Director Daniel Roher's *The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist* grapples with the anxiety surrounding AI's future. Roher, a new father, interviews AI proponents like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman alongside critics such as Tristan Harris and Emily Bender. The film aims squarely at mainstream audiences, not tech insiders, explaining AI controversies like ChatGPT and Gemini.

It exposes the near-religious fervor driving AI development while adopting Roher's own 'apocaloptimist' stance: acknowledging AI's dangers but believing humans can shape its path. AGI, the ultimate goal of many proponents, isn't inevitable, Roher argues, leaving room for public pushback. This resistance is already visible, from gamers rejecting NVIDIA's DLSS 5 upscaling to Microsoft scaling back Copilot features in Windows 11 and OpenAI shutting down its Sora AI video tool, likely due to cost and criticism.

The documentary splits its narrative between utopian believers and doomsday critics, creating whiplash, but offers limited deep dives into AI's systemic drivers compared to documentaries like *Ghost in the Machine*.