- Creativity Squared
- Posts
- ❓ Martin Groedl and Moritz Resl: Are Machines Creative?
❓ Martin Groedl and Moritz Resl: Are Machines Creative?
Are Machines Creative? Discover the Evolving Answer Due to GenAI with Process Studio Co-founders Martin Groedl and Moritz Resl
Helen Todd (Human)
December 14, 2023
Creativity Squared: On A.I. Emojis, A.I. Fonts, & If Machines Can Be Creative “So you need prompt engineers, you might need data curators even further down the line, right? If you think about when we can tailor these systems even more to our needs, we might have an inference to the data that is being used.”
Dear Creativity Squared Member,
Are machines creative? Discover the evolving answer to this question due to GenAI in today’s episode from the designers of A.I.-created emojis and fonts, known as AImoji and AIfont.
Pushing the boundaries between Design, Art, and Digital Technology, Martin Grödl and Moritz Resl founded Process Studio, an experimental design studio based in Vienna that specializes in generative and interactive design for branding, web, installation, and print. As well as traditional graphic design solutions, Process designs and develops highly specialized software that is used as tools for and by clients who include MIT, Design Museum Holon, MAK – Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, and more.
We dive into questions about A.I. and creativity in today’s episode along with exploring the role of design, critical thinking, and data curation in helping envision the future in which we want to live. Listen to learn more about the custom-built A.I. tools that Martin and Moritz designed for their A.I. emojis and A.I. font projects and how the grungy punk aesthetic of their emojis reflects our emotions. Martin and Moritz also discuss how we’re not separate from A.I. as the creators of the tools and how crucial it is that we understand how they work and the values that are fueling and driving them — enjoy!
A massive thank you to Creativity Squared guest Andy Parsons and his team at Adobe, as well as Stanford University, for hosting the incredible Content Authenticity Initiative Symposium that took place last week.
2024 is going to be a PIVOTAL year for democracy with over 40 national elections taking place globally. This means that more than half the world’s population — over four BILLION people — will be voting. We won’t see another election year like this for a quarter of a century.
The urgency to bring trust and transparency to the content we consume online has never been more pressing, especially in an era of GenAI enabling the proliferation of mis- and disinformation at an unprecedented scale. Stay tuned for my top takeaways from the leading A.I. developers, technologists, human rights experts, and academics who presented — more to come!
🙋♀️ A.I. INSPIRATION: Translating Sign Language
I recently discovered Sign-Speak. It’s an incredible A.I. software that uses machine learning to interpret sign language into spoken word and vice-versa so that businesses can better serve the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities. At a coffee shop, for instance, deaf and hard of hearing customers and baristas can use tablets with Sign-Speak software to make and take orders, ask “regular or 2% milk?” and say “Have a nice day.” Check out this little promotional video on Sign-Speak:
Scroll on to discover:
🙂 Emojis: Past, Present and Future
📆 Calendar of Events: A.I. Conference Radar + Cincy A.I. Events
🎧 More on Episode 32
🤯 A.I. + Creativity News Roundup
👯♀️ 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
linkedin / twitter / pinterest / instagram
CreativitySquared.com
youtube / instagram / facebook / tiktok
How creatives are collaborating with A.I.
🙌 SUPPORT CREATIVITY SQUARED & ARTSWAVE
🎨 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!
👍 AFFILIATE RECOMMENDATIONS
🐝 We use Beehiiv for this newsletter and Riverside for recording podcast episodes, and recommend them! Using these links also supports Creativity Squared, and we only recommend what we actually back!
📆 A.I. CONFERENCE RADAR
😎 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.
🤠 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!
📆 CALENDAR OF A.I. EVENTS: CINCY
For those local in Cincinnati, join these upcoming A.I. events. 🥳
✏️ FEB 2 Ellevate & IBM - Save the date for February 2 because the women’s network Ellevate is teaming up with IBM for an afternoon of A.I. programming here in Cincinnati. More details to come!
🤝 JAN 9 CincyAI Meetup - Join me and others interested in all things A.I. at the CincyAI Meetup for Humans, cohosted by Creativity Squared, on Tuesday, January 9, 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!
Listen: E32. Are Machines Creative?
Discover the Evolving Answer Due to GenAI with Process Studio Co-founders Martin Groedl and Moritz Resl
Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Pandora | Amazon | Google | SoundCloud | iHeart Radio
“We always have to think, what kind of future do we want? And what is my work, my API, my tool, my website, or my project, what kind of future is it promoting?”
- Martin Grödl
This is a snippet from the transcript cleaned up to make it easier to read — be sure to check out the full conversation from Episode 32 today!
Martin: When I was asked this question, I always said, no, these machines are not creative. Not at all.
