Creativity Squared: On the Metaverse & Artists' Roles in Innovation

Dear Creativity Squared Member,

You won’t be on the fence about investing in the metaverse after today’s Episode 41 titled “The Metaverse is Dead; Long Live the Metaverse!”

From aeronautical engineering to trailblazing the intersection of art and technology, meet Domhnaill Hernon.

Domhnaill holds two positions as Global Lead of the EY Metaverse Lab and the Cognitive Human Enterprise. These are pioneering new approaches placing Humans@Center between business, technology, and society.

Domhnaill and I first met back in 2017 in New York City and I’ve always been impressed with his understanding of the crucial role artists play in driving innovation. I know I’ve learned a lot from knowing him over the years and excited to share our conversation with you today.

In Episode 41, you're in for a treat as Domhnaill shares his unique perspective on the evolution of the internet from 2D to 3D, the current state of the metaverse, and the imperative for businesses to invest in it, especially with Gen Z’s adoption of it. He runs an artist-in-residence program at EY to deeply infuse artists' perspectives and challenge technologists to think beyond technology-only solutions. He also shares the power of collaborating with artists to challenge our assumptions and have our digital worlds reflect the full spectrum of lived human experiences.

Check out Episode 41 today! 

One newsletter pro tip: I know this newsletter is long and often gets truncated. If you click or tap the link “Read Online” in the upper right-hand corner, you can view the web version for easier reading.

I’m back from SXSW and so excited to bring some of the amazing folks I met in Austin onto the podcast. My first recap is one of our featured blog posts today…also on the metaverse! Check out The Real-Life Version of the 'Ready Player One' Open Metaverse is Here: The Readyverse.

Also, I want to give a shout-out and appreciation to CincyAI member Chris Brock who recently launched The AI Learning Hub: The 'Netflix for AI'. Explore its extensive library of over 6,000+ A.I. videos, including episodes of Creativity Squared! Dubbed the 'Netflix for AI', this platform caters to learners at all levels, offering a diverse range of A.I. topics in a user-friendly, on-demand format.

Scroll on to discover:

• 🎮 Featured Blog Posts: “The Real-Life Version of the 'Ready Player One' Open Metaverse is Here: The Readyverse” and “The Metaverse Landscape in 2024: 16 Companies to Know”

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

• 🤯 A.I. + Creativity News Roundup

• 🎧 More on Episode 41

• 👯‍♀️ 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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CreativitySquared.com
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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

😎 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. 🥳 

🤝 APRIL 16 CincyAI Meetup — Join me and others interested in all things A.I. at the CincyAI Meetup for Humans, cohosted by Creativity Squared, on Tuesday, April 16, at the UC Digital Futures building from 3-5pm ET. Sign up now!

🤝 APRIL 16 Maker’s Mark ‘Makers + Mixers’ — After our April 16 Meetup, there will be another Makers + Mixers happy hour taking place from 5:30pm - 7:30pm across the street at the iconic 1819 building. This happy hour is proudly sponsored by Maker’s Mark and is brought to you by CincyAI community partners MidwestCon and Disrupt Now with Rob Richardson at the helm. RSVP for this here! 

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

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.

Sam Altman: OpenAI, GPT-5, Sora, Board Saga, Elon Musk, Ilya, Power & AGI Lex Fridman Podcast #419 — OpenAI’s CEO says nobody has seen artificial general intelligence yet, but we should expect it within a decade. Altman also addressed his brief termination last fall and his personal pain through the saga, saying he’s refocused on responsible A.I. development with a new and improved Board of Directors. Altman stayed above tech tabloid stories, dodging questions about future plans for OpenAI’s Chief Scientist, Ilya Sutskever. He also had nice words about Elon Musk, despite Musk recently suing and criticizing OpenAI’s transparency with the public. 

Microsoft hires DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman as CEO of new AI unit CNBC — An A.I. startup is facing an uncertain future after its leadership and most employees leave to set up an in-house A.I. shop at Microsoft. Mustafa Suleyman is joining Microsoft just two years after leaving Google to found the startup Inflection AI. Suleyman is bringing Inflection’s co-founder and Chief Scientist, Karén Simonyan, along with several employees. Suleyman and his team will reportedly focus on Copilot and other consumer A.I. products. 

