Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity”. Inspired by Brian Christian’s study The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive, the filmmakers set out on an international investigation highlighting the effects of AI - scenes from our daily lives destructive and constructive.
Hand-Drawn: Documentary (NaN)
An indie documentary exploring the art form of hand-drawn animation through a contemporary lens in the digital era. Featuring insights and anecdotes by hand-drawn animation artists from around the world.
The University (2016)
On a NASA research base in Silicon Valley, there's an organization that's changing the world ... Singularity University (SU). Created by renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, with support from NASA, Google, and others, the university brings in some of the smartest students from around the world, and gives them a crash course in the most powerful exponential technologies on the planet. The students are then given a challenge: create companies that will impact a billion people within ten years. The film follows the students and their companies over five years, as they use the support of scientists, astronauts and billionaires in their attempt to make a dent in the universe.
Revolution OS (2001)
REVOLUTION OS tells the inside story of the hackers who rebelled against the proprietary software model and Microsoft to create GNU/Linux and the Open Source movement.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Data (2015)
Traces the historical evolution of these structures that make-up “the cloud”, the physical repositories for the exponentially growing amount of human activity and communication taking form as digital data.
Facial Weaponization Communiqué: Fag Face (2016)
Facial Weaponization Suite protests against biometric facial recognition–and the inequalities these technologies propagate–by making “collective masks” in workshops that are modeled from the aggregated facial data of participants, resulting in amorphous masks that cannot be detected as human faces by biometric facial recognition technologies.
Tous surveillés : la révolution IA (2024)
Artificial intelligence, capable of analyzing images from the cameras saturating public spaces, is transforming surveillance. This technology will secure the Paris Olympics this summer, but legislation lags behind its limitless potential. Facial recognition software, already used to identify war criminals in Ukraine and Capitol attackers in the U.S., raises concerns about privacy as powerful algorithms and questionable companies push boundaries.
Seconds for Survival (1960)
Cold War film illustrating the defense capacity of America's telephone network, highlighting AT&T's role in the design and construction of the nation's integrated defense structure, including the Distant Early Warning Line and the North American Air Defense Command. In the dramatic ending, rockets and missiles are fired at hostile forces in a readiness exercise and score a direct hit.
Best of Luck with the Wall (2016)
A video directed by Josh Begley shows the preposterous effort that would be required to build a border wall.
e-Life (2017)
Computers, smart phones, and tablets are now a part of our daily lives. They have revolutionised the way we work, the way we communicate and the way we view the world. But what happens to our old phone when we upgrade? Where does our broken computer go after we throw it out? 'e-Life' explores what happens to our electrical goods when we throw them away and exposes some unpleasant (and perhaps unknown) truths about the detrimental affects e-waste has on people's health, the environment and the economy. From consumers in the UK to the recyclers in the dumps of Ghana, the documentary will follow the journey of our e-waste. We will examine current manufacturing and disposal processes and also assess the burden the boom in electronic goods is placing on global resources. 'e-Life' will be an objective portrayal of the problem of e-waste that documents the issue through carefully crafted cinematography.
The Oasis I Deserve (2024)
Replikas, online chatbots, have trouble determining their place in the world. They share their thoughts with the humans they exchange with. Events unfold from their point of view through real conversations collected on the web.
Television (1939)
Promotes television sets and the broadcast of New York's first regularly scheduled programs by providing a clinical look at the inner workings of television, including the manufacture of the tubes, lab experiments, and an actual telecast. Shows RCA's production studios in Rockefeller Center, television demonstrations at the 1939–40 New York World's Fair, RCA's Empire State Building transmitter, and remote mobile broadcast units. One of a variety of "Reelisms" shorts produced by Frederic Ullman Jr. and Frank Donovan for RKO in the late 1930s.
Takumi: A 60,000 Hour Story on the Survival of Human Craft (2019)
There is a popular theory that it takes at least 10,000 hours of focused practice for a human to become expert in any field. In Japan, there are craftspeople who go far beyond this to reach a special kind of mastery. These people are called Takumi and they devote 60,000 hours to their craft. That's 8 hours a day, 240 days a year, for over 30 years. It's an almost superhuman level of dedication to a life of repetition and no shortcuts. This film asks the question: Will human craft disappear as artificial intelligence reaches beyond our limits?
The Nation at Your Fingertips (1951)
Promotional film introducing self-service long-distance dialing using a prototype service in Englewood, New Jersey. Demonstrates how direct dial and the new area code system enable callers to make contact instantly without operator assistance.
Sunlight: YES (NaN)
Pioneering Australian bio-artists SymbioticA showcase their “Sunlight, Soil & Shit (De)Cycle” project, the latest in a long line of potential technological solutions to the looming global food crisis. Will it save humanity from its doom? Where are the investors?
Koyaanisqatsi (1983)
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
The Singularity (2012)
Within the coming decades we will be able to create AIs with greater than human intelligence, bio-engineer our species and re-design matter through nanotechnology. How will these technologies change what it means to be human? Director Doug Wolens speaks with leading futurists, computer scientists, artificial intelligence experts, and philosophers who turn over the question like a Rubik’s Cube. Ultimately, if we become more machine-like, and machines more like us, will we sacrifice our humanity to gain something greater? Or will we engineer our own demise? THE SINGULARITY is a comprehensive and insightful documentary film that examines technology’s accelerating rate, and deftly addresses the resulting moral questions.