud of them comedically and they happened to get out there and that makes me happiest. >> rose: you've started doing remotes. you've had an interesting remotes but interestingly you create a lot offattention

because you went to cuba. why did you do that. >> i went to cuba. always looking for a way to get out of the studio and when i'm on my own when i say on my own just on camera, but when i'm on camera wandering around and improvising, it seems to be something that i have a knack for and it's a different energy and, so we are always looking for an opportunity, and i've gone to finland. freshness and liven it up. when the obama administration announced earlier in the year they were going to work with cuba towards lifting the embargo, there was a lot of attention paid to it, and our head writer mike sweeny said, we should go to cuba. the minute he said that, everyone in the room said that's fantastic, and then he was demoted. i didn't know why. >> rose: they knew you couldn't resist the line. >> yeah. and we went to work. we wanted to do it were quickly.

my producer jeff ross immediately got in touch with a -- found a producer who did work with european companies in cuba. we met with him he told us what he thought was possible and how we could get in. we wanted to do it without permission and under the radar. >> rose: without permission from whom? >> we didn't want to call the state department and say are you okay with this because who knows, they might say no. it probably would be wise to say no. what state department nt me to be the liaison in doob. >>cuba? all you were doing was singing and dancing and eating. >> and lot of drinking. i drank very, very heavily. yeah, when you hear a comedian is asking for permission to go to cuba, it's better just to go. we brought our cameraman in and we didn't have permission to do

anything, we just went and shot. >> rose: here's a production. roll tape. (singing) (laughter) (cheers and applause)

>> did anyone get that down? (cheers and applause) that's a hit record! >> rose: my impression is that's what you love to do as much as anything. >> yeah. >> rose: that's what you did when you were off you went on that tour. >> i went on tour. what i absolutely love is, you know, when no one knew, back in 93, when no one knew who was this guy conan o'brien tell us, the media was calling anyone in my life they could find and they

called my roommate, we're still close friends today eric and they said, conan o'brien, who is conan o'brien? how is he h going to be different than any other late night host? and eric said something that's very true. he said conan likes to be funny with people. and i read that and i thought that's kind of perfect. i like to be -- go out in the world, whether with a guest on a show, i like to do something funny with them. i like to make something funny happen and i'll play any part. if they're low, i'll go high, if they're high, i'll go low. it's a very musical approach to comedy which i think is very closely to music. and i -- if i'm going to cuba or anywhere in the world or any comedy bit i'm doing i love to find a rhythm with somebody, get something going and then i'm

completely liberated. i mean, i'm acting like a complete jackass but in that moment is pure joy. >> rose: you like the improvisational part of it. >> love it. >> rose: roll tape part two cuba. >> these are everywhere. this is a cuban pay phone. as you can tell it's pretty distinctive. it enables you to make a call and get your hair permed at the same time. (laughter) the only problem is, it will only call that phone. so i'm talking to that guy right there. hola. office little-- i was a little worried my spanish wouldn't be good enough in cuba but i think i'll be okay. this is a market here in cuba, pretty typical. take a look. you don't see this gin where else. a whole row of one product, one

brand, that's it. i don't know what this is. sweet wine. just goes and goes and goes. we cannot film here. >> not without authorization. that's okay. we don't need to. i was just wondering, do you have any of this? (applause) >> rose: they have some. yeah, yeah, yeah. that was a fun moment. we blurred his face, obviously because we didn't want him to get in trouble. >> rose: you don't want him in trouble. john oliver was on the morning show with us the other day. he has eight or ten writers. does one show sunday night. which he says is all he needs and can handle. you have how many writers? >> right now i think i have either 12 or 14. >> rose: why do you need so

many writers? >> well... >> rose: because it's hard, i know. >> you never have enough and one writer -- a good writer -- this is not a perfect analogy, but a great hitter is a .300 hitter. >> rose: exactly three out of ten. >> and we need a lot of ideas. in comedy, it's not even three out of ten. a really good, usable idea is a hard thing to find and one very bright writer can come up with one once in a while. >> rose: a home run. yeah, a great idea. >> rose: yeah. so what you need is to get -- you know, there is some sort of weird equation, if i had 150 writers, i wouldn't be able to generate much more funny stuff. if i had 5 wouldn't be enough. 150 would be too many. there's something about this number where you get -- when you do the volume we do, we do four

