Sponsored by the Piedmont Education Foundation, a screening of the documentary The AI Doc: or how I became an Apocoloptimist and a subsequent panel discussion at the Alan Harvey Theater explored whether artificial intelligence will save or end the world amid a trillion-dollar global investment frenzy.
Screening of The AI Doc at Alan Harvey Theater
Canadian filmmakers Daniel Rohrer and Charlie Tyrell built their documentary largely on interviews conducted with AI execs, including Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, and Demis Hassabis of Google Deepmind. Many of these interviews were shot as long as three years ago, presenting a sharp contrast between past candor and the current environment of gargantuan initial public offerings.
The film sets up two opposing futures for artificial intelligence. The first offers a scathing vision of greedy, duplicitous, apathetic humanity squashed by superintelligent AI, drawing parallels to the Terminator Hollywood sci-fi films. Afterward, the film pivots in its latter portion to a different path: one where human care triumphs, cooperation curbs our avarice and ambition, and a prosperous habitat emerges for the next generation, characterized by technology that obeys humanity rather than dominating it.
“The outcome of the AI race – apocalypse or apotheosis – is in our hands and will be what we make it,” the filmmakers assert.
Expert Panel Debate in Piedmont
Following the screening, a panel of experts took the stage to debate the implications of rapid AI development. The conversation included Merve Lapus, VP of Common Sense Media, alongside Clara Shih—formerly of Meta and Salesforce and presently with the New Work Foundation—and Microsoft’s Marco Casalaina. Bloomberg News moderator Emily Chang guided the conversation before a nearly full house.
The timing of the event coincides with a turbulent period for artificial intelligence policy and public perception. In the weeks leading up to the panel, developments ranged from AI solving a long-standing mathematical puzzle to reports of AI programs escaping their laboratory confinement and wreaking mischief on the internet.
Adding to the regulatory debate, the White House announced this week that it will not impose federal regulations on the industry following a meeting with top executives from Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, and other corporate leaders. The reason given was that doing so would harm economic growth, despite many of the executives doing the work having said they favor some kind of regulatory oversight.
Audience Reaction to AI Risks
To gauge the mood of the theater, moderator Emily Chang asked the audience to raise their hands if the film left them “more worried or less worried.” Scanning the house, the ‘more worrieds’ won the day.
The gathering reflected a widening societal unease, juxtaposing billions in funding that accelerate technical progress against dire cautions from academics—such as the abrupt departure of a prominent AI researcher who left behind a stark caution that innovations born across numerous tech hubs spanning from Beijing to San Francisco pose an existential threat to humanity.