It's always, you know, we build a system, we as humans, or a society, or as a company, or whatever, we build a system that produces stuff. So in the end, it's us who are the creatives, right — it's a mechanical, deterministic tool.
But now with ChatGPT, mainly, the question has shifted for me a bit.
Because it's so far-reaching, it's so general purpose, the way that it exhibits certain characteristics, you know, and it has to be seen how it can fulfill all of these roles, but then it's been combined also with images and so on.
So there, I would say now, we reflect differently on the role of creativity, because it seems to be there is a certain part of human creativity, at least that I feel we have valued as creative, that is being replaced or at least being done as well as we can do it by machines.
And that is all that reproductive like reproducing things, learning by reproducing. And I think this is a big part of creativity, this is how we learn, this is how we grow up. We're not isolated, and all the big geniuses, you know, all that we think of the peak creative minds, they were not on their own, not at all. They, you know, they interacted, they learned from all their, you know, precursors and to build upon this, this knowledge. And this is the point that these tools do so well.
But that's only one thing, that's only one part of creativity, you know, all that personal style, all that personal experience, all that values that you learn, you know, this comes into play, as well.
And so I think in the end, I can admit that these tools are creative in this sense, in the sense that they can produce images that I would have to spend hours and hours learning to draw or whatever. But that's that. That's one part of creativity. And we can now focus on maybe the other part.
Check out the full conversation here:
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:
Meta unveils Audiobox, an AI that clones voices and generates ambient sounds VentureBeat — You can clone your own voice with a demo version of Meta’s new foundation model for audio generation. Audiobox also includes fine-tuned models for sound effects, music, and ambient noise. Our own test found that the voice cloning feature captured some vocal traits, but wasn’t convincing. Try it yourself here!
Devices are the new gatekeepers Nieman Journalism Lab — A.I.-powered devices are already assisting us manage information overload by curating the content we see, and could redefine the relationship between news providers and audiences. News orgs will have to decide whether to let A.I. digest and recommend their content or try to reach their audience without A.I. distribution. Public news orgs could band together to prioritize informing the public, but can journalism get over its history of zealous competition?
As AI Porn Rises, This Teen Is Trying to Protect Other Victims TeenVogue — A New Jersey high school sophomore is demanding stronger laws against deepfake porn after being targeted herself. She’s bucking stigma and talking with lawmakers across the country to discuss protections for others suffering in silence.
Europe Advances Its AI Act TechPolicy.Press — European Commission Members reached an agreement on draft language for the EU AI Act, which could take effect in 2026. The landmark measures reportedly will address risk on a tier system, reserving a big red button to ban any model posing an international risk. Nations want carve-outs for national security and policing purposes. France is reportedly pushing to protect its growing A.I. industry, meaning terms could change.
Misinformation researcher Joan Donovan accuses Harvard of bowing to Facebook The Washington Post — A former faculty disinformation scholar claims Harvard’s $500 million donation for a new A.I. center came at the expense of the school’s integrity. Donovan claims her work was defunded and she was dismissed because she presented whistleblower claims against Meta to Harvard donors, including an ex-Meta executive. Harvard denies the claims.
Google’s best Gemini demo was faked TechCrunch — Google Gemini’s capabilities aren’t as advanced as its demo reel implies. For instance, the model can’t watch and describe a video of a hand playing rock, paper, scissors in real-time. Gemini can identify the game, but only from still images of each gesture next to each other and with a little hint that it’s trying to guess a game.
From Text to Motion: Grounding GPT-4 in a Humanoid Robot "Alter3" T. Yoshida, et al. — Here come the dancing robots! Researchers hooked up GPT-4 to a robotic upper body and prompted it to generate sequences of spontaneous movement. They interfaced GPT-4 with the robot’s motors by mapping the linguistic expressions of human actions onto the robot's body through program code
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!
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!
Become a Premium Member to unlock exclusive content and to claim your NFTs of episode cover art!
At $10 per month or discounted to $100 for annual memberships, Premium Members enjoy other benefits too:
$1 per month (or $10 per year) to ArtsWave
Premium Member NFT
First-Dibs at Event Invites
Access to Monthly Exclusive Content (e.g. Helen’s Monthly Must-Know Video Report on the hottest A.I. news)
Discounts from Creativity Squared Partners
Thank You by Name in the Creativity Squared Newsletter
There is also a VIP Founding Member tier for those who want lifetime first dibs and access to Creativity Squared content, events, and whatever we dream up!
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.
Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.
Become a paying subscriber of Premium to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.
Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.
A subscription gets you:
- • $1 per month (or $10 per year) to ArtsWave
- • Premium Member NFT
- • First-Dibs at Event Invites & Discounts from Creativity Squared Partners
- • Early Access to Monthly Exclusive Content (e.g. Helen’s Monthly Must-Know Video Report on the hottest A.I. news)