September 16, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode of Digitally Curious, Andrew Grill speaks with Trevor Davis, renowned futurist and pioneer in big data, AI, and digital transformation about the evolving intersection of artificial intelligence and the creative industries. Trevor shares insights drawn from decades of experience at the cutting edge, delving into the opportunities, challenges, and ethical dilemmas facing creative professionals in the age of “Createch.”
Key Topics
- Trevor’s Journey: From material science, through leadership at IBM, to independent AI consultancy focused on creative industries.
- Defining Createch: Understanding where creativity meets technology, and how createch businesses differ from traditional creative firms.
- Industry 4.0 in Creativity: The impact of generative AI, digital twins, extended/virtual reality, blockchain, and 3D printing on artistic and commercial creative fields.
- Generative AI in Practice:
- How tools like ChatGPT, OpenAI Sora, and others are transforming animation, content creation, and writing.
- Tensions between democratisation of content and the diminishing role of creative gatekeepers.
- Sustainability & AI:
- Why most createch startups lack sustainability policies, and the significant environmental costs of digital production and AI.
- The growing need for responsible energy, water, and e-waste management in creative tech supply chains.
- Ethics & IP in Creative AI:
- Core dilemmas surrounding data usage, IP, and copyright in AI tools trained on creative works.
- The legal grey zones and the role of large publishers versus individual artists in rights advocacy.
- AI’s Role in Growth:
- Predictions for the UK creative sector to reach £300 billion by 2030, with AI and createch as catalysts.
- The shifting dynamics between brands and agencies as clients use generative tools for early-stage concept work.
- Agentic AI & The Future of Advertising:
- The emerging paradigm where AI agents transact and consume advertising—what it means for brands, agencies, and human creativity.
- Upskilling & Mindset:
- Why creative professionals must proactively adopt and experiment with AI tools—or risk obsolescence.
- Three actionable steps for creatives: deepen tool usage, stay informed via industry and technical sources, and build simple agents for hands-on learning.
Quick Fire Round
- Favourite travel seat: aisle
- AI wish: automate laundry
- Most-used app: Things (for daily and long-term planning)
- Book recommendation: “Helm” by Sarah Hall
- Actionable tip: Don’t fear AI—explore, experiment, and keep learning.
Resources Mentioned
Guest website: curiousdemon.com
Connect: Trevor Davis on LinkedIn
Thanks for listening to Digitally Curious. You can buy the book that showcases these episodes at curious.click/order
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Digitally Curious, the podcast that will
help you navigate the future ofAI and all things tech with your
host, actionable futurist,Andrew Grill.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Today in the show we have Trevor Davis, a renowned
industry futurist and former IBMDistinguished Engineer with
over 25 years of experienceworking at the intersection of
technology, sustainability andthe creative industries.
Working at the intersection oftechnology, sustainability and
the creative industries.
As a fellow of the RoyalSociety of the Arts and a
pioneer in fields such as bigdata, artificial intelligence
(00:35):
and digital transformation,trevor's helped global brands
and creative businesses navigatedisruptive change, ethical
challenges and new opportunitiesin the age of AI.
Known for his forward-thinkinginsights and practical guidance
on responsible innovation,trevor brings deep expertise and
a distinctive perspective tothe evolving world of creativity
and technology.
Welcome, trevor.
Andrew.
Thanks for having me, notunlike a lot of my guests on the
(00:56):
show.
We know each other quite well.
We spent quite a lot of time atIBM some years ago and both of
us moved on from that wonderfulorganization.
But maybe you could tell usabout your journey from working
at IBM as a distinguishedengineer to becoming an
independent expert focusing onAI in the creative industries,
and maybe what sparked thistransition.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, let me start with the last one first.
I mean, I loved working for IBM.
I got a lot out of it, but atthe end of the day, it is a
large corporation.
There's a lot out of it, but atthe end of the day, it is a
large corporation.
There's a lot of administration, there's a lot of jockeying for
position, a lot of metrics,that kind of thing, and I think
I reached a point in my lifewhere I thought I want to really
(01:37):
be free of that, and so beingout by myself gives me a great
opportunity to pursue my passionprojects and also to work with
some of my favourite clients.
As to the journey, I don't thinka lot of people really
understand much about mybackground.
I started off as a materialscientist and I worked for many,
many years in that area peopledeveloping new products, new
(02:02):
forms of packaging, certainlylooking at the cutting edge of
developing materials, usingthings like machine learning,
even back in the 1980s, when wehad things like expert systems,
if you remember those.
So when I came to the end of mytime in IBM, I looked at my
(02:23):
portfolio of work, and duringthat time with IBM, I was mostly
working with the large consumerproducts companies you know the
Unilevers, the Nestles, theDiageos and mostly working with
either their marketing or theirresearch and development people.
And I thought to myself, well,you know, the creativity thread,
the innovation thread is verystrong here.
(02:45):
I'm going to stay with that.
And so for me it became a matterof saying, well, what's the
best way to do that?
And I split my time reallybetween working with large
brands, looking at really wherethey want to go, but also what's
the role of technology ingetting there and also what does
(03:05):
that mean in terms ofsustainability.
And then the rest of my time isspent researching the creative
industries, and the link is, ifyou're working on, say, a new
product or a new marketingcampaign for a large brand, then
you're going to interact with alot of people who were making
things like advertisements,building websites, creating
(03:28):
prototype products and packaging.
So the creativity thread isvery strong there and I was very
lucky that I had a good partnerin the University for the
Creative Arts who invited me tohelp them, through their Centre
for Sustainable Design, toreally explore a lot of these
(03:48):
new areas like generative AI andthe impact on the creative
industries.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
We're going to unpack that, because a lot of friends
of mine that are creatives areboth excited but also a little
bit scared about what AI bringsto their world and what they
might be using it for.
So I'm really keen on your takeon that.
But you coined a term which Ilove createch to describe where
creativity meets technology.
So first, how do you definethis intersection and what makes
(04:14):
these companies that are in thecreatech industry unique in
today's digital landscape?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, I wouldn't say I coined that phrase.
I think it did exist before Istarted using it quite heavily,
but I think I, alongsideProfessor Martin Charter at the
University of the Creative Arts,I think we popularized it a lot
and gave it a lot moresubstance.
So these Createc companiesreally have technology at the
core of their value proposition.
(04:41):
So they are a fusion ofcreative action, creative
production, creative output andadvanced technology.
But the technology is centralto that value proposition and
important in terms of how theymake money, and the vast
majority of the businesses thatcertainly I look at are
business-to-business typecompanies.
(05:02):
So if you think of people whoare in the visual effects world,
people who are makingAI-powered avatars for using
games, it's those kinds ofcompanies.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Your research.
You mentioned the University ofCreative Arts, where you did
some research.
It shows AI is just one ofseveral disruptive industry 4.0
technologies.
What would you say are theother key technologies that are
reshaping creative industriesand how do they work together?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Well, I think it's important for us to say the
creative industries aren'treally a unified sector in the
way that, say, automotive is.
You've got a lot of subsectors.
So at the one extreme, you'vegot craft and you've got the
performing arts, but then you'vegot what I would refer to as
digital first businesses likethe streamers, the Netflixes of
(05:47):
the world, and then you've got awhole load of businesses which
are really somewhere in themiddle.
So it's a very messy if youwant to think of it that way
sector or a very sort ofenjoyable sector in terms of its
diversity.
So if you look at the differentsubsectors, you actually see
different technologies playingout.
So obviously, you know, withinfashion, you see a lot of
(06:10):
extended reality and virtualreality being used.
If you look at architecture,you're starting to see a lot of
3D printing of buildingmaterials and buildings
themselves.
Digital twins are cropping upleft, right and centre.
You see them in everythingagain, from architecture all the
way through to film sets In thefashion world, digital twins
(06:33):
being used, for instance, forbodies, so you can keep a
digital twin of yourself andthen decide which garments are
going to fit you.
Then you've got blockchain,which is exerting quite a big
influence, particularly inthings like the circular economy
in the creative industries.
So you've got a lot of emphasison traceability of equipment
(06:55):
and on materials.
You've got in the more artisticend of the industry, you've got
a lot of non-fungible tokensbeing used to monetize art or
even to keep track of gamersassets within the game world.
So virtual reality, extendedreality, blockchain, 3d printing
(07:18):
these are quite big ones,digital twins, as I say, and
then there's a number of kind ofniche technologies which, which
I won't go into at the moment,which have kind of
hyper-specialized for thecreative industries.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So I want to look now at AI's impact on the creative
process, because I think it willhave a massive impact and I'm
seeing it already, and you'vestudied how generative AI has
transformed creative work sinceChatGPT's release in late 2022.
What have been the mostsignificant changes you've
observed in how creativeprofessionals approach their
work?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I'd like to kind of divide it up, if you don't mind,
into kind of two responses.
