Feature-length documentary that captures the intellectual and cultural zeitgeist surrounding frontier AI at the moment before AGI, and communicates X-Risk ideas to a broad range of elites.
Feature-length documentary that captures the intellectual and cultural zeitgeist surrounding frontier AI at the moment before AGI, and communicates X-Risk ideas to a broad range of elites.
Project Details
Updated 07/09/26 · Edited by orgWe conduct in-depth interviews and present a rigorous, multi-perspective exploration of AI existential risks. We also created pedagogical explanations of Recursive Self-Improvement and related concepts.
Our goal is to deepen public understanding and encourage broader engagement with questions of AI safety and governance. We specifically want to help elites and people in power to understand existential risk, not just economic impacts like job loss. We will convey the main ideas behind runaway AI improvement (RSI), Gradual Disempowerment, Alignment, etc.
The tone of the documentary will be sophisticated, but also accessible to non-experts.
Some of the people we've interviewed so far:
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Jaan Tallinn (Cofounder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the Future of Life Institute)
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Nate Soares (President of Machine Intelligence Research Institute)
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Richard Ngo (Renowned AI safety researcher)
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Jeffrey Ladish (Executive Director of Palisade Research, an AI safety organization)
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Scott Aaronson (Quantum computing expert)
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Robin Hanson (Economist and futurist)
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Zvi Moshowitz (Prominent AI blogger)
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Jesse Hoogland (Executive Director of Timaeus, an AI safety organization)
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Holly Elmore (Founder and Executive Director of PauseAI US)
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Jeremy Nixon (Cofounder of AGI House)
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Roman Yampolskiy (AI safety expert and professor who coined the term "AI safety")
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Liron Shapira (Host of Doom Debates)
Sizzle reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RSv3wmDIpY
Project website: https://aimachinegod.com/
Steve Hsu: Professor of theoretical physics and serial startup founder. Hsu is the host of the Manifold podcast and has founded several venture-backed startups. He is an experienced team leader and also an exceptional communicator of technical ideas.
John Greer: Writer and former startup founder who has shot over thirty long-form interviews including with prominent people in AI safety, philosophy, technology, and the broader Bay Area intellectual scene.
Lei Huang: AI research scientist and ethnographer with experience as a storyteller. Huang has produced and hosted talks and forums related to both technology and history.
Theory of Impact
Updated 07/09/26 · By grantmaking.aiMost policymakers and business leaders who think about AI are thinking about risks such as job loss and misinformation from hallucinations. The arguments that actually matter for existential risk (recursive self-improvement, gradual disempowerment, the fact that alignment is unsolved) live in technical papers and niche blogs that these people will never read. But they do watch documentaries. So we're making one: a cinematic, carefully sourced film where the these ideas are explained in plain language.
Films like The Day After genuinely changed how leaders thought about nuclear risk during the Cold War. Our leaders should understand AI existential risk, not just the economic or social challenges associated with it.
People
Updated 07/09/26 · By grantmaking.aiTeam Member
Funding Details
- Jan 1, 2026
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- We hope to release the film early 2027
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- Self-funded. Shooting and rough editing already finished.
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Discussion
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