Anybody who attended South by Southwest within the three or so years earlier than Covid hit might need gone into this 12 months’s occasion pondering they have been going to get bedazzled by all kinds of experiential activations. Seems, it was a extra sober and critical convention in 2023, in response to Wilson Standish, the top of content material and creativity at Omnicom Media Group’s Hearts & Science company.
Standish, who has attended a few dozen SXSWs in Austin, Texas (however not final 12 months’s), was a bit stunned on the common sentiment he observed this 12 months, which was one thing like ‘let’s get all the way down to enterprise and speak about what’s necessary’ quite than events and barbecue. To him, it was extra paying homage to SXSW’s earlier years.
“A whole lot of manufacturers didn’t know what the attendance was going to be like, so there have been much less model occasions and activations, and a a lot larger give attention to simply attending panels and on concepts,” mentioned Standish, whose expertise contains stints at Spotify and Gimlet Media. “I believe plenty of that has to do with folks wanting to determine and perceive this new local weather, this put up COVID shopper, in addition to understanding the impacts of AI.”
Standish shared a few of his ideas on matters mentioned — and uncared for — on the pageant this 12 months. His feedback have been edited for house and readability.
What was the context of AI associated discussions, and the way excited versus terrified are folks about it?
From an attendee standpoint, persons are very excited. It looks like, as soon as once more, South By has this factor that’s occurring, that’s actually altering know-how and altering the way in which we work together with it. The aim of any tech firm is to turn out to be a verb — and actually, we’re seeing Chat GPT turn out to be a verb. It’s like, ‘I Airbnb it,’ ‘I Google it,’ ‘I Uber it,’ and now ‘I Chat GPT it.’
However the specialists and the panelists had plenty of reservation across the ethics. I believe one of many key items is [that] it’s nonetheless machine studying and we’re not at true AI. And so you have got those who must feed it info, and you've got those who validate what’s true and what’s not. And there’s not [currently] plenty of transparency [around] who're the folks which can be validating it and what sort of bias may they've. Persons are nonetheless very lifelike in regards to the quantity of bias that comes up in machine studying and in what’s being referred to as AI.
How far does this go into the world of promoting and media?
These engines are extra highly effective with the extra information they've. And I believe that the problem is, there’s no authorities regulation round this house proper now. So all of the totally different engines are simply attempting to soak up as a lot information as attainable and create new information. The place that basically goes into our media world is information privateness. What information is moral to seize? What information is moral to mannequin towards? These AI engines have such a bonus, if they've extra information, they’re taking a look at all new locations that the typical shopper won't concentrate on.
What’s not being talked about in terms of AI, not less than at SXSW?
Persons are speaking about information privateness. However I believe what they’re not making the connection to proper now's that Internet 3 is a superb answer in terms of anonymizing information and information privateness. A whole lot of the folks which can be in Internet 3 proper now are the early adopters. However as shoppers turn out to be extra conscious of how a lot of this actually intimate information is being tracked — like on-line education for youths and what music is enjoying within the background, or are they cooking, or the place their youngsters eyes are going? As that consciousness [grows], you possibly can see increasingly shoppers turning to a Internet 3, decentralized information method as a strategy to defend themselves. That manner, the engines would nonetheless get the data, however it could be rather more safe, and even ownable by the person.
Any discuss of presidency involvement in privateness laws and the prospect they’re not as properly knowledgeable on the nuances of information privateness round AI?
They [the government] are going to be slower than [the speed at which] this evolves. So we have to be self regulating slightly bit.
One actually fascinating dialog that I did attend was AI within the newsroom, as a result of journalists are the class that’s actually having to face tips on how to make the most of this know-how a lot earlier than any trade. Native papers and native journalists are requested to do extra with fewer reporters and much much less sources. That is a tremendous augmentation instrument, proper? So the dialog actually turns into round copyright possession, transparency, objectivity.
The primary day [of SXSW], the co founding father of Open AI had an fascinating quote, the place he [said], ‘That is meant to amplify human skill, not substitute it.’ And I believe particularly in journalism, you’re seeing that. You’re seeing that human augmentation because of leveraging this know-how.
