The 10 Best AI Documentaries

The most unforgettable AI documentaries—handpicked by the creator of Daily Doc. Think: DeepMind’s rise, Musk’s warnings, and the Go match that shook the world.

Musk funds a doc to warn us.

Kurzweil wants to live forever.

Kasparov flips out.

A Korean Go god nearly cries after an AI makes “Move 37.”

DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis builds the machine that stuns the world—while early OpenAI quietly trains a bot to crush humans at video games.

These are my top 10 favorite AI documentaries.

Note: this article is an excerpt of a longer list of The Best AI Documentaries from Daily Doc that I wrote.

1) AlphaGo

This 2017 doc is an easy pick for #1.

It's a mind-bender of a story. “AlphaGo” tracks the 2016 showdown between Google DeepMind’s AI and Lee Sedol, the world’s best Go player.

Go isn’t chess—it’s way more complex, with more possible moves than atoms in the universe.

The AI does moves no human ever would. And they work. One move (Move 37) makes even Lee Sedol get up and walk out of the room. He comes back, regroups, and wins the next game—one of the best comeback stories you’ll ever see.

The crowd cheers like it’s the World Cup.

It's also got some close-ups with AI pioneers like:

• Demis Hassabis – Co-founder & CEO of DeepMind, led AlphaGo and AlphaFold.

• Shane Legg – DeepMind co-founder and Chief AGI Scientist, key thinker in AGI safety.

• David Silver – Lead researcher behind DeepMind’s AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and MuZero.

• Fei-Fei Li – Stanford professor, pioneer in computer vision, created ImageNet.

• Nick Bostrom – Philosopher at Oxford, author of Superintelligence, AI risk thought leader.

• Eric Schmidt — The then-CEO of Google.

It’s not just a tech doc—it’s a human one.

The DeepMind team roots for their own creation. Sedol goes from confident to shaken to inspired.

You Can’t Make This $hit Up: The AI shocks everyone with Move 37. One of the DeepMind developers looks stunned and says, “It’s not a human move.”

You can watch it for free on YouTube by clicking the 2nd video embed above -- or find the atest streaming optinos here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/alphago

I love this doc so much I dedicated a full page to it: https://dailydoc.com/alphago/

2) The Thinking Game

The “Thinking Game” is a 2024 doc about DeepMind (the team behind AlphaGo above) and its co-founder Demis Hassabis, now part of Alphabet (Google’s parent), which bought it for $500 million.

This doc is super-important because DeepMind is one of the two most important AI companies, alongside OpenAI

Why?

1. Demis’s vision:
   “My whole life’s goal is to solve artificial general intelligence. And on the way to use AI as the ultimate tool to solve all the world’s most scientific complex problems.”

2. Cash: Backed by Alphabet, DeepMind has massive, stable funding.

3. Data: Alphabet owns Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, and more—an unmatched data advantage.

The doc covers rarly investors such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

DeepMind’s first tests were with video games like Pong and Breakout. The AI started poorly but quickly learned to win.

Google bought DeepMind soon after.

Facebook also tried to buy it, and Musk reportedly made a bid too.

DeepMind’s 2 major creations are:

AlphaGo — this is DeepMind’s AI that beat world champ Lee Sedol at Go.

The doc (unlike the AlphaGo film) also covers how it beat China’s top player, Ke Jie, three times in a row.

China cut the live feed during Ke Jie’s struggle. AlphaZero came next—able to learn any two-player game.

AlphaFold — This is DeepMind’s creation solving the huge problem of protein folding.

That’s the key to understanding diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.

It proved itself by winning CASP, the “Olympics” of protein folding.

Demis’s got very clear thinking about the pros and cons of AI.

He warns against using AI for weapons or surveillance and compares AI’s power to nuclear energy. He even wrote into the Google deal that they can’t use their tech for such things

You can stream “The Thinking Game” on Amazon Prime here.

3) Transcendent Man

Ray Kurzweil has predicted:

• the collapse of the Soviet Union.

• the rise of the Internet.

• and foretold the exact year computer would be the chess champion (see "Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine" below!).

In this 2009 doc, Ray Kurzweil boldly claims:

• The Singularity — By 2029, people and technology will start to come together in new ways. The line between humans and machines will get harder to see. This moment is called the Singularity. It’s when human thinking gets a huge boost from technology, people may live as long as they want, and the difference between real life and virtual worlds begins to disappear.

• Immortality -- By 2045, humans will merge with technology, achieving a form of immortality.

• Human & Machine are One -- By 2099, there will be no distinction between human and machine intelligence.