Stability AI, OTOY, Endeavor, and The Render Network Join Forces to Develop Next Generation of GenAI for Digital Graphics and Effects Otoy — Render is teaming up with leaders in A.I. and 3D design to upgrade designers’ workflows and protect their work. With the recent announcement of Stable 3D video from Stability AI, designers can incorporate GenAI into their workflow and run everything on Render’s cloud network of decentralized GPUs, ensuring democratic access to compute power. End-to-end content authenticity credentials will help protect artists’ work from abuse. Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque is also joining Render’s advisory board to help stakeholders develop standards and a roadmap for future development. 

A ChatGPT for Music Is Here. Inside Suno, the Startup Changing Everything Rolling Stone — A text-to-audio GenAI startup is on a mission to turn everyone into a musician. In a demonstration shared by Rolling Stone, Suno generated a one-minute clip of a blues song that an untrained ear might mistake for Muddy Waters. The company is hoping to reduce the imbalance of music listeners and music creators. Suno is accessible through web browser here. 

Apple may hire Google to power new iPhone AI features using Gemini—report Ars Technica — Apple is reportedly in talks with both Google and OpenAI to run A.I. features on iPhones when iOS 18 releases later this year. Apple has quietly been developing its own LLM but hasn’t officially announced any consumer A.I. products. 

Nvidia shows off Project GR00T, a multimodal AI to power humanoids of the future VentureBeat — The robots are coming! At its conference this week, Nvidia announced two new products to help robotics companies build autonomous humanoids. First is a new multimodal LLM called GR00T, which can interpret text, speech, videos, or even live demonstrations as input and generate actions in response. Nvidia also announced a new “system-on-a-chip,” called Jetson Thor, which will run A.I. models natively inside robots.

Anthropic releases Claude 3 and says it’s better than rivals The Register — Anthropic claims that the newest iteration of their flagship LLM outperforms ChatGPT-4 and Google Gemini in benchmark tests for knowledge and reasoning. Claude’s latest update expands available versions of the model. Claude’s premium version, Opus, is the one competing with GPT-4 and is only available to API and Pro users. Anthropic claims that Opus exhibits “near-human levels of comprehension.” The lightweight model, Haiku, is designed to run background processes that don’t require a lot of reasoning power. 

What to know about Bernie Sanders’ bill for the U.S. to adopt a 32-hour workweek PBS NewsHour— As A.I. increases efficiency across industries, Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing that workers benefit from some of those productivity gains. He introduced a bill that would retire the standard 40-hour workweek established in 1940 in favor of a 32-hour standard. Despite experiments showing the job satisfaction and mental health benefits of a shorter workweek, the bill is not expected to receive a floor vote.

Listen: E41. The Metaverse is Dead; Long Live the Metaverse!
Why You Should Pay Attention to the Metaverse with Domhnaill Hernon, the Global Lead of EY’s Metaverse Lab

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Domhnaill Hernon is an award-winning technology and innovation executive. He received an undergrad degree in Aeronautical Engineering and a PhD in Aerodynamics from the University of Limerick and an executive MBA from Dublin City University, Ireland. He currently holds two positions as Global Lead of the EY Metaverse Lab and the Cognitive Human Enterprise. These are pioneering new approaches placing Humans@Center between business, technology, and society. Prior to that he held several senior leadership positions across R&D, innovation, and creativity while at Nokia Bell Labs. Domhnaill’s work has been featured in Wired Magazine, Forbes, Times Square, SXSW, Nasdaq, Mobile World Congress, Ars Electronica, and TEDx and he advises innovation and cultural programs globally.

In today’s episode, you'll hear Domhnaill's journey from his early days as an aeronautical engineer to becoming a thought leader of the metaverse. He shares his ah-ha moment, when an intellectual anvil hit him on his head and changed the trajectory of his thinking on how innovation should be approached.

He also discusses EY’s exploration of identity and inclusivity in the metaverse and how technology can unintentionally homogenize rather than allow for authentic individual expression. He urges listeners to value different perspectives, experiences, and types of intelligence beyond their own, as that is where the biggest value is created.

Join the conversation as Domhnaill shares why the metaverse isn’t dead despite headlines and his passion for pushing the boundaries of what's possible at the intersection of art, technology, and business.

Check out Episode 41 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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