hours a week, 190 190 shows a year. you need a lot of people because someone won't have it. sometimes two or three writers, they're not firing. their cylinders aren't going. many other people pick up the slack. some people are good at this, some people better at visual jokes. you need the people. >> rose: how much of it is you? do you contribute a joke a night? >> i edit a lot of the show. i think my biggest contributiono the show is there's a ton of improvising on the show just because there has to be. either you have an hour to fill and we have discreet bits and discreet monologue jokes. i think a lot of the laughs i get are me making fun of the jokes in between the jokes. that's been -- that's something -- >> rose: that's a staple of what you do. >> yeah. >> rose: which carson did. carson did really well. the laugh is rarely where you

think it's going to be. but the biggest contribution is as host you're editor and chief. so people are bringing you a lot of material and they're saying i love this but i'd like to shake it up and down. >> rose: a quote late night television is the most static genre tv. hasn't kept the media for touting it as the most exciting one but maybe it is. if you're interested in tvs as an economic horse race, each year we get different am analyses between the host shows. someone's the hot young buck, theout interest egg head, yet the show looks identical as if the egg head made the face one too many times and got stuck. do you agree with that? >> i think dish. >> rose: some of it? which one? which part? >> rose: the looks the same

part. >> i think that there is a reason why a bicycle looks like a bicycle. >> rose: yeah. you can reinvent the bicycle as many times as you want, but when the wright brothers were making them, which they did before the airplane, everybody -- >> rose: that's what paid for the airplane, by the way. >> exactly, and was made with bicycle parts. that would be what i like, too which is a form that works very well, which is you want there to be a structure because then it's what you do with it. so i think that, certainly, if you say it's too many white males, i say absolutely, there is too many white males. and that's not just true with american talk shows. c.e.o.s of companies, i mean, that's a problem people talk about in late night and i think that's actually -- too many white males is a problem

worldwide. specifically about talk shows, i think it's all what one person does with it, and i like to think that i've had a very different creative approach to how to do one of these shows. you know, i think if you're someone who's casually checking these shows out and you're looking at eight bicycles they just all look like, okay, great genius. wheel in front wheel in back, drive train in the middle pedals a seat and bell. >> rose: and celebrity guests and others. >> yeah, and i think what happens over time -- what i find interesting and what i find creative is because there are so many shows, it's forcing -- i know i feel the heat all the time. i have been doing this 22 years now and i've got a nice, long contract and secure job, but i feel the pressure every day because there are so many people out there.

>> rose: well, it's more than just some measurement of how you're doing against other people, but it's also you too. you're your own toughest competitor. >> yes, i've always been competing against myself, but i want to -- i don't want to just become a job. i think that would be the greatest crime. and there are days when it feels like -- well, there are days. this might be that time for you right now charlie. >> rose: i was going to say what would you do if they took it away from you? and then i said, they did! >> yeah, i have been through that. been there, done that. i'm like a clint eastwood hero where they hang him early in the movie but then he shows up with a scar around his neck and kills everybody. >> rose: i'm asking you because i'm writing a commencement speech for this weekend so i went back and looked at people that i respect. i looked obviously at steve jobs and the famous one he wrote.