So one response is how are theindustry professionals using
these tools and how are theyreacting to them?
And then there are people whoare outside of the industry who
maybe think that they are kindof creatives in their own right
(08:10):
and how they're using it, andI'll deal with that one first.
So there's an awful lot ofgenerative AI being used to
produce slop, as I'm sure you'reaware.
So you know people recreatingmoments from famous films, for
instance, and saying, wow, youknow, I did this in 10 minutes.
Why did it take some famousdirector?
Why did it take them?
(08:30):
You know, 12 days of shootingto do this, which kind of misses
the whole point about humancreativity and the creative
process, and I think thatcreates a lot of alarm within
the industry.
It also sets a reallyunrealistic expectation of what
these technologies can do, in myview.
Now the industry professionals,I think, have a different
response.
(08:50):
If you look at an area likeanimation, there are laborious
processes like in-betweening.
So if you know how animation isdone, you have keyframes and
then there's some poor sod whohas to kind of sit there and
draw all the bits in the middle,and there have always been bits
of software that can help withthat kind of process.
Generative AI definitely has abig impact in that space and it
(09:16):
does displace some employmentI'm in no doubt of that but it
also does give a lot morecreative control to the people
who know how to use these tools.
I think there's an awful lot ofstuff that happens in the
background of a lot of creativeproduction that people just
don't understand.
I mean, if you take putting anadvertisement together, for
(09:36):
instance, there are multiplecycles of creating storyboards
and prototypes and kind ofsample images and things like
that.
And generative AI, again in thehands of somebody that has the
right artistic ability andcreative abilities, is very
powerful in terms of being ableto help them to cover that space
(09:58):
more efficiently.
And then I think that you know,in the bits of the creative
industry that rely very heavilyon writing, there are a lot of
tools which are not aboutgenerating text.
They're actually aboutpolishing text or refining text
or providing you a first passcritique or analysing the text
(10:20):
to decide whether you know it'slikely to engage an audience.
And again, writers have alwayshad access to people who can do
that.
Now they have access to toolsand, for instance, I use one
quite often in my creativewriting to kind of give me early
feedback before I actually giveit to a human being.
So there's a lot of stuffhappening in behind the scenes
(10:44):
to take the grunt work out of alot of creative processes.
And then I think there are anumber of creative professionals
who are really grappling withthese technologies and saying,
well, let's see how it canproduce a better or more
efficient output.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So you're closer to the industry than I am.
What was the reaction a year orso ago when OpenAI's Sora came
out and more recently, whenGoogle's VO3 came out?
For me, it's amazing technology.
Now it can't produce a featurefilm, yet.
It can do short, sharp grabs,and for me, I'm not a graphic
designer, so if I wanted to showa concept, I could probably
show someone that could designthat for me very quickly.
(11:21):
But what's been the initialfeedback?
Are they worried or are theythinking, wow, if I can do this
in 2025, imagine how it's goingto give us some more creative
freedom into the coming years.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I'd say it's quite mixed.
Actually, the initial reactionI think of most people in the
industry is we're still a verylong way away from being able to
produce something that is acommercial kind of winner as a
film or a piece of art.
And you know, it's more thanjust producing a prompt that
(11:53):
then just recycles things thathave already been shown.
And I think this is probablythe most consistent reaction
that I get from people is theygo oh, it looks a bit like Blade
Runner or oh, it looks a bitlike you know some random
television show from the 1980s.
People look at it and go.
Well, you know, if that's whatyou want to produce a lot of, in
(12:15):
terms of your content, stuffthat's already been seen fine.
But if you want to seesomething that's new and
original, particularly anoriginal piece of intellectual
property, then creating a filmor TV series from scratch using
just prompts is not the way togo.
Where it does come in what Ihave seen people react to and go
(12:37):
.
Quite often things go wrong whenyou're shooting things.
Wouldn't it be great if what wecould do is take the previous
10 minutes that you shot thatwas perfect and say you know
that 30 seconds that didn'tquite work, fix that Now, that
is really useful.
And then I think, the negativeresponse.
It depends again on whichsubsector you look at.
(12:59):
Certainly, in film and TVthere's a lot of people at the
top of the business now whodon't really have a passion for
these art forms.
They're just, you know, they'reMBAs, they come from a purely
business kind of background, andI think the creatives look at
this and go.
You know, there's probably anexecutive out there who thinks
(13:20):
they can just cutcinematographer out, cut
storyboard artist out, you know,and then they can just sit at
their desk and go, oh, I'd likeFast and Furious 29, please, and
it will miraculously pop out.
So I think there's people whoare looking at it and thinking,
well, that's not really verygood.
And then I guess there's kindof a more kind of common concern
(13:57):
, which is people look at it andgo.
Well, you know, on the one handit appears to be democratizing
this creative process, making itmuch more accessible to people
with lesser ability.
On the other hand, you know,that's not really the gate that
stops people being successful inmost creative worlds.
In most creative worlds, youknow, there are things like
routes to market, just like aretailer, you know there's the
idea of distribution.
You quite often have to securefunding from people for your
(14:20):
idea before you can get very far, and sure you know you can use
these technologies to improveyour pitch.
If they then ask a fewdifficult questions like so
you've just shown me, you know35 seconds, how are you going to
make that?
You know two hours and 10minutes and you haven't got a
good answer, which at the momentmost people haven't, then it's
going to go nowhere.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So I want to talk about sustainability, because we
know that this AI uses a lot ofenergy, even for writing
scripts and those sort of things, but, as you know, the more
computational power that'srequired, the more energy is
required.
So let's look at the elephantin the room.
Your research shows that while72% of Cratec industries say
sustainability is core to theirstrategy, only 5% have actual
(15:01):
sustainability policies.
So how does AI contribute toenvironmental challenges in the
creative industries and how doyou think we can overcome them?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I think, in a way, the statistics around create
tech companies is a bit of a redherring.
I mean, the most create techcompanies that I look at are
startups and scale-ups and youknow, micro businesses always
have problems with anything thatlooks like documentation,
policies and procedures.
So I think there's a bit of methat says when they grow up,
they'll probably get those kindof things.
Still not a great look ifyou're kind of out there in the
(15:33):
marketplace and you can't reallydemonstrate your credentials, I
think.
More generally, I think the waythe industry is looking at
particularly generative AI isvery much as a scope three kind
of problem from a sustainability, carbon footprint point of view
.
In other words, it's out therein their supply chain and value
(15:53):
chain and I would say most ofthe people I talk to are going
well, we haven't got a lot ofcontrol over that.
We want to use these tools, butyou know, Google, Microsoft
name a provider say that they'reaiming for net zero in 2030,
2035 or whatever, and they'redoing everything they can.
I mean, who are we to questionthat?
(16:14):
Now I would say somethingcompletely different, because I
then look at how these companiesare approaching, for instance,
using these tools, and I thinkyou know they don't even
understand the basics.
You know they're using thebiggest model to do the smallest
task.
So all they have to do is justbe a bit smarter in the way they
(16:35):
use these tools.
I mean, I sat next to peoplewho are basically using ChatGPT
instead of Googling something,and we know that that really
just burns through energy.
And I think you know, again,the industry slowly waking up to
the fact that they have aresponsibility here, and I think
what's one of the things that'sreally crystallizing it is
(16:58):
convergence of technologiesaround virtual production.
So if you look at film and TV Imean I'm sure you know this and
people listening to this willknow about things like the
Mandalorian there's anincreasing use of these
production volumes, which arebig LED paddle lined spaces
where you use a gaming engine tocreate your scenery and then
(17:21):
you have some physical props andthen the actors kind of work
within that.
And when you run one of thesefacilities, you have to grapple
with things like media servers,for instance.
So people have to startthinking about well, you know,
I've got a lot of computingpower actually in the space.
You know it's not out there inthe cloud.
(17:42):
It's actually here.
It's not out there in the cloud, it's actually here.
And so suddenly people arelooking at these production
volumes and going, oh, maybe weshould pick a green energy
supplier or, you know, maybe weshould think about energy
policies for when we run thesethings.
And then there's the wholeissue of electronic waste
associated with, you know, thevery rapid innovation cycles
(18:03):
that you get in that area.
So that's made the industrythen look a bit wider and go you
know, when we choose a cloudprovider for our generative AI,
maybe we should be asking them adifferent set of questions
about what they're really doing.
So, rather than asking themabout their net zero kind of
(18:24):
targets and things like that,maybe we should be asking them
about decarbonisation.
You know, what are theyactually doing to reduce those
things?
We should be asking questionsabout the water footprint for
cooling as well, not just theenergy side and we should be
asking them about how their datacentres are constructed,
because the concrete that goesinto making these things, you
(18:47):
know, has a lot of embeddedcarbon in it, and so there's
kind of the industry slowlywaking up to this.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
I think part of it is realising that there's huge
energy demands, even down to theconcrete.
