I thought the battery technology was part of Ex Machina&#x27;s &quot;20 minutes into the future&quot; world. It didn&#x27;t seem particularly advanced, as Ava needed daily recharging. So the only unbelievable thing is that Nathan –the story&#x27;s equivalent of Larry Page– managed to do a ton of AI research on his own.<p>I agree it&#x27;s ridiculously implausible, but I&#x27;m fine with that in sci-fi as long as it&#x27;s only done once per story. In fact, many of my favorite stories follow that pattern: Take a normal world and add one radical (or even impossible) piece of technology or magic. Then explore the implications. Vernor Vinge&#x27;s bobble books (<i>The Peace War</i> and <i>Marooned in Realtime</i>) are an excellent example of this.<p>The thing that annoys me is when authors don&#x27;t see an implication of their invention. Or worse, they make their characters use the invention in implausibly limited ways. JJ Abrams is often guilty of both of these.