Creativity Squared: On A.I. as Hype or Not?

Dear Creativity Squared Member,

As a longtime SXSW fan and attendee who has had the great honor to advise and speak there for many years, I’ve gotten to know Episode 17’s guest, Hugh Forrest, and see all the hard work he and his team do to make the magic that is SXSW possible.

I couldn’t be more excited to have him on Creativity Squared. Check out Episode 17 to hear Hugh’s unique perspective on trends at the intersection of tech, culture, and creativity, including lessons from the social media revolution for our current zeitgeist that encompasses all things artificial intelligence.

He asks: Is A.I. just part of a hype cycle? And he’s seen many over the years.

Hugh serves as Co-President and Chief Programming Officer for South by Southwest (SXSW) which includes SXSW Interactive, one of the largest tech conferences in the world helping creative people achieve their goals.

Discover what’s on the horizon for next year’s SXSW Interactive where A.I. will be all the buzz with over 250 speaker proposals submitted! In our conversation in this episode, Hugh discusses the need for guardrails on artificial intelligence, gives us a sneak peek at other programming like AR, VR, and quantum computing, and also shares the importance and power of community in this moment in time.

Hugh jokes that Apple’s Tim Cook is a huge fan of the podcast too — you never know! 😉

Thank you to everyone who voted for my SXSW panel submission on ethically A.I.-created synthetic avatars, one of the many A.I. proposals! Will keep ya posted on the outcome, and either way, looking forward to seeing those who will be in Austin next March!

Scroll on to discover:

• 🎧 More on Episode 17

• 🤯 A.I. + Creativity News Roundup

• 💣 Watch: The A.I. Dilemma

• 👯‍♀️ Digitally Clone Yourself!

• 💎 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

Also Noteworthy:

🙋‍♀️ Want your own custom synthetic avatar? Creativity Squared is collaborating with our partner and sponsor Render to bring their avatar experience to Cincinnati, OH, on October 25 and 26, so anyone can digitally clone themselves. If you’re interested in this, let us know here, and we’ll follow up with more information.

🐝 We use Beehiiv for this newsletter and Riverside for recording podcast episodes, and recommend them!

🗓 The ArtsWave Truth and Healing Artist visual gallery will be at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati through September 10. As a proud partner, we interviewed all of the artists, and are excited to share the first batch of conversations released — check them out here.

🎨 I want to live in a world where artists not only coexist with A.I., but thrive. And because it’s important to support artists, 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates goes to ArtsWave, a nationally recognized non-profit that supports over 150 arts organizations, projects, and independent artists. Consider becoming a Premium Member today! 

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Helen Todd (she/her)
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How creatives are collaborating with A.I.

Listen: E17. Hugh Forrest: A.I. Hype Cycle or Not?
SXSW Co-President and Chief Programming Officer Discusses A.I., Tech Trends, and the Importance of Community

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Is A.I. just part of a hype cycle?

In Episode 17, hear from SXSW’s Hugh Forrest who serves as Co-President and Chief Programming Officer for South by Southwest which includes SXSW Interactive, one of the largest tech conferences in the world helping creative people achieve their goals.

Founded in 1987 in Austin, Texas, SXSW is best known for its conference and festivals. Hugh oversees all of the content, celebrating the convergence of tech, film, music, education, and culture.  

The next SXSW will take place March 8-16, 2024 in Austin, Texas.

Today, you’ll hear Hugh’s unique perspective on trends at the intersection of tech, culture, and creativity, including lessons from the social media revolution for our current zeitgeist that encompasses all things artificial intelligence.

Discover what’s on the horizon for next year’s SXSW Interactive where A.I. will be all the buzz with over 250 speaker proposals submitted! The conference programming will also include sessions on virtual and augmented reality, quantum computing, the creator economy, synthetic biology, climate change, and more.

In our conversation in this episode, Hugh considers whether A.I. is part of a hype cycle and discusses the need for guardrails on it. He also shares the importance and power of community in this moment in time.

Your A.I. + Creativity News Roundup

With all of the A.I. news flooding our feeds and screens, we’ve got you covered. News to check out includes:

• Studios Reveal New Proposal to Striking Writers on Data Transparency, AI and Residuals The Hollywood Reporter — Hollywood studios are offering some concessions to striking screenwriters as the stalemate approaches day 120. On Tuesday, studios released details of the proposal they sent to the writers’ guild earlier this month. Studios are offering to limit the usage of generative A.I. in script development, raise wages by 12.5 percent over three years, offer more insight to writers about streaming viewership, and tweak the system for paying out residuals. Writers had asked for more of a raise and exclusion of their work from A.I. training data. Writers have the next move.

• AI cannot hold copyright, federal judge rules Politico — A human must be substantially involved in the creation of a work in order for it to be copyrighted, according to a landmark federal court ruling released Friday. A district court judge wrote that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement” of copyright law in her decision to uphold the U.S. Copyright Office’s refusal to copyright a painting created by an autonomous machine. The ruling could have near-term impacts on the Hollywood writers’ strike and lasting impacts on U.S. law.

