Festival der Zukunft — 2023 — Festival of the Future
Melting pot of minds and ideas
The future is now. I feel this especially these days, as I attend the Festival of the Future at the Deutsches Museum, Munich. Organized by the digital community 1e9 (the former editorial team of WIRED Germany), this huge event is now in its second year.
Last year already I had the honour of participating with an exhibition and a remote workshop — but being there is definitely a non plus ultra experience. I met a lot of great people (see my Twitter Thread), watched countless inspiring speeches and presentations.
Here are just a few of my kaleidoscopic impressions from this inspiring event.
The Festival of the Future takes place on the premises of the Deutsches Museum (the dome is particularly impressive, as is the observatory room).
But just by entering the exhibition you will find this fascinating installation.
15 hologram screens rotate endlessly, creating minimalist patterns and landscapes. Contrasts are striking: bright dots and the darkness of the background. Monochromatic dreams.
In the Dome, during the session “What’s next in Gen AI?”, Naureen Mahmood (CEO, Meshcapade GmbH) put in summed up what was on my mind:
“We shouldn’t be over-hyped about AI, but we shouldn’t be afraid of AI either. Fear is counterproductive”.
Absolutely right. Hyping the new is obvious, but it distracts us. Meanwhile, the time for hyping is over, we should mature.
But fearing AI is also a very wrong — and dangerous — attitude. Sure, there are ways to misuse AI, but there are also ways to counter it with AI. For example, AI deepfakes? Why not use AI to detect them (see StyleGAN Projection as one of many approaches)? We need to learn more. All the time.
This is a crucial point, because learning doesn’t end when we graduate. Learning ends when our lives end.
The Dome is not only a great place to project our thoughts, but also to project visions, as the artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen did with his video installation “Berl Berl”.
The camera flies over biomorphic landscapes, constantly changing from biome to biome, to bodies and underwater worlds.
You don’t think I’m just sitting in the Dome — but a lot of brilliant ideas and thoughts are expressed here.
For example, Alin Albu-Schäffer (Director, DLR, German Aerospace Center, Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics), has a very important message for you:
“Fear comes from lack of knowledge”.
This is the best explanation for the hatred and AI doomism in the public today. What we need is more digital literacy — to understand how AI works (and how it doesn’t).
Short pause with Blockchain Coffee by muc.xyz / tokiphy.io.
In fact, it’s a blockchain-based ID card. It can be used for tickets, for authorisation and for collecting experiences. Imagine your CV is on the blockchain — and every new experience and learning is certified there. You are a professional in your field — so people can quickly find you on the blockchain. Transparency, authenticity and cryptographic protection (at least until quantum computing comes into vogue).
There are so many different useful solutions for blockchain.
Imagine film licensing via blockchain? No more “This content is not available in your country” messages. You pay a subscription and have access to the whole world of movies — and you can transfer your financial support to specific filmmakers. Do you like the music and specific actor or actress? You can decide how much of your fee goes directly to this person, the composer, the orchestra, the sound designer etc. etc.
Are you a photographer? You can blockchain your copyright, track who uses your photos, and get paid directly through the chain.
Blockchain is much more than a playground for cryptocurrencies and NFT. It’s a stable and transparent database that everyone can benefit from, the democratization of data distribution.
AI think, therefore AI am
In June I took part in the “Generative AI” Panel, at 3DEXCITElive (organized by 3D Experience Lab at Dessault Systèmes) — see our conversation here.
But what they showed during The Festival for Future was moving and beautiful: “AI think, therefore, AI am”, a video installation.
Together with the artist team “Lichtgestalten”, they projected onto the Observatory Dome a profound story about the relationship between man and machine. Far from stereotypes, sensationalism or doom, they were able to convey the deep exploration of the discourse, with the message:
Humans and machines are different. Both have their strengths and weeknesseses — and only by augmenting and complementing each other can we build a future for all.
I want you to experience this stunning symphony of music, light, AI-generated and human images, art, science and society.
Quantum Bar
And here we are! I have known XaosPrincess since 2020, when we were brainstorming about the possibilities of GPT-3. At the Festival of the Future, she presented the amazing universe she and her international team had created.
It was great to see what they started to create back in the 2020s when COVID hit the world. Everyone started talking about ‘social distancing’ (which, as we’ve seen, was the wrong and dangerous narrative). Because there were plenty of ways to maintain social relationships even during lockdown.
Quantum Bar is a NEOS-based multiplayer social platform, enhanced by the coolest digital bartender I’ve ever seen. Gone are the days of scripted NPCs, this guy talks to you in a wild mix of GPT-3, Whisper and voice synthesis.
You can talk to him about (almost) anything. For example, I asked him if he liked — and created — art. And yes, the bartender is a classy, oldskool AI artist using GANs! Here is the summary of our conversation, which I was able to print out at the festival:
You can install Quantum Bar in your Oculus or run it on your PC or other devices — it is cross-platform so you can experience it regardless of your hardware.
Because it’s GPT-3 driven, conversations are not scripted and can go in different directions. You can invite your friends from all over the world, and have meetings, concerts, exhibitions etc. Many things are in the pipeline.
This is how the real multiverse works.
As next I’ve seen Joscha Bach in conversation with Fritz Espenlaub (he invited me to his TV broadcast in ARD ONE last Autumn).
This one was refreshing, thought-provoking, and cheeky.
He was speaking about sentient AI, AI doomism, and our responsibility.
Hybris
We’ve seen art made by/with humans, machines and algorithms. In the Hybris project, artist Yana Zschiedrich collaborates with a very different species: mealworms.
In her art project, supported by the Frauenhofer Institute, she provides edible surfaces for worms to follow with food. By eating, they create new images.
Interestingly, sometimes worms take different routes, so the artwork is created in a semi-controlled way.
This uncontrolled creation reminds me of my uncontrolled AI-experiment (such as #reMERZ), where I simply give the AI a space to generate unsupervised. Hannes Bajohr called it “affirmative control release”.
Art also produces some usable remains: worms’ excrement can be reused as a sustainable building material.
Such collaboration with nature is important and fascinating (like Zhu Yingchun books, written by bugs and other insects).
I appreciate de-anthropocentrising art.
Or, as Memo Akten once said:
“By saying a machine can be creative you are not anthropomorphising the machine […] but liberating it by expanding the term creativity to go beyond humans” (from: Arthur I. Miller, “The Artist in the Machine”, MIT Press, p.76).
And it can be said about other entities as well, like worms and insects.
But I wasn’t just there as an observer. I presented my works here (you can see them all in my ongoing Twitter Thread).
And I also held the Workshop called “AI as a creative engine” — about the history of Gen AI and with many applicable solutions that everyone can use on a daily base. I even provided a hidden link to all participants of the event, with additional resources.
And so, I’ll share it with you, my dear readers, in case you missed my workshop.
These were just some superficial impressions of mine of the vibrant happenings during the Festival of the Future.
See you there next year!
