Closer Media, Anonymous Content, Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, and Emmy-winning producers Alyssa Fedele and Zachary Fink today announced that they have teamed up with legendary Oscar-nominated director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) to tackle the most significant technology story of the day – AI – in their latest docuseries Mind vs. Machine.
As Artificial Intelligence bursts onto the world stage - and into our lives - it may seem like a radical new life form has suddenly been created. But AI has been a long time coming, tenaciously developed by pioneering inventors over the past 70 years. Even these leading scientific minds didn’t predict the sheer power of their invention – now at the center of the global AI arms race – and many hold diametrically opposing views for how to safely forge a path forward.
Mind vs. Machine, a five-part, landmark docuseries artfully crafted from a blend of interviews, archival footage, dramatic recreations, AI visualizations, and cutting-edge special effects, is definitive in its unparalleled access to key inventors, scientists, futurists, and thinkers including Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, Ray Kurzweil, Deborah Raji, and Meghan O’Gieblyn. The team has optioned two vital books on the subject – New York Times technology corespondent Cade Metz’s Genius Makers and Meghan O’Gieblyn’s God, Human, Animal, Machine – and is working closely with the authors. In addition, the team has unprecedented access to the never-before-seen provocative writings of notorious anti-technologist Ted Kaczynski, courtesy of the University of Michigan Library. The series will grapple with AI’s implications for the future by exploring the personal journeys of those who brought us to this critical inflection point and by following key players in the field who are pushing forward the technology that will transform life as we know it.
“We want to tell the history of AI through the personal lenses of people who have impacted it greatly, and those who are thinking deeply about where humanity is headed. This is the most ambitious project I’ve ever directed and the team and I are thrilled to be working with Closer Media and Anonymous Content. I have never felt a more urgent need to make a film than right now on this issue.”
“This is a critical story to tell at a vital moment. I’m delighted to join forces with my friend Steve James, to tell the story of AI in a way that is dramatically propulsive, thematically provocative and centered around a few of the central characters in AI. We’re going to bring a level of visual innovation that befits the subject. T-Zero. We’re launching.”