Skip to main content
The Thinking Game film image; man touching a spiral art sculpture

The Thinking Game

Insights

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

Will Artificial Intelligence change the world on the scale of the Industrial Revolution, or is it an overhyped tech bubble ready to burst? DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis is convinced that AI will prove a great leap forward, and he’s dedicated his life to developing responsible AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). The Thinking Game traces Hassabis’ interest in AI from his childhood as an international chess prodigy to his teenage years working on groundbreaking video games, to his graduate work in neuroscience at Cambridge, and eventually, his work with DeepMind, one of the most successful and innovative AI research companies.

Through in-depth interviews, cutting-edge technological demonstrations, and the unrelenting enthusiasm and determination of Hassabis, this follow-up to 2017’s Alpha Go chronicles DeepMind’s successes and failures, from humble beginnings, an AI that could barely play Pong, to one that solved a breakthrough protein-folding problem that could revolutionize biology research. Like Robert Oppenheimer, Hassabis has a single-minded urgency to reshape the world, while knowing that he could be unleashing a devastating new force upon humanity.

 

Media Partner

Director
Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2024

Language

English

Film Contact
18+
83 min
Documentary
Cityspeak Films

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Tom Dore, Jonathan Fildes

Producer

Gary Krieg

Cinematography

Greg Kohs

Editor

Steve Sander

Original Music

Dan Deacon

Greg Kohs headshot; The Thinking Game director

Greg Kohs

Greg Kohs is a ten-time Emmy®-winning filmmaker whose real-as-dirt storytelling has been brought to bear in all his award-winning documentaries, including Song Sung Blue (2008), The Great Alone (2015), AlphaGo (2017), Coin (2022), and latest, The Thinking Game (2024) the story of a visionary scientist’s quest to solve AGI.

Filmography: Song Sung Blue (2008); The Great Alone (2015); AlphaGo (2017); Coin (2022

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Kelly Moran

120 min

A live performance by acclaimed pianist, producer, and composer Kelly Moran, charting unconventional sonic pathways through classical, avant-garde, and electronic sound. With opening live AV set from Vancouver electronic musician and composer Bahar Khazei.

SFU - Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre
All of a Sudden

All of a Sudden

Dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
196 min

An eldercare manager (Virginie Efira) forms a life-changing bond with a terminally ill playwright (Tao Okamoto) in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden, a tender, philosophically rich meditation on mortality, care, and what we owe one another.

Vancouver Playhouse

Roid

Dir. Mejbaur Rahman Sumon
109 min

Roid follows Sadhu, a solitary man who marries a mysterious young woman from a distant village. But when her behaviour disrupts the quiet rhythm of Sadhu's life, he decides to abandon her — only for her to reappear, again and again.

International Village 9 VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Nobody's Violence

Dir. Denis Côté
118 min

In Denis Côté’s atmospheric dystopian drama, a taciturn woman facilitating euthanasia requests begins to question her purpose after crossing paths with an enigmatic man.

The Cinematheque

Paris Paris

Dir. Isabelle Tollenaere
78 min

Three undocumented men from different backgrounds navigate Paris's luminous metropolis in this stirring drama of dislocation. Gorgeously composed and often humorous, Paris Paris questions what it means to truly belong.

Alliance Francaise International Village 8

Last Movies

Dir. Stanley Schtinter
86 min

What would film history look like reorganized around the last movies various cultural figures watched before they died? Last Movies embraces this simple concept to offer a deliberately skewed and mordantly funny love letter to cinema.

SFU Woodwards International Village 8