James Rodman Barrat (born 1960) is an American documentary filmmaker, speaker, and author of the nonfiction book '' Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era''.

Career

Barrat’s career began as a writer. He had two stage plays produced while in his 20s. His first

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

job was documentary scriptwriting for

National Geographic Television National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney General En ...

.Winslow, Theresa
“Bookworm: Computers take over in new book on artificial intelligence.”
Capital Gazette. Feb. 23, 2014. He now writes, directs, and produces documentary film.
National Geographic. Accessed May 22, 2015. Broadcasters have included the

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television television network, network and flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel owned by the National Geograp ...

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

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, the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

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Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

, the

History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

Animal Planet Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1, 1996, the network is primarily dev ...

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Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

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"Singularity 1 on 1: James Barrat on Our Final Invention"
Singularlity. Oct. 1, 2013"James Barrat"
IMDb. Accessed May 22, 2015 Barrat has created dozens of documentaries and worked in over 70 countries.Barrat, Jame

Nova. Feb. 1, 2010. Among his films, Barrat wrote, produced, and directed the 2014 National Geographic film ‘’Rise of the Black Pharaohs’’."Archeologists Reveal The True Story of the Legendary Nubian Kings In 'Rise of the Black Pharaohs'"
PBS Distribution. Oct. 10, 2014. Barrat also is the producer of the 2015 documentary Rise: The Promise of My Brother's Keeper airing in June 2015 on the Discovery Channel and

OWN Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

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"'Rise: The Promise of My Brother's Keeper' to Simulcast on Discovery Channel & OWN
June 21. Indiewire. May 21, 2015. In 2010, Barrat was the producer and director for the PBS NOVA documentary "Extreme Cave Diving." The filmmaker cowrote, directed, and produced the documentary special ''The Gospel of Judas'', which aired in 2006 with high ratings for the National Geographic Channel. Barrat cowrote and produced the 2008 National Geographic Television documentary special Herod's Lost Tomb He also directed and produced the National Geographic documentaries Lost Treasures of Afghanistan and Secrets of Jerusalem's Holiest Sites. He is interviewed in the 2018 documentary on artificial intelligence

Do You Trust This Computer? ''Do You Trust This Computer?'' is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Chris Paine that outlines the benefits and especially the dangers of artificial intelligence. It features interviews with a range of prominent individuals relevant to ...

Book reception

Barrat began writing ''Our Final Invention'' in 2010. It was published in 2013. In 2014, ''Time'' magazine identified Barrat as one of the "5 Very Smart People Who Think Artificial Intelligence Could Bring the Apocalypse".Luckerson, Victor
"5 Very Smart People Who Think Artificial Intelligence Could Bring the Apocalypse”
''Time''. Dec. 2, 2014. Barrat's book was named one of eight "Definitive Tech Books of 2013" by ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

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"The Definitive Tech Books Of 2013"
''The Huffington Post''. Dec. 23, 2013. He has been interviewed about artificial intelligence by

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News and the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

Business Daily."Hawking: A.I. could be end of human race"
CNN News. Dec. 2, 2014."Should We Be Frightened of Intelligent Computers?"
BBC World Service, Business Daily. Feb. 12, 2014.

Personal life

Barrat is married and has two children. He is a 1983 graduate of

Davidson College Davidson College is a private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina. It was established in 1837 by the Concord Presbytery and named after Revolutionary War general William Lee Davidson, who was killed at the nearby Battle of Cowan� ...

with a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in philosophy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barrat, James Rodman 1960 births Living people