Creativity Squared: On Truth & Healing

Dear Creativity Squared Member,

It’s with great pleasure that I share Part 2 of the ArtsWave “Truth & Healing” series with you today!

Creativity Squared is proud to support and partner with ArtsWave and to bring you this special three-part series, released every three weeks, featuring the phenomenal artists and grant recipients selected for this year’s ArtsWave Black and Brown Artists Program. Each part includes a podcast episode with vignettes and then accompanying full-length video interviews, which are also available in this YouTube playlist.

Check out Ep16. ArtsWave “Truth & Healing” Part 2 now:

The intention of these interviews is to give these talented and deserving artists another platform to share their art and truth expressed through it, as you never know what ripples will turn into waves. If you’re interested in working with, featuring, or supporting these artists, please don’t be shy about it.

Creativity Squared is a proud partner of ArtsWave and because it’s important to support artists like those featured in today’s episode, 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates goes to ArtsWave and directly supports the Black and Brown Artists Program.

This year’s theme is “Truth & Healing” and I had the great honor of interviewing the artists during the opening showcase to learn more about their work and what truth and healing means to them. I’m inspired, humbled, and grateful to share their stories with you.

It’s also that time of the year — I need your help to get my panel submission selected for SXSW 2024.

SXSW Voting ends August 20, so please vote today!

It’s quick and easy to vote: Create a PanelPicker account or log in, click the ⬆️, and please add a comment — it really makes a difference! Vote here: https://bit.ly/VoteSXSW2024

My panel, “Not Deepfaked! Digitally Clone Yourself & Own Your IP,” will explore the exciting future of ethically A.I.-created synthetic avatars.

I’ll be alongside tech attorney Derrick L. Maultsby, Jr. with Frost Brown Todd; hyper-realistic avatar researcher Jill Schiefelbein who’s also a Render Partner & CXO; a product executive from a leading avatar provider; and….of course, my custom synth, Helen 2.ODD, will also make an appearance!

In case you missed it, 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.

Scroll on to discover:

• 🎧 More on Episode 16

• 🤯 A.I. + Creativity News Roundup

• 💎 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:

🗳 Here are a few friends’ SXSW submissions to vote on as well:

• Creativity Squared guest Eric Solomon — No, Really: What Does it Mean to Be Human Right Now?

• Creativity Squared guest Andy Parsons — Generative AI to Elections – How Can We Uphold Trust Online?

• Creativity Squared subscriber J. Thorn — Integrating AI into Your Creative Process (Check out his A.I. newsletter, Creative AI Digest, too!)

• Creativity Squared subscriber Markus Mooslechner — Reshaping the Future: Mindset Shifts Inspired by Big Science (Check out his podcast Space Café Podcast!)

🐝 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 conversations in a special 3-part series — check out Part 1 and Part 2 today.

🎨 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! 

🚀 Interested in becoming a sponsor of Creativity Squared? Reach out!

Helen Todd (she/her)
Human behind Creativity Squared
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How creatives are collaborating with A.I.

Listen: Ep16. ArtsWave “Truth & Healing” Interviews Part 2
Discover what "Truth & Healing" means to these ArtsWave Black and Brown Artists Program grant recipients

Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Stitcher | Pandora | Amazon | Google | SoundCloud | iHeart Radio

The Episode 16 artists’ films were shown in the ArtsWave “Truth & Healing Showcase” and Film Festivals. Part 1 of this series features the artists whose work is in the exhibition that is available for visiting at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, OH, through September 10.

Here are the six artists featured in this episode and their full-length interviews, which are also available in this YouTube playlist and in the episode-specific blog post.

This year’s Black and Brown Artists Program cohort reflects a vibrant collection of diverse art forms created by an equally diverse group of 18 artists. Their mediums include couture fashion, painting, and sculpture — along with film, musical composition, podcasts, theater, dance, and multidisciplinary works.

The projects not only represent the African American experience, but also the experiences of those with Mexican, Lebanese, Somali, Argentinian, Zimbabwean, Guatemalan, and Indigenous heritage.

