Artificial Intelligence has dramatically impacted our lives and our society in general. In this quest, it is important to understand the impact of AI beyond a few niches. While there is this common perception that AI will eat jobs and become intelligent to such an extent that it will displace humans entirely it is not an accurate representation of the current state of AI.
AI, if developed and deployed responsibly, could solve some societal issues that humans cannot do on their own. For example, an AI can help humans inspect buildings and detect flaws in them. AI can also do these tasks faster than humans and with much more accuracy.
In order to understand the real impact of AI, we need to turn to the visual media. There are a number of great documentaries that paint a picture of AI that humans must follow and understand right now. Here is a look at six of the most popular documentaries on AI right now.
iHuman
In this one hour and 39 minutes long documentary, filmmaker Tonje Hessen Schei explores how the most powerful technology is changing society and the future. While this subject may not sound new, the unique access that Schei had makes this documentary worth your time.
It was initially released in November, 2019, and expertly navigates the world of AI. It also makes the effort to look past AI in the form of social control and power. By including interviews with experts like Ilya Sutskever and Jürgen Schmidhuber, the documentary explains how AI is developed and implemented.
AlphaGo
AlphaGo needs no introduction in the burgeoning world of AI. This 2017 documentary directed by Greg Kohs is about the Google DeepMind Challenge Match between AlphaGo and top-ranked Go player Lee Sedol. The film presents how AlphaGo, an AI program developed by DeepMind Technologies, mastered the game of Go.
It further shows how AI was used to train the program and how Lee Sedol, a legendary South Korean world champion, tested its competence. The documentary is a clever representation of how AI’s competence is dependent on its makers and testing its ability is also dependent on humans.
Coded Bias
Coded Bias, directed and produced by Shalini Kantaya, explores the fallout over discovery of racial bias by MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini. The discovery by Buolamwini showed that AI programs are not good at seeing dark skinned faces accurately.
The documentary goes a step further to show the efforts taken by Buolamwini to push for the first-ever legislation in the US to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all. The documentary not only shows the possible adversity with AI but also shows that these shortcomings can be fixed.
Hi, AI
Imagine saying Hi, AI instead of Ok, Google or Hey Siri when talking to digital assistants built by Google and Apple respectively. The documentary, Hi, AI, aims to explore how humans interact with artificial intelligence robots. The documentary shows that robots, once thought to be in the distant future, are already here.
It also helps humans to be prepared for a day when they will be interacting with a lot more robots than they do right now. The best part of this documentary is its ability to ask this question: how will we live with robots when they become more prominent in our day to day life.
Do You Trust This Computer?
This 2018 documentary directed by Chris Paine looks at the perils of artificial intelligence in the 21st century. The documentary shows that self learning computers could hold great potential for humanity and then asks this pressing question: will this be the last great achievement of mankind?
The ability of Paine to highlight the benefits of AI right now before swiftly moving to its disadvantages will leave most people in splits. Another reason to watch this documentary is the interviews with a range of prominent individuals relevant to AI, such as Ray Kurzweil, Elon Musk and Jonathan Nolan.
We Need to Talk About A.I.
This 2020 documentary directed by Leanne Pooley takes a closer look at the future of AI. It does this by looking at the impact AI will have on our world. The documentary takes viewers closer to the reality where computers will evolve at an even greater speed and will eventually gain the ability to design and program themselves.
Whether you are happy with AI or frightened by it, you just cannot ignore AI. It will have an impact unlike any and even the most experienced in this field are not willing to make any prediction. But this documentary excellently tries to show what AI could do for society and how to embrace that change powered by intelligent computers.