‘The AI Doc’ Review: Why This Is The Most Human Film About Technology

A visually striking and even-handed documentary that uses one filmmaker's personal anxiety about fatherhood as a lens to explore whether AI will ultimately save or unravel humanity.

Kenny Miles March 27, 2026

Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell’s The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist opens with an Arthur C. Clarke quote about computers surpassing human intelligence, often described as our inevitable successors. Clarke sounds foolish in hindsight, or was he ahead of his time? In the inflection point with AI, he could be onto something. That’s what the documentary explores with AI, questioning whether humanity should feel hopeful, doomed, or somewhere in the middle.

Director Daniel Roher centers himself in the movie as a father-to-be. He is a natural artist and is led to think creatively, a bold choice for this doc about AI. His sketchbook is amazing, full of creative visuals that fly by, which was a stark contrast to the soullessness of AI. The documentary theorizes and sets up the stakes for how powerful AI can become and the consequences it will have for humanity. I did notice that the topic of the backlash to data centers, or the environmental fallout, could be. It was more about how it affects people on a personal level, about a dad who wants certainty in a world that will give him anything but.

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Daniel is an artist who asks various talking-head experts in the field, “What is AI?” The documentary presents many answers, both simple and complex, that it takes time to explore. Like the fluttering of AI prompts, it is a lot of information to process. A few familiar faces appear in the third act, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, as well as thought leaders like Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin. Tristan even admits, “Anything we put in the movie will feel clumsy by the time we’re out.”

A concise and even-handed look at AI use, the documentary is slickly edited by Davis Coombe. It features high-end production values that are both visually stimulating and intellectually captivating. His art reflected the emotions of people who discuss the positives and negatives of AI. The highlight was the Mountain of Anxiety.

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist will either age like fine wine or spoiled milk. Only time will tell, and humans won’t be ready.

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist is now playing in theaters nationwide.

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Kenny Miles

Kenny admired film criticism as a child when his mother wrote a positive review of Home Alone in his small town Arkansas newspaper and defended it against angry Letters to the Editor. Kenny Miles loves to talk about movies especially the cultural impact of a film, if something is overlooked by Hollywood, or whatever business trend has captured the Entertainment Industry’s attention, specialty releases, an auteur director, a unique premise, branding, and THE much infamous "awards season." Kenny currently lives in Denver, Colorado and is a member of the Denver Film Critics Society critics group. When he isn’t writing, Kenny channels his passion working as an events marketing coordinator. He spends many Friday nights exit polling for CinemaScore (and his opinions are his own).