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🐇🕳 Down the A.I. Music Rabbit Hole We Go!
Discover the latest news at the intersection of creativity and artificial intelligence.
Helen Todd (Human)
January 18, 2024
Creativity Squared: On A.I. Music & Creativity“Music is pure creativity.”
Dear Creativity Squared Member,
Hello, hello! I’m writing this newsletter while on vacation ahead of the launch of the podcast’s 2024 season. Mark your calendars: the first episode drops Thursday, February 1, and it’s one of the coolest interviews I’ve done to date with A.I. artist Claire Silver. She’s not only incredibly talented and a deep thinker but she’s also anonymous online, so the whole interview was done with one of her avatars in real time using motion capture to reflect her facial gestures!
Our featured blog post is on the A.I. Delimma. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend it. It’s probably one of the videos I recommend the most when it comes to articulating concerns about an A.I. arms race without proper guardrails.
Also, with OpenAI releasing ChatGPT for teams, I recommend upgrading to it, even if you’re using ChatGPT solo. This is for one main reason: Team data is excluded from training by default. So what you input through the teams interface doesn’t train their model, so your content and data stays private. The good news is that it’s not that expensive at a minimum of two users at $25 per user/month billed annually or $30 per user / month billed monthly.
For today’s newsletter, we’re spotlighting Episode 22 with Walter Werzowa, an internationally acclaimed Austrian composer, producer, speaker, and professor at mdw - the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
Be inspired in Episode 22 now by the transformational power of sound to heal, and discover how the magic is being unlocked with artificial intelligence — both in studying people’s brain waves and analyzing the music that’s been scientifically proven to reduce epileptic seizures! You’ll also hear about Walter’s work on the Beethoven X: The AI Project and his collaboration with A.I. artist Refik Anadol on MYTHOS MOZART.
Walter’s love and joy for music are contagious as well as his passion for supporting composers' creativity — I hope you enjoy this conversation!
Also, a big CONGRATS to all of ArtsWave 2024 Black & Brown grant recipients! 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates goes to ArtsWave to support this program. We did a special interview series with last year’s cohort you can check out here. Through our partnership with ArtsWave, we’ll be celebrating and elevating this year’s artists as well — stay tuned!
Scroll on to discover:
👩💻 Featured Blog Post: The A.I. Dilemma
📆 Calendar of Events: A.I. Conference Radar + Cincy A.I. Events
🤯 A.I. + Creativity News Roundup
🎧 Featured Creativity Squared Podcast Episode
👯♀️ Apply to Join the Clone Club
💎 Creativity Squared Premium Member Benefits
💝 Milestone Rewards
We’re just getting started, and if you enjoy our content, I’d really appreciate it if you could share, review, like, subscribe, leave a comment, and help spread the word about Creativity Squared in whatever way you’re willing to. Your support is greatly appreciated, and the whole team looks forward to growing with your help. Thank you!
Here's to exponential possibilities!
Helen
Helen Todd (she/her)
Human behind Creativity Squared
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How creatives are collaborating with A.I.
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📆 A.I. CONFERENCE RADAR
🤠 MARCH 8-15 SXSW — I’ll be back in Austin for SXSW in March for its Interactive Conference which starts on March 8, and will be staying for their A.I. track which is March 11-15. Let me know if you’ll be there — would love to say hi IRL! If you missed the episode with Hugh Forrest, SXSW Co-President & Chief Programming Officer, check it out here!
😎 APRIL 5-9: Texas Eclipse Festival — If you’re looking for A.I. events to attend next year, do add the Texas Eclipse Festival to your list! On April 8, 2024, there will be a total solar eclipse. The festival, taking place April 5-9 at Reveille Ranch in Burnet, TX (outside of Austin), will bring people together from all over the world to celebrate the 4 minutes of totality amidst music, immersive art, tech talks, wellness activations, and so much more.
I can’t wait to be on stage there to talk all things A.I., avatars, and synthetic media alongside so many talented people and artists, including Alex & Allyson Grey, Android Jones, and Chris Dyer.
📆 CALENDAR OF A.I. EVENTS: CINCY
For those local in Cincinnati, join these upcoming A.I. events. 🥳
✏️ FEB 2 From Ellevate & IBM: Generative AI Summit Transforming Businesses for the Future - Excited to take the stage at this all-women conference on A.I. at my alma mater Xavier University to talk all things A.I. and the future of online communication with clones.
🤝 FEB 6 CincyAI Meetup - Join me and others interested in all things A.I. at the CincyAI Meetup for Humans, cohosted by Creativity Squared, on Tuesday, February 6, at the UC Digital Futures building from 3-5pm ET. Sign up now!
Looking forward to meeting those who can make it in person and geeking out about all things A.I. and creativity!
With all of the A.I. news flooding our feeds and screens, we’ve got you covered. News to check out includes:
OpenAI's Sam Altman says human-level AI is coming but will change world much less than we think CNBC — Human-level artificial intelligence will not be as revolutionary as we might or hope, according to Sam Altman. Altman made the prediction at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, where A.I. has been a major discussion among the most important economic questions in the world. Responding to a question about Donald Trump’s primary victory in Iowa and the economic anxiety posed by A.I., Altman said that A.I. will have an impact but likely not as large or transformative as we expect. He says he increasingly sees ChatGPT as more of a tool than anything else.
At CES 2024, AI Is Here to Help - IEEE Spectrum - One of the biggest annual tech shows wrapped up last weekend, with a strong showing from A.I. developers. LG and Samsung debuted A.I. TV screens. Samsung also reintroduced its miniature robot, Ballie, upgraded with A.I. and a projector for streaming and video calls. A.I. agents were out in force, including one that bills itself as the ultimate resource for domestic duties. Nvidia also announced RTX, a GPU service that runs locally on users' machines, allowing for instant responses.
