Does the act of making Ava female, at least outwardly, create an expectation on Nathan’s part and on Caleb’s part that she would behave as female? Whereas we can only guess at how she sees herself.
She may or may not see herself in that way. What we know is that the young man sees her in that way. And one of the things that Nathan does in his setup here is he presents himself to this young guy as a kind of Bluebeard type figure, from whom this young woman needs to be rescued. That then allows [Caleb] to cast himself in the role of the rescuer, the proper hero of this little narrative. Now, whether Nathan is that Bluebeard figure or just presents himself as that is one of the questions that then is posed, but also is Caleb reasonable as casting himself as the savior / knight figure? In doing that, does he make himself the "hero" of the story, without stopping to think what’s actually going on inside this machine’s head?
Would you say there’s also a Frankenstein element to her creation?
There’s always a Frankenstein element to these creation myths. It’s the text, I suppose, which all of these stories go back to. Also, it’s always the case that in looking at the creation, you inevitably end up looking at the creator. And I suppose it is like Frankenstein inasmuch as [the story itself] has sympathy with the monster. To me, definitely, my allegiances are with Ava. They’re with the machine, not with the humans in the story.