<\/p>\n
The idea to make the \u201cdefinitive\u201d AI documentary<\/a> was, admittedly, ambitious. But the timeline was downright absurd.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The filmmaking teams behind \u201cEverything Everywhere All At Once\u201d<\/a> and \u201cNavalny\u201d<\/a> started talking about a collaboration on the Oscars circuit, thinking perhaps they could finish something in a year. In reality, it would take \u201cThe AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist\u201d almost three years for it to reach audiences. The film, co-directed by Daniel Roher<\/a> and Charlie Tyrell, and co-produced by Daniel Kwan, attempts to zoom out from the daily headlines<\/a> to give audiences a more evergreen glimpse of what is at stake for humanity as artificial intelligence rapidly evolves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe film is a journey of understanding that casts me as sort of a proxy for everyone, as a pea-brain regular person who\u2019s trying to understand what the (expletive) is going on in the world,\u201d Roher told The Associated Press earlier this year in an interview alongside Tyrell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Their questions were straightforward: What is it? Why is it good? Why is it bad? And what do we need to know?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAnd that simple task,\u201d Roher said, \u201cwas (expletive) impossible. It was like making a film about outer space or China or the Bible. Like, fit that into 90 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cImpossible\u201d was a sentiment shared by many who worked on the film, which opens in theaters Friday. Producer Diane Becker said it was the most challenging movie she’s ever made, a Sisyphean task where, \u201cliterally the minute we started making it, it was out of date.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But they were emboldened by the urgency of the subject and the idea that what they were making might be not just a primer about an elusive subject, but a necessary, nonpartisan call to action. \u201cThe AI Doc\u201d is about something bigger than AI Val Kilmer movies<\/a>. For Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris, it\u2019s about fighting against an \u201cantihuman future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe only thing that would give humanity a shot for not ending in a dystopian or antihuman future would be for us to have collective clarity that we are heading towards that future,\u201d Harris said. \u201cMy hope is that this film is kind of like \u2018An Inconvenient Truth\u2019 or \u2018The Social Dilemma\u2019 for AI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Harris is just one of many voices in the film alongside the likes of OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman<\/a>, Anthropic\u2019s Daniela and Dario Amodei<\/a> and Google DeepMind\u2019s Demis Hassabis<\/a>. In the end, more than 40 people encompassing a wide range of views and levels of expertise were interviewed on camera, resulting in some 3,300 pages of transcripts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And it was a long journey to get those voices. Three weeks after the 2023 Oscar wins, Ted Tremper, a veteran producer who has worked on \u201cThe Daily Show,\u201d sent over 80 emails asking leaders in the industry to talk. He got six responses. But through time, trust and many off-the-record conversations, those six people helped create a foundation that would eventually lead them to the CEOs. Tremper said the process was not unlike John Nash\u2019s paper-and-red-string-covered office in \u201cA Beautiful Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt turns out, it takes a lot of humans to talk about AI,\u201d Becker added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And those are just the experts in front of the camera. Behind the scenes, there was also a big operation of people synthesizing the information they were receiving and figuring out a way to translate it cinematically. Tyrell said they decided on an anti-digital visual approach, using handmade things \u2014 from Roher\u2019s notebook, where he is always drawing \u2014 to stop-motion animation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you\u2019re looking for a film that will convince or reassure you that artificial intelligence is all good or all bad, this is not it. You\u2019ll hear bleak stories about generative AI blackmailing its programmers and doomsday scenarios of war and mass unemployment. You\u2019ll also hear rose-colored predictions of a utopian future of medical advancements, creativity and freedom, and many things in between \u2014 like how there is more regulation over making a sandwich in New York then there is over AI and the development arms race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The subtitle \u201cor how I became\u201d implies there will be a kind of tidy conclusion by the end of the film. Then you get to that pesky \u201capocaloptimist,\u201d which has not yet been officially recognized by the AP Stylebook or defined by Merriam-Webster. But for Roher, it\u2019s the key to the film.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI am not an optimist and I do not believe this will be the apocalypse. I believe it is both at the same time and that\u2019s critical,\u201d Roher said. \u201cWhat I take solace in is the idea that we still have agency over steering this thing towards the good and away from the bad. If we can walk this narrow path between the two and be very thoughtful and discerning, I think it will be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The film, Tremper said, assumes \u201czero knowledge of the subject matter\u201d from audiences going into it. His 78-year-old dad, \u201cwho\u2019s never owned a laptop in his life, watched it and understood it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And the producers hope that people will make the choice to see it in a theater, or, at least with other people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt is entertaining in a theater. It\u2019s cinematic in its own way. It\u2019s not just 40 talking heads. You have an emotional ride with it,\u201d Becker said. \u201cAnd the best part about it is, the lights go up and you want to have conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Harris also wants people to see the movie \u201cwith your friends, with your church group, with your business.\u201d But he has no financial stake in whether it succeeds or fails: He just wants people to have the knowledge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI honestly think if 99% of people on the planet were just to understand the basics of, like, what\u2019s going on here, they would say, \u2018That doesn\u2019t sound good,\u2019\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe film is meant to be a catalyst for a broader conversation, and for a movement that\u2019s the size of humanity,\u201d Harris added. \u201cThis one actually is a risk that we all face in the next single-digit number of years. It\u2019s unlike climate change, it\u2019s unlike specific political topics. This literally affects everyone, your well-being, your ability to put food on the table, your job, your livelihood, and I think everyone can get behind that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The idea to make the \u201cdefinitive\u201d AI documentary was, admittedly, ambitious. But the timeline was downright absurd. The filmmaking teams behind \u201cEverything Everywhere All At Once\u201d and \u201cNavalny\u201d started talking about a collaboration on the Oscars circuit, thinking perhaps they could finish something in a year. In reality, it would take \u201cThe AI Doc: Or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46475,284,188,183,46476,185,186,46477,8392,187,184,189,150,182,190],"class_list":["post-422835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-ai-documentary","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-blockchain-tech","tag-blockchain-technology","tag-collective-clarity","tag-crypto-technology","tag-cryptocurrency-technology","tag-dystopian-future","tag-generative-ai","tag-metaverse-technology","tag-nft-technology","tag-soul-bound-token","tag-tech","tag-technology","tag-token-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422848,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422835\/revisions\/422848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}