Ogilvy Paris ECD Innovation & Digital: Why You Can’t be Lazy at SXSW Interactive
Opinion
Interview with DAVID RAICHMAN, ECD Innovation & Digital Ogilvy Paris
SXSW Interactive is based on the belief that technology will better the world. It’s a belief. Not a truth. But it is this fundamental mindset of the festival that also contributed to amplify such philosophical beliefs as, for example, Singularity and Transhumanism.
These techno-philosophical beliefs, based on the role technology can play in advancing humanity, are more than ever at the core of what the festival tries to explore and question.
This year, as intelligent technologies (AI, “Machine Learning”) reach maturity and become a reality in our world, trends at SXSW Interactive 2018 are going to raise questions of ethics based on where society is in adopting these solutions or not.
It is also an incredibly frustrating festival because you simply cannot take in everything that SXSW offers in one go! You need to prepare and really maximize your time to get the maximum out of SXSW. Don’t be lazy at SXSW. Work the festival. Make choices and sacrifices. Be crazy about your planning.
My Picks & “Go to” Sessions
1. Blockchain is the star this year.
Blockchain is really the hottest topic now with more than 20 sessions at SXSW. Not unlike the effects of an Earthquake, we’ve felt its first tremble and now its aftershocks follow. Blockchain will dramatically change the World. The implication feels even bigger than the impact of Web 2.0
Session: Smart Contracts: Are We Getting Rid of Lawyers?
Smart Contracts based on Blockchain. A new way to make contracts between two people without a human mediator. https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP80326
Session:
Why Ethereum Is Going to Change the World
Expect to hear an interesting discussion between Forbes Senior Editor, Laura Shin, and Joseph Lubin, founder of ConsenSys and co-founder of Ethereum, around his vision for a decentralized world. #DecentralizedFuture https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP97082
2. AI Ethics
Facebook’s experiment with AI comes to mind, when its chatbots deviated from its programmed script and seemingly began speaking its own unique language developed without human input, nor understandable by humans. Facebook shut down the AI engine. Nearly 4 years before this occurrence, physicist Stephen Hawking raised concerns that AI could mean the end of human race over the potential that AI would take off on its own at a surpassing rate to humans.
What are the ethical, social and philosophical implications of AI?
Session: Regulating AI: How to Control the Unexplainable https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP70450
Session: Letting Go. Designing for an A.I You Can’t Control https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP72030
Session: What AI Reveals About Our Place in the Universe. https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP77242
3. Super Boosted Medicine
How the power of technology can help the health professionals cure better? Bots, VR, Exoskeletons and the body/brain as a hackable system are the new exploration territory of medicine. On my mind: How leveraging bots and VR in brain surgery can assist in greater surgical accuracy? Or, how to use VR to help a patient relax before a surgery? And, using AI to create more personalized treatments…
Session: Clinical VR. Therapy with Potential Power https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP73698
Session:
Brainy Surgery: VR, AI and Robots in the OR
https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP75517
Session: AI and the future of medicine https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP99303
4. The Data Privacy Shift
Blockchain is redefining how people (vs a financial institution) will manage their transactional data. In addition, health and new rights for citizens are changing how personal data will be managed -- currently shifting away from the organization to empowering the individual.
Session: Empowering People to own their Health Data https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP77989
Session: A Game-Changing Shift in Control of Personal Data https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP74405
5. Tech and Minorities
Technology is not culturally neutral, there’s an implicit partiality and stereotypes remain. Recently in debates facial recognition was questioned by MIT researchers pointing to the fact that the biases of white engineers, who dominate the technology sector, makes their trained algorithms less efficient in recognizing other ethnicities.
The striking lack in diversity in Silicon Valley is still a problem as well. Movements like #MeToo originating from the Entertainment industry or Fearless Girl facing off Wall Street’s 7,000-pound sculpture of a charging bull are hallmarks shedding light on the issue across industries.
Session: Diversity in Tech: It’s not just a Gender Problem https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP71551
Session: Face Recognition: Please Search Responsibly https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP78024
Event: How Can venture Capital Achieve Gender Parity
http://do512.com/events/2018/3/13/how-can-venture-capital-achieve-gender-parity-official
Lastly, if you want to chill after the long day my favorite place is the Rainy Street neighborhood, south of Austin. Discreet. Authentic. A ‘behind the scenes’ place.
If you are booked and now strategizing your SXSW game plan, download the SXSW GO App https://www.sxsw.com/mobile/
Remember: Prepare. Be crazy about the schedule. Always have a Plan B schedule. SXSW is huge! Oh yah, and many of the 2018 Keynotes will be broadcast live on SXSW Youtube channel https://youtu.be/2OQZfjHn6m8
