The story of artificial intelligence is a story about human nature at its most brilliant and most reckless. This feature documentary traces the genesis of a new intelligence through the scientists, visionaries and power brokers who set it in motion, including candid testimony from AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Demis Hassabis. What emerges is less a tech history lesson and more a portrait of competing egos and irreconcilable beliefs, assembled with the propulsive energy of a thriller. 

What makes this film essential viewing is the urgency it restores to a conversation that has begun to feel abstract. The science is rendered accessible without being simplified, and the filmmakers don't flinch from the dangers and red flags that early evangelists sometimes ignored. Whether you arrive as a skeptic or a true believer, the film earns its stakes and leaves you unsettled in the best way. A gripping primer on the technology reshaping every aspect of contemporary life and the human drama behind it.—Jarod Neece