{"id":709713,"date":"2026-01-28T18:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-ai-doc-or-how-i-became-an-apocaloptimist-review-oscar-winning-navalny-director-confronts-his-hopes-and-fears-about-artificial-intelligence-in-lively-doc\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T18:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:40:16","slug":"the-ai-doc-or-how-i-became-an-apocaloptimist-review-oscar-winning-navalny-director-confronts-his-hopes-and-fears-about-artificial-intelligence-in-lively-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-ai-doc-or-how-i-became-an-apocaloptimist-review-oscar-winning-navalny-director-confronts-his-hopes-and-fears-about-artificial-intelligence-in-lively-doc\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist\u2019 Review: Oscar-Winning \u2018Navalny\u2019 Director Confronts His Hopes and Fears About Artificial Intelligence in  Lively Doc"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2d21e5be764\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2d21e5be764\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-ai-doc-or-how-i-became-an-apocaloptimist-review-oscar-winning-navalny-director-confronts-his-hopes-and-fears-about-artificial-intelligence-in-lively-doc\/#The_AI_Doc_Or_How_I_Became_an_Apocaloptimist\" >The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tArtificial intelligence may be the ultimate moving target. By the time this film arrives it will probably already be out of date, one of the many experts in <em>The AI Doc<\/em> tells Daniel Roher. The <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> is morphing that fast. Fortunately, the film\u2019s directors, Roher and Charlie Tyrell, are less interested in the details of <em>how<\/em> that might h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>en than in asking compelling questions about what it all means for us as humans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIn his Oscar-winning <em><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/navalny\/\" id=\"auto-tag_navalny\" data-tag=\"navalny\">Navalny<\/em><\/a>, Roher wisely stood aside and placed his subject front and center. Here, he is our surrogate. The film is structured around his own journey and he is on-camera throughout, seen in a studio talking to computer scientists, <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> observers and corporate executives about the positive and negative effects of AI, grounding the questions in his own confusion and fears. <\/p>\n<div class=\"review-summary-card\">\n<div class=\" lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column@mobile-max lrv-u-padding-a-125 u-background-color-honey-light \">\n<div class=\"lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column u-width-275@tablet u-border-b-1@mobile-max u-border-r-1@tablet u-border-dotted lrv-u-margin-r-150 lrv-u-padding-r-150 lrv-u-margin-r-00@mobile-max lrv-u-padding-r-00@mobile-max lrv-u-padding-b-125@mobile-max lrv-u-margin-b-075@mobile-max\">\n<h3 id=\"title-of-a-story\" class=\"c-title  lrv-u-font-family-primary u-font-size-34 u-font-size-38@desktop-xl lrv-u-line-height-small lrv-u-margin-b-125 \"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_AI_Doc_Or_How_I_Became_an_Apocaloptimist\"><\/span>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tThe AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist\t\t<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-u-font-family-accent lrv-u-font-weight-bold lrv-u-color-brand-primary lrv-u-font-size-16 lrv-u-display-block\">The Bottom Line<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"c-span  u-font-size-22@tablet u-font-style-italic lrv-u-font-family-secondary\"><\/p>\n<p>\tAn engaging, human-centric take on an AI world.<br \/>\n\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<strong>Venue: <\/strong>Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)<br \/><strong>Directors:<\/strong> Daniel Roher, Charlie Tyrell<br \/><span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 44 minutes\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tVisually, the film is a kaleidoscope, a constantly moving stream of archival <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> clips, colorful sketches drawn by Roher, animation and a parade of experts, photographed with the lights and cameras around them in full view. The style all but shouts that it\u2019s a movie with talking heads that doesn\u2019t want to be boring, and there\u2019s a hyper feel to the pacing, as if the directors were afraid to slow down. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tBut those strategies largely work. The pace is a visceral reflection of both AI\u2019s rapid progress and Roher\u2019s jittery state of mind. The film\u2019s first-person approach and dynamic visual style make it more engaging and livelier than you might expect such a well-researched documentary about this serious subject to be.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tRoher has, as he says in voiceover, \u201cquestions only the smartest nerds can answer.