I get asked all the time,almost in every talk, about
energy requirements and, just asan aside, I gave a talk back in
the summer at a beach, actuallyironically opposite IBM's old
building in South Bank.
There's a car park there whichis now London Beach.
They put some sand down thereand you and I would have walked
(19:14):
past it every morning, and as Iwas in this marquee, I looked
off to my left stage left andthere was a huge inflatable
elephant in the room, and soduring Q&A I was asked about
sustainability and energyrequirements of AI and I said
everyone look to your right andthere is the elephant in the
room.
Not enough people are realizingthat this is an issue, and I
(19:34):
hadn't actually thought aboutthe concrete issues.
I know about the water issues.
So when you build a data center, you have to have, obviously,
energy, and we've seen companieslike Meta and Microsoft reopen
Three Mile Island and thencommission new nuclear plants
because they need a lot of clean, on-demand energy.
But also there's that water.
You have to cool these GPUsdown to the chip level, and so
you need a lot of water.
(19:55):
For that, and I think it'salmost when you have an RFP, you
should be asking, as you say,your supplier how green are you
down to?
Where are are you getting thethe water from, and is it?
Is it renewable and sustainable?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
creative industries has a fairly unique issue when
it comes to managing itssuppliers.
So you have these anchorinstitutions like netflix, um or
the bbc or you know any name,any other big you know kind of
commissioner content or a bigadvertising agency group or
(20:28):
something like that, but they'renot the bulk of the sector.
The bulk of the sector about80% of it is made up of
freelancers and micro businesses, and those businesses really
find it quite difficult to bosstheir suppliers about.
So there is a difficulty.
I think that's unusual for thecreative industries and
(20:48):
particularly the freelancers.
You know they often are tryingvery hard in their personal life
and in their professional lifeto be as sustainable as they can
and then they go and work on aproject and they see, you know,
these abuses in their view, butthey can't really do much about
it.
You know, again, the subsectorsare quite different as well.
In TV and film, or high end TVand film in particular, you've
(21:11):
got initiatives like BAFTA'sAlbert, which has brought an
enormous focus on energyconsumption and is now starting
to look at broader issues suchas the ones we've been
discussing here.
That is not necessarilyreplicated in any other sector.
And if you look at things likeregulatory pressure to you know,
(21:36):
kind of be more sustainable.
Actually it's architecture,it's bits of product design,
mostly around electronics.
To a certain extent it'sfashion, but not really, you
know, most of the pressure onfashion is really on textiles
and textile waste, which isn'treally the creative end of it.
I think the creative industriesare difficult to engage with
(22:04):
the companies behind thosetechnologies, because the people
that run those companies have avery different value system
from people in the creativeindustries, and so you've got
not just this difficulty ofengaging with a very rapidly
growing kind of sector the AIbusinesses but you've also now
(22:24):
you're dealing with people whojust don't think like you.
So you have to find some commonground to have a negotiation.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So we've covered sustainability.
I want to now look at ethics,because this is so important in
the creative industries, andyour work highlights some of the
concerns about ethical use ofAI in creative contexts.
So what are the most pressingethical dilemmas creative
professionals face when using AItools?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
If you're a user of the tool.
I think the biggest concern youhave is am I using a tool
that's based on work that hasbeen stolen from other people
like me?
And the answer to that at themoment is usually yes, you are.
There's a tremendous issue,which I think everybody's aware
(23:08):
of, of intellectual propertytheft by.
You know people like open AIand others to create these tools
.
Now they hide behind variousarguments, legal and otherwise,
and I think people in theindustry just don't really buy
that.
They they just say well, youknow you could have paid us, and
some companies do.
You know there's been a recentannouncement by Anthropic that
(23:30):
they're going to give some moneyback to, I think, writers for
some of the published workthat's that's been used for
Claude, but that's kind of theexception and the amount of
money that's going back is is afraction of what's really been
extracted.
The phrase I hear quite oftenabout particularly the Silicon
Valley businesses is that theyare robber barons.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I think the legislation and the law around
copyright protection andtrademarks and IP is a moving
feast.
You will remember, a few yearsago there was a monkey that took
a picture.
The photographer put the cameradown.
A monkey that took a picture.
The photographer put the cameradown, the monkey took the
picture and there was a disputegoing backwards and forwards
about who owned the rights tothat picture.
So now they're saying well, ifit's an AI, who owns the rights
(24:15):
to that, and I think that willchange.
Is this something that'sworrying the creative industries
?
There's no sort of realdefinitive legislation about who
owns my work if I use AI tools.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I think there are laws that cover a lot of areas
like copyright.
It's just that many of thesecompanies have ignored that and
claim that they are somehowexempt from that.
And you know, again, if youthink of what I said earlier
about the composition of theindustry, you know it's made up
of maybe 80%, individual artists, freelancers, tiny, tiny little
(24:51):
businesses.
They can't take on, you know,really without a class action,
some of these companies.
So you're very dependent on thelarger businesses, the large
publishers, for instance, orfilm companies with that archive
.
You're very dependent on themreally going to war in some
(25:11):
respect with with some of thesecompanies which they are, and
sometimes they're trying to justget money out of them.
Sometimes they're using it as alever to get a better form of
collaboration with thesecompanies and in a small number
of cases they're looking tochange the way that the law
operates.
(25:31):
So it's a really messysituation and I think that is a
great concern, particularly toindividual artists who just find
it very, very difficult to seehow it's going to play out for
them.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Based on your research, you're predicting the
creative industries in the UKwill grow to 300 billion by 2030
.
So what role will AI play indriving this growth?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
My view is it will be absolutely central.
If you look at what lies behindthat growth and break it down
into the individual subsectors,you can see that this area that
we referred to earlier asCreatec and those businesses
that are using Createc assuppliers to them, they're the
ones that are generating thegrowth it's not coming out of,
(26:15):
you know, for instance, thecraft sector or architecture.
It is going to be absolutelycentral and I think the reason
why I say that is that you canalready see that acceleration,
particularly in film and TVproduction, where basically the
UK has to a large extent, runout of capacity to make any more
(26:37):
.
So the only way really to, youknow, kind of grow the sector is
to employ virtual production toa much greater extent.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I've been reading in the industry press that you know
, the holding companies of thesecreative industries are under a
lot of pressure and there'vebeen some mergers and there's
lots of fallout and what haveyou.
So how do you see AI changingthe relationship between brands
and creative agencies?
Speaker 3 (26:58):
At a very simplistic level.
Most of the creative agencies Ideal with now are finding that
they're unable to get clients topay for that very upfront piece
of concept development, becausethe client's saying well, you
know, we'd still rather you didthe work, but you know, if you
try and charge us for it, we'lljust go and use ChatGPT or
(27:22):
Midjourney or something likethat and we'll work up some
concepts ourselves.
We'll pick a favorite and thenwe'll come to you and say we
want that.
So I think it's changing thenature of how creative agencies
can charge for their work, for astart.
I think the second thing isit's if you look at it more from
the agency side.
(27:43):
As I mentioned earlier, itallows an individual creative to
produce many more variationsaround a particular theme than
they probably could have donebefore, and I know from having
worked with a lot of people inthat kind of area they're often
quite frustrated at deadlines.
You know I need like fiveconcepts by next Friday and
(28:07):
actually you know what they'drather do is either work up one
really good one or or come upwith 20.
And I think AI tools give youthe ability to help with both of
those possible outcomes.
So I think I think for acreative agency, it's it's
changing that front end piece inparticular.
I think there will certainlywithin that 2030 timeframe, I
(28:30):
think you will see considerablymore kind of short content
production being produced out oftools like Sora.
That, to me, is where thosetools really are going to land.
So not feature films, notepisodic television, but a 30
(28:50):
second spot or a 15 second spotor a two minute spot, you know,
on YouTube or through TikTok.
I think that is where you'regoing to see an awful lot of the
production going down the AIroute.
So I think that end of theindustry is going to come under
a lot of employment pressure.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So one of the jobs of a futurist is to look at trend
forecasting.
So how is AI changing trendforecasting and market research
in the creative fields?
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I think generally a lot of the first steps in
generating some kind of forecastor foresight probably is a
better word is starting withprompts on a keyboard at the
moment.
So I get clients who come to meand they go, I type this into
(29:40):
ChatGPT and it's given me thesefive trends to ChatGPT.
And it's given me these fivetrends.
Are they real or you know what?
Do you think they really meanfor my business?
I've got the generic out ofChatGPT but I really want to
know what it means to mystakeholders within my
organisation, to my people.
And I think that actually partof my work has grown because of
(30:05):
the arrival of tools likeChatGPT.
Because I think if I looked atmy portfolio before ChatGPT,
people used to come along to meand say I'd like you to do some
desk research and then I'd likeyou to come up with some trends,
come and do some workshops.