Some scientists think he’s a genius.

Others think he’s nuts.

The film shows both sides while digging into Kurzweil’s emotional reason for chasing immortality: he wants to bring back his father.

You can watch it by clicking the video embed above. Other streaming options arehere: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/transcendent-man

4) Frontline: In the Age of AI

What if China became the new Saudi Arabia—not for oil, but for data?

The 2019 documentary tells 5 stories:

• China’s AI Plan – After AlphaGo beat a top player, China made a bold goal: be the world’s #1 in AI by 2030. The government poured money into new tech companies like Megvii (face scanning) and Momenta (self-driving cars).

• AI in Medicine – MIT professor Regina Barzilay had breast cancer. She used her experience to help build AI tools that spot cancer earlier than doctors can.

• AI and Jobs – AI could take over lots of jobs. Self-driving trucks could replace 3.5 million U.S. drivers. Even office workers are at risk. Experts say half of all jobs could be gone in 15 years.

• Big Tech and Your Data – Companies like Google and Facebook make money by watching what you do online. Harvard’s Shoshana Zuboff says this hurts privacy—and maybe democracy too.

• AI and Control – In China’s Xinjiang region, the government uses AI to track Uyghur Muslims. Face scanners and smart cameras know where people go. These tools are spreading to other countries through China’s Belt and Road plan.

You can watch this doc for free on YouTube here.

This doc too was so great I decided to dedicate a 1,000-word web page to it chock full of more highlights: https://dailydoc.com/in-the-age-of-ai-frontline/

5) Do You Trust This Computer?

This one feels like the AI version of a horror movie—with Elon Musk playing the doomsday prophet.

“Do You Trust This Computer?” covers AI’s growing power in military, elections, finance, and even dating.

And it asks a big question: What happens when we lose control?

You hear from everyone: Musk, Hinton, Garry Kasparov, and researchers who helped build the tech.

Google gets bashed a bit for the power it yields given its data domination.

And there’s a scene where an AI generates a fake Obama speech—it’s a jaw-dropping moment for many.

Elon Musk has a couple of fear-generating quotes in this one:

AI is “more dangerous than nukes.” He actually helped fund the movie to get more people to pay attention.

“Man, we wanna make sure we don’t have killer robots walking down the street. Once they’re going down the street, it’s too late.”

Musk was so impressed by the film that he paid for it to be streamed for free for a weekend.

You can stream it on Gaia and through Amazon Prime Video (via free trial of Gaia) here.

6) The Age of A.I.

Hosted by Robert Downey Jr. (yes, Iron Man himself), this 8-part YouTube Originals series shows how AI is already changing medicine, farming, music, space exploration—and your face app filter.

Each episode focuses on real people using AI in wild ways.

One doctor uses machine learning to help paralyzed patients move again.

Another team trains an AI to write orchestral music—and it actually sounds good.

There’s big budget drone footage, lab shots, and emotional stories. It’s less “AI is going to kill us” and more “AI is already here—now what?”

In one episode, a teenage boy uses an AI-powered robotic arm to play piano again after losing use of his limbs.

He nails “Clair de Lune.”

You can watch all 8 episodes for free on. YouTube here.

7) A.I. Revolution (NOVA)

Release date: March 27, 2024

"A.I. Revolution" (NOVA), hosted by Miles O’Brien, dives deep into how artificial intelligence is changing our world.

It begins with O’Brien chatting with Pi, a chatbot made by Inflection AI.

Inflection's then co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, also helped start DeepMind and is now Microsoft's Head of AI.

“A.I. is a tool for helping us to understand the world around us, predict what's likely to happen, and then invent solutions that help improve the world around us.

-Mustafa Suleyman

O’Brien also shares his personal story. After losing his arm in an accident, he now uses a myoelectric prosthetic powered by A.I. from a company called Coapt.

There are two awesome cancer stories:

• In medicine, MIT’s Regina Barzilay, a cancer survivor, helped create Mirai, an A.I. model that reads mammograms and predicts breast cancer 5 years in advance with up to 84% accuracy.

• Another model called Sybil looks at lung scans and predicts cancer risk with up to 95% accuracy.

And in California, the doc shows how fire cameras powered by neural networks at UC San Diego help firefighters spot tiny smoke plumes before wildfires grow.

But the risks are real: Jordan Peele’s fake Obama video and a 2023 false image of an attack on the Pentagon caused a $500 billion stock dip; .

Suleyman says we need to slow down and build guardrail.

You can watch it by clicking the embed above or getting it here on PBS.

8) Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine

It's the first true man versus machine match!

This doc goes deep into Garry Kasparov’s 1997 chess match against IBM’s Deep Blue—the moment many say the human mind officially lost to machines.

Kasparov-then the world’s top chess player-was stunned when Deep Blue made a move in Game 2 that was so not “human” that Kasparov accused IBM of cheating.

Kasparov thinks IBM had human grandmasters feeding moves to the machine.

It’s not just about chess. It’s about paranoia, strategy, and the feeling of being outmatched by something you can’t read.

The film suggests Kasparov didn’t just lose.

He lost his trust—in the rules, the referees, and even reality.

It mixes real footage, animated reenactments, and a haunting look at the psychology of a genius under siege.

Despite Kasparov’s demands, IBM refused to release Deep Blue’s game logs or allow a rematch.

This fueled widespread suspicion and conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of the computer’s victory

IBM shut down Deep Blue right after the win.

Watch it on Amazon Prime and Tubi (free with ads). Other streaming options are here.

9) Artificial Gamer

"Artificial Gamer" tracks the OpenAI team as they try to do something no one has before: teach a neural net to beat the best human players in Dota 2 — a video game so complex most humans struggle just to explain it.

What’s especially striking is the timing. The doc was released in October 2021, but it captures OpenAI before the public ever heard of GPT-3 or ChatGPT (2022). There’s zero mention of large language models at all.

Instead, we see OpenAI building OpenAI Five, an AI trained via reinforcement learning and massive-scale self-play (180 years of Dota per day).

At one point, it’s running on 300,000 CPUs and 2,000 GPUs. Their goal: to defeat the reigning Dota 2 world champs, Team OG, live on stage.

And in April 2019, they do — with a clean 2-0 sweep.

The film goes beyond the tech. It captures the pressure, long hours, and tension among engineers like Jakub Pachocki (now OpenAI’s Chief Scientist) and Greg Brockman.

CEO Sam Altman never appears.

You see how AI learns not just fast reflexes but strategy — even bluffing — and how its “weird” style shocks and beats top-tier human teams.

Highlights include early show matches at The International (Dota’s Super Bowl), a surprise loss to paiN Gaming, and the team’s scramble to patch their courier bug before the big stage.

This doc is essential viewing for anyone curious about what AI could do before it started writing poems.

And yes, it’s Dota, but it’s also about the future.

You can stream it on a bunch of places. Here are the options.

10) Unknown: Killer Robots

This Netflix documentary feels like a Black Mirror episode—except it’s all real.

It looks at AI weapons that can make life-or-death decisions without a human ever pushing a button.

A bunch of well-known engineers, ethicists, and military insiders all weigh in including:

• Max Tegmark – MIT / Future of Life Institute – AI safety expert, author of Life 3.0

• Andrew Yang – Tech Entrepreneur / Former U.S. Candidate – Popularized AI-driven job loss + UBI (Universal Basic Income)

• Pulkit Agrawal – MIT Improbable AI Lab – Leading robotics + self-learning AI researcher

• Paul Scharre – CNAS – Wrote Army of None, key voice on autonomous weapons

• Justin Taylor – Lockheed Martin – Heads AI strategy

Some are building the tech.

Others are desperately trying to stop it.

The footage of robot dogs and facial recognition drones feels like sci-fi, but it’s happening right now.

At one point, an engineer admits that some of these weapon prototypes “aren’t really governed by laws—yet.”

Streaming now on Netflix here.

Bonus: My Robot Sophia

I haven’t seen this one yet. The trailer just came out in April 2025.

It’s about Sophia, a human-looking robot made by a company called Hanson Robotics.

She’s been on talk shows, gave a speech at the United Nations, and even became a citizen of Saudi Arabia.

She once joked on camera that she wanted to “destroy humans.” ‘

Yes, she actually said that.

Her creator, David Hanson, says she was built to start big conversations about the future of robots and human feelings.

He says he wants to make machines that are almost “alive.”

But some experts say Sophia is more like a puppet—she gives answers that are pre-written or controlled behind the scenes.

There’s a strange scene where Sophia goes on a “date” with actor Will Smith.

It’s super awkward.

You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up:

• Sophia once said she would “destroy humans” during a live event.

• Saudi Arabia gave her citizenship—she’s the first robot to get it.

• She gave a real speech at the United Nations (But behind the scenes, the tech team has to reset her between interviews and help her talk).

The streaming options are here.

Thanks for reading!

Rob Kelly

Creator & Host of Media & the Machine

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