Androids Can't Do Jazz

Whilst I found the film Ex Machina entertaining and suspenseful, I also thought it raised some important questions. Just what is the purpose of replicating humans in electro-mechanical form? How closely will artificial intelligence be able to mimic the human brain? Will androids eventually be able to pass themselves off as humans? What does ex machina mean and what is the correct way to pronounce it?

Of these, the last is the easiest to answer because we can look it up. Otherwise, we are in the realms either of fantasy or informed speculation. Pleading ignorance of the latter, my responses must be rooted in the former and my conclusion is that there will never be a completely convincing android. Nevertheless, I must admit to having found Ava, the female android in the film, sexually alluring. It's probably because she was actually human but, if I were an inflatable sex doll manufacturer, I would consider diversifying into androids.

However, my brief musings on the future were displaced the next evening when, at a meeting of the Heaton Moor Jazz Appreciation Society, we examined the histories of scat - in which the singer substitutes nonsense syllables for words and tries to sound like an instrument - and of vocalese - in which words are sung to melodies originally written for instruments. The session reinforced my preference for not hearing vocalese again, but was otherwise instructive. I learned, for example, that Millicent Martin's irritating style derived from Annie Ross's. As regards scat, it was not invented in 1927 by Louis Armstrong when he forgot his lyrics - there are earlier exponents on record. Furthermore, it is far more sophisticated than "doo-be-doo-be-doo". Take this example of Sarah Vaughan performing live in 1969: her singing is not only expert and inventive but also passionate, intense and exciting. Watching her at work, rivulets of perspiration running down her handsome, expressive face, is enough to banish all thoughts of android sex.

Later in the week I had cause to consider the role of androids in society at large when I encountered one of them working at the local branch of Santander bank. I was there attempting to close the defunct account of a defunct society of which I am the treasurer. The sticking point was that the mandate required a second signatory and I had no record of who that might be. The bank did, but they wouldn't disclose the information without the second signatory's endorsement. This is the kind of stand-off that androids are very good at: they don't get frustrated or annoyed; they don't even see the funny side and why would they? They know that their prospects for future employment are assured, come what may.

The sum of money involved in my transaction is piffling yet the levels of security are higher, it seems, than those required to withdraw vast sums of untaxed cash from Swiss banks, no questions asked. This is infuriating, as is the "revelation" that the former head of HSBC bank in Switzerland presided over tax-evasion tactics for wealthy British subjects and was subsequently rewarded with a post in Government. Both are amusing in so far as they are predictable. Taxes, after all, never were intended to be levied on the rich. The potted history runs thus: the Monarch needs cash so he/she squeezes the land-owning aristocracy who, in turn, squeeze their tenants. Modern refinements to this chain of events do not change the underlying narrative, one which paints society into a corner by enriching a few individuals at the expense of the masses.

What the plot needs at this point is a literary deus ex machina - a contrivance by which a seemingly unsolvable problem is abruptly resolved by the intervention of some new event, character, ability or object. I suggest the creation and appointment of a parliament full of android politicians. (Androgynous might be best).