Ex Machina captured the curious relationship between artificial intelligence and humans. The movie is constructed like a morality play, with a young male coder in a tech company who is given the job of assessing the level of consciousness in a female-presenting robot called Ava. As part of the Reflect series, we will be talking to Murray Shanahan and Adam Rutherford, scientific advisors of the movie, on the process of working on the film and the realisticity of Ava.

Guests

Murray Shanahan

As Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College, London, Murray Shanahan is an expert in artificial consciousness and global leader in artificial intelligence (AI). His book, Embodiment and the Inner Life (2010), helped inspire the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Ex Machina (2015).

Adam Rutherford

Adam Rutherford is a former geneticist, now science writer and broadcaster. He presents BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science, and his most recent book, Creation (Viking 2013), concerned the origin of life, and genetic engineering and synthetic biology.