All the best explorations of artificial intelligence look at what happens when we create beings whose self-preservation trumps their attitude to us. The next in this line of films is Ex Machina, the directorial debut of the novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland. I was one of the film’s scientific advisers: my field is genetics, but I’ve consulted on a few films, and Garland wanted me to provide a sanity check – to make sure nothing leapt out as truly implausible. There wasn’t much to do: the scientific and philosophical underpinnings of the script were already solid in a way that is rare in movies.