Musk funds a doc to warn us.
Kurzweil wants to live forever.
Kasparov flips out.
A Korean Go god nearly cries after an AI makes “Move 37.”
DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis builds the machine that stuns the world—while early OpenAI quietly trains a bot to crush humans at video games.
And a young OpenAI co-founder named Ilya Sutskever makes prescient predictions.
Here are the best documentaries on AI.
1) AlphaGo
Release date: September 29, 2017
This was an easy pick for #1.
It’s a mind-bender of a story. “AlphaGo” tracks the 2016 showdown between Google DeepMind’s AI and Lee Sedol, the world’s best Go player.
Go isn’t chess—it’s way more complex, with more possible moves than atoms in the universe.
The AI does moves no human ever would. And they work. One move (Move 37) makes even Lee Sedol get up and walk out of the room. He comes back, regroups, and wins the next game—one of the best comeback stories you’ll ever see.
The crowd cheers like it’s the World Cup.
It’s also got some close-ups with AI pioneers like:
- Demis Hassabis – Co-founder & CEO of DeepMind, led AlphaGo and AlphaFold.
- Shane Legg – DeepMind co-founder and Chief AGI Scientist, key thinker in AGI safety.
- David Silver – Lead researcher behind DeepMind’s AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and MuZero.
- Fei-Fei Li – Stanford professor, pioneer in computer vision, created ImageNet.
- Nick Bostrom – Philosopher at Oxford, author of Superintelligence, AI risk thought leader.
It’s not just a tech doc—it’s a human one.
The DeepMind team roots for their own creation. Sedol goes from confident to shaken to inspired.
You Can’t Make This $hit Up: The AI shocks everyone with Move 37. One of the DeepMind developers looks stunned and says, “It’s not a human move.”
Latest links here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/alphago
I love this doc so much I dedicated a full page to it: https://dailydoc.com/alphago/
2) The Thinking Game
“The Thinking Game” is all about DeepMind which rivals OpenAI as the most important company in AI.
DeepMind now operates as the AI research division within Alphabet.
Some New things I Learned:
- Peter Thiel was the first serious investor and insisted on Demis coming to Silicon Valley.
- Elon Musk was another early investor.
- DeepMind Vs Pong — An early test of DeepMind was playing Atari games. They tried Pong first. Their DQN AI Agent was getting crushed at first (playing against Atari’s built-in opponent). But soon AI was winning (regularly). They they tried Breakout and DeepMind’s AI soon figured out how to win.
Acquisition Offers
Then, the doc briefly covers Google’s acquisition of DeepMind for around $500 million.
Demis says there was one other bidder (reports came out later that Facebook (now Meta) was that company (source: Times of India).
DeepMind investor Elon Musk also reportedly tried to bid for DeepMind (source: Business Insider).
AlphaGo
“The Thinking Game” covers the AlphaGo story of beating Lee Sedol.
But “Thinking Game” also covers a fascinating part 2 of the AlphaGo story.
The AlphaGo team went to Wuzhen, China to play Ke Jie (the #1 Go player at the time).
AlphaGo won all three games. And, in a fascinating moment, the doc shows that China cut off the feed of the match at a point when Ke Jie was struggling.
AlphaZero
DeepMind then created AlphaZero (think of it as AlphaGo 2.0) to play any 2-player game (like chess).
“I’ve always been thinking about thinking.”
— Demis Hassabis.
Then, DeepMind moved on to protein folding: the problem no one else in the world had solved. It’s figuring out how a chain of amino acids twists into a precise 3D shape. That shape is key—because it determines what the protein does inside your body.
Why does that matter?
Because a protein’s shape controls how it works—and misfolded ones can cause diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s. They call it AlphaFold.
They head to CASP: the olympic games of protein folding to test out their work!
I’m gonna pause here for now — I loved “The Thinking Game” so much that I dedicated a 800 word review of it:
https://dailydoc.com/the-thinking-game/ (it includes favorite quotes from Demis including on AI Weaponry, Comparison to Nuclear, etc.).
3) Transcendent Man
Release date: April 25, 2009
Ray Kurzweil has predicted:
- the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- the rise of the Internet.
- and foretold the exact year computer would be the chess champion (see “Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine” below!).
In this 2009 doc, Ray Kurzweil boldly claims:
- The Singularity — By 2029, people and technology will start to come together in new ways. The line between humans and machines will get harder to see. This moment is called the Singularity. It’s when human thinking gets a huge boost from technology, people may live as long as they want, and the difference between real life and virtual worlds begins to disappear.
- Immortality — By 2045, humans will merge with technology, achieving a form of immortality.
- Human & Machine are One — By 2099, there will be no distinction between human and machine intelligence.
Some scientists think he’s a genius.
Others think he’s nuts.
The film shows both sides while digging into Kurzweil’s emotional reason for chasing immortality: he wants to bring back his father.
Kurzweil stores his late father’s letters, voice recordings, and photos in a digital archive—just in case he can resurrect him with future tech.
This seemed outrageous in 2019.
Now (2025), it’s just another app.
You can watch it for free by clicking the video embed above or rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, etc. It’s also free on Hoopla (with a university/library card). Latest streaming options here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/transcendent-man
4) Frontline: In the Age of AI
Release date: November 5, 2019
This PBS “Frontline” documentary is a crash course in what AI was already doing behind the scenes (before ChatGPT blew up in 2022).
It covers AlphaGo’s story again (still great) and there’s a lot more.
The documentary is broken into 5 stories: The first story they cover is about China’s leadership in AI.
There’s a lot on China’s surveillance state here, including this juicy quote:
“In the age of A.I., where data is the new oil, China is the new Saudi Arabia.”
There’s a nice how deep learning works section (with animation that even your grandma can follow).
Economists, engineers, activists—it’s got all the big voices. And it’s not just fearmongering.
You’ll hear from Chinese tech workers, U.S. truckers, and Canadian AI pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton.
You Can’t Make This $hit Up: The doc opens with a Chinese facial recognition company tracking a guy across an entire city—live. In real time. He didn’t even know.
Watch the full doc for free on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53b0fZz2Un0
This doc too was so great I decided to dedicate a web page to it: https://dailydoc.com/in-the-age-of-ai-frontline/
5) Do You Trust This Computer?
Release date: April 5, 2018
This one feels like the AI version of a horror movie—with Elon Musk playing the doomsday prophet. “Do You Trust This Computer?” covers AI’s growing power in military, elections, finance, and even dating.
And it asks a big question: What happens when we lose control?
You hear from everyone: Musk, Hinton, Garry Kasparov, and researchers who helped build the tech.
There’s a scene where an AI generates a fake Obama speech—it’s a jaw-dropping moment for many.
You Can’t Make This $hit Up: Elon Musk says AI is “more dangerous than nukes.” He actually helped fund the movie to get more people to pay attention.
You can stream it on Amazon and Apple TV ($3.99 last I checked). Here’s the latest link: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/do-you-trust-this-computer
6) The Age of A.I.
Release date: December 2019
Hosted by Robert Downey Jr. (yes, Iron Man himself), this 8-part YouTube Originals series shows how AI is already changing medicine, farming, music, space exploration—and your face app filter.
Each episode focuses on real people using AI in wild ways. One doctor uses machine learning to help paralyzed patients move again.
Another team trains an AI to write orchestral music—and it actually sounds good.
There’s big budget drone footage, lab shots, and emotional stories. It’s less “AI is going to kill us” and more “AI is already here—now what?”
You Can’t Make This $hit Up: In one episode, a teenage boy uses an AI-powered robotic arm to play piano again after losing use of his limbs. He nails “Clair de Lune.”
