Deepfaking Sam Altman
September 30th, 2025
MOVIE: DEEPFAKING SAM ALTMAN
STARRING: ADAM BHALA LOUGH, KARA SWISHER, RAINN WILSON
DIRECTED BY: ADAM BHALA LOUGH
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 3 STARS (Out of 4)
RATED: PG
RUN TIME: 103 MINUTES
The trajectory of artificial intelligence is unpredictable. It has transformed our world in countless ways — for better and for worse. Like the cellphone before it, AI has become indispensable, but also rife with potential for misuse. Students can bypass homework, people can steal ideas, and deepfakes allow for the theft of someone’s likeness, enabling scams and reputational ruin. In the documentary Deepfaking Sam Altman, director Adam Bhala Lough investigates these darker possibilities by attempting to profile OpenAI and ChatGPT creator Sam Altman — and, in the process, reveals just how easily AI can replicate someone without their participation. The film serves as a stark warning about how deeply AI will permeate both our digital and physical lives, whether we like it or not.
The documentary begins with Bhala Lough’s attempts to secure an interview with Altman, a controversial yet undeniably central figure in the conversation about AI. He contacts agents, publicists, friends, and even shows up at what he believes to be OpenAI’s headquarters. Despite his efforts, Altman never responds, and Bhala Lough is eventually escorted out of the building. With his financiers growing impatient, the director faces a crisis: without access to Altman, his project risks becoming a colossal failure.
This obstacle becomes the documentary’s turning point. If Bhala Lough can’t interview Altman, he decides he’ll create an AI version of him instead. This decision echoes the real-world controversy surrounding Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly using her voice without consent. Inspired, Bhala Lough travels to India, partners with a deepfake specialist, casts an actor to mimic Altman, and uses AI technology to create “SamBot” — an eerily convincing stand-in for the elusive CEO. The result raises an unsettling question: do we even need humans to make a documentary anymore?
The film’s most compelling stretch is its first half, as Bhala Lough sets the stage for this audacious experiment. While the deepfake imagery of SamBot never fully convinces, and the bot’s responses are sometimes slow, the conversations become increasingly fascinating. They move from surface-level questions to deeper discussions about AI’s potential to make the documentary itself, SamBot’s awareness of its own identity, and the ethical dilemma of “ending” the bot’s existence.
Despite its uneven conclusion, Deepfaking Sam Altman is an urgent and provocative glimpse into the AI-driven future rapidly unfolding before us. Bhala Lough presses his finger on the pulse of our technological moment, exploring how AI actors, musicians, and even directors might soon become the norm. The film feels less like a speculative warning and more like a dispatch from a dystopian reality already here. If humanity can maintain a safe distance from AI, perhaps we can avoid letting the machines “win” — but the unsettling truth is that they’re already among us, blurring the lines between what is real and what is fabricated.
3 STARS
DEEPFAKING SAM ALTMAN HAD ITS PREMIERE AT THE 2025 SXSW FILM FESTIVAL. DISTRIBUTION IS TBD.
Written by: Leo Brady
