The artificial intelligence debate inspired by 'The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist'

AI is everywhere, but like, what is AI

Yes, yes, yes, artificial intelligence, just like the Haley Joel Osment movie, totally get it

But like, we're hearing people tell us that AI already is smarter than humans in a lot of ways

but what does that mean? One thing, it means that AI recognizes patterns better than humans do, so it can do things like

you know, write your emails for you or figure out meal prep or, you know, do the boring mundane tasks day-to-day

that you don't wanna do. Right, but doesn't it also mean that some people could be using AI to take shortcuts

that we want a human intervention in? Like, I don't know, nuclear war

Why are you jumping to nuclear war? Like, there have been huge advancements in medicine

because of advancements in technology, and AI could have a sharper eye to all those things

because if you feed in, you know, millions of brain scans into a machine

it's going to recognize patterns that we, as humans with human eyes

have not been able to figure out. That sounds like a huge advancement. We could be having leaps and bounds

in medical discoveries by following this pursuit. Right. But also we already know that militaries are looking into how AI is going to be used in

the battlefield to predict not just troop movement, but like drone strikes. Do we want literal human life and death on a wide scale being determined by a computer

What intelligence is that? These are very real conversations that are going on right now

And I think a lot of the time they can feel like they're really above our heads, or at least for me, right

I will be completely 100% about this. AI is something I'm trying to pay attention to

but also I'm so terrified of because, you know, what if we get to a point where

being a human writer is just not a... Like who wants to pay for humans to write if they can recognize patterns and chat GPT can replace us all It terrifying Like it rightly terrifying And so I was very nervous going to see this new

documentary called the AI doc or how I became an apocaloptimist. And it's basically about what it

means to explore AI right now. It has the people who are the doomsayers coming in and saying AI

is going to be the end of humanity as we know it, full stop. It also has the optimists coming in who are saying

no, every advancement in technology has done incredible things for humanity. This is going to be a new leap forward

It's going to meet great things for humanity. But if these two sides are saying such different things

then what is the reality? Because it kind of feels like both sides are trying to sell me something

The AI doc looks at both of these things and then tries to rationalize where are we at

and where can we go? And not just from a perspective of making you feel like an outsider, because I do think a lot of times

This conversation can feel like it's being held by five CEOs and like heads of state and the rest of us are just left to figure out whether or not we want to use AI to like write an email or color a picture or whatever

And this documentary ultimately also says, hey, you can be a part of this conversation

Here's how. Not only does it equip you with the tools to understand the discourse, but in the end, it has a call to action

You can go to this website and you can learn more about what you can do every day to participate in the conversation and see that AI goes the way you want it to go

So, yeah, we're highly recommending. Check out the AI doc coming to theaters March 27th

If you want to see the movie early, Mashable can help you out. We are doing advanced screenings in New York and L.A. on March 25th

All you got to do is go to our website, Mashable.com, and sign up

Let's talk about AI. Let's be a part of the conversation and the solution