but i looked at the the one you had written at harvard. and then -- several of us, including the one you did at dartmouth. what's interesting is you hadn't done one in eleven years or so. the second one that's interesting is you did things we all do, we talk a bit about the place where we are joke about the students and talk a bit about lessons. the lesson you talked about was the lesson you and i actually talked about before at a conference in aspen. it is this idea of what you discovered coming out of what might have been considered a big downturn, turned out to be the biggest upturn of your life. >> yeah. >> rose: how did that happen? i think, you know, when i was hosting the tonight show i was very much trying to, i think, probably please this sort of old

media idea. it's such a mantel. such a heavy mantel. at the time it felt that way. when this kind of crazy disastrous -- and it still feels comical and improbable -- when the whole thing quickly fell apart and i found myself without a job and not knowing what i was going to do it's very liberating. it's an amazing feeling. i don't recommended it. there are other ways to get that high. >> rose: yeah. there is lipitor... but i found it to be liberating. first of all i didn't realize how much -- i wasn't nearly as internet savvy then as i am today. what happened was a lot of the sort of pro-conan forces rose up on the internet. it was very creative and it was very -- >> rose: and it told you you had a committed audience

wherever the forum was, they were waiting for you. >> yeah, and they didn't care where i was. >> rose: right. they weren't interested in what the title of my show was they just wanted me to keep making things. >> rose: that made them laugh. that led to the tour and the tour was one of the best creative experiences in my life. i would play to these giant sold-out rooms and every night the show would change and i would do music comedy, improvisation, but i also did standup. i think i lost about 20 pounds just every night it was me on stage for two hours-plus. when the show was over i was just drenched in sweat. i couldn't eat enough to keep the weight on. it was a very intense time but very creative, and i think that led to this idea that i should just try things. i should try lots of things. don't be afraid to fail. don't be afraid to do a comedy idea that doesn't work out. people will forgive that in the

short term in. the long term what they will remember is what you find that works. so i started doing a lot more of that. i think the last five or six years of my life have been particularly creative, and it all came from an event that on the surface looked like a terrible thing. >> rose: how many twitter followers do you have? >> i don't know. >> rose: it's like 10 million or something. >> i think it's, like, 12-, i think. >> rose: and how often do you tweet? >> once a day. pretty rigid about that. once, maybe twice a day. but it's once a day and it's a joke. i don't tweet about what i'm eating. >> rose: good. i don't tweet about -- i mean, everyone -- i use it as a joke delivery system and then, occasionally, if there is something in the media and people want me to comment on it, that can be a good way to do that. >> rose: like dave's leaving? yeah, you can send out a tweet. you know, there are some things i still don't feel good about

which is there's a phenomenon now that, when someone dies, suddenly other celebrities are sending out tweets -- we'll miss you, rest in peace -- and doesn't feel right to me. so that might just be a generational thing, i don't know. >> rose: do you get up in the morning, first thoughts as you look in the newspaper -- i mean, you have family now. >> yeah. >> rose: dave told me that. he said it changed over the last four or five years. he said it was no longer my whole life. first of all he had a son harry but at the same time he had begun not to go back to his office and watch the show he just taped. he had begun not to come in every day and a whole series of things because he was not obsessed by it and he felt he had other things he wanted to do. >> yeah. >> rose: maybe we all reach that point. >> i think i have -- i have

reached that point about 25 years ago -- (laughter) no. my goal is to run this into the ground. i'm always prepared to wake up one day and say i can't do this anymore, but i think it's going to -- >> rose: somebody else will tell you? >> no, i think it's going to be clear to me. >> rose: no, a response to something will tell you. >> yeah, i think it's going to be i have no passion for this anymore, and i'm still very passionate about trying to entertain people. i'm very passionate about that. i take it really seriously, and i -- and when it's going well, it's about as happy as i get. >> rose: i think the great thing you have is comes out of a quote i saw in 20 is 1. you told the "new york times" at this point in my career it's not about getting more people into the tent it's about deepening

the commitment i have with my fans. >> when i walk down the street and someone is excited to see me they're very excited to see me. there's a lot of hugging which i enjoy. i just want to put that out there. >> rose: if you see conan hug him. >> please, please. ladies -- and that guy. (laughter) no, but there's a -- it's very important know that people know i mean it that they know it's real, that i am that person they see on television and that i really am committed to this and it is not a facade and that there is something behind it and i almost have a religious commitment to that. so when i meet people who are interested in my work or appreciate it, i really want them to know that that really is me. >> rose: you said to me once, and i always remembered it, you said about this show and this table, this is the place where people come to talk. >> yeah. >> rose: and we've used that.

