This new documentary turns AI anxiety into something more personal

Is it even worth having a kid in the AI era? It’s the question at the heart of The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, a new documentary about the promise, peril, and uncertainty surrounding artificial intelligence. Codirected by Charlie Tyrell and Academy Award winner Daniel Roher, the film follows Roher, a soon-to-be father, as he tries to understand how AI works, what risks it may carry, and what kind of world he and his wife are bringing their son into. Along the way, he encounters both AI’s loudest skeptics and its most ardent utopians. The film features dozens of experts, including CEOs like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, longtime researchers concerned about the future, and critics like Tristan Harris, who also appeared in the 2020 documentary The Social Dilemma about the harms of social media. Ahead of its theatrical release on March 27, the film screened at SXSW, where AI hype and anxiety have been everywhere. While in Austin, Fast Company sat down wit