A movie that could be considered a mashup between RoboCop and Short Circuit introduces Chappie, a gifted, special child robot. The dark side of the plot is how the world reacts, something that tackles a topical issue.

On release March 6, 2015, the movie comes from the director of the sci-fi action films District 9 abd Elysium Neill Blomkamp who, together with Terri Tatchell wrote the script. Comparing it to Elysium, Blomkamp says that Chappie is:

a fundamentally more simple story, a comedy, a heartfelt story, in a science fiction setting. 

The cast includes Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver and Dev Patel but the star is undoubtedly the robot.

While the November's original trailer emphasised Chappie's childlike qualities, the latest one reveals a more menacing side of the story.

"A thinking robot could be the end of mankind" pronounces Sigourney Weaver giving the order to "burn it to ash".

So will the movie inform the ongoing debate about the potential menace of Artificial Intelligence?

The remit of the recently announced Stanford University 100-year study in the effects of AI is to study and anticipate how the effects of artificial intelligence will

ripple through every aspect of how people work, live and play.

The AI100 the project, led by Eric Horvitz and Russ Altman, sets out to consider long term advances in AI and its influences on people and society. Since this fictional account does indeed raise many of the issues that academics and researchers will find themselves facing over the coming century, perhaps Chappie could be part of an induction course for its participants.

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