Now what they come along and goand says I have a bunch of
trends, I'd like you to work outwith my people which ones make
(30:26):
sense for us to do somethingabout, and then I'd like you to
try and turn that into some kindof project and that I think is
a smart use of the technology,and I think it's also quite
mature in recognising that thereare problems with the way these
tools are trained.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So we keep mentioning this figure of 2030.
Let's look beyond that.
It's only five years away.
What do you think beyond 2030,the creative industries will
look like?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Well, I'd like to think they'll still be there for
a start.
What I do detect is anundercurrent of a return to what
I would call more authenticforms of production.
I'll just give you a very, verysimple example.
Recall more authentic forms ofproduction.
I'll just give you a very, verysimple example.
(31:13):
In the last couple of years, afilm format like proper film,
called VistaVision, that has notbeen used since the 1960s,
suddenly has become one of thego-to formats in filmmaking.
And I think what's happening isyou look at almost any aspect of
the creative industries and youcan definitely see there are
people who are going.
Well, you know you can have thisthing over here which was
produced in a factory or cameout of chat, gpt or you know I
(31:35):
can do this kind of bespokething and it's going to cost you
a bit more, but you know we canhave a dialogue around it and I
think that's kind of how theindustry is probably going to
segment itself.
There's going to be an awful lot.
You know, 2040, 2050, you knowthere's going to be an awful lot
of stuff that's literally justflowing straight off a keyboard,
(31:57):
regardless of who's behind thatkeyboard, and then there's
going to be a kernel of stuffwhich is going to be
extraordinary in the way thatgreat pieces of commercial art
can be, and I think that'sdefinitely going to be there and
probably going to be strongerthan most people think it is,
(32:19):
because I think if you look atthe younger generations that are
coming through, they seem tohave this thirst for things
which are much more experientialand that's not something you
can really automatically supplyjust by typing a prompt and
getting something out throughyour screen on your computer.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
So we've talked about generative AI.
The flavor of the year isagentic AI, and we're going to
see more and more of this.
Now let me cast your mind backto 2018.
I was on stage and I startedtalking about the day that we'll
have our own AI agent, and Ithink I was actually in front of
a bunch of creative or adpeople and I think they almost
did throw their stress toys atme because I said one day in the
(33:00):
future, we won't be looking atads because I'll have a digital
agent we now call it a Gentagaithat will actually look to buy
from another digital agent of aproduct that I need or want, and
humans won't be looking at ads.
I said that back in 2018.
I actually found a video of mesaying it in 2019.
And on stage at CES this year,shelley Palmer basically said
(33:23):
we're going to have to write adsfor robots.
We're not there yet, but talkme through how that changes
everything when I'm no longerneeding to look at ads for
consumables.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I think it comes down to market segmentation, isn't
it really?
I mean, if you're talking aboutyour next weekly shop, I'm sure
that is not very far away.
Your next weekly shop, I'm surethat is not very far away.
I think if you're about to go,and you know, shop for your
wedding dress, that's probablynot going to be the case, so I
think you have to kind ofsegment the market that way.
(33:55):
I think what it does do, though, is it says something about the
nature of things likeadvertising and promotion
budgets, for instance.
You know why would you spend anawful lot of money on the
creative side if all you'redoing is producing something
(34:16):
that a large language model isgoing to pick between?
I think it will shift the waythat the AMP spend goes.
And again, I think what we'llbe looking at in some ways is a
very old thing, which is, peoplewill suddenly rediscover the
power of brand equity, andthey'll start thinking, hmm, if
we are going to produce some adsfor humans, then they have got
(34:39):
to enhance the value of thebrand.
They haven't necessarily got topersuade people to shop, and
that's where we are at themoment, is that we have mostly a
lot of advertisements that arereally just persuading people to
spend money through a retailchannel of some sort.
So I think we're going to seethis massive swing back to brand
development, brand building,all of those kind of good things
(35:03):
.
Development, brand building,all of those kind of good things
.
And I think within that world, Ithink where these AI tools and
the agentic AI tools work to alarge extent is about automation
of research processes, forinstance, for consumer market
insight.
I mean, you and I have bothdone this.
You know, you commission like20 different reports on
different market segments, andthen you think, oh my God, I've
(35:25):
got to read these things andmake sense of it.
And I can see a situation wherean agent could, you know,
handle the commissioning process.
It could handle the initialfeedback process.
It could then provide concisesummaries for different
departments, it could solicitstakeholder feedback and then it
could produce some kind ofaction plan out of the end of it
(35:47):
.
So all of that kind of thingthere is, I think, quite close
actually.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So final question before we go to the quickfire
round If I'm a creativelistening to this podcast,
should I worry about AI andshould I be upskilling to stay
ahead and leverage the power ofAI?
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Yes, you should worry about it, because if you don't,
somebody else in your job roleis going to be worrying about it
and thinking, hmm, how do I usethis to my advantage?
I think, in terms of upskilling, definitely.
I mean, I think it is a realissue right across creative
industries is that there are alot of people who are quite
(36:23):
nervous of the terminologyaround these things, or they
think that engaging with some ofthese tools is going to be
vastly complex and interestingly.
I mean I.
So I.
I have a, a client who um uses atool called blender, and
blender is used for know kind ofcreating beautiful visual
effects or part of the visualeffects process.
(36:45):
It's very, very complicatedindeed and he's terrified of
using AI tools.
So I think, well, hang on asecond, you can cope with
Blender, which freaks me outcompletely, and but AI is too
much.
So I think this is there's alack of a lingua franca between
(37:06):
the creatives and thetechnologists.
That kind of gets in the way.
So I think, definitely upskill,don't be so afraid you won't
try so we're almost out of time.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
We're up to my favorite part of the show, the
quickfire round, when we learnmore about our guests.
Window or aisle, always theaisle.
I wish that ai could do all ofmy laundry.
You arery.
You are the, I think, 12thguest to say that the first
thing I asked ChatGPT was Isthis email spam and what did it
tell you?
Speaker 3 (37:30):
It said it was and was it?
It was the app you use most onyour phone Things.
It builds itself really as akind of more like a structure my
thinking structure, my daystructure, my year capture notes
, the best advice you've everreceived To go for Distinguished
(37:52):
Engineer at IBM, which was notsomething I'd even remotely
thought of, but actually openedup a great world for me.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
And, as you and I know, it's a big deal at IBM
because they revereDistinguished Engineers so
highly.
Congratulations, that's a hugeaward, thank you.
What are you reading at themoment?
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Well, apart from your book Digitally Curious, I'm
reading Sarah Hall's latestnovel, which is called Helm,
which is about the only wind inthe UK that has a name.
Who should I invite next ontothe podcast?
How about Joe Keerans?
Joe works at the moment for oneof the creative agencies and
(38:31):
also he runs something calledthe Global Footwear Coalition
and they're doing some really,really interesting stuff with
people who make shoes.
How do you want to beremembered?
I think I'd like to beremembered as somebody that
helped others to develop theirabilities.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Now, I'm all about being actionable.
It's in my brand and my title.
So what three actionable thingsshould our audience do today to
understand how creatives canuse AI for good?
Speaker 3 (39:01):
If they haven't got a full paid account with ChatGPT
or one of the others, then Iwould suggest they do that,
because that will allow them tomore fully explore the
capabilities of these tools.
I think the second thing thatthey should do is to look in
(39:21):
online magazines like theHollywood Reporter and Variety,
and look at the more specialistkind of online journals, like
American Cinematographer, andtry and get a sense of how both
the business and the kind ofmore technical sides of at least
(39:43):
the film industry are reallygrappling with these, these
tools, because I think actuallyit's much more visible there.
I'm not saying that's the onlypart of the creative industries
that's really doing this on a ona large scale, um, but if you
try and, for instance, explorethe games world, it's much more
difficult to look inside it, andif you look in publishing, you
(40:04):
will struggle to find anything,but so I would encourage people
to do that.
I think that's my second one,kind of read broadly, and then I
think the third one is I'dencourage people to try and
build their own agent using anyof the tools that are out there,
because it's not particularlydifficult, and even if it's just
something as simple as a bit ofdiary scheduling or
(40:25):
manipulating some spreadsheets.
It's, it's a great learningexperience and it will do two
things it will take some of thefear out of it and it will make
you realize just how, far fromtaking over the world,
terminator style, thesetechnologies are.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Quick aside, in terms of building agents, I use 11
labs to create a voice agent andI just said to the organizers
can you send me the PDF of yourmenu for the day?
I uploaded the PDF.
I then interrogated live infront of an audience booking a
seat, asking what was on themenu, explaining there were
people with food intolerance,what would the replacements be,
and without any training otherthan a PDF, it was able to do
(41:00):
that.
It blew the minds of theaudience.
It blew my mind.
Other than a PDF.
It was able to do that.
It blew the minds of theaudience.
It blew my mind and I could dothat in 15 seconds.
