SXSW – South by Southwest

March 12, 2023 – 6:03 p.m

Not surprisingly, the topic of artificial intelligence is ubiquitous throughout SXSW. Which brings us to the first exercise in futurology: this may be the last year we talk so much about the term “artificial intelligence” itself.

In the same way that we don’t talk about smartphones, social networks and cloud computing, advances in the democratization of artificial intelligence will make this technology compelling for all digital products.

We’ll probably wonder in a few years what it was like to start writing text without first asking for help from artificial intelligence or generating a few images for our posts, we bet we’ll still be doing it in a few years.

Opinions about generative artificial intelligence coming from journalists, artists and content creators are that every minute we will have an assistant with us to help us manifest what is in our head.

On the table “Artificial intelligence in newsrooms: what is the impact on journalism?” it has been discussed that journalists will be responsible for writing stories and researching facts, but the writing process is much more focused on editing what ChatGPT writes. The biggest challenge is how to restore trust in newspapers, which is already shaken, when all the news is written by algorithms.

Another important point for newspaper monetization is related to payment system, Adsense and cost per click. The BBC’s Laura Ellis claims it will achieve the goal of super-personalizing news. They will be able to generate 20 headlines with 20 different texts, with a message defined by the journalist, to attract and retain the readers of their newspaper.

The “Infinity and Beyond: Designing the Future” panel was chaired by Brooke Hopper, Adobe’s Chief Designer for Artificial Intelligence. Following the same path, artists will be able to express their ideas much faster and cheaper. Except that they can train algorithms to have their own style. But what would happen to the image value of Os Gemeos if they could generate infinite variations of their own world?

What everyone is wondering is: what is happening to copyright in this world? This is a debate that has no answers and very little case law. The writer created all the art for her graphic novel using Midjourney, but lost some of the copyright after a court ruling.

There is still criticism that these algorithms are still too biased. Which is even more alarming when we talk about the generation and recognition of people, because they only work well for white people.