The Truth About Killer Robots (2018) Reviews

• Fearmongering and sensationalist

  VHSdynamite2018-11-25

  Automatisation of society is an important topic that will affect a lot of us, and unfortunately this documentary doesn't treat the issue with the soberness it deserves. The title says it all. The documentary focuses on tragic work and traffic accidents involving robots and self-driving cars. It focuses on how Asimov's first law is broken and that robots will replace workers in low-entry jobs. This is concerning, but how do we avoid the robot dystopia and use automatisation to our advantage? The documentary doesn't care. It just want to nurture our existing fear of being replaced and cherrypicks the bad stuff. I'm not a naive techno-optimist, but expect something more serious than this from a documentary. If I want to feed my technophobia, I'd rather watch an episode of Black Mirror.

• Poorly made and poorly researched

  marcin-mgorecki2018-12-04

  I'm an engineer and I read a lot about automation and robotics. Makers of this movie clearly don't. Movie shows few aspects of robots confusing automation and artificial intelligence. Sections of the movie try to show cases where robotics went wrong or bizarre - deep into man bites dog territory. The movie is made in style of 1970s and 1980s educational programmes forced on us in schools. All is narrated by Text to Speak engine from 2005, which makes it unpleasant to listen. Total waste of time.

• Title promises more than this half-baked Doc can deliver

  gortx2018-12-02

  From it's sensationalist title, to the ominous music and the gimmick of an android 'narrating' it, THE TRUTH ABOUT KILLER ROBOTS promises more than it can deliver. Unquestionably, our future will involve robots and A.I. (although pure examples of artificial intelligence aren't discussed with any depth here), but, Maxim Pozdorovkin's doc barely delivers a coherent argument. It's broken down into three chapters, but that seems to be the only organizational principle at work here. It flits about from location to location and from topic to topic but never builds into anything constructive. There are a few facts and some interesting tech projects unveiled, but this is a missed opportunity. It's not a surprise that HBO has dumped this on their service without much fanfare.

• It happened slowly...

  jonathan-7512018-11-29

  Not really getting the negative reviews. Automation is slowly transforming our psyche by relegating human tasks to what is still not 'automatable'. Power is being moved to those wielding most computing power and the resources to distribute it in the name of profit. It starts with the most obvious, such as Teslas crashing on auto, manufacturing robots killing workers in accidents, but then moves on to subtler issues about how the human psyche is being formed by the possibilities defines by technology and moves into robot warfare. When killing is automated... well, you get it... Dystopian? We'll see...

• Worth seeing

  johncg252019-01-12

  This is interesting and most of the negative reviews seem to be people with a "Mark Zuckerburg" viewpoint - that robots pose no threat to humans, while..Elon Musk fueded publicly with him on twitter about this and has...a completely opposite viewpoint. The film is very interesting, and definitely worth seeing if you are interested in the subject matter. Also the creepy robot narration makes it kindof spooky and atmospheric..and makes you think a bit more. The ending is not completely clear, but in getting there it shows a lot, including how asimov's rule on AI...was probably already broken for the first time in human history. Very interesting, and definitely worth seeing.