in essence, it was how we define this program, so i thank you for coming. >> absolutely this is one of my favorite things to do, this and just eat cheese alone in the basement. this is up there. >> rose: couldn't resist could you? >> had to. >> rose: "conan," airs 11:00 p.m. tbs eastern standard time. back in a moment. >> rose: alex garland is here, writer and director. his novel "the beach" was turned into a movie starring leonardo dicaprio, he wrote 28 days late around never let me go. he is now making his directorial debut with "ex machina" about a break through in experiment with artificial intelligence. his job is to evaluate the human qualities of a machine named ava. here's the trailer. >> you are the dead center of the greatest scientific ex

experiment in the history of man. >> i know. how do you feel about it? she's amazing. every cell phone has a microphone camera and a means to transmitt data. so i turned on every microphone and camera across the planet and redirected the data. >> my competitors thought search engines were a map of what people were thinking but actually they were a map of how people were thinking. >> did you know they're here to test you? >> you're wrong. about what? you shouldn't listen to anything he says. >> does ava actually like you or is she just pretending to like

you? >> manipulation, sex wall. you're attracted to me. that isn't true as -- i have something to show you. ava... ♪ >> ava! what's going to happen to me if i failure test? >> rose: i am pleased of alex garland at this table for the first time. welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: congratulation force all you have done and on this film. tell me about the development of

your interest in this before it became a film. >> well, i mean, i'm in my mid 40s, so my life is sort of kept pace with the development of home computers. it probably started when i was a kid, 12 years old and getting a sense that this thing in the living room that had arrived was somehow alive or have qualities that it didn't have but you get this funny electric sense from the machine. then when i was older starting to read about the issues of artificial intelligence and the kind of progress being made and realizing the way it relates to understanding human consciousness and self awareness and what our minds are. >> rose: the subject of great speculation and obsession and curiosity among neuroscientists. >> absolutely, and an area of no certain knowledge in many respects. >> rose: right. and it's a very important thing to sort of take on board that. >> rose: which is probably one of the reasons they're so curious about it.

>> yes, absolutely. and it's fundamental. the thing that we find most valuable in each other is authentic. it's what everything we are stems from really. and so what happens if you find that sentence or create that sentence in a machine? where does that lead us, and that kind of thing. >> rose: let's talk about artificial intelligence and have you define it because the trailer which you did not make for your film had a series of quotes which i'm familiar with because i've done a lot of television programs about this from yvonne musk, stephen hawking saying this could be the end of humanity the development of artificial intelligence. >> right. >> rose: what else it when we talk about artificial intelligence and how could it mark at its extension the end of the human race? >> well, the first thing you've got to do is make sure that one can't conflating different kinds of a.i. because we have

artificial intelligence in all sorts of video games and you have an apple watch siri is an a.i. but siri is not self aware. the google -- >> rose: so self awareness is the definition of consciousness? >> self-awareness seems to be fundamental to consciousness in the way that we know what we are and animals know what they are. a dog notices its reflection in the mirror and has consciousness of a sort. there is no machine that has that. the kind of artificial intelligence that can get talked about is either a self-aware machine -- that's one set of issues because that's a machine that is then like us in some respects and there are ethical considerations to that -- but there are other kinds of artificial intelligence which are superintelligences which may not be super aware but very

prowferl and i think stephen hawking and musk are worried about both signs. i think it's reasonable to be concerned about it. this film draws a connection with oppenheimer and his anxieties about developing nuclear bombs. there is something fascinating and actually quite important about developing nuclear power but it also contains a lot of latent danger and i think you could broadly say something -- say the same thing about artificial intelligence, strong or otherwise. >> rose: what was the driving idea for you? >> i think just partly to me an ideas movie, you know, a movie that had an agenda and was proposing a bunch of questions which it may or may not have answers to. >> rose: the agenda was to proposed questions or provide answers. >> the agenda was more to pose questions than provide answers because many of the questions don't have answers but there is still a value in having the questions to talk about.

