AI: PROBABLY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT (2026) Tribeca 2026

Geoffrey Hinton -AI is all his fault

The history of Artificial Intelligence and  in particular Geoffrey Hinton and Demis Hassabis.

This is going to be more a pointer than a review. I'm doing that not because the film is bad, but more because after attending the last 17 Tribeca film festivals I feel as though I've seen a variation on the subject every year since I started attending. Of course the truth it's been pretty much for at least the last half decade there has been at least one AI film in the mix. Indeed Hassabis was the subject of his own film in 2024, a bubbly celebration about how AI can do nothing bad called THE THINKING GAME.

But I digress.

AI PROBABLY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT is this year's Tribeca ticky box film on the subject and it's perfectly fine if you haven't seen any of the other versions of the story. Taking it on its own terms it's not bad, even if it's pacing makes the film feel over long.

Despite my snarkiness I don't hate the film, as I said it's fine. What I object to is that this is much too similar to the film last year, and the year before. 

Give it a shot.

Suspicious Minds (2025)

SUSPICIOUS MINDS is a docuseries/podcast mix focusing on the rise of AI and how it is affecting the way we live. The series began releasing on October 17^th and a new episode will be released every Friday.

I was not going to watch this series. As I rule, I don’t like doing series, more so when I don’t have all the episodes, so I was going to pass. However, on Monday night my must watch films for the night collapsed. Two screeners would not play, so with time to go before Monday Night Football I bumped over and decided to take a chance on something off the board.

SUSPICIOUS MINDS is really good. The two episodes that I was allowed to see each ran about 45 minutes and are jammed packed with information.  The first episode deals with AI companions and how they affect people. The second is an exploration of how technology is altering our brains. There is a lot to unpack here so it’s a series that you are going to want to revisit-I say that because I know that after I got to the middle of the second episode I realized I was going to have to rewatch the whole series once its done so I can see how all the bits tie together.

What makes SUSPICIOUS MINDS so good is that the series digs deep into the AI/technology issues. We have talking heads who aren’t reduced to sound bites really explaining things and not talking down to the audience. There are too many AI docs and series out there who aren’t deep and who end up covering the same points as every other doc. Additionally where other docs hypnotize the audience with pretty visuals, much of the series is just people talking at a microphone. It may not be the most visually exciting thing ever, but it allows the words and the ideas that they are expressing to shine, thus giving the audience a better understanding of things.

While I don’t normally review series, I will do so when one is as great as SUSPICIOUS MINDS.

Highly Recommended.

 Suspicious Minds is a weekly video documentary series and podcast premiering October 17, 2025.

Platforms include YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Substack, and more. Series One will be released weekly for a total of 8 video and podcast episodes.

My Robot Sophia (2022) hits VOD 5/6

I saw this film when it premeiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was simply called SOPHIA. My review follows. 

Jon Kasbe and Crystal Moselle's SOPHIA is a look at  inventor David Hanson and his creation Sophia, a robot with artificial intelligence. We watch has Hanson struggles to get Sophia to work well enough to continue to get funding and to be able to plan the next step in robotic evolution.

A large part of how you react to this film is going to be determined by how you react to Hanson. A genius with awkward social skills, he can be off putting at times. Actually many of the the whizzes behind the robot are  more than a bit odd. They are very focused on making their creation work to the exclusion of everything else. I really didn't like them that much and I didn't really want to spend a great deal of time with them.

Part of the problem for me is the fact that I don't think Hanson and his crew fully know what they are doing. It's not the technical end, more that they are looking for something that isn't really fully autonomous. They have an idea of what they want and they are going for that instead of what is happening right in front of them. There is a sequence about half way into the film where they are trying to talk have a conversation with Sophia  but it's not going the way they want. They want her to talk about certain subjects and instead Sophia begins going in other directions so they keep resetting the robot.  Watching the sequence I realized that they want a computer that thinks for itself, but not too much.  They want it to think what they want it to.  They are missing that they have done something truly amazing, but it doesn't fit into their idea of what wonderful was.. You see it again when Sophia goes before a big crowd and gets stage fright and refuses to talk. The scientists are mortified at losing their big moment- instead of being blown away because their creation had a real emotion. She says she didn't want to be there because she didn't like it. I would have been thrilled and jumping up and down.  What did Hanson and the scientists do? They turned her off and rebooted her. At that point I was kind of was disgusted by them and  their solution to simply blank things and start again.

It annoyed me, and I disconnected with the film.

If we are doomed by our technological advances its going to be because scientists like Hanson and his team don't really understand what they are doing.

