Do You Trust This Computer? documentary review: artificial intelligence is already here FlickFilosopher.com

Trust is frustratingly scattershot, seemingly conflating two separate issues: that of AI that surpasses us and has about as much concern for us as we have for the ants we thoughtlessly trod on; and the unimaginably vast amounts of data about everything we collect everyday, the abuse of which, such as by Cambridge Analytica, can literally change the course of entire nations (see: the electoral triumphs of Trump and Brexit). There are connections -- AI learns by ingesting raw data, and will learn how to manipulate us even better than humans holding that data can -- but that never quite gels here. Perhaps the film's very brief running time -- under 80 minutes -- wasn't the best choice: these are matters that could keep a documentary TV series busy for many weeks. In the reminder that many scientific advances -- such as, say, nuclear fission -- once deemed to be impossible or off in the distant future have come to pass very soon after such predictions are made. In the warning that we very quickly get used to and utterly blasé about technology that initially seems horrifying.