Introducing ChatGPT Team OpenAI — Small and medium-sized businesses now have a more fitting A.I. option with ChatGPT Team with some of the benefits of ChatGPt Enterprise but without the price tag. It’s a collaborative suite built on the famous multimodal chatbot and priced just above ChatGPT Plus at $25 per month. Like the Enterprise plan, ChatGPt doesn’t train on input and doesn’t learn usage trends from your work.
OpenAI and journalism OpenAI — OpenAI says the New York Times lawsuit against them for copyright infringement doesn’t tell the whole truth. In an unsigned blog post, OpenAI claimed that the NYT suit is meritless and contains evidence that was engineered to be misleading. The Times suit claims that ChatGPT often infringes copyright by reprinting verbatim language from its sources. OpenAI says that ChatGPT rarely regurgitates information and usually only does so when a user forces it to through very specific prompting.
Exclusive: Fox Corp. launches blockchain platform to negotiate with AI firms Axios — When tech trends collide: web3 may be the hero that’s needed to solve the big question of who owns what content and how do they get paid by A.I. companies looking for training data. The broadcast and publishing behemoth Fox Corp. unveiled the Verify protocol recently to do just that. Remember NFT’s? Verify protocol works similarly, by assigning a unique identifier to every piece of registered content, so everyone knows who owns what. Fox Corp hopes that more institutional content owners join the protocol so it becomes a bargaining chip in copyright disputes with A.I. companies.
AI-Generated George Carlin Drops Comedy Special That Daughter Speaks Out Against: 'No Machine Will Ever Replace His Genius' Variety — Ever wonder what George Carlin might have to say about today’s world? Veterans of the sketch comedy show MadTV took a stab at it with an A.I.-generated comedy special imitating the infamously irreverent stand-up who died in 2008. A.I. Carlin tackles topics such as the billionaire space race, the streaming wars, and mass shootings. Human Carlin’s daughter criticized the project, saying that we should be supporting living, breathing stand-up comedians instead.
Executives Cautiously Hit The Brakes On Artificial Intelligence Forbes — According to a new survey out from Accenture, large companies are already planning on holding or cutting their investments into proprietary A.I. tech. Of 3,000 executives surveyed, 74% agreed that legal, regulatory, and financial uncertainties of the young technology are giving them second thoughts.
Listen: E22. Decoding Music with A.I.
Unlock the Magic of Beethoven, Mozart, and Music as Medicine with World-Renowned Composer Walter Werzowa
Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Pandora | Amazon | Google | SoundCloud | iHeart Radio
“We have to find ways to propel creativity in all of us. Everybody can be creative and have fun. And joy was one of the first things I was telling my students at universities, like you’re amazing composers, you wouldn't be here if you weren't. I want to help you keep the joy of creating. Only this will give you a wonderful life with miracles. And those beautiful, life-changing, self-changing moments. That is just so powerful.”
In Episode 22, you’ll discover how A.I. is unlocking the profound impact of music as medicine.
With over 30 years of experience in the music industry, Walter Werzowa is a passionate and visionary leader in audio branding and A.I. music. His mission is to explore and advance the intersection of music, technology, and human emotions and to inspire and empower others with the power of sound.
He has created and produced award-winning music and sound design for global brands as well as for films, commercials, and trailers. Notably, he composed the ubiquitous INTEL audio branding, which is the most performed mnemonic and melody in broadcast history. His extensive work in film includes scoring for Steven Spielberg, Wim Wenders, and many more.
Walter recently collaborated with Harvard, Rutgers, and Cornell on the Beethoven X: The AI Project, which utilized A.I. to complete Beethoven’s unfinished 10th Symphony.
Currently, Walter is the Head of Music at MYTHOS MOZART, an immersive experience that brings to life the magic of Mozart in collaboration with renowned A.I. artist Refik Anadol.
He is also an Advisory Board member at Spatial Inc., a company that creates spatial audio for virtual and augmented reality.
Walter and I met at the BOLD Unconference, a fantastic and inspiring event that the Austrian Chamber of Commerce hosted across four cities in Austria, including a stop in Linz for Ars Electronica. And I’m so excited to share our conversation with you that started over a dinner in the Ars Electronica Museum.
Check out the full conversation with Walter and the accompanying blog post for Episode 22 today:
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Digitally Clone Yourself: The Avatar Experience Cincinnati
👯♀️ Ready to be digitally cloned? Get your own custom synthetic avatar! Creativity Squared is collaborating with our partner and sponsor, Render, to bring The Avatar Experience to Cincinnati, OH, by appointment that fits into your schedule. Digitally clone yourself to unlock streamlined and dynamic video content — Apply to be cloned today!
There are less than a thousand known hyper-realistic custom synthetic avatars in existence, so participants will be at the forefront of this groundbreaking A.I. technology. Custom synthetic avatars are part of a massive and growing digital avatar market and is projected to be $270B by 2030.
Custom synthetic avatars can be used for creating:
Dynamic online course instruction
Streamlined SEO video production of blog or audio-only content
Turnkey social media and email marketing video content
Engaging customer service messaging
And more!
👯♀️ In case you missed the announcement, I’ve digitally cloned myself! Learn all about mine in episode E14. Not Deepfaked! I Cloned Myself. You’ll meet Helen 2.ODD, my digital double, and discover why and how I made my A.I.-created custom synthetic avatar.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Thank You to Render
Creativity Squared is supported by Render which provides Digital Likeness solutions for personal brand businesses, thought leaders, influencers, and business leaders who want to leverage their synthetic, A.I.-powered Likeness to communicate more effectively online and create audio and video content from anywhere without going on camera. Learn more by visiting: https://rendermedia.ai.
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