So you're right.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
You need to play with these things to understand what
they can do.
Fun fact about 11 Labs is that11 Labs was one of the founders,
is the brother of somebody thatyou and I used to work with at
IBM, and I'll leave you toGoogle him and find out who it
is 11 Labs is one of my favoritetools that I use, and there's
the andrew grill voice clone,trevor.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
This has been a fantastic discussion.
How can we find out more aboutyou and your work?
Speaker 3 (41:30):
I have a website, wwwcuriousdemoncom, or people
can just look me up on linkedin,where you'll see me posting
quite regularly I'm going to aska follow-up question.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
If I was looking to craft an AI prompt to find your
website, what would I ask?
Speaker 3 (41:47):
it.
That's a good one.
I would probably say look forsomebody who used to work at IBM
that spends all their timewatching films and working on
sustainability, and that wouldprobably find me.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Trevor, it's always a delight to talk to you.
Great to see you again.
Thanks for coming on the showand stay curious.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I will do my very best, Andrew.
Thank you again.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Thank you for listening to Digitally Curious.
You can find out more aboutAndrew his keynote speeches and
brand partnerships atactionablefuturistcom.
You can order the compendiumbook to this podcast at
curiousclick slash order.
Until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Digitally Curious, the podcast that will
help you navigate the future ofAI and all things tech with your
host, actionable futurist,Andrew Grill.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Today in the show we have Trevor Davis, a renowned
industry futurist and former IBMDistinguished Engineer with
over 25 years of experienceworking at the intersection of
technology, sustainability andthe creative industries.
Working at the intersection oftechnology, sustainability and
the creative industries.
As a fellow of the RoyalSociety of the Arts and a
pioneer in fields such as bigdata, artificial intelligence
(00:35):
and digital transformation,trevor's helped global brands
and creative businesses navigatedisruptive change, ethical
challenges and new opportunitiesin the age of AI.
Known for his forward-thinkinginsights and practical guidance
on responsible innovation,trevor brings deep expertise and
a distinctive perspective tothe evolving world of creativity
and technology.
Welcome, trevor.
Andrew.
Thanks for having me, notunlike a lot of my guests on the
(00:56):
show.
We know each other quite well.
We spent quite a lot of time atIBM some years ago and both of
us moved on from that wonderfulorganization.
But maybe you could tell usabout your journey from working
at IBM as a distinguishedengineer to becoming an
independent expert focusing onAI in the creative industries,
and maybe what sparked thistransition.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, let me start with the last one first.
I mean, I loved working for IBM.
I got a lot out of it, but atthe end of the day, it is a
large corporation.
There's a lot out of it, but atthe end of the day, it is a
large corporation.
There's a lot of administration, there's a lot of jockeying for
position, a lot of metrics,that kind of thing, and I think
I reached a point in my lifewhere I thought I want to really
(01:37):
be free of that, and so beingout by myself gives me a great
opportunity to pursue my passionprojects and also to work with
some of my favourite clients.
As to the journey, I don't thinka lot of people really
understand much about mybackground.
I started off as a materialscientist and I worked for many,
many years in that area peopledeveloping new products, new
(02:02):
forms of packaging, certainlylooking at the cutting edge of
developing materials, usingthings like machine learning,
even back in the 1980s, when wehad things like expert systems,
if you remember those.
So when I came to the end of mytime in IBM, I looked at my
(02:23):
portfolio of work, and duringthat time with IBM, I was mostly
working with the large consumerproducts companies you know the
Unilevers, the Nestles, theDiageos and mostly working with
either their marketing or theirresearch and development people.
And I thought to myself, well,you know, the creativity thread,
the innovation thread is verystrong here.
(02:45):
I'm going to stay with that.
And so for me it became a matterof saying, well, what's the
best way to do that?
And I split my time reallybetween working with large
brands, looking at really wherethey want to go, but also what's
the role of technology ingetting there and also what does
(03:05):
that mean in terms ofsustainability.
And then the rest of my time isspent researching the creative
industries, and the link is, ifyou're working on, say, a new
product or a new marketingcampaign for a large brand, then
you're going to interact with alot of people who were making
things like advertisements,building websites, creating
(03:28):
prototype products and packaging.
So the creativity thread isvery strong there and I was very
lucky that I had a good partnerin the University for the
Creative Arts who invited me tohelp them, through their Centre
for Sustainable Design, toreally explore a lot of these
(03:48):
new areas like generative AI andthe impact on the creative
industries.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
We're going to unpack that, because a lot of friends
of mine that are creatives areboth excited but also a little
bit scared about what AI bringsto their world and what they
might be using it for.
So I'm really keen on your takeon that.
But you coined a term which Ilove createch to describe where
creativity meets technology.
So first, how do you definethis intersection and what makes
(04:14):
these companies that are in thecreatech industry unique in
today's digital landscape?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, I wouldn't say I coined that phrase.
I think it did exist before Istarted using it quite heavily,
but I think I, alongsideProfessor Martin Charter at the
University of the Creative Arts,I think we popularized it a lot
and gave it a lot moresubstance.
So these Createc companiesreally have technology at the
core of their value proposition.
(04:41):
So they are a fusion ofcreative action, creative
production, creative output andadvanced technology.
But the technology is centralto that value proposition and
important in terms of how theymake money, and the vast
majority of the businesses thatcertainly I look at are
business-to-business typecompanies.
(05:02):
So if you think of people whoare in the visual effects world,
people who are makingAI-powered avatars for using
games, it's those kinds ofcompanies.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Your research.
You mentioned the University ofCreative Arts, where you did
some research.
It shows AI is just one ofseveral disruptive industry 4.0
technologies.
What would you say are theother key technologies that are
reshaping creative industriesand how do they work together?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Well, I think it's important for us to say the
creative industries aren'treally a unified sector in the
way that, say, automotive is.
You've got a lot of subsectors.
So at the one extreme, you'vegot craft and you've got the
performing arts, but then you'vegot what I would refer to as
digital first businesses likethe streamers, the Netflixes of
(05:47):
the world, and then you've got awhole load of businesses which
are really somewhere in themiddle.
So it's a very messy if youwant to think of it that way
sector or a very sort ofenjoyable sector in terms of its
diversity.
So if you look at the differentsubsectors, you actually see
different technologies playingout.
So obviously, you know, withinfashion, you see a lot of
(06:10):
extended reality and virtualreality being used.
If you look at architecture,you're starting to see a lot of
3D printing of buildingmaterials and buildings
themselves.
Digital twins are cropping upleft, right and centre.
You see them in everythingagain, from architecture all the
way through to film sets In thefashion world, digital twins
(06:33):
being used, for instance, forbodies, so you can keep a
digital twin of yourself andthen decide which garments are
going to fit you.
Then you've got blockchain,which is exerting quite a big
influence, particularly inthings like the circular economy
in the creative industries.
So you've got a lot of emphasison traceability of equipment
(06:55):
and on materials.
You've got in the more artisticend of the industry, you've got
a lot of non-fungible tokensbeing used to monetize art or
even to keep track of gamersassets within the game world.
So virtual reality, extendedreality, blockchain, 3d printing
(07:18):
these are quite big ones,digital twins, as I say, and
then there's a number of kind ofniche technologies which, which
I won't go into at the moment,which have kind of
hyper-specialized for thecreative industries.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So I want to look now at AI's impact on the creative
process, because I think it willhave a massive impact and I'm
seeing it already, and you'vestudied how generative AI has
transformed creative work sinceChatGPT's release in late 2022.
What have been the mostsignificant changes you've
observed in how creativeprofessionals approach their
work?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I'd like to kind of divide it up, if you don't mind,
into kind of two responses.
So one response is how are theindustry professionals using
these tools and how are theyreacting to them?
And then there are people whoare outside of the industry who
maybe think that they are kindof creatives in their own right
(08:10):
and how they're using it, andI'll deal with that one first.
So there's an awful lot ofgenerative AI being used to
produce slop, as I'm sure you'reaware.
So you know people recreatingmoments from famous films, for
instance, and saying, wow, youknow, I did this in 10 minutes.
Why did it take some famousdirector?
Why did it take them?
(08:30):
You know, 12 days of shootingto do this, which kind of misses
the whole point about humancreativity and the creative
process, and I think thatcreates a lot of alarm within
the industry.
It also sets a reallyunrealistic expectation of what
these technologies can do, in myview.
Now the industry professionals,I think, have a different
response.
(08:50):
If you look at an area likeanimation, there are laborious
processes like in-betweening.
So if you know how animation isdone, you have keyframes and
then there's some poor sod whohas to kind of sit there and
draw all the bits in the middle,and there have always been bits
of software that can help withthat kind of process.
Generative AI definitely has abig impact in that space and it
(09:16):
does displace some employmentI'm in no doubt of that but it
also does give a lot morecreative control to the people
who know how to use these tools.
