{"id":40494,"date":"2026-03-30T22:46:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=40494"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:46:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T14:46:37","slug":"the-ai-doc-explores-how-we-can-survive-an-uncertain-ai-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=40494","title":{"rendered":"The AI Doc explores how we can survive an uncertain AI future"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Anxiety, more so than technological rigor, sits at the heart of The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist. <\/em>Director Daniel Roher is anxious about the future he’s bringing a child into \u2014 will it be an AI-driven utopia? Or does it spell certain doom, something explored in countless sci-fi stories. To figure it all out, he interviewed some of the most well known AI proponents and critics, including The Empire of AI <\/em>author Karen Hao, AI researcher Emily Bender and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.<\/p>\n

The AI Doc<\/em>, which hits theaters this weekend, doesn’t really shed new light. For that, I’d recommend reading Hao’s industry-defining book, which chronicles the rise of OpenAI and the precarious nature of its business. But I don’t think tech-heads are the main audience for this film. Instead, Roher is trying to break down the state of AI for mainstream audiences, the folks who may occasionally use ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, but aren’t aware of why they’re controversial. In particular, the film exposes the near-religious devotion many in the tech world have around AI.<\/p>\n

It’s not a spoiler to say that Roher ultimately adopts an “apocaloptimist” viewpoint. He’s aware of the potential dangers of AI, and that it will likely have some serious societal impact. But, he also thinks humans have the ability to shape where it’s headed. AI proponents have a near-religious belief in the eventuality of artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI that can match and surpass human capabilities. But AGI isn\u2019t inevitable, and Roher argues there\u2019s room for critics and the public to push back.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re seeing small examples of AI resistance already. Just look at the viscerally negative response to NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 AI upscaling; Microsoft’s recent plans to pull back on Copilot AI features in Windows 11; or OpenAI shutting down its Sora AI video generation app. (The latter may be due to the sheer expense, but Sora has certainly seen plenty of criticism.) If enough people say no to various implementations of AI, tech companies will be likely to respond.<\/p>\n

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