“Intelligence Rising”: Impending AI Doom at CPH:DOX

Artificial intelligence stood out among the many topics announced at this year’s CPH:DOX. As the AI industry expands and debates around it intensify within the global tech sphere, the discussion inevitably finds its way onto the big screen. The question, however, is whether filmmakers can keep up with a technology whose breakthroughs become old news before they even reach public discourse.

Intelligence Rising (Elena Andreicheva, 2026) was among the festival’s most promising documentaries on the subject. The film places thinkers and political actors from the EU, China, and the United States in a simulated geopolitical war game that explores potential AI-driven crises. The premise alone suggests a compelling opportunity to examine the technology’s strategic and ethical implications.

From the opening scenes, however, Andreicheva adopts an overtly dystopian tone. Participants are placed in a futuristic environment of shimmering lights, robotic guidance, and ominous music designed to heighten tension. The stylisation quickly becomes distracting. Instead of allowing the discussions themselves to carry the film, the atmosphere pushes the narrative toward a sense of impending technological doom, leaving little room for viewers to absorb the arguments and reflect on the facts being presented.

The war-game framework itself is an intriguing concept. Yet it is difficult to ignore that the participants are constantly aware of the cameras documenting their behavior. Their discussions unfold under observation, inevitably shaping how they respond. The situation recalls a well-known principle from physics: observation changes the outcome of an experiment. Just as particles behave differently when measured, people placed in a controlled and monitored environment tend to adjust their actions to the fact that they are being watched.

The behaviour of the simulated geopolitical actors is also telling. The United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom are long-standing players in the global political landscape, and even within a staged scenario their patterns appear familiar. European representatives tend toward “deep concern” rather than decisive action, while American participants proclaim commitments to democracy and equality while creating conditions profitable for the growing power of corporations that ultimately bring anything but equality. China’s presence offers an additional dimension; yet the overall setup still feels overwhelmingly Western and male-dominated, reinforced by the visual framing of senior figures surrounded by attentive younger assistants (annoyingly nodding at all times). The lack of broader global representation limits the scope of the discussion, overlooking other actors whose technological influence is rapidly expanding — whether current global players want it or not.

For viewers who follow AI debates even casually, Intelligence Rising may feel less like a penetrating analysis than a film riding the wave of a fashionable topic. It captures the atmosphere of the AI boom but rarely reaches the deeper structural questions behind it. The only attempt to connect the abstract geopolitical conversation with everyday reality appears through the personal thread involving Dr. Marc Warner — CEO and co-founder of the AI company Faculty — and reflections on the future facing his newborn son. Yet this narrative strand remains underdeveloped and ultimately offers little insight beyond the obvious anxieties about the world the next generation will inherit.

Artificial intelligence is evolving at a pace that traditional film production struggles to match. As a result, documentaries like Intelligence Rising risk arriving already outdated, addressing debates that have moved on by the time they reach audiences and losing to the very reality unfolding around us faster than we are able to process. For those seeking to follow developments closely, newsletters, podcasts and specialist platforms often provide more immediate and nuanced perspectives than cinema can currently deliver.

The real question Intelligence Rising inadvertently poses is this: can documentary cinema in its conventional form still meaningfully engage with the rapidly shifting realities of AI — or are we already entering an era that demands entirely new ways of thinking about how such subjects are explored on screen?