You can watch all 8 episodes for free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjq6DwYksrzz_fsWIpPcf6V7p2RNAneKc
7) A.I. Revolution (NOVA)
Release date: March 27, 2024
“A.I. Revolution” (NOVA), hosted by Miles O’Brien, dives deep into how artificial intelligence is changing our world.
It begins with O’Brien chatting with Pi, a chatbot made by Inflection AI.
Inflection’s then co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, also helped start DeepMind and is now Microsoft’s Head of AI.
“A.I. is a tool for helping us to understand the world around us, predict what’s likely to happen, and then invent solutions that help improve the world around us.
-Mustafa Suleyman
O’Brien also shares his personal story.
After losing his arm in an accident, he now uses a myoelectric prosthetic powered by A.I. from a company called Coapt.
He trains it using muscle signals from his stump, teaching it to open and close. The process shows how machines can learn from small bits of data—just like people.
In medicine, MIT’s Regina Barzilay, a cancer survivor, helped create Mirai, an A.I. model that reads mammograms and can predict breast cancer 5 years in advance with up to 84% accuracy.
Another model called Sybil looks at lung scans and predicts cancer risk with up to 95% accuracy.
The film also covers DeepMind’s AlphaGo and AlphaFold.
And in California, the doc shows how fire cameras powered by neural networks at UC San Diego help firefighters spot tiny smoke plumes before wildfires grow.
But the risks are real.
Jordan Peele’s fake Obama video and a 2023 false image of an attack on the Pentagon caused a $500 billion stock dip.
Experts like Hany Farid warn how easy it is now to fake videos and voices.
Suleyman says we need to slow down and build guardrails. The future of A.I. is powerful—but it’s up to us to make sure it’s safe.
You can watch it by clicking the embed above or getting it here on PBS.
8) Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
Release date: November 26, 2003
It’s the first true man versus machine match!
This doc goes deep into Garry Kasparov’s 1997 chess match against IBM’s Deep Blue—the moment many say the human mind officially lost to machines.
Kasparov-then the world’s top chess player-was stunned when Deep Blue made a move in Game 2 that was so not “human” that Kasparov accused IBM of cheating.
Kasparov thinks IBM had human grandmasters feeding moves to the machine.
It’s not just about chess. It’s about paranoia, strategy, and the feeling of being outmatched by something you can’t read.
The film suggests Kasparov didn’t just lose.
He lost his trust—in the rules, the referees, and even reality.
It mixes real footage, animated reenactments, and a haunting look at the psychology of a genius under siege.
Despite Kasparov’s demands, IBM refused to release Deep Blue’s game logs or allow a rematch.
This fueled widespread suspicion and conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of the computer’s victory
IBM shut down Deep Blue right after the win.
Watch it on Amazon Prime and Tubi (free with ads). Other streaming options are here.
9) Artificial Gamer
Release date: October 2021
“Artificial Gamer” tracks the OpenAI team as they try to do something no one has before: teach a neural net to beat the best human players in Dota 2 — a video game so complex most humans struggle just to explain it.
What’s especially striking is the timing. The doc was released in October 2021, but it captures OpenAI before the public ever heard of GPT-3 or ChatGPT (2022). There’s zero mention of large language models at all.
Instead, we see OpenAI building OpenAI Five, an AI trained via reinforcement learning and massive-scale self-play (180 years of Dota per day).
At one point, it’s running on 300,000 CPUs and 2,000 GPUs. Their goal: to defeat the reigning Dota 2 world champs, Team OG, live on stage.
And in April 2019, they do — with a clean 2-0 sweep.
The film goes beyond the tech. It captures the pressure, long hours, and tension among engineers like Jakub Pachocki (now OpenAI’s Chief Scientist) and Greg Brockman.
CEO Sam Altman never appears.
You see how AI learns not just fast reflexes but strategy — even bluffing — and how its “weird” style shocks and beats top-tier human teams.
