Artificial Intelligence, or “AI,” is an intentionally misrepresented term. A vast collection of machine learning algorithms using vast quantities of human-made data for predictive analytics, it is ultimately more simple than we’re led to believe. Mainly this is the design of the capitalist tech CEOs who insist that towering and complicated AI simply must be part of our daily lives when in most ways we have no practical use for it and we can get by.
However, AI does indeed have useful supplemental uses for humanity, such as in the medical field where it helps doctors detect tumors and other symptoms in their patients more easily. However, with the over-proliferation of AI by tech capitalists and politicians willing to go along with their narratives, along with its rapidly advancing capabilities, the public has justifiably grown increasingly anxious about this technology and its ramifications for humanity, making the arrival of The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist an exceedingly welcome documentary to arrive on our theater screens.
Directed by Oscar winner Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell, produced by Daniel Kwan and Jonathan Wang of Everything Everywhere All at Once fame, and distributed by Focus Features, The AI Doc takes a carefully human centered approach in its subject matter. Director Roher is in the driver’s seat for the audience to demystify AI and wrap his head around it and its implications as he and his wife Caroline Lindy are expecting a child. It’s a bold and effective narrative choice, addressing humanity’s collective AI anxiety through the lens of one of the most personal and intimate aspects of their life. What kind of world are they bringing their child into? Will AI benefit humanity or destroy it? Will it make life easier or make humans obsolete?
Ultimately, the film unflinchingly addresses all the possibilities it can in its one hour 44 minute runtime. From first establishing what AI is, namely that it’s a culmination of programming making decisions based on vast quantities of human-made data, Roher interviews the researchers and CEOs who claim that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) (which is theoretical stage of AI that surpasses human intelligence and capability and is being attempted by several large companies like Meta, Google, and OpenAI) could or will make humanity obsolete. He interviews the optimistic researchers and CEOs who insist that virtually all AI will be to humanity’s benefit. He interviews the nuanced skeptics who highlight the drastic environmental and energy impacts of AI, and who rightly affirm that no matter what, it is humanity and society’s choices, above all else, that determine what future we’ll have.
Namely, it’s the CEOs like Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg (the latter who declined be interviewed in the documentary), and others who are pushing AI almost relentlessly down our throats. However, recent news such as OpenAI shutting down Sora and Meta shutting down its Metaverse, indicates the inevitability that these CEOs tout is not so certain after all. Of course, these shutdowns occurred well after the documentary was in development, but they go to highlight Roher’s ultimate point that the future is constantly in flux, and its the decisions these tech CEOs, as well as us as a populace, make that matter most for AI’s future.
Watching the film as a data scientist knowing the ins and outs of what machine learning and AI actually is and how intentionally over hyped it is by some of theses CEOs, I felt both irritation and understanding of why they were doing this. Not everything was factually correct, but that’s the point. Roher and Tyrell tackle the subject manner in as broad an approach as possible, giving their audience a cathartic outlet for their anxieties, hopes, and overarching thoughts on the use of this technology, and ultimately rallying them to action, showcasing activists, journalists like Karen Hao, and researchers who rally for smart regulation of AI, and ultimately inspires us in the audience to take action ourselves in our personal and political lives to stop the wanton proliferation of this technology, and make it actually benefit humanity and not just the CEOs.
But besides all of that, The AI Doc is a lovingly made film that centers around our human connections. With vibrant paper animations or Roher and Lindy debating how they should approach AI as a family, to old footage of Roher and his family, to various news reports and stock footage of us humans just living our lives, Roher and Tyrell affirm that this is ultimately a story about humanity. AI, for however well it can or potentially can do anything, is never going to replace us. We are human, we know ourselves, and that matters above all else.
In all, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist is a wonderfully and unflinchingly made documentary that demands not only that everyone watch it, but use it as a launching pad to do their own research and gain understanding about AI and how to manage it. There have already been positive and negative outcomes and its up to us to maximize the former. While there are certainly terrifying prospects of how this technology can be used, Roher and Tyrell ultimately make clear that it remains up to us, and we absolutely can take hold of that destiny. So let’s get to work.
Rating: A+