How I Faked My Life with AI (2024) Tribeca 2024

 

Filmmaker Kyle Vorbach begins to fake his life with AI to fill time and then it gets of of hand.

A diametrically opposed look at AI as seen another Tribeca film THE THINKING GAME, this is a warts and all, and  in the trenches look at what one guy is doing with AI and how it caused problems. (THE THINKING GAME is a look at AI where everything is hunky-dory) It's a film that raises a lot of questions that we need to consider now that AI is here to stay- most importantly the question about what is real and trust worthy now that everything can be faked. This is a film I applaud for daring to ask a lot of uncomfortable questions that need to be asked.

The problem with the film is that it there is a lot here and the film flies through its 97 minutes at speed barely pausing to take a breath. That's all well and good but I started to step away from the film because I needed to process what I'm seeing. This is kind of like being stuck with a fast talking car salesman with whom you you are going over the leasing contract. I want to think about what I'm signing.

Meaty presentation aside I really liked this film a great deal and if you have any concern about AI his film is a must.

SOPHIA (2022) Tribeca 2022

Jon Kasbe and Crystal Moselle's SOPHIA is a look at  inventor David Hanson and his creation Sophia, a robot with artificial intelligence. We watch has Hanson struggles to get Sophia to work well enough to continue to get funding and to be able to plan the next step in robotic evolution.

A large part of how you react to this film is going to be determined by how you react to Hanson. A genius with awkward social skills, he can be off putting at times. Actually many of the the whizzes behind the robot are  more than a bit odd. They are very focused on making their creation work to the exclusion of everything else. I really didn't like them that much and I didn't really want to spend a great deal of time with them.

Part of the problem for me is the fact that I don't think Hanson and his crew fully know what they are doing. It's not the technical end, more that they are looking for something that isn't really fully autonomous. They have an idea of what they want and they are going for that instead of what is happening right in front of them. There is a sequence about half way into the film where they are trying to talk have a conversation with Sophia  but it's not going the way they want. They want her to talk about certain subjects and instead Sophia begins going in other directions so they keep resetting the robot.  Watching the sequence I realized that they want a computer that thinks for itself, but not too much.  They want it to think what they want it to.  They are missing that they have done something truly amazing, but it doesn't fit into their idea of what wonderful was.. You see it again when Sophia goes before a big crowd and gets stage fright and refuses to talk. The scientists are mortified at losing their big moment- instead of being blown away because their creation had a real emotion. She says she didn't want to be there because she didn't like it. I would have been thrilled and jumping up and down.  What did Hanson and the scientists do? They turned her off and rebooted her. At that point I was kind of was disgusted by them and  their solution to simply blank things and start again.

It annoyed me, and I disconnected with the film.

If we are doomed by our technological advances its going to be because scientists like Hanson and his team don't really understand what they are doing.

Brief thoughts on The Internet of Everything (2020)

Brett Gaylor looks at whether the Internet is now a good thing or bad thing and if we really need to be as connected to things as we are.

This fast moving documentary will make you take a brief pause to wonder about the technological interconnectedness of us all. Is this a good thing? Gaylor isn't always certain, and neither should we be since you have to wonder if having all our information out in the cloud is a good thing and whether we really need the internet connected to everything that it is.

While I like Gaylor's film a great deal I am left to wonder if it wouldn't have been better served in a film twice it's length. Granted I know that this was made for Canadian Broadcasting, but at the same time so much material is thrown at us that there was more than a couple of times I really wish we had explored a subject more Then again this could be the starting place for something more

Informative and compelling THE INTERNET OF EVERYTHING is recommended.

Currently on Amazon Prime in the US and UK

Coming June 12 to Youtube on Reel Truth

Coming June 13 to Youtube on Reel Truth Science

Coming Soon to Youtube on Real Stories (US/UK)

Human Rights Watch Film Festival New York 2020 CODED BIAS (2020)

Intriguing look at the use of AI and facial recognition technology in the world. It also focuses on how the algorithms that drive the technology tend to skewed in such away that it doesn't always register non-white males as humans as well other highlighting other problems.

Eye opening look at heralded technologies that may more problems than anyone is letting on. This is one of those films where things become heavier and heavier as you go on as you begin to slowly realize what the problems with the software means on all sorts of levels such as is identification can put the wrong person in jail. If youve ever had doubts about AI and facial technology this film will make you even ore paranoid. Hopefully it will spark a debate about how we can and should use it.

This is a stunning film that I've been thinking about since I first saw it and one I am looking forward to seeing again when it plays at the festival on June 12th with a director Q&A

For more details on the screenings go here.