Search Search Alex Garland's 'Ex Machina': is true artificial intelligence sci-fi or sci-fact?
 The former literary rock star's brilliant directorial debut explores the development of artificial consciousness - a subject which is more topical than ever Click to follow The Independent Culture Still from the film 'Ex Machina' UPI Media "Tough crowd ….
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 The reason for their presence?
 The high-concept thriller deals with that most topical of scientific topics, artificial intelligence, via the tale of a beautiful machine, Ava, believed by its creator to be the first truly human-like robot.
 As if proving the film’s currency, after the screening Demis Hassabis, founder of British AI company DeepMind Technologies, approached Garland and suggested they go out to dinner; last year, DeepMind was bought by Google, becoming its largest-ever European acquisition.
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 During a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the tech pioneer Elon Musk compared the development of AI to “summoning the demon”.
 Meanwhile Professor Stephen Hawking recently told the BBC: “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.
 It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate.