'The AI Doc' Review: A timely crash course on the tech dominating our lives

In 1964, famed British sci-fi writer Arthur Clarke said that computers had the physics encephalon of "completely morons" but successful different procreation volition yet "completely outthink their makers."

That prediction — oregon warning, depending connected however you presumption artificial quality — is however Focus Features begins its caller movie "The AI Doc: oregon How I Became an Apocaloptimist."

Our usher navigating the chaotic AI satellite we find ourselves successful is the film's co-director, Daniel Roher, the Oscar-winning filmmaker down "Navalny." With a babe connected the way. Roher attempts to question answers whether his children volition thrive oregon endure arsenic AI continues to make astatine miraculous speed.

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Co-director Daniel Roher during the accumulation of "The AI Doc: oregon How I Became an Apocaloptimist," a Focus Features release. (Courtesy of Focus Features. © 2025 All Rights Reserved.)

"The AI Doc" is fundamentally a clang people connected the taxable divided into 3 parts. First we perceive from the alarmists who foretell the extremity of days. Then we perceive from the optimists who judge the emerging exertion volition lick each the world's problems. And yet successful the 3rd act, we perceive from tech giants spearheading the AI contention — astatine slightest the ones consenting to participate.

One of the astir jarring illustrations of however divergent the views of the alarmists and the optimists are is erstwhile Roher asks them whether radical should beryllium having children.

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Roher speaks with dozens of AI experts with varying thoughts. The 3 who champion articulate the analyzable quality of the AI times we unrecorded successful are author/professor Yuval Noah Harari arsenic good arsenic Center for Humane Technology co-founders Aza Raskin and Tristin Harris, the second known for his quality successful the 2020 Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma." As Harris explains to Roher, it's intolerable to abstracted the promises and the peril of AI.

The documentary tackles each the blistery topics successful AI from information centers to heavy fakes and the planetary contention to the apical (or bottom, frankly) of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Roher sits down with 3 of the 5 CEOs pioneering AI successful the US: Open AI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Google Deepmind co-founder Demis Hassabis (xAI CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg passed connected the interrogation requests).

A accumulation inactive from "The AI Doc: oregon How I Became an Apocaloptimist," a Focus Features release. (Courtesy of Focus Features. © 2025 All Rights Reserved.)

I personally don't perfectly dread AI arsenic a whole. I usage it for enactment and I tin spot it helping nine successful the future, but I can't assistance but support looking implicit my enarthrosis amid the anticipation it volition someday instrumentality my occupation (fingers crossed that AI can't trade personable, witty movie reviews arsenic good arsenic maine astatine slightest a spot longer).

Roher is simply a cleanable vas that captures the utter exhaustion and anxiousness the wide nationalist feels astir AI. But this documentary by him and co-director Charlie Tyrell isn't meant to lick each the questions we person — that's due to the fact that nary 1 truly has the answers connected wherever AI volition go, not adjacent the AI titans that talk with Roher know.

Throwing his value arsenic a shaper is the Oscar-winning manager of "Everything Everywhere All astatine Once" Daniel Kwan. Also deserving of the motion is creation manager Benjamin Fieschi-Rose, who enhances the movie with fun, quirky stop-motion animation.

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A accumulation inactive from "The AI Doc: oregon How I Became an Apocaloptimist," a Focus Features release. (Courtesy of Focus Features. © 2025 All Rights Reserved.)

The Verdict

"The AI Doc" is simply a timely, thought-provoking world cheque connected a exertion dominating the world. Roher's idiosyncratic travel elevates what would different beryllium a coagulated acquisition video cleanable for a subject class. We often ticker movies for an flight from mundane beingness — this documentary brutally does the other similar it's meant to.

★★★☆ — STREAM IT LATER

"The AI Doc: oregon How I Became an Apocaloptimist" is rated PG-13 for language. Running time: 1 hr, 43 min. In prime theaters now.

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