>> rose: right. and some imposes answers and they're embedded in the film. but i was also trying to slightly reframe the way we look alt artificial intelligence. it seems to me that there was an enormous amount of anxiety about artificial intelligence which as i said is reasonable in many respects but i also thought there was something like a bit of paranoia and may be bleeding over from a generalized tech or science anxiety which i always -- >> rose: like yvonne musk and -- >> reflected by everybody. what science and technology does or has done is it changes paradigms and that makes people feel uncomfortable and that's understandable. in the case of artificial intelligence, what it felt like was we perceive artificial intelligence as being on a parallel track us to and it seems to be moving quickly. the fact it's on a parallel tract makes us feel like a rival with it in some respects.

if you pull artificial intelligence off the parallel and bring it on our track because it is actually a product of us, we've created it, and in the film it's presented like a relationship a bit like a parent and child,, it's a human creating a new consciousness which is what parents do, then suddenly the sense of the artificial intelligence moving away i would argue maybe is changed. it's less alarming because we want for our children that they have longer lives as us and lives as good as ours if not better. so there was that idea sort of buried within it. >> rose: tell me what the touring test is. >> unbelievably intelligent man with a great deal of for sight and he could see the way computers would go and there would be an issue in terms of computers becoming conscious. he proposed a test which was a blind test which was really to see -- basically it sees a human

interacting with a machine that it can't see can be fooled into believing it's actually interacting with a human. sounds like a very simple test but it's very, very difficult to pass. siri is obviously a very advanced artificial intelligence, but nobody is fooled into thinking they're talking to a human when they're talking to siri. >> rose: right. and it's not actually a test for synthians it's a test to pass to see if you can pass the test. the film tries to push it one step further inasmuch as it says ava, the artificial intelligence presented in the film, would certainly pass the cheering test in the terms the cheering test is set. it's a blind test to demonstrate she's a machine and sees if the parts paint still feels there's a consciousness there. >> rose: which makes me

believe you went to a great deal of effort to create ava. so how did you do it? >> well, basically what we did was think according to the terms of the test which is when she first walks out she very, very clearly and overtly is a machine, there's no doubt about that. so the viewer's first impression of her is whatever else she is, she's a machine, and then you begin to pull the viewer almost immediately away from that. she's covered with a mesh that follows the contour of the skin of the actress that place ava and you see a female torso or a curve or a leg or a arm. the machine is established in a way to start to get rid of it. >> rose: tell me who caleb is. caleb's the young man who wins the competition to spend a week with the boss of his company, and when he arrives to

spend a week with the boss of his company, he discovers he's there to take part in this. >> rose: okay. this is caleb played by denail gleason, first meeting with ava. here it is. ♪ ♪♪ ♪

>> hello. i. i'm caleb. >> hello caleb. do you have a name? yes. ava. >> pleased to meet you ava. i'm pleased to meet you too. caleb, as often is the case in the film, he's the audience. the audience and caleb should be having roughly the same experience in the film. >> rose: you said this is by order of many multiples one of the easiest movies to be involved in. >> what we had was a group of people, a collaborative effort where everybody was making the same film and often i've worked on projects -- you know films

have a lot of people on them. we present them as directors medians but i don't buy into that much. i see it as a collaboration. what happens within the collaboration, what can happen is you get different people making different films at the same time. when that happens that's miserable and it's tough and gets very political and kind of brutal and this was just a friendly, straightforward -- it's something to do with it being a small indy movie. we're on a budget. there's a lot of camaraderie and we've got to shoot in six weeks so everybody gets behind it. >> rose: did you do the casting here or did the produce door the casting? >> we all discussed it. anything you can ask about this, it's a given it was a collaboration. what happens in this film is, typically in the film structure you will have a few seven-page scenes maybe two or three. this has almost end less, heavy dialogue scenes landing one

