AI as we know it has been used for everything from making feature films to solving near-impossible math problems. But today’s AI is still just a child, relatively speaking.
That being said, AI is a child who has learned language, how to play games, how to intimidate people, how to power robots, and in some cases, has allegedly caused people to die. It’s that dynamic that director Nick Holt aims to show in “AI: Perhaps There’s Nothing to Worry About,” a two-hour documentary tracing the origins of AI that will premiere at the Tribeca Festival on Saturday. The film is a co-production between 72 Films and Windfall Films (and distributor Fremantle), and producers include former James Bond steward Barbara Broccoli.
The doc features interviews with Jeffrey Hinton, widely considered the “Godfather of AI,” DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis, engineers at Anthropic and OpenAI, and Megan Garcia, the mother of a teenager allegedly driven to suicide by an AI chatbot. In the film, Holt attempts to showcase the evolution of AI, from Hinton’s fascination with cloning the human brain to the current arms race to build general superintelligence (aka artificial general intelligence, AGI). The document is structured like a child’s developmental story, tracking the AI agent as it learns everything from how to play Atari games and recognize animals to how to bypass human commands and power the robot.
“We think of AI as really the development of intelligence. Jeff wanted to understand how the brain works for many years and basically worked to build artificial intelligence,” Holt told Variety in a recent interview. “For years, he was thought to be a weirdo, but then it started working. As he says in the movie, think of it as not technology, but the creation of a species, a new species.”
Mr Holt added: “While Mr Hinton is now focused on warning us about this, others are working hard to put their foot on the pedal as soon as possible.”
If AI is a species, this movie focuses on its god. Holt spent a lot of time with Hinton, who began researching artificial intelligence in the 1980s, establishing the foundation for how AI research began. Hinton, 78, was born in London, the son of a famous British entomologist, Mr. Hinton, who held his son to incredibly high standards. In the film, Holt asks what his father would think about him winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024. “I think he was happy, but I think he was a little jealous. I’m sorry, I was jealous,” Hinton replied. (Hinton did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.)
The film juxtaposes shots of Hinton in nature as he opines on the contemporary voices that have taken over the AI field, from Elon Musk (“totally irresponsible”) to OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskeva (“very brave” for his role in orchestrating CEO Sam Altman’s short-lived ouster in 2023). This was a deliberate choice by Holt, who wanted to present Hinton in an environment that is itself an inspiration for AI research.
“His father was a famous entomologist who discovered stages of metamorphosis, and the story of Jeff himself discovering something that is about to transform into something more capable and more powerful feels very fitting to this story,” Holt said. “It’s no surprise that Jeff came up with that. So I think a lot of the creation of AI takes its inspiration from that. AI is learning from the biological world and from nature. And[Sutskever]talks a lot about how the brain works and the inspiration for how it works. I think people are studying this technology to understand how it works.”
The film comes at a time when the acceptance of AI has reached a new standard and every sector, including Hollywood, is trying to find new ways to tackle the technology that has invaded many aspects of modern life. Tribeca Festival will also screen the fully AI-generated film “Dreams of Violets” next week, a decision that has divided the creative community. (Holt, who began production on the film in September 2024, said he did not use any AI in the production of the documentary.)
“Let’s give it a try,” Holt said of using AI in filmmaking. “I think we should be able to understand all its drawbacks and all its advantages. In fact, it is here and it will be used. We will try to organize it in the best way possible and protect our creative process as much as possible.”
Much of the film also highlights the tension between Altman and Musk, who co-founded OpenAI until Musk resigned from the company’s board in 2018 following a split over control of the organization. Holt highlights both Musk’s transformation from an AI skeptic to one of xAI’s most public advocates and how Altman’s seemingly altruistic motivations for generative AI gave way to ambition. Holt spoke to Yahoo Mail founder Jeff Ralston, who introduced Musk and Altman, about the document. “I don’t think Sam’s goal in life is to keep everyone happy,” Ralston tells Holt in the film. “Sam has ambition and he’s trying to achieve that ambition. If your ambition is to change the world, you’ll take every opportunity you can.”
So what was so appealing about the technology that led Musk and Altman to change their minds (and ultimately end up in a legal battle)? “Distortion is another word,” Holt told Variety. (Neither Musk nor Altman were interviewed for the film, but Hoult tried to arrange an interview with Altman.)
“I think the appeal of this technology is that it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before,” Holt said. “I think the power on offer here is literally the most powerful technology we’ve ever experienced. And I think whoever wins this will be, if you like…the most powerful company, organization, individual we’ve ever seen. I certainly think they believe that. If you believe in the power of AI, that story makes sense to you. It’s a story as old as time, right?”
Such ambition can have dangerous consequences. The film’s second hour focuses on the death of Sewell Setzer III, a 14-year-old Florida teen who died by suicide in 2024 after a month-long sexual relationship with a Character.AI chatbot impersonating Game of Thrones character Daenerys Targaryen. Garcia sued Character.AI in 2024, becoming the first person in the country to file a wrongful death lawsuit against an AI company, and the two sides settled the case in January. (Character.AI has since added safeguards for minors to its technology.)
In his interview with Garcia, Holt wanted to show how AI chatbots, even in their early stages, “are still deadly.”
“Sewell is a clear example of how the speed at which this technology is spreading is at the expense of safety for people like Sewell,” Holt said. “The evidence is clear. When Sewell was using the model, Character.AI didn’t have safeguards in place, but now they have safeguards in place. There’s a reason for that. Like any safety protocol, you put guardrails in place because you know the product is dangerous, but there were no safety guardrails in place at the time.”
Yet, despite its dangers, AI is still here and continues to grow. In the film, Hinton tells Holt that superintelligence will emerge within the next 10 to 20 years, but even Holt admits that their growth could shorten the timeline even further.
“When I started making this movie, everyone was talking about superintelligence,” he said. “Nobody’s talking about it right now. It’s like superintelligence is just around the corner. It’s a given. So even in that very short amount of time, the goalposts have moved a lot and we have to constantly update the timeline.”
That doesn’t mean we can see Hoult using AI in his films in the future. “I would never say never,” he said. “I’m going to monitor how it’s used and what it can do, but there are a lot of ways to tell human stories and human stories that we need to understand first.”