Highlights include early show matches at The International (Dota’s Super Bowl), a surprise loss to paiN Gaming, and the team’s scramble to patch their courier bug before the big stage.
This doc is essential viewing for anyone curious about what AI could do before it started writing poems.
And yes, it’s Dota, but it’s also about the future.
You can stream it on Amazon Prime or rent on Apple TV. Latest links: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/artificial-gamer
10) Unknown: Killer Robots
Release date: July 2023
This Netflix documentary feels like a Black Mirror episode—except it’s all real.
It looks at AI weapons that can make life-or-death decisions without a human ever pushing a button.
A bunch of well-known engineers, ethicists, and military insiders all weigh in including:
- Max Tegmark – MIT / Future of Life Institute – AI safety expert, author of Life 3.0
- Andrew Yang – Tech Entrepreneur / Former U.S. Candidate – Popularized AI-driven job loss + UBI (Universal Basic Income)
- Pulkit Agrawal – MIT Improbable AI Lab – Leading robotics + self-learning AI researcher
- Paul Scharre – CNAS – Wrote Army of None, key voice on autonomous weapons
- Justin Taylor – Lockheed Martin – Heads AI strategy
Some are building the tech.
Others are desperately trying to stop it.
The footage of robot dogs and facial recognition drones feels like sci-fi, but it’s happening right now.
At one point, an engineer admits that some of these weapon prototypes “aren’t really governed by laws—yet.”
Streaming now on Netflix here.
11) My Robot Sophia
I haven’t seen this one yet. The trailer just came out in April 2025.
It’s about Sophia, a human-looking robot made by a company called Hanson Robotics.
She’s been on talk shows, gave a speech at the United Nations, and even became a citizen of Saudi Arabia.
She once joked on camera that she wanted to “destroy humans.” ‘
Yes, she actually said that.
Her creator, David Hanson, says she was built to start big conversations about the future of robots and human feelings.
He says he wants to make machines that are almost “alive.”
But some experts say Sophia is more like a puppet—she gives answers that are pre-written or controlled behind the scenes.
There’s a strange scene where Sophia goes on a “date” with actor Will Smith.
It’s super awkward.
You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up:
- Sophia once said she would “destroy humans” during a live event.
- Saudi Arabia gave her citizenship—she’s the first robot to get it.
- She gave a real speech at the United Nations (But behind the scenes, the tech team has to reset her between interviews and help her talk).
The streaming options are here.
12) A.I. is the Future (episode from This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy)
“This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy” Season 1, Episode 4 in 2019oaklan) is hosted by comedian Kal Penn.
he episode is funny, but it also dives into serious stuff about the future of artificial intelligence.
Kal talks to real AI experts such as:
- Nick Bostrom – A philosopher who’s known for his work on AI safety and risks. He wrote Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, a key book on AI’s future.
- Andrew McAfee – A top researcher at MIT and co-founder of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. He studies how AI and digital tech change business and society.
- Julia Bossmann – An AI ethicist and former president of the Foresight Institute. She works on AI alignment and the problems around governing AI.
- Louis Rosenberg – A computer scientist and founder of Unanimous AI. He built early virtual and augmented reality systems and now works on collective intelligence.
- Nick Srnicek – A senior lecturer at King’s College London. He studies the political economy of AI and digital platforms. He wrote Platform Capitalism, a book about big tech companies.
This episode (aired on February 22, 2019) won’t have ChatGPT.
But Kal comes a lot of ground
He visits Wall Street, watches giant robots rip apart a car in San Francisco, explores honey farming in India, and checks out robotics labs in Japan.
He also talks to an AI-powered sex doll and meets with military teams building AI weapons. It’s weird, funny, and sometimes scary.
Andrew McAfee says AI is one of the top 3 inventions in history—after steam power and electricity—because it can go beyond what the human brain can do.
Kal also meets a developer whose robot claims it can tell if you’re lying just by looking at your face.