I think there's an awful lot ofstuff that happens in the
background of a lot of creativeproduction that people just
don't understand.
I mean, if you take putting anadvertisement together, for
(09:36):
instance, there are multiplecycles of creating storyboards
and prototypes and kind ofsample images and things like
that.
And generative AI, again in thehands of somebody that has the
right artistic ability andcreative abilities, is very
powerful in terms of being ableto help them to cover that space
(09:58):
more efficiently.
And then I think that you know,in the bits of the creative
industry that rely very heavilyon writing, there are a lot of
tools which are not aboutgenerating text.
They're actually aboutpolishing text or refining text
or providing you a first passcritique or analysing the text
(10:20):
to decide whether you know it'slikely to engage an audience.
And again, writers have alwayshad access to people who can do
that.
Now they have access to toolsand, for instance, I use one
quite often in my creativewriting to kind of give me early
feedback before I actually giveit to a human being.
So there's a lot of stuffhappening in behind the scenes
(10:44):
to take the grunt work out of alot of creative processes.
And then I think there are anumber of creative professionals
who are really grappling withthese technologies and saying,
well, let's see how it canproduce a better or more
efficient output.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So you're closer to the industry than I am.
What was the reaction a year orso ago when OpenAI's Sora came
out and more recently, whenGoogle's VO3 came out?
For me, it's amazing technology.
Now it can't produce a featurefilm, yet.
It can do short, sharp grabs,and for me, I'm not a graphic
designer, so if I wanted to showa concept, I could probably
show someone that could designthat for me very quickly.
(11:21):
But what's been the initialfeedback?
Are they worried or are theythinking, wow, if I can do this
in 2025, imagine how it's goingto give us some more creative
freedom into the coming years.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I'd say it's quite mixed.
Actually, the initial reactionI think of most people in the
industry is we're still a verylong way away from being able to
produce something that is acommercial kind of winner as a
film or a piece of art.
And you know, it's more thanjust producing a prompt that
(11:53):
then just recycles things thathave already been shown.
And I think this is probablythe most consistent reaction
that I get from people is theygo oh, it looks a bit like Blade
Runner or oh, it looks a bitlike you know some random
television show from the 1980s.
People look at it and go.
Well, you know, if that's whatyou want to produce a lot of, in
(12:15):
terms of your content, stuffthat's already been seen fine.
But if you want to seesomething that's new and
original, particularly anoriginal piece of intellectual
property, then creating a filmor TV series from scratch using
just prompts is not the way togo.
Where it does come in what Ihave seen people react to and go
(12:37):
.
Quite often things go wrong whenyou're shooting things.
Wouldn't it be great if what wecould do is take the previous
10 minutes that you shot thatwas perfect and say you know
that 30 seconds that didn'tquite work, fix that Now, that
is really useful.
And then I think, the negativeresponse.
It depends again on whichsubsector you look at.
(12:59):
Certainly, in film and TVthere's a lot of people at the
top of the business now whodon't really have a passion for
these art forms.
They're just, you know, they'reMBAs, they come from a purely
business kind of background, andI think the creatives look at
this and go.
You know, there's probably anexecutive out there who thinks
(13:20):
they can just cutcinematographer out, cut
storyboard artist out, you know,and then they can just sit at
their desk and go, oh, I'd likeFast and Furious 29, please, and
it will miraculously pop out.
So I think there's people whoare looking at it and thinking,
well, that's not really verygood.
And then I guess there's kindof a more kind of common concern
(13:57):
, which is people look at it andgo.
Well, you know, on the one handit appears to be democratizing
this creative process, making itmuch more accessible to people
with lesser ability.
On the other hand, you know,that's not really the gate that
stops people being successful inmost creative worlds.
In most creative worlds, youknow, there are things like
routes to market, just like aretailer, you know there's the
idea of distribution.
You quite often have to securefunding from people for your
(14:20):
idea before you can get very far, and sure you know you can use
these technologies to improveyour pitch.
If they then ask a fewdifficult questions like so
you've just shown me, you know35 seconds, how are you going to
make that?
You know two hours and 10minutes and you haven't got a
good answer, which at the momentmost people haven't, then it's
going to go nowhere.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
So I want to talk about sustainability, because we
know that this AI uses a lot ofenergy, even for writing
scripts and those sort of things, but, as you know, the more
computational power that'srequired, the more energy is
required.
So let's look at the elephantin the room.
Your research shows that while72% of Cratec industries say
sustainability is core to theirstrategy, only 5% have actual
(15:01):
sustainability policies.
So how does AI contribute toenvironmental challenges in the
creative industries and how doyou think we can overcome them?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I think, in a way, the statistics around create
tech companies is a bit of a redherring.
I mean, the most create techcompanies that I look at are
startups and scale-ups and youknow, micro businesses always
have problems with anything thatlooks like documentation,
policies and procedures.
So I think there's a bit of methat says when they grow up,
they'll probably get those kindof things.
Still not a great look ifyou're kind of out there in the
(15:33):
marketplace and you can't reallydemonstrate your credentials, I
think.
More generally, I think the waythe industry is looking at
particularly generative AI isvery much as a scope three kind
of problem from a sustainability, carbon footprint point of view
.
In other words, it's out therein their supply chain and value
(15:53):
chain and I would say most ofthe people I talk to are going
well, we haven't got a lot ofcontrol over that.
We want to use these tools, butyou know, Google, Microsoft
name a provider say that they'reaiming for net zero in 2030,
2035 or whatever, and they'redoing everything they can.
I mean, who are we to questionthat?
(16:14):
Now I would say somethingcompletely different, because I
then look at how these companiesare approaching, for instance,
using these tools, and I thinkyou know they don't even
understand the basics.
You know they're using thebiggest model to do the smallest
task.
So all they have to do is justbe a bit smarter in the way they
(16:35):
use these tools.
I mean, I sat next to peoplewho are basically using ChatGPT
instead of Googling something,and we know that that really
just burns through energy.
And I think you know, again,the industry slowly waking up to
the fact that they have aresponsibility here, and I think
what's one of the things that'sreally crystallizing it is
(16:58):
convergence of technologiesaround virtual production.
So if you look at film and TV Imean I'm sure you know this and
people listening to this willknow about things like the
Mandalorian there's anincreasing use of these
production volumes, which arebig LED paddle lined spaces
where you use a gaming engine tocreate your scenery and then
(17:21):
you have some physical props andthen the actors kind of work
within that.
And when you run one of thesefacilities, you have to grapple
with things like media servers,for instance.
So people have to startthinking about well, you know,
I've got a lot of computingpower actually in the space.
You know it's not out there inthe cloud.
(17:42):
It's actually here.
It's not out there in the cloud, it's actually here.
And so suddenly people arelooking at these production
volumes and going, oh, maybe weshould pick a green energy
supplier or, you know, maybe weshould think about energy
policies for when we run thesethings.
And then there's the wholeissue of electronic waste
associated with, you know, thevery rapid innovation cycles
(18:03):
that you get in that area.
So that's made the industrythen look a bit wider and go you
know, when we choose a cloudprovider for our generative AI,
maybe we should be asking them adifferent set of questions
about what they're really doing.
So, rather than asking themabout their net zero kind of
(18:24):
targets and things like that,maybe we should be asking them
about decarbonisation.
You know, what are theyactually doing to reduce those
things?
We should be asking questionsabout the water footprint for
cooling as well, not just theenergy side and we should be
asking them about how their datacentres are constructed,
because the concrete that goesinto making these things, you
(18:47):
know, has a lot of embeddedcarbon in it, and so there's
kind of the industry slowlywaking up to this.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
I think part of it is realising that there's huge
energy demands, even down to theconcrete.
I get asked all the time,almost in every talk, about
energy requirements and, just asan aside, I gave a talk back in
the summer at a beach, actuallyironically opposite IBM's old
building in South Bank.
There's a car park there whichis now London Beach.
They put some sand down thereand you and I would have walked
(19:14):
past it every morning, and as Iwas in this marquee, I looked
off to my left stage left andthere was a huge inflatable
elephant in the room, and soduring Q&A I was asked about
sustainability and energyrequirements of AI and I said
everyone look to your right andthere is the elephant in the
room.
Not enough people are realizingthat this is an issue, and I
(19:34):
hadn't actually thought aboutthe concrete issues.
I know about the water issues.
So when you build a data center, you have to have, obviously,
energy, and we've seen companieslike Meta and Microsoft reopen
Three Mile Island and thencommission new nuclear plants
because they need a lot of clean, on-demand energy.
But also there's that water.
You have to cool these GPUsdown to the chip level, and so
you need a lot of water.
(19:55):
For that, and I think it'salmost when you have an RFP, you
should be asking, as you say,your supplier how green are you
down to?
Where are are you getting thethe water from, and is it?
Is it renewable and sustainable?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
creative industries has a fairly unique issue when
it comes to managing itssuppliers.
