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

The Godfather

Dir. Francis Ford Coppola
175 min

A family saga in more senses than one, Francis Coppola's enthralling gangster opus aims to chronicle the American experience through the twentieth century. It is both a success story and a study of moral corruption.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Shoplifters

Dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu
121 min

A Palme d'or winner in 2018, Shoplifters is both a hard-edged and heartwarming drama about a makeshift family of impoverished urchins and orphans in contemporary Tokyo.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Samia

Dir. Yasemin Şamdereli
102 min

Despite growing up in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the civil war, Samia Yusuf Omar persists in her dream of becoming an Olympic athlete and competes in Beijing, 2008 -- with London, 2012 next on her agenda. Based on a true story.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Melancholia

Dir. Lars von Trier
135 min

Lars von Trier squares up to the end times with this grandly luxuriant but surprisingly punky sci-fi, set in an imposing country mansion house, where Justine (Kirsten Dunst) blows up what's supposed to be the happiest day of her life.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Sudan, Remember Us

Dir. Hind Meddeb
78 min

A portrait of young artists and activists, Meddeb's doc charts events in Khartoum between 2019 -- in the immediate wake of the revolution that deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir -- and the mood four years later, when the country has been torn apart by civil war.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Missouri Breaks

Dir. Arthur Penn
126 min

This exuberant, wild and wooly western from Arthur Penn features a brazenly transgressive performance from Marlon Brando, while Jack Nicholson underplays masterfully as the cattle rustler he's been hired to eliminate.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema