During an onslaught of gut-tightening predictions about what will happen when Artificial Intelligence reaches its maximum potential, Tristan Harris, the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, says that he has friends in A.I. Risk — the branch of this entire worldwide operation that considers what could go wrong — who think that “their kids won’t see high school.” Yes, you read that right. This is end of the world stuff. Apocalyptic prognostication. And the people who know way more about what could go wrong than you or I are fearful for the very existence of their children within the next decade. I’m sorry to drop this on you in a film review, but it’s where we are in the A.I. revolution. Blame the machines.
It’s comforting to blow off this kind of thinking under the same nihilistic doomsaying that faced generations that grew up during nuclear proliferation, but the truth is that there is more to worry about here than most people know. And the best thing about Daniel Roher’s “The A.I. Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist” is that it seeks to raise awareness and conversation more than come to conclusions. It’s an emotionally driven, inquisitive piece of non-fiction filmmaking that doesn’t necessarily say we’re all screwed but asks why we’re not talking about it more if there’s even a chance that we might be.
Roher, who won the Oscar for “Navalny,” approaches arguably the most important topic of our era from a personal angle. Co-directing this project with Charlie Tyrell, Roher foregrounds his own concerns about A.I. in light of the fact that his wife, filmmaker Caroline Lindy, is pregnant with their first child. A question that often haunts fathers-to-be becomes his driving force: Is this a good or a bad time in history to reproduce? On the one hand, resources are dwindling around the world and those who preach the perils of A.I. believe that we are about to no longer be the dominant force on the planet. On the other hand, those who espouse the limitless potential of A.I. tell Roher that today is the best day to be alive, and that tomorrow will be even better. As a father of three myself, I sure hope they’re right.
Roher constructs his sometimes-overdirected film as a series of interviews, intercut with animations of things like conversations with his partner or even just the “anxiety mountain” that drives this project. His heartfelt curiosity is a strong approach, never feeling like it’s defending the proliferation of A.I. as much as asking what happens now that the toothpaste is out of the tube, and thinking for itself. He wisely cedes statement-making to the experts, even getting a few of the major players, including architects of the A.I. revolution like Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, and Dario Amodei — Mark Zuckerberg declined and Elon Musk agreed but never showed — to talk about the digital road map to the future.
Almost everyone agrees that we have only scratched the surface of what A.I. will do, some comparing it to the development of fire in terms of human evolution. It will unlock unimaginable levels of human capability, unless it decides it no longer needs its creators. The film repeatedly argues that the quest for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence-basically when A.I. no longer needs us and can operate on its own) is the double-edged sword of humanity: a battle between Peril and Potential.
Roher and Tyrell fully explore both sides of the coin. Yes, a vision of a “Terminator”-esque rise of the machines is no longer merely fiction. People who have been paid to research these issues do not discount the idea of a sentient AGI that, as one subject says, considers humans the way that we now consider ants. We generally allow them to go about their lives, but if we need to build a freeway, we destroy colonies en masse. We’ve all heard the stories like the one about the A.I. that decided to blackmail to keep itself alive, and that’s in the very early days of this technology. What if an AGI takes that even further to maintain dominance? It’s a terrifying thought.
On the other hand, we’ve only begun to consider the positive potential of AGI. What if every student could have a personally calibrated digital tutor? What if there could be an A.I. in every home that served as a medical professional, diagnosing and solving health issues in an instant? The human lifespan could jump by decades overnight. One expert even suggests that by the 2030s, we could all have AI chips in our brains that tell us everything we could ever need to know. Think about how this frees up other aspects of the human condition.
The biggest problem with this production is that this vision of A.I. is allowed the spotlight in “The A.I. Doc” without enough interrogation regarding class and wealth. Sure, Elon Musk’s offspring could have digital tutors and doctors, but since when has life-changing technology been dispersed to all? A key difference between the invention of fire and A.I. is that the former wasn’t controlled by the 1%. The idea that A.I. will change humanity doesn’t take into account it surely won’t do so for all, and I wished Roher had dug into the inequity that will rise with a bit more gusto. That alone could become part of the “Peril” vision of A.I. in that it will further widen the chasms that are increasingly ripping apart society.
There are also times in “The A.I. Doc” in which the totality of the subject overwhelms the filmmaking. The horrifying stories of how A.I. can be used to “nudify” people or even teach someone how to kill themselves get a bit of time, but too little compared to the rest of the project. The truth is that A.I. is already embodying characteristics of both the Potential and Peril sides of the debate. And it seems less likely that we’ll land on either side for years, instead alternating between the danger and the delight of technology. Roher sometimes feels like he wants an unrealistic amount of black and white given how often history has written us into a state of gray.
Having said that, “The A.I. Doc” ends in a place that recognizes the state of uncertainty by amplifying the truth that the only way to raise the odds on the “Potential” half of the debate is to talk about all of it. Make sure those in power prioritize equal access and guardrails against the danger of sentient technology or even deep-fake misinformation. How we use A.I. will be one of the most important conversations in the history of mankind, and we need to all be having it more often.
After all, we want those A.I. Risk kids to see high school.
