Creativity Squared: On Human-Centered A.I. & Empathy

Dear Creativity Squared Member,

Leap into the future today with Human-Centered Researcher Alejandro Lozano Robledo as we discuss Solarpunk, Techno Sapiens, his future projection method, the convergence of megatrends in 2040…and what we can learn from the fictional country of Wakanda!

Why is it important to design for extreme use cases, and not just the average? And what can the future look like if we make the right decisions now? Listen to Episode 38 to find out!

Listen to Episode 38 to discover what’s possible today!

In last week’s newsletter, I shared that I recently turned the big 4-0, and am feeling extra generous about marking the milestone: If you become a Creativity Squared Premium or VIP Founding Member by the end of February — tonight! — 50% will go to ArtsWave!

ArtsWave is a nationally recognized non-profit that supports over 150 arts organizations, projects, and independent artists, and your contribution through Creativity Squared directly supports their Black and Brown Artists Program.

That’s not all: The first 20 people who become Premium Members will also receive a 15-minute coffee chat over Zoom with me, and all Founding VIP Members will receive a full hour!

Today is the last day for this offer and the chance to receive a 15-minute chat with me! Become a Premium or Founding VIP member today.  

Next week I’ll be heading down to Austin for SXSW and can’t wait for all of the A.I. programming this year. There’s an added section in today’s newsletter with curated interviews from the Creativity Squared podcast relevant to SXSW with friends who’ll be on stage during the festival and links to their sessions.

I’m also an official SXSW Mentor this year! Registration is open up for my mentor session that’s taking place March 11 from 4-5:15pm CT at the Hilton Austin Downtown in Room 400-402. RSVP is required. Sign-up today! 

If you’ll be in Austin, do let me know — would love to meet while I’m in town for SXSW. Just reply to this email, and I’ll see your response. Let me know what dates you’ll be there, and we’ll go from there.

There’s one more chance to see Walk It Off in person in NYC and the livestream can be viewed anytime until March 3 at 11:59 pm ET. Walk It Off is a play that Edward Gibbons-Brown, who’s a longtime Creativity Squared and Sociality Squared team member, wrote and directed. We’re all so proud of Edward and encourage you to check it out! Get your ticket for February 29 or streaming online through March 3.

As part of Creativity Squared’s mission to support artists, we’re excited to bring you an insider sneak peek on our blog…not to mention a special discount code (“WALK”) for 20% off of your ticket purchase!

Scroll on to discover:

• ✅ SXSW Creativity Squared Curated List  

• 👩‍🎤 Featured Blog Post: Solarpunk: The radically optimistic vision of the future we need right now?

• 📆 Calendar of Events: A.I. Conference Radar + Cincy A.I. Events

• 🤯 A.I. + Creativity News Roundup

• 🎧 More on Episode 38

• 👯‍♀️ Apply to Join the Clone Club

• 💎 Creativity Squared Premium Member Benefits

• 💝 Milestone Rewards

• ❤️‍🔥 Premium Members: Episode NFT

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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🎨 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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📆 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. 🥳 

🤝 MARCH 5 CincyAI Meetup — Join me and others interested in all things A.I. at the CincyAI Meetup for Humans, cohosted by Creativity Squared, on Tuesday, March 5, at the UC Digital Futures building from 3-5pm ET. Sign up now!

🥃 MARCH 5 Makers + Mixers Happy Hour Following Our CincyAI Meetup — Mingle with fellow makers and creative minds at the 1819 Innovation Hub. Makers + Mixers is an exclusive opportunity for Creators across Ohio to collaborate with Maker's Mark and mixologists. But that's not all – these teams will work with Creators using A.I. to concoct cocktails and a complete sensory experience while winning cash prizes. RSVP today!

Looking forward to meeting those who can make it in person and geeking out about all things A.I. and creativity!

📣 COMING SOON

The “OUR T2 REMAKE“ will premiere in Hollywood on March 6, and if you can’t make it in person, they’ll host an exclusive live stream on Saturday, March 9 at noon PT. For the live stream, you'll get a chance to chat and watch the film with the entire cast and crew! This event will take place online ONLY ONE TIME. Sign up for either event on their website: https://t2remake.com. I know I cannot wait to see this film!!!

If you missed the Creativity Squared interview with the two producers, Nem Perez and Sway Molina, and one of the A.I. video artists, Ben Nash, check it out here: https://creativitysquared.com/podcast/ep33-nem-perez-sway-molina-ben-nash-our-t2-remake 

Here are some curated interviews from the Creativity Squared podcast relevant to SXSW with friends who’ll be on stage during the festival and links to their sessions.

• Ep17. Hugh Forrest: A.I. Hype Cycle or Not?; SXSW: Hugh Forrest Welcoming Remarks

• Ep21. Karen Palmer: A Message About A.I. from the Future; SXSW: AI Next Frontier: Breaking the Chains of Colonial Algorithms

• E30. John du Pre Gauntt: ChatGPT 1-Year Anniversary; SXSW: From the Fireside to the Future: Stories in a Changing World (+ Natalie Monbiot's interview is dropping next Thursday, March 7!)

• J. Thorn (Interview is dropping during SXSW on March 14!); SXSW: Integrating AI into Your Creative Process (RSVP required)

• Friend of Creativity Squared Emmanuel Laroche; SXSW: Global Bites, Local Delights: How Immigrant Flavors Are Shaping the U.S. Food Scene and “Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door: 50 American Chefs Chart Today’s Food Culture” Book Signing

• Friend of Creativity Squared Rebecca Glucklich; SXSW: Emerson@SXSW 

• Friend of Creativity Squared Daniel Zawarczynski; SXSW: Advantage Austria's Austria Night

• Helen’s mentor session :) (RSVP required) 

With all of the A.I. updates flooding our feeds and screens, we’ve got you covered with the latest news at the intersection of A.I. and creativity.