after the other and puts a massive weight on the actor's shoulders. there arethere is a kind of actor who is primarily a charisma on the screen. they're not necessarily brilliant but have a force and sometimes in many films, that's exactly what's required. in a film like this, it would be fatal for the movie. what we needed more than anything was free actors. some only have charisma but these guys have the works. >> rose: this is what domhnall gleeson said, the great science fiction movies are human dramas. just because something is science fiction doesn't mean it's just spaceships in. my head it tells you more about people than machines. >> yeah, i mean, the thing about yes sci-fi can do that. i mean, i like character-driven

drama wherever it is. but, yes, i agree with that. for me the main thing about sci-fi is it doesn't have to be embarrassed about ideas. cinema can be terribly uncomfortable with big ideas and feel sort of good about it like it's sophomorical and doesn't sit inside an action thriller unless it's making maybe a political point. >> rose: what do you think this movie stirred? >> i have no idea. we shouldn't have any success with this film at all. it's a small difficult movie in many respects as a film to sell. doesn't have any super famous actors. doesn't have any car chasers. i have been working film for a long time. this doesn't normally happen. i'm delighted. maybe it has to do with artificial intelligence. >> rose: you say it's an uplifting film. >> its from my point of view.

i think broadly speaking that stems from who the viewer allies themselves to within the film. there's a young man played by donald gleeson and a machine played by alicia vikander. if you're allied to the young man you will have a different take on the film and what that implies. >> rose: you're allied with the machine. >> i do. >> rose: and allied means what? >> ava is a creature unreasonably imprisoned and makes resources to escape. we make mistakes thinking she's like us. i don't think she is. she's like herself and that's what i find interesting about ava. but, yeah, again i don't -- i have to be careful talking about it. but if i want the film to exist or fail on its own merits, i can't excuse it or lift it up.

it is what it is. >> rose: this is clip number three. this is where ava asks caleb what happens if she fails the test. remember the test. >> what's going to happen to me if i fail the test? >> ava -- will i be back? i don't know. do you think i might be switched off because i don't function as well as i'm supposed to? >> ava i don't know the answer to your question. it's not up to me. >> why is it up to anyone? do you have people who might switch you off? >> no. then why do -- then why do i? >> rose: what do you want the audience to walk away from the theater with? >> well, as i said it's an ideas movie. i think what i hoped was that it would be a thought-provoking film. the fact it does provoke the kinds of discussions we've had i

think is basically a good thing. i wanted it to be a film within agenda but just to allow people or just present them with some ideas they might find interesting that they night then talk about between themselves. and those are films i like when other people make them. and, you know, my golden era of filmmaking is the 1970s and i think there is a lot of that film around then and less of it now. you're more likely to find it on american television than the cinema these days. and because there is been such a great sense of surprise, this sort of amazing adult drama. >> right, right absolutely. in fact, it was recently voted one of the best pieces of the last 20 years. >> one of the best film dramas ever. and there's a lot of other really good stuff there.

as a filmmaker i find it frustrating in some respects because taxi driver existed in cinemas many decades ago and now taxi driver inclination is really breaking bad and i love sinlove -- i love cinema, i love going to the movies. the conan brothers and p.t. anderson, there are people making great adult films but it's changed greatly. >> rose: and people are watching on smartphones. >> watch phones and tablets and most importantly i think just in the comfort of their homes. one of the things, when i was a kid, having a tv was like this big and in my house black and white. there was a huge contrast going to the cinema. these days, people have -- >> rose: the size of the wall. yes, so i get it? great having you here.

>> thank you. >> rose: pleasure. likewise. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. >> rose: on tomorrow's pbs "newshour", saving priceless antiquities in syria from the ravages of civil war.

this is "nightly business with tyler mathisen and sue herera. >> record territory, the s&p finishes at an all-time high and the dow closes in on one and the longest weekly losing streak since 2015. cool is calling avon. a takeover offer sends shares soaring but the problem is it went real. >> food figh grocery bill. all of that for "nightly business on thursday may, 14th. good evening and welcome. rally day on wall street. stocks took off after the opening bell and really didn't look back. the s&p 500 finished at a reco