Robert Downey Jr launches YouTube doc featuring AI baby

YouTube has premiered a Robert Downey Jr-fronted series that seeks to demystify artificial intelligence.

The documentary - produced by the actor in partnership with his wife Susan - is one of the platform's highest profile and biggest-budgeted factual commissions to date.

The Avengers star is expected to give the Age of AI mass appeal.

One AI expert said there was "lots of eye candy for viewers with short attention spans".

Calum Chace, author of four books on the subject, added that artificial intelligence is a "large, complex, and important" subject.

And he noted that YouTube - whose parent company Google is a huge investor and user of related technologies - had engaged with some of its controversies.

"The message of the [first] episode is clear: machine learning can make us more human, not less, but we will have to think carefully about where we want to draw the line," he remarked.

YouTube originally put most of its original content behind a paywall, but changed its strategy earlier this year.

As a result, viewers can watch the series for free but will have to wait for each episode to be released in turn unless they pay a "premium" subscription fee, in which case the first four shows are unlocked .