Listen to the podcast episode and help spread the word by liking, reviewing, and sharing it.

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:

• Don’t Scrape Me, Bro, the Activists Sabotaging Self-Driving Cars and How Reddit Beat a Rebellion NYTimes Hard Fork — In this episode of Hard Fork, Casey Newton and Kevin Roose break down A.I. scraping issues, including users protesting Zoom’s liberal data-collection policy; authors shutting down websites that scrape their work; and, in a concession to users, OpenAI is allowing websites to opt out of web scraping. The era of A.I. backlash has begun.

• YouTube’s Walpert Levy on the AI ‘Tsunami’ The Information (Subscribe with 25% off to support us) — YouTube is getting ready to release generative AI tools for creators. But unlike rivals such as Facebook-parent Meta Platforms, it’s less interested in chatbots. Instead, it’s focusing on tools that will power video editing or help creators generate ideas. YouTube sees AI helping creators with editing, recommendations, and creating videos.

• TikTok is seemingly making it easier to disclose if your content was generated by AI The Verge —  TikTok is rolling out a new feature for creators to voluntarily label content generated by artificial intelligence. Social media consultant, Matt Navarra, first reported the new feature in a post on X. TikTok had previously announced that it would shut down A.I.-generated content that isn’t properly labeled. The new labels offer a way for creators to share such content without fear of reprisal from the social media giant. It’s unclear at the moment when labels will be available for all creators to utilize.

• OpenAI acquires AI design studio Global Illumination TechCrunch — OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced its first acquisition of a public company on Wednesday. OpenAI said in a brief post on their website that the entire team from newly-acquired A.I. startup, Global Illumination, will stay through the transition to work on “core products including ChatGPT.” Global Illumination most recently released an online game in the same genre as Minecraft.

• Safeguarding AI Is Up to Everyone Scientific American — In their September issue, the editorial board of the popular science publication calls for public scrutiny under the hood of A.I. training. Citing issues of fairness, ethics, safety, and copyright law, the editorial board wrote that all U.S. agencies need to “come together quickly … to ensure the safety of these applications.”

• Standards around Generative AI AP — The publishers of the de facto rulebook for journalism just released their guidelines for how reporters should and should not use artificial intelligence in their work. The guidance puts A.I. at an arm’s length away, permitting journalists to cautiously “experiment” with ChatGPT, but discouraging them from using chatbots to produce copy that will be published. In a blog post announcing the new guidelines, AP’s Vice President for Standards and Inclusion wrote, “ we do not see AI as a replacement of journalists in any way.”

• Google Steps Up Its Generative AI-Powered Search Game Decrypt — Google is leveraging A.I. to improve its search engine and keep up with Microsoft’s Bing in the new race toward Search Generative Experience (SGE). Google is rolling out summaries on search pages and even websites to help users absorb more information quickly. It could mark a paradigm shift in the web business, as companies shift their content strategy more toward A.I. engine optimization rather than search engine optimization.

• Snapchat's My AI chatbot posted a Story then stopped responding. Users freaked out. Mashable —  In what the company called an “outage,” Snapchat’s A.I. chatbot (called “My AI”) creeped a lot of people out when it posted a mysterious picture on its own story. Nobody knew that the chatbot had the power to post a story before the incident Tuesday night, and the chatbot offered no explanation. The image itself is hard to discern, some think it looks like a wall. Regardless of the cause, the viral moment of collective fright may have served as a small reality check amid the crescendo of A.I. hype.

• New details emerge on Google's upcoming Gen-AI product Gemini #MostInterestingThingInTech — Nicholas Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic, shares his thoughts on Gemini, including that it could have some fascinating new features; it's crucial to the company and the nature of the Web; and it sounds like a huge managerial challenge. Two big teams, with multiple big personalities, have been combined with shared code…which may present managerial problems.

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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Because it’s important to support artists, 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates will go to ArtsWave, a nationally recognized non-profit that supports over 100 arts organizations.

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