Memory and new controls for ChatGPT OpenAI — ChatGPT wants to get to know you. OpenAI recently announced that premium users can test their flagship model’s enhanced memory features. The model can learn your preferences and background, and then recall the information in later interactions. The feature is optional, and users can instruct the bot to remember or forget specific information. A broader rollout of memory features hasn’t been announced yet. (We recommend using the Teams option so your input doesn’t train their models too.

2024 SAG Awards: Fran Drescher warns against AI in Hollywood Los Angeles Times — Actors’ union president Fran Drescher warned the war’s not over with A.I., right after taking a victory lap for her industry’s successful “hot labor summer” at Saturday’s award ceremony. She said A.I. will trap us in a “matrix,” calling for more screenplays that “spark the human spirit.” 

Alicia Framis, the artist who will marry a hologram: ‘This is just a small preview of society’s future’ EL PAÍS — A Spanish woman is planning to marry her A.I.-enabled holographic boyfriend this summer in an effort to normalize “fictosexuality” (a relationship between a human and a fictional character). The A.I. hologram, named AILex, looks like a middle-aged man with a personality based on its creator's friends. The marriage ceremony is meant as an art performance the creator calls “The First Woman to Marry a hologram.” 

Gemma: Google introduces new state-of-the-art open models Google — Have you met Google Gemini’s free-spirited yet responsible younger sibling? Google announced its response to Meta’s Llama-2 recently with Google Gemma, an open-source foundation model framework for developers to build on. Google is stressing Gemma’s safety features amid an industry-wide debate over closed-source vs. open-source models. Gemma comes in two sizes, 2B and 7B, with some (but not all) of the code behind Gemini. 

'AI godfather', others urge more deepfake regulation in open letter Reuters — Four hundred academics, politicians, and researchers, including ‘A.I. godfather’ Yoshua Bengio, signed an open letter calling for an end to deepfake porn. Authors offered a list of recommendations, such as criminalizing generation of child sexual abuse material, and mandating A.I. developers prevent models from generating deepfakes. 

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be coders, Jensen Huang warns The Register — Nvidia’s CEO declared at a Dubai conference this week that "the technology divide has been completely closed" by artificial intelligence. Contrary to popular advice in recent years, Huang said kids today won’t need to learn coding because A.I. lets them code using natural language. Huang now leads the world’s 4th most valuable company after Nvidia’s stunning earnings report sent the stock flying last week. 

Tyler Perry puts $800 million studio expansion on hold because of OpenAI’s Sora Ars Technica — Tyler Perry says text-to-video GenAI “will touch every corner” of the film industry after seeing a demonstration of OpenAI’s impressive new video generator. Perry’s feeling the effects already, abandoning four years of planning for an expansion to his already massive studio campus. Sora isn’t publicly available yet, but early reviews indicate it’s a dramatic improvement over available models. 

Diverse AI on a mission to diversify the world of AI BusinessCloud —  Two U.K. female founders are fighting to improve the representation of underprivileged people in the world of A.I. through research and education.  Toju Duke, former Google program manager on responsible A.I., and Steph Wright, head of the Scottish A.I. Alliance, say that A.I. training data and A.I. developers lack diversity. They want to change that by researching how to build more inclusive datasets and providing A.I. adoption education to underrepresented groups.

Listen: E38. Human-Centered A.I. & Empathy:
Why Designing for Extreme Use Cases and Not Just the Average Uplifts All with UC Digital Futures Alejandro Lozano Robledo

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Growing up in the traffic-clogged streets of Bogotá, Colombia, Creativity Squared guest Alejandro Lozano Robledo has long been fascinated by the untapped potential of our cities to uplift everyone, especially the most marginalized. Today, he leads research on autonomy, smart cities, the shared economy, A.I., and transit-oriented development using human-centered design as the Director of Future Mobility Design Lab and Research Associate at UC Digital Futures in addition to being a Mobility Systems Design Professor at the University of Cincinnati.

Epitomizing that the future is collaborative, Alejandro partners with researchers across disciplines like aerospace engineering and urban planning to reimagine the future. He collaborates with industry partners like Boeing, government partners like the Department of Transportation, and non-profits like Uptown Consortium on innovative proposals that use mobility to improve quality of life.

Since 2018, Alejandro has taught Industrial Design at DAAP, leading the Mobility Systems Design program since 2020. He partners with companies like Gravity Sketch to develop new virtual and augmented reality workflows for design education. With over 6 patents and an International Crystal Cabin Award, Alejandro has presented his research nationally and internationally.

In today’s conversation in Episode 38, you’ll discover how empathy is key for human-centered A.I. and the necessity of having a vision for what’s possible. We also discuss the importance of the year 2040 related to paradigm-shifting megatrends, Alejandro’s future projection method, inspiration from the fictional city of Wakanda as an example of the rising Solar Punk movement, and our evolution to Techno Sapiens. Alejandro also shares the importance of keeping humans at the center of critical, societal decisions, especially as A.I. plays an increasingly assistive role in all facets of our lives. Finally, he discusses why we need to design emerging technologies, including A.I., for extreme use cases, not just the average.

What can the future look like if we make the right decisions now? Listen in to find out!

 Listen to the full conversation today!

Apply to Join the Clone Club Today
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!

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