At this year’s Hay Festival, we will be sponsoring the event ‘Fictions: Machines like me’ by Ian McEwan who will be talking to Marcus du Sautoy. This takes place on Saturday 1st June 2019 at 4pm, on the Baillie Gifford Stage.

Ian McEwan will be talking about his new book ‘Machines like me’ which takes place in an alternative universe in 1980s London. A boy called Charlie is in love with a girl called Miranda who is a smart girl but with a dreadful secret. When Charlie makes some money, he buys Adam who is one of the first synthetic humans, who with Miranda’s help designs Adam’s personality. Adam is almost a near perfect human leading to the development of a love triangle which creates a huge moral dilemma between the 3 beings. The novel ultimately poses the question: ‘what makes us human?’

Ian will be talking to Marcus du Sautoy who has an interesting insight on the topic about what makes us human following the release of his new book ‘The Creativity Code: How AI is learning to write, paint and think’.

Ian McEwan is an English novelist and screenwriter who is best known for writing the book ‘Atonement’ which was later turned into the BAFTA and Academy award winning film released in 2007. He is also known for his book ‘Amsterdam’ which won the Man Booker Prize in 1998.

Ian was featured in 2008 on the Times list of the ’50 greatest British writers since 1945’ and also the Daily Telegraph ranked him number 19 on a list of the ‘100 most powerful people in British culture’.

Tickets are still available for the event and can be found here:
https://www.hayfestival.com/p-15597-ian-mcewan-talks-to-marcus-du-sautoy.aspx