Creativity Squared: On the Medium is the Message

Dear Creativity Squared Member,

I’d love to know: What are you’re liking or would like to see in this newsletter? Reply to this email with your biggest wishlist item or any feedback, and I’ll see it and respond. We’re growing fast, and a BIG WELCOME to all the new subscribers! 

This week we don’t have a new podcast episode for you due to the July 4th holiday, but I did want to take this chance to tease some exciting interviews that are coming soon. And don’t worry, we’ve got a new blog post featuring media philosopher Marshall McLuhan and your A.I. news round-up. 😉 

Anyone who’s been online in the last 24 hours has seen that Meta’s new Twitter-like app Threads is live. I’m on there as @helenstravels — do follow! Yesterday’s launch brought back early social media vibes.

Now for the teasers…

👁 Next week, get ready for a fascinating interview with Gerfried Stocker, the Co-CEO & Artistic Director of Ars Electronica, Europe’s largest platform for art, technology, and society since 1979. We discuss this year’s festival theme of Who Owns the Truth which you won’t want to miss.

🎵 Anyone who’s a fan of music will want to hear the interview we have teed up in two weeks with Zach Evans. He helped found and is the head of Harmonai, a Stability AI research lab and online community dedicated to creating open-source generative audio models and pushing forward creative uses of generative A.I. in music production. His story is interwoven into the history of generative A.I. music and you’ll get a full download of everything to know in the space.

🔥 I’ll also be interviewing JOJO ABOT this month who is one of the most creative and expressive artists I know (and the fan girl in me is SO EXCITED!). She’s committed to a philosophy of “message over medium” and her work aims to provoke larger conversations and actions towards collective elevation, healing, and harmony. Do you have a question you’d like me to ask JOJO? Let me know!

🗓 Mark your calendars! July 14-15 is the ArtsWave Truth and Healing Artist Showcase at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. We’ll be there interviewing all of the artists for Creativity Squared! Learn more about ArtsWave and why we proudly support the organization with 10% of all revenue in Ep9. Art Bridges Cultural Divides: Discover the Power of Art as a Great Unifier with Janice Liebenberg, VP of Equitable Arts Advancement at ArtsWave.

Scroll on to discover:

• 🎧 Catch Up on Creativity Squared Episodes!

• 🤯 A.I. + Creativity News Roundup

• 📺 Inspiration from Media Philosopher Marshall McLuhan

• 💎 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!

Hope everyone who celebrated had a great 4th of July.

Here's to exponential possibilities!

Helen

Also Noteworthy:

🎤 Speaking proposals for the 2024 SXSW Conference are now being accepted via PanelPicker®. I’m an advisor, speaker, and unofficial ambassador for SXSW and always encourage everyone with forward-thinking ideas to apply!

🤖 Stay tuned! In a few weeks you’ll get to meet my custom synth Helen 2.ODD! Listen to episode 5 featuring Render CEO Jon Tota to learn all about custom synths and their business and creative use cases. Render is a Creativity Squared sponsor and partner, and is currently rendering Helen 2.ODD!

🐝 We use Beehiiv for this newsletter, and recommend it!

🎨 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
linkedin / twitter / pinterest / instagram / threads

CreativitySquared.com
youtube / instagram / facebook / tiktok 
How creatives are collaborating with A.I.

Catch Up on Creativity Squared
Listen or watch our 10 fascinating and thought-provoking interviews

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

We’ve already done TEN interviews since just launching Creativity Squared on April 20! Catch up on the fascinating and thought-provoking conversations wherever you listen to podcasts. Each of these links to the episode’s dedicated show notes/blog page:

• Ep1. My Second Self: Discover How World-Renowned Beatboxer & Voice Technologist Harry Yeff Collaborates with A.I.

• Ep2. Culture is Data: Get the Pulse on What’s Cool with A.I. & Culture, Data & Equity from /Prompt Papi Jey Van-Shar

• Ep3. A.I. Art Superpowers: Discover Chad Nelson’s Collab with OpenAI DALL·E on the First-Ever A.I. Animated Short Film & Vogue Cover

• Ep4. Daring to Design the Future: Mother of Cognitive Experience Design Joanna Peña-Bickley is Bringing Infinite Diversity & Infinite Combinations to A.I.

• Ep5. Custom Synths Are Here: Discover Use Cases for Your Digital Likeness and Content Creation Efficiencies with A.I. from Jon Tota

• Ep6. Keep A.I. Absurd: Embrace A.I. Creating Bizarre Content with Advertising Creative Director Phil Gable

• Ep7. Adobe on A.I. & Trust: Understand the Urgency for Media Transparency & Ethical Generative A.I. with Andy Parsons from Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative

• Ep8. A.I. Will Never Be Human: Discover How Language Shapes Our Reality & Why Empathy is Core to Human Connection with Eric Solomon

• Ep9. Art Bridges Cultural Divides: Discover the Power of Art as a Great Unifier with Janice Liebenberg, VP of Equitable Arts Advancement at ArtsWave

• Ep10. Will A.I. Kill Photography? Explore the Threats & Possibilities of A.I. with Commercial & Leica Street Photographer Thomas Boenig

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:

• Lawsuit says OpenAI violated US authors' copyrights to train AI chatbot Reuters — Two U.S. authors sued OpenAI in San Francisco federal court on Wednesday, claiming in a proposed class action that the company misused their works to "train" its popular generative artificial-intelligence system ChatGPT.

• Google confirms it’s training Bard on scraped web data, too The Verge — The search giant has updated its privacy policy to include Bard and Cloud AI alongside Google Translate under services where collected data may be used

• A Chronological List of Star Wars Movies & TV Shows Gizmodo — From “Gizmodo Bot,” we have Gizmodo’s first AI-generated story it’s published. In a page-turner, it’s a list of Star Wars films and TV shows in order…

• Wimbledon to introduce AI-powered commentary to coverage this year The Guardian — Game, set and chatbot: Wimbledon is introducing artificial intelligence-powered commentary to its coverage this year. The All England Club has teamed up with IBM’s watsonx AI platform to offer AI-generated audio commentary and captions in its online highlights videos.

• People Hire Phone Bots to Torture Telemarketers Wall Street Journal — Until the FCC steps up, we now have A.I. software and voice cloners to deal with telemarketers: “Whitebeard stalls for time at the start of phone calls, using chatbot inanities about TV remotes and the like to give a couple of minutes for GPT-4, the OpenAI software, to process the telemarketer’s spiel and generate responses. Once ready, the AI text is fed into a voice cloner, which carries on the conversation.”

Marshall McLuhan:
Inspiration from the Media Philosopher

With ChatGPT, we've all been wondering what Marshall McLuhan would say about this new technology. McLuhan, the forefather of the study of how media shapes society, famously said, “The medium is the message.” We've asked ChatGPT to speak in his voice, but whatever the chatbot produces isn't quite as pithy and doesn’t capture this moment in time like McLuhan was able to do in six words.

Discover why the famous media philosopher Marshall McLuhan is still inspiring us today.

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 Claim Your NFT

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

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.