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Released 2013 and set in the not too distant future, the film tells the story of an introverted loner, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who falls for an intelligent operating system that exists only as a female voice on his computer and mobile devices.

Today, robots are still discernably robots, with many designed deliberately to look artificial - Honda's ASIMO was introduced to much fanfare in 2000 as a multifunctional mobile assistant which resembles a shrunken spaceman.

Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori suggests that the more robots look like people, the more we find them creepy, a phenomenon he called the "uncanny valley".

Ishiguro's initial human android, based on his own daughter, reduced her to tears, but he insisted Mori's phenomenon no longer applied after perfecting the template.

"The first android's movement was jerky, like a zombie," says Ishiguro. "But we have overcome the uncanny valley."

Research by Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology bears that out. They tested reactions to androids in hospitals with largely positive results.