As a professional AI journalist, I found this Prime Video documentary extremely unsettling.

Conversations about artificial intelligence often split into two opposing views: those who believe AI will usher in a new era of progress and those who fear it will lead to disaster. As someone who reports on AI, I strive to maintain an open perspective. After reading a rather alarming book, "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies," by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, I became acutely aware of the genuine threats posed by AI.

However, nothing could have prepared me for the unsettling feelings evoked by the documentary "The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist," available on Amazon Prime Video. The film left me grappling with a profound sense of uncertainty.

Directed by David Borenstein, this documentary delves into the disconcerting reality that AI is already affecting various aspects of our lives—such as employment, creativity, education, communication, and even personal relationships—at a pace that many struggle to comprehend.

A particularly jarring statistic from the film caught my attention: over 20,000 individuals are currently engaged in developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), while fewer than 200 focus on ensuring AI safety. This disparity raises important questions about our priorities. Just this week, former President Trump canceled an executive order aimed at enhancing AI protections, emphasizing that the drive to create AI often seems more urgent than the need to understand and regulate it.

What stands out in the documentary is its approach to AI researchers, who are depicted more as hopeful visionaries than antagonists. Many featured in the film genuinely believe that AI has the potential to catalyze medical advances, address scientific challenges, enhance educational experiences, and propel humanity forward. Some of these benefits already appear to be materializing.

As someone who leverages AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT on a daily basis for tasks ranging from research and organization to brainstorming and productivity, I found the documentary's themes particularly resonant. The fear it evokes underscores how normalized AI integration has become in our lives. The film consistently reiterates one alarming truth: companies are in a fierce race to build more powerful AI systems because the rewards for being the first to market are immense.

The reality is that AI's advancement shows no signs of slowing down. Watching the documentary reminded me of the early social media explosion—platforms spread across the globe before the full implications of misinformation, political manipulation, and mental health impacts were comprehended by society. By the time we began addressing these issues, social media had already woven itself into the fabric of daily life. The urgent nature of AI's evolution presents similar challenges, perhaps at an even quicker pace.

The film suggests that society might already be employing AI extensively before we've grasped the potential long-term repercussions of these systems becoming more autonomous and integrated into our decision-making processes, complicating regulation and education efforts.

What troubled me most wasn't merely the notion that AI could pose a threat to humanity—this is a concern many are aware of—but rather the disconcerting realization that the AI train might already be speeding away from us, too fast to impede.

"The AI Doc" explores the precarious balance between hope and fear, embodying what it calls "apocaloptimism." This concept captures the potential for AI to significantly benefit humanity while simultaneously introducing risks that we may not fully comprehend until later.

As AI becomes interwoven into countless elements of our lives—from our smartphones to our workplaces—everything seems to be happening at once, leaving governments struggling to keep pace with necessary regulations.

Importantly, the film doesn’t suggest that AI is inherently malevolent. Instead, it raises crucial questions about what occurs when one of the most potent technologies in human history progresses more swiftly than our capacity to understand it. This lingering uncertainty is something I find hard to shake.

For those who are parents or expectant parents, "The AI Doc" is essential viewing, as filmmakers Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell embarked on this journey amid their own uncertainties about the future for their children.

Ultimately, the documentary challenges us to reflect on the implications of developing advanced systems before we've reached a consensus on how they should be governed and who should wield control over them.