So you have these anchorinstitutions like netflix, um or
the bbc or you know any name,any other big you know kind of
commissioner content or a bigadvertising agency group or
(20:28):
something like that, but they'renot the bulk of the sector.
The bulk of the sector about80% of it is made up of
freelancers and micro businesses, and those businesses really
find it quite difficult to bosstheir suppliers about.
So there is a difficulty.
I think that's unusual for thecreative industries and
(20:48):
particularly the freelancers.
You know they often are tryingvery hard in their personal life
and in their professional lifeto be as sustainable as they can
and then they go and work on aproject and they see, you know,
these abuses in their view, butthey can't really do much about
it.
You know, again, the subsectorsare quite different as well.
In TV and film, or high end TVand film in particular, you've
(21:11):
got initiatives like BAFTA'sAlbert, which has brought an
enormous focus on energyconsumption and is now starting
to look at broader issues suchas the ones we've been
discussing here.
That is not necessarilyreplicated in any other sector.
And if you look at things likeregulatory pressure to you know,
(21:36):
kind of be more sustainable.
Actually it's architecture,it's bits of product design,
mostly around electronics.
To a certain extent it'sfashion, but not really, you
know, most of the pressure onfashion is really on textiles
and textile waste, which isn'treally the creative end of it.
I think the creative industriesare difficult to engage with
(22:04):
the companies behind thosetechnologies, because the people
that run those companies have avery different value system
from people in the creativeindustries, and so you've got
not just this difficulty ofengaging with a very rapidly
growing kind of sector the AIbusinesses but you've also now
(22:24):
you're dealing with people whojust don't think like you.
So you have to find some commonground to have a negotiation.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So we've covered sustainability.
I want to now look at ethics,because this is so important in
the creative industries, andyour work highlights some of the
concerns about ethical use ofAI in creative contexts.
So what are the most pressingethical dilemmas creative
professionals face when using AItools?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
If you're a user of the tool.
I think the biggest concern youhave is am I using a tool
that's based on work that hasbeen stolen from other people
like me?
And the answer to that at themoment is usually yes, you are.
There's a tremendous issue,which I think everybody's aware
(23:08):
of, of intellectual propertytheft by.
You know people like open AIand others to create these tools
.
Now they hide behind variousarguments, legal and otherwise,
and I think people in theindustry just don't really buy
that.
They they just say well, youknow you could have paid us, and
some companies do.
You know there's been a recentannouncement by Anthropic that
(23:30):
they're going to give some moneyback to, I think, writers for
some of the published workthat's that's been used for
Claude, but that's kind of theexception and the amount of
money that's going back is is afraction of what's really been
extracted.
The phrase I hear quite oftenabout particularly the Silicon
Valley businesses is that theyare robber barons.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I think the legislation and the law around
copyright protection andtrademarks and IP is a moving
feast.
You will remember, a few yearsago there was a monkey that took
a picture.
The photographer put the cameradown.
A monkey that took a picture.
The photographer put the cameradown, the monkey took the
picture and there was a disputegoing backwards and forwards
about who owned the rights tothat picture.
So now they're saying well, ifit's an AI, who owns the rights
(24:15):
to that, and I think that willchange.
Is this something that'sworrying the creative industries
?
There's no sort of realdefinitive legislation about who
owns my work if I use AI tools.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I think there are laws that cover a lot of areas
like copyright.
It's just that many of thesecompanies have ignored that and
claim that they are somehowexempt from that.
And you know, again, if youthink of what I said earlier
about the composition of theindustry, you know it's made up
of maybe 80%, individual artists, freelancers, tiny, tiny little
(24:51):
businesses.
They can't take on, you know,really without a class action,
some of these companies.
So you're very dependent on thelarger businesses, the large
publishers, for instance, orfilm companies with that archive
.
You're very dependent on themreally going to war in some
(25:11):
respect with with some of thesecompanies which they are, and
sometimes they're trying to justget money out of them.
Sometimes they're using it as alever to get a better form of
collaboration with thesecompanies and in a small number
of cases they're looking tochange the way that the law
operates.
(25:31):
So it's a really messysituation and I think that is a
great concern, particularly toindividual artists who just find
it very, very difficult to seehow it's going to play out for
them.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Based on your research, you're predicting the
creative industries in the UKwill grow to 300 billion by 2030
.
So what role will AI play indriving this growth?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
My view is it will be absolutely central.
If you look at what lies behindthat growth and break it down
into the individual subsectors,you can see that this area that
we referred to earlier asCreatec and those businesses
that are using Createc assuppliers to them, they're the
ones that are generating thegrowth it's not coming out of,
(26:15):
you know, for instance, thecraft sector or architecture.
It is going to be absolutelycentral and I think the reason
why I say that is that you canalready see that acceleration,
particularly in film and TVproduction, where basically the
UK has to a large extent, runout of capacity to make any more
(26:37):
.
So the only way really to, youknow, kind of grow the sector is
to employ virtual production toa much greater extent.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I've been reading in the industry press that you know
, the holding companies of thesecreative industries are under a
lot of pressure and there'vebeen some mergers and there's
lots of fallout and what haveyou.
So how do you see AI changingthe relationship between brands
and creative agencies?
Speaker 3 (26:58):
At a very simplistic level.
Most of the creative agencies Ideal with now are finding that
they're unable to get clients topay for that very upfront piece
of concept development, becausethe client's saying well, you
know, we'd still rather you didthe work, but you know, if you
try and charge us for it, we'lljust go and use ChatGPT or
(27:22):
Midjourney or something likethat and we'll work up some
concepts ourselves.
We'll pick a favorite and thenwe'll come to you and say we
want that.
So I think it's changing thenature of how creative agencies
can charge for their work, for astart.
I think the second thing isit's if you look at it more from
the agency side.
(27:43):
As I mentioned earlier, itallows an individual creative to
produce many more variationsaround a particular theme than
they probably could have donebefore, and I know from having
worked with a lot of people inthat kind of area they're often
quite frustrated at deadlines.
You know I need like fiveconcepts by next Friday and
(28:07):
actually you know what they'drather do is either work up one
really good one or or come upwith 20.
And I think AI tools give youthe ability to help with both of
those possible outcomes.
So I think I think for acreative agency, it's it's
changing that front end piece inparticular.
I think there will certainlywithin that 2030 timeframe, I
(28:30):
think you will see considerablymore kind of short content
production being produced out oftools like Sora.
That, to me, is where thosetools really are going to land.
So not feature films, notepisodic television, but a 30
(28:50):
second spot or a 15 second spotor a two minute spot, you know,
on YouTube or through TikTok.
I think that is where you'regoing to see an awful lot of the
production going down the AIroute.
So I think that end of theindustry is going to come under
a lot of employment pressure.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So one of the jobs of a futurist is to look at trend
forecasting.
So how is AI changing trendforecasting and market research
in the creative fields?
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I think generally a lot of the first steps in
generating some kind of forecastor foresight probably is a
better word is starting withprompts on a keyboard at the
moment.
So I get clients who come to meand they go, I type this into
(29:40):
ChatGPT and it's given me thesefive trends to ChatGPT.
And it's given me these fivetrends.
Are they real or you know what?
Do you think they really meanfor my business?
I've got the generic out ofChatGPT but I really want to
know what it means to mystakeholders within my
organisation, to my people.
And I think that actually partof my work has grown because of
(30:05):
the arrival of tools likeChatGPT.
Because I think if I looked atmy portfolio before ChatGPT,
people used to come along to meand say I'd like you to do some
desk research and then I'd likeyou to come up with some trends,
come and do some workshops.
Now what they come along and goand says I have a bunch of
trends, I'd like you to work outwith my people which ones make
(30:26):
sense for us to do somethingabout, and then I'd like you to
try and turn that into some kindof project and that I think is
a smart use of the technology,and I think it's also quite
mature in recognising that thereare problems with the way these
tools are trained.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So we keep mentioning this figure of 2030.
Let's look beyond that.
It's only five years away.
What do you think beyond 2030,the creative industries will
look like?
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Well, I'd like to think they'll still be there for
a start.
What I do detect is anundercurrent of a return to what
I would call more authenticforms of production.
I'll just give you a very, verysimple example.
Recall more authentic forms ofproduction.
I'll just give you a very, verysimple example.
(31:13):
In the last couple of years, afilm format like proper film,
called VistaVision, that has notbeen used since the 1960s,
suddenly has become one of thego-to formats in filmmaking.
And I think what's happening isyou look at almost any aspect of
the creative industries and youcan definitely see there are
people who are going.
Well, you know you can have thisthing over here which was
produced in a factory or cameout of chat, gpt or you know I
(31:35):
can do this kind of bespokething and it's going to cost you
a bit more, but you know we canhave a dialogue around it and I
think that's kind of how theindustry is probably going to
segment itself.
There's going to be an awful lot.