• YouTube Music embraces AI songs, but there will be rules you need to know BGR — YouTube announced that they plan to embrace A.I.-generated music, while protecting creators of original content and adapting their existing trust and safety infrastructure to protect viewers/listeners. Their A.I. principles are to “enhance music’s unique creative expression while also protecting music artists and the integrity of their work.” CEO Neal Mohan said the company will partner with UMG on a Music AI Incubator in the pursuit of “responsible innovation.”

• These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI Rolling Stone — The issues of A.I. bias are nothing new, and women of color have been trying to warn us about them for a decade. A.I. researchers like this article’s protagonist, Timnit Gebru, have long seen how A.I.-generated responses tend to regurgitate crude stereotypes about women and people of color. After all, the biggest datasets available for training large language models are sources like Reddit and Twitter, where the opinions of white men are vastly overrepresented compared to the general population.

• Meta confirms AI ‘off-switch’ incoming to Facebook, Instagram in Europe TechCrunch — New regulations mandating the option for a chronological news feed means that Europeans may be seeing more of their friends. The European Union’s newly-refreshed Digital Services Act will allow social media users to opt-out of having to scroll through a feed curated by artificial intelligence. Time will tell how the new regulations will impact visibility on social media, as content creators often complain that A.I. newsfeeds pick winners and losers.

• If AI Becomes Conscious, How Will We Know? Science — A team of neuroscientists, philosophers, and psychologists have developed a “theory-heavy” approach for detecting whether an A.I. model has achieved human-like consciousness. Researchers arrived at 14 indicators that are unique to human consciousness, based on established cognitive theories backed by neuroscience. The more indicators that a model displays, the more likely it is to be conscious. Spoiler: None of the current A.I. models check all the boxes, but most of the models check a few of them.

• GPT-3.5 Turbo fine-tuning and API updates OpenAI — Users of ChatGPT’s API can now customize the chatbot to better serve their users. Using fine-tuning, developers and businesses can better ensure that ChatGPT’s customer-facing responses follow certain rules, are formatted correctly, and accurately reflect the tone of the business’s brand. OpenAI emphasizes that clients own all input and output data handled by the API. Similar fine-tuning options exist for individual consumers to personalize their browser-based chatbot.

• Stars Learn to Love their AI doppelgangers The Information (Subscribe with 25% off to support us) — As Hollywood strikes grind on and generative A.I. companies multiply, celebrities and their estates are mulling their options. The Information takes us inside the world of celebrity digital twins, where new monetization opportunities await big names willing to scan their likenesses.

• Before a Bot Steals Your Job, It Will Steal Your Name The Atlantic — Many advanced chatbots are being given human names, a trend that is expected to continue as generative A.I. advances. These names are used to make bots seem more believable and real, but can also be a marketing ploy to influence how users perceive the product.

Watch: The A.I. Dilemma
A Call to Artists to Rise to Meet the Moment

Watch The A.I. Dilemma, a presentation by the co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, on how important it is for A.I. to be regulated.

The presentation also has a call to artists to rise to meet the moment.

Referring to the Cold War-era PSA film, The Day After, Tristan and Aza say that their goal is to help educate an informed culture, which can collectivize to update our antiquated institutions to withstand the massive disruptions that A.I. will bring. The world needs more A.I. safety researchers, voices of caution, informed interrogators of emerging technology, and most of all, more time to reckon with A.I. and its role in a future we all want to live in.

Art can help change this trajectory.

The Day After, which was screened on television both in the U.S. and later in Russia, leveraged art to help the public understand the consequences of an uncoordinated nuclear arms race. Watched by over 100 million people around the world (it still holds the record for the highest-rated TV movie in history), the critical piece of art transcended borders, languages, and politics. The film helped influence not only public opinion about the threat of nuclear war, but also policy. U.S. President Ronald Reagan watched the film more than a month before its screening on Columbus Day, October 10, 1983. He wrote in his diary that the film was “very effective and left me greatly depressed” and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a “nuclear war”.

This is another moment in history where art can bridge the gap between whatever conceptions the general public may have toward A.I. and the consequences of complacency.

Sign Up: Digitally Clone Yourself
Now There Can be Two of You!

👯‍♀️ In case you missed the announcement, I’ve digitally cloned myself! There are less than a thousand known custom synthetic avatars in existence. 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.

🙋‍♀️ Want your own custom synthetic avatar? Creativity Squared is collaborating with our partner and sponsor Render to bring their avatar experience to Cincinnati, OH, on October 25 and 26, so anyone can digitally clone themselves. If you’re interested in this, let us know here, and we’ll follow up with more information.

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.

Interested in partnering with Creativity Squared? Reach out!

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