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No, AI is not the end of the world

The case for AI realism.

In 1964, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke predicted that computers would overtake human evolution.“Present-day electronic brains are complete morons, but this will not be true in another generation,” he told the BBC. “They will start to think, and eventually, they will completely out-think their makers.”

Daniel Roher opens his new documentary The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist (2026) with this cheerful prophecy. And in the hundred-some minutes that follow, he tries to make sense of a technology that, by his own admission, he does not understand — and a world that is rapidly being changed by it. Explaining that he conceives of AI as a “magic box floating in space,” he enlists the help of experts to provide him with a crash course in what, exactly, AI is.

Roher’s real concern, however, isn’t so much about the workings of AI — though some of his subjects do attempt to explain them for him — but whether it might displace us, as Clarke’s prediction suggests it will.

While making the film, Roher learns that his wife Caroline is pregnant with their first child. He tracks his wife’s pregnancy and the birth of his son in parallel with the advent of AI. It’s a smart choice that builds on a fear all parents share: What sort of world are we making for our children? And behind that question is another, vibrating in anxious silence: What happens after our offspring replace us? This twinned existential angst drives his efforts to hear from the doomers, the techno-optimists, and the in-between “apocaloptimists” whose ranks he ultimately joins.

The AI Doc, as its sweeping title suggests, wants to shape and lead the narrative around AI. It’s certainly set up to do that — Roher is fresh off an Oscar win for his documentary Navalny, and the film opened in nearly 800 theaters, which counts as wide-release for a nonfiction title. The final product is indicative of the ways that public attitudes around AI are in massive flux. Roher hopes to reach people of my grandmother’s generation who conflate AI with smartphones and spellcheck, as well as people who don’t seem to care whether a video was AI-generated.

But I think that this documentary has come too late........

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