You know, 2040, 2050, you knowthere's going to be an awful lot
of stuff that's literally justflowing straight off a keyboard,
(31:57):
regardless of who's behind thatkeyboard, and then there's
going to be a kernel of stuffwhich is going to be
extraordinary in the way thatgreat pieces of commercial art
can be, and I think that'sdefinitely going to be there and
probably going to be strongerthan most people think it is,
(32:19):
because I think if you look atthe younger generations that are
coming through, they seem tohave this thirst for things
which are much more experientialand that's not something you
can really automatically supplyjust by typing a prompt and
getting something out throughyour screen on your computer.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
So we've talked about generative AI.
The flavor of the year isagentic AI, and we're going to
see more and more of this.
Now let me cast your mind backto 2018.
I was on stage and I startedtalking about the day that we'll
have our own AI agent, and Ithink I was actually in front of
a bunch of creative or adpeople and I think they almost
did throw their stress toys atme because I said one day in the
(33:00):
future, we won't be looking atads because I'll have a digital
agent we now call it a Gentagaithat will actually look to buy
from another digital agent of aproduct that I need or want, and
humans won't be looking at ads.
I said that back in 2018.
I actually found a video of mesaying it in 2019.
And on stage at CES this year,shelley Palmer basically said
(33:23):
we're going to have to write adsfor robots.
We're not there yet, but talkme through how that changes
everything when I'm no longerneeding to look at ads for
consumables.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I think it comes down to market segmentation, isn't
it really?
I mean, if you're talking aboutyour next weekly shop, I'm sure
that is not very far away.
Your next weekly shop, I'm surethat is not very far away.
I think if you're about to go,and you know, shop for your
wedding dress, that's probablynot going to be the case, so I
think you have to kind ofsegment the market that way.
(33:55):
I think what it does do, though, is it says something about the
nature of things likeadvertising and promotion
budgets, for instance.
You know why would you spend anawful lot of money on the
creative side if all you'redoing is producing something
(34:16):
that a large language model isgoing to pick between?
I think it will shift the waythat the AMP spend goes.
And again, I think what we'llbe looking at in some ways is a
very old thing, which is, peoplewill suddenly rediscover the
power of brand equity, andthey'll start thinking, hmm, if
we are going to produce some adsfor humans, then they have got
(34:39):
to enhance the value of thebrand.
They haven't necessarily got topersuade people to shop, and
that's where we are at themoment, is that we have mostly a
lot of advertisements that arereally just persuading people to
spend money through a retailchannel of some sort.
So I think we're going to seethis massive swing back to brand
development, brand building,all of those kind of good things
(35:03):
.
Development, brand building,all of those kind of good things
.
And I think within that world, Ithink where these AI tools and
the agentic AI tools work to alarge extent is about automation
of research processes, forinstance, for consumer market
insight.
I mean, you and I have bothdone this.
You know, you commission like20 different reports on
different market segments, andthen you think, oh my God, I've
(35:25):
got to read these things andmake sense of it.
And I can see a situation wherean agent could, you know,
handle the commissioning process.
It could handle the initialfeedback process.
It could then provide concisesummaries for different
departments, it could solicitstakeholder feedback and then it
could produce some kind ofaction plan out of the end of it
(35:47):
.
So all of that kind of thingthere is, I think, quite close
actually.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So final question before we go to the quickfire
round If I'm a creativelistening to this podcast,
should I worry about AI andshould I be upskilling to stay
ahead and leverage the power ofAI?
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Yes, you should worry about it, because if you don't,
somebody else in your job roleis going to be worrying about it
and thinking, hmm, how do I usethis to my advantage?
I think, in terms of upskilling, definitely.
I mean, I think it is a realissue right across creative
industries is that there are alot of people who are quite
(36:23):
nervous of the terminologyaround these things, or they
think that engaging with some ofthese tools is going to be
vastly complex and interestingly.
I mean I.
So I.
I have a, a client who um uses atool called blender, and
blender is used for know kind ofcreating beautiful visual
effects or part of the visualeffects process.
(36:45):
It's very, very complicatedindeed and he's terrified of
using AI tools.
So I think, well, hang on asecond, you can cope with
Blender, which freaks me outcompletely, and but AI is too
much.
So I think this is there's alack of a lingua franca between
(37:06):
the creatives and thetechnologists.
That kind of gets in the way.
So I think, definitely upskill,don't be so afraid you won't
try so we're almost out of time.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
We're up to my favorite part of the show, the
quickfire round, when we learnmore about our guests.
Window or aisle, always theaisle.
I wish that ai could do all ofmy laundry.
You arery.
You are the, I think, 12thguest to say that the first
thing I asked ChatGPT was Isthis email spam and what did it
tell you?
Speaker 3 (37:30):
It said it was and was it?
It was the app you use most onyour phone Things.
It builds itself really as akind of more like a structure my
thinking structure, my daystructure, my year capture notes
, the best advice you've everreceived To go for Distinguished
(37:52):
Engineer at IBM, which was notsomething I'd even remotely
thought of, but actually openedup a great world for me.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
And, as you and I know, it's a big deal at IBM
because they revereDistinguished Engineers so
highly.
Congratulations, that's a hugeaward, thank you.
What are you reading at themoment?
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Well, apart from your book Digitally Curious, I'm
reading Sarah Hall's latestnovel, which is called Helm,
which is about the only wind inthe UK that has a name.
Who should I invite next ontothe podcast?
How about Joe Keerans?
Joe works at the moment for oneof the creative agencies and
(38:31):
also he runs something calledthe Global Footwear Coalition
and they're doing some really,really interesting stuff with
people who make shoes.
How do you want to beremembered?
I think I'd like to beremembered as somebody that
helped others to develop theirabilities.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Now, I'm all about being actionable.
It's in my brand and my title.
So what three actionable thingsshould our audience do today to
understand how creatives canuse AI for good?
Speaker 3 (39:01):
If they haven't got a full paid account with ChatGPT
or one of the others, then Iwould suggest they do that,
because that will allow them tomore fully explore the
capabilities of these tools.
I think the second thing thatthey should do is to look in
(39:21):
online magazines like theHollywood Reporter and Variety,
and look at the more specialistkind of online journals, like
American Cinematographer, andtry and get a sense of how both
the business and the kind ofmore technical sides of at least
(39:43):
the film industry are reallygrappling with these, these
tools, because I think actuallyit's much more visible there.
I'm not saying that's the onlypart of the creative industries
that's really doing this on a ona large scale, um, but if you
try and, for instance, explorethe games world, it's much more
difficult to look inside it, andif you look in publishing, you
(40:04):
will struggle to find anything,but so I would encourage people
to do that.
I think that's my second one,kind of read broadly, and then I
think the third one is I'dencourage people to try and
build their own agent using anyof the tools that are out there,
because it's not particularlydifficult, and even if it's just
something as simple as a bit ofdiary scheduling or
(40:25):
manipulating some spreadsheets.
It's, it's a great learningexperience and it will do two
things it will take some of thefear out of it and it will make
you realize just how, far fromtaking over the world,
terminator style, thesetechnologies are.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Quick aside, in terms of building agents, I use 11
labs to create a voice agent andI just said to the organizers
can you send me the PDF of yourmenu for the day?
I uploaded the PDF.
I then interrogated live infront of an audience booking a
seat, asking what was on themenu, explaining there were
people with food intolerance,what would the replacements be,
and without any training otherthan a PDF, it was able to do
(41:00):
that.
It blew the minds of theaudience.
It blew my mind.
Other than a PDF.
It was able to do that.
It blew the minds of theaudience.
It blew my mind and I could dothat in 15 seconds.
So you're right.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
You need to play with these things to understand what
they can do.
Fun fact about 11 Labs is that11 Labs was one of the founders,
is the brother of somebody thatyou and I used to work with at
IBM, and I'll leave you toGoogle him and find out who it
is 11 Labs is one of my favoritetools that I use, and there's
the andrew grill voice clone,trevor.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
This has been a fantastic discussion.
How can we find out more aboutyou and your work?
Speaker 3 (41:30):
I have a website, wwwcuriousdemoncom, or people
can just look me up on linkedin,where you'll see me posting
quite regularly I'm going to aska follow-up question.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
If I was looking to craft an AI prompt to find your
website, what would I ask?
Speaker 3 (41:47):
it.
That's a good one.
I would probably say look forsomebody who used to work at IBM
that spends all their timewatching films and working on
sustainability, and that wouldprobably find me.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Trevor, it's always a delight to talk to you.
Great to see you again.
Thanks for coming on the showand stay curious.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I will do my very best, Andrew.
Thank you again.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Thank you for listening to Digitally Curious.
You can find out more aboutAndrew his keynote speeches and
brand partnerships atactionablefuturistcom.
You can order the compendiumbook to this podcast at
curiousclick slash order.
Until next time, stay curious.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.