Octopus Overlords

1. When Caleb and Nathan were talking, and Caleb mentioned how impressed he was that she joked (by throwing the "I want to see what you choose" back at him), I was, if anything, *less* impressed, since that could simply be her mimicking him, something chatbots have done since Eliza. Speaking of ChatGPT, humor is one area where I haven't been impressed with ChatGPT.
2. Nathan is on the one hand unbelievably brilliant (seriously, it's implied that he did all this work on his own. I have a hard time buying that) *and* very stupid (his ID card gives complete access? He doesn't even have a password on his computer? Seriously?)
3.I was really troubled by the idea of the system locking everyone in in the event of a blackout. I can buy that for the machines, but for the humans? Especially when they're in some remote location where if something goes wrong, it could be a long time before someone rescues them? (I supposed it's possible he put some sort of safeguard, like maybe he checks in once a day and if he doesn't someone comes out to check) I was bothered that Caleb never bothered to point out that issue. Also, the idea of not putting any safeguards to prevent the AI from hurting others like most AI fiction has done?
4. I'm not sure if Ava had consciousness or was just mimicking it. Did she want to escape, or was she programmed to try to escape as part of the test? I'm not sure if she has empathy towards Caleb, but she doesn't seem to have sympathy or compassion given her actions. If she *is* conscious AI, it's not the kind I'd want to see. Personally, I would rather have had an ending where she escapes with Caleb, but then leaves him and disappears soon after they escape. Or at the very least, not leave him to presumably die.
5. I did kind of expect Caleb to turn out to be a robot, given the lack of family and his being chosen. Glad they addressed this (although I would have been find either way).
6. Was Caleb just trapped in the trap he put for Nathan, or did Ava do something in addition to that to trap him. My impression is that she did, since his key card doesn't work, and the computer shuts down. Plus, I didn't get the impression that Caleb wanted to kill Nathan via starvation, just delay him long enough to allow them to escape.