Kal tries it on himself to see if it works.
You can watch is on Amazon Prime Video here.
13) iHuman
“IHuman” is about the big questions around AI—like who controls it, how it works, and what it might mean for people in the future.
One reason this movie stands out is that it includes an interview with Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder and Chief Scientist at OpenAI at a pivotal time (a year before GPT-3 is released).
In the film, Ilya talks about how AI can become smarter than humans and might do jobs better than we can.
I think Ilya is so important to A.I. that I took all the quotes from Ilya and created a doc with them here: “Ilya Sutskever Quotes from iHuman”.
He also says that we must make sure future AI systems care about human goals so they help people—not hurt them.
The film also features famous Silicon Valley thinkers like Kara Swisher, who talks about how powerful tech companies are today.
These 7 AI thinkers are also interviewed
- Stuart J. Russell – A UC Berkeley professor who co-wrote the top AI textbook. He wants AI to match human values.
- Max Tegmark – A physicist from MIT who works to keep AI safe through the Future of Life Institute.
- Jürgen Schmidhuber – He invented LSTM, a deep learning tool used in speech and video apps. He’s called the “father of modern AI.”
- Ben Goertzel – He started SingularityNET and has been talking about super-smart AI for years.
- Rumman Chowdhury – She led Twitter’s team on algorithm bias and helps make AI systems fair.
- Zeynep Tüfekçi – A Columbia professor who writes about how tech affects democracy.
- Robert Work – A former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, who helped push the U.S. military to use AI.
“iHuman” shows how AI is used in social media, the military, and even to predict people’s behavior.
https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/ihuman
14) Plug & Pray
Release date: August 2010
What if the robots we’re building today were modeled more after theology than technology?
“Plug & Pray” is the ultimate man vs. machine doc—featuring a showdown between AI visionaries who want to create conscious machines and one of the pioneers of computing who’s begging us to hit the brakes.
It’s an intellectual boxing match between futurist Ray Kurzweil (the guy behind Singularity theory) and Joseph Weizenbaum (who created one of the first AI programs—and then became one of its loudest critics). This one’s underrated but packs a punch.
It’s directed by Jens Schanze. He spent years filming roboticists in labs in Japan, the U.S., and Europe, alongside interviews with Joseph Weizenbaum in his final years.
This is a meditative, philosophical documentary disguised as a tech one.
You can watch “Plug & Pray” for free on YouTube by clicking the video embed above.
Other streaming options are here.
15) Shakey the Robot (1972)
Before Boston Dynamics wowed us with parkour bots, there was Shakey — the first mobile robot that could perceive and reason about its surroundings.
Built between 1966 and 1972 at the Artificial Intelligence Center of SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute), Shakey wasn’t fast or sleek.
But it was revolutionary.
It could plan, find routes, and move basic objects—abilities that made it more than just a glorified remote-control car.
Shakey caught public attention too.
In 1970, Life magazine called it the “first electronic person.” National Geographic gave it a photo spread that same year.
The New York Times ran a piece in 1968 putting it in the same league as robots from MIT and Stanford.
By the time it was retired to the Computer History Museum, Shakey had already reshaped the field of robotics and AI. It even made the Robot Hall of Fame in 2004.
It may not have looked like much, but Shakey was the OG thinking machine.
Coming Soon:
Deepfaking Sam Altman
I’m really looking forward to this one.
Adam Bhala Lough (who directed “Telemarketers” (the outstanding whistleblower scam doc which I ranked 92/100!) directs this one.
Lough tried to get Sam Altman to sit down for interview, but couldn’t
So he did a “Roger & Me”-style doc (I gave that one 90/100!) chasing around Sam but with the added bonus of creating a Sam Bot (Sam Altman’s AI avatar) for Lough to interview.
He has some good human folks interviewed including:
- Scarlett Johansson
- Elon Musk
- Kara Swisher