\u201d Some of them look nerdy, some do not. Most are not familiar names outside their fields. He talks briefly to a few better-known figures, including Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, who glibly says nothing useful. The less familiar experts and social observers are more informative \u2014 notably Tristan Harris, co-founder of the advocacy group Center for Humane Technology, and Connor Leahy, founder and CEO of the research company Conjecture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAs Roher sits across from his high-powered thinkers, he isn\u2019t afraid to ask what might sound like a bone-headed question: \u201cWhat is AI?\u201d It\u2019s amusing that they struggle to come up with a pithy answer and the film settles on this: a computer program that takes in massive amounts of data and, based on that, makes predictions. AI can\u2019t reason, but that <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a>-changing evolution, some of these computer scientists say, is spookily around the corner. Roher finds plenty of other good reasons to be fearful. The same AI technology than can be an amazing tool in diagnosing illnesses and discovering cures can also be used to create bioweapons. What is he supposed to do with that?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tRoher displays his versatility here. His other films, very different from this, include the feature <em>Tuner, <\/em>also at Sundance this year, and the 2019 documentary <em>Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band. <\/em>Tyrell is the director of <em>My Dead Dad\u2019s Porno Tapes<\/em> (2018), long-listed for the Best Documentary Short, which has a mix of voiceover, animation and archival film resembling the style of <em>The AI Doc<\/em>. In one scene, Roher and his wife, the director Caroline Lindy, add their voices to his animated sketch of them. And when he talks about the metaphorical \u201canxiety mountain\u201d that his qualms about AI have created, we see a graphic that at first resembles a pile of trash but in close-up is made up of images of ordinary life, including a person walking on a path in a tree-lined landscape.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThroughout, the sharp editing does more than keep things moving. There are sly juxtapositions. A news clip of Altman saying that a major danger of AI is how easily it might be used by authoritarians is followed by a photograph of him with Donald Trump. The dissonance registers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe narrative structure is a bit problematic though. In the film\u2019s first stretch, Roher talks to the AI doomsayers who warn about how out-of-control it can become. In one test, we hear, an AI program threatened with being eliminated learned to blackmail its user to prevent that. Then, months into the project, Roher learns that he is about to become a father, and his fears about the future intensify. His questions become even more personal and fraught, as he asks what kind of world his son will face. One person suggests a child born today might not live to graduate high school, although there\u2019s no explanation on screen about how that might happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tRoher\u2019s wife, appearing on camera, tells him, \u201cYou have to figure out a way to try to find hope.\u201d And in the film\u2019s next stretch, he talks to optimists, full of ideas about how AI will benefit humans. One of them projects an idyllic life made so easy that Roher\u2019s son won\u2019t even need to have a job. But at this point, the audience is likely to be way ahead of the film. How might that rosy view of a jobless future exist given today\u2019s geopolitical and economic realities, you might wonder, long before the film gets around to addressing those issues, which it does but quite briefly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tRoher\u2019s journey leads him to become what he calls an apocaloptimist, his word for someone who is realistic about AI\u2019s apocalyptic possibilities yet also embraces its bright side. At least from what we see, there is something too willful in that choice, which seems rooted in his desire to believe in a better future rather than anything reassuring the film has presented. Roher ends by suggesting the world has to unite to harness the best of AI while preventing the worst. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tUnite in <em>this <\/em>fractured world? I don\u2019t think so, but that\u2019s just me. Roher concludes, with understandable conviction, \u201cWe have to try. There\u2019s too much at stake not to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-reviews\/the-ai-doc-or-how-i-became-an-apocaloptimist-review-1236485368\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Artificial intelligence may be the ultimate moving target. By the time this film arrives it will probably already be out of date, one of the many experts in The AI Doc tells Daniel Roher. The technology is morphing that fast. Fortunately, the film\u2019s directors, Roher and Charlie Tyrell, are less interested in the details of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":709714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/The_AI_Doc_Or_How_I_Became_an_Apocaloptimist-Still_1-H-2026.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[160455,160456,43365,135536,29332,160359,138577,29333],"class_list":["post-709713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-charlie-tyrell","tag-daniel-roher","tag-festivals","tag-navalny","tag-sundance","tag-sundance-2026","tag-sundance-film-festival-reviews","tag-sundance-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}