AI or Not-AI, 2026 Sundance Film Festival films discuss AI’s history and where it is headed

Photo: Ghost in the Machine

PARK CITY, Utah — Two documentaries at this year’s Sundance Film Festival offer contrasting perspectives on artificial intelligence and its implications for humanity’s future.

“The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist,” which screened in the Premiere section, follows a father-to-be as he grapples with whether it is safe to have a child while researching the implications of rapidly advancing AI technology. Directors Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell use a conversational approach, incorporating home videos, animations and interviews with industry leaders including Sam Altman to explore the topic.

The film examines artificial general intelligence, or AGI — the theoretical point at which AI matches human-level intelligence — and artificial superintelligence, or ASI, which would surpass human intelligence. What begins as research into these concepts leads to increasingly troubling conclusions that heighten the protagonist’s wife’s anxiety about their future.

The other film, “Ghost in the Machine,” screened in the NEXT category and takes a historical approach. Director Valerie Veatch traces AI’s origins not to recent machine learning breakthroughs but to power dynamics dating back to the 1930s. Through interviews with historians, philosophers, sociologists, journalists and thinkers worldwide, the documentary examines how technological development shifted from solving human problems to competing for resources.

The film uses on-screen labels to distinguish between AI-generated and human-created content, marking artificial elements with “AI” while identifying the majority of footage as “Not AI.”

A packed Yarrow Theater audience engaged extensively during the post-screening Q&A, with questions continuing until attendees had to be ushered out for the next screening. One comment from the panel captured the stakes of the broader discussion: “Intelligence is knowing how to solve problems. Wisdom is knowing which problems to solve.”

While both films examine AI’s trajectory, “Ghost in the Machine” offered audiences greater cause for optimism by exploring how emerging technologies might be redirected toward solving global problems rather than concentrating power and resources.