Rise Of The Machines Is But One Of The Future's Menaces

The threat of a nuclear holocaust, as envisaged in The Terminator, is scarily real. Likewise, the manipulation of genes to create "perfect humans" in Gattaca appears to be more credible every year. The question of what it means to be human is no less topical today than it was in Blade Runner. The government-appointed Lockhart Committee's review into stem cell research concluded that a human embryo comes into existence not after conception but once it has started to divide and, in the case of a clone, only if it has the "potential for continued development towards a living being".