Machine Learning – Teacher: Mr Simms, Student: Ruby is part of Universal Everything's Hype Cycle series of futurist films exploring human-machine collaboration through performance and emerging technologies. It asks the question: when will machines achieve human agility?

Set in a spacious, well-worn dance studio, a dancer teaches a series of robots how to move. As the robots’ abilities progress from shaky mimicry to composed mastery, a physical dialogue emerges between man and machine – mimicking, balancing, challenging, competing, outmanoeuvring.

Can the robot keep up with the dancer? At what point does the robot outperform the dancer? Would a robot ever perform just for pleasure? Does giving a machine a name give it a soul?

These human-machine interactions are inspired by the Hype Cycle trend graphs produced by Gartner Research, a valiant attempt to predict future expectations and disillusionments as new technologies come to market.