Automated Creativity: AI & how it impacts the artistic process w/ Claire Mitchell & Kat Mustatea

Is AI creativity a form of modern puppetry? How will AI automation impact the quality of content creation? Are algorithms in service of creativity? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Claire Mitchell (Director of VaynerMedia's VaynerSmart group) and Kat Mustatea (playwright & technologist). We talk to Claire and Kat about how AI is altering art and the notion of human creativity, the uniqueness of the human imprint, and whether AI can have empathy for an audience. We explore the conundrum of AI creativity, discuss Chef Watson, debate Pikazo versus Picasso, dip into the legal gray areas of AI art, and explain what all this means for marketers and more.

“Bots do something that is like a performance art. They behave in a certain way. And if you think about it, we have an artistic medium that can give us a language for that which is theater. And specifically I like to liken them to puppetry because they like puppets have puppet masters, they have people, sometimes one, sometimes many, who have programmed them to do something.” -Kat Mustatea

“[T]hat speaks to what sort of inherent in human artistic expression or human creativity, which is intent and our ability to shift perspectives in order to empathize with an audience and to have an expectation for how the work will be perceived. And that's not something that machines necessarily have right now. We probably don't have to fear AI taking over human creativity anytime soon because of its inability to have empathy for an audience.” -Claire Mitchell

Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists:
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BIOS

CLAIRE MITCHELL

Claire Mitchell is Director of VaynerMedia's VaynerSmart group where she brings interactive experiences on emerging platforms to life. Prior to VaynerMedia, she led product design for IoT application development software, designed speculative automotive interfaces, and led creative development for VFX and commercial production. Claire holds a master’s degree from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and a BA in Philosophy from St. Edward’s University. In her free time, she explores patterns, bits, and beats through textiles, code, and drums.

KAT MUSTATEA

Kat Mustatea makes art in the age of intelligent machines.

Her TED talk examines the meaning of machines making art, looking at what new art forms arise as society shifts radically toward autonomous, algorithmic behavior. Her writing about the cutting edge of art and technology appears in Forbes, The Week, and Hyperallergic.

A high school math prodigy, she studied philosophy at Columbia University and sculpture at Pratt institute. She founded a theater company in Berlin and has spent the last decade developing cross-disciplinary works for the stage that combine music, dance, and highly emotional theater. Her plays have been performed in New York, Chicago, Berlin, and Oslo.

As a technologist, she has worked as a software engineer and product manager, and is now a freelance consultant. She is currently a resident at TED while writing a book about art in the age of machine intelligence.