Listen to this articleIt’s a really fashionable conjurer’s trick: Create a SXSW speak out of skinny air, with the assistance of generative AI. That’s what whurley did this year in Austin.
It took 9 weeks for whurley — a staple of the Austin tech scene — to create and put together for a keynote at SXSW 2018, the place he would debut Strangeworks, a quantum computing startup he co-founded and runs. Five years later, generative AI would complete the duty in only a few hours.
And it was really fairly good. The 45-minute speech was complete, fascinating and struck a whurley-like tone. There was one swear phrase (fuck) and some jokes (together with two lawyer ones) that the viewers laughed at. It appeared that the trickiest half, at the least whereas he was on stage, was studying the script the AI had provided off of his pill. (Whurley is understood for his free-wheeling model on the SXSW stage, the place he’s an everyday.)
The kicker? He waited till the end to ship the punchline.
“Everything today from the slides to the speech I’m reading now is created by generative AI,” he said onstage before launching into the how and why of all of it. A buzz of whispers, wows and chuckles unfold by means of the room crammed with tons of of SXSW attendees.
Strangeworks may simply be the first startup to faucet generative AI for all of its on — and off — stage content at SXSW. And whereas it’s a novel and enjoyable demonstration, the experiment also illustrates the flexibleness of AI instruments and its rising reputation.
Why trouble? Exposure and education, whurley told TechCrunch this week after the occasion.
“We are on the verge of the greatest period of technological advances in the history of mankind. I feel people are not only not ready for this, they’re not even aware it’s happening. I wanted to put a spotlight on it,” he said. “We’re going to see more changes in the next decade than we have in the past 100 years. People can naysay it all they want, but the technological change about to occur can not be stopped. The convergence of quantum computing and AI will be a step function, if not several step functions, for scientific discovery and advancement.”
The course of
The experiment began as many do — with a restricted scope. Whurley used generative AI back in October 2022 to jot down an outline for his SXSW speak entitled “Quantum AI: Why Your Future Depends on Quantum Computing & Artificial Intelligence.” And no he didn’t inform SXSW organizers.
“This all started with a prompt,” he said whereas onstage. “I said write a South by Southwest abstract of 800 words. Here’s the concept, here’s a title I gave it and a few points and everything you saw on South by Southwest website was created by ChatGPT. And I submitted it.”
ChatGPT is the image- and text-understanding AI mannequin powered by GPT 3.5 and developed by OpenAI. A brand new model of the underlying engine, GPT-4, was released March 14.
His immediate was:
Write an 800 phrase summary for a SXSW keynote for a session called “QuantumAI: Why your future depends on the convergence of Quantum Computing & Artificial Intelligence” in which the speaker discusses the advances in quantum computing and synthetic intelligence, the challenges dealing with our species, and the inevitable convergence that will result in a quantum tremendous intelligence that can endlessly change our world.
Just days before the SXSW featured session, whurley determined to take it further. He requested the AI to make use of the summary to create a top level view of what the presentation may look like. After just a few tweaks (or “reprompting” as he calls it), the define met his approval.
His immediate:
This is nice, I must provide you with sufficient slides to debate this matter for an hour. Can you recommend what a possible out line for a 1 hour speak on this might be?
Whurley shared it along with his crew at Strangeworks and collectively they determined to go all in. “At that point, I told them the plan was to start on everything needed for the keynote tomorrow at 11:30 a.m.,” he told TechCrunch.
Strangeworks’ artistic crew Casey Barthels, Nicole Majeske and Ada Onyiuke used Midjourney, an AI generative artwork instrument, to make the slides and graphics for the presentation. And then they upped the ante once more by having Midjourney create the story and graphics in a seven-page printed publication that includes the Strangeworks mascot Schrody Cat. The publication was handed out to attendees.
Image Credits: Kirsten Korosec
“And then the night before last, I thought if did an outline, the abstract and all the slides, why can’t we just put words in my mouth too?” he said. Whurley took all of his earlier prompts and fed it into GPT-4, which had been released Tuesday.
In different phrases, what would change into the final script, graphics and slides had been created the morning of the keynote. And they cut it shut. “As we pulled into the hotel at almost 11 am on the dot, I took the final version of the script and cut and pasted it into the teleprompter software I had downloaded to my iPad,” he wrote to TechCrunch in a textual content following the occasion.
“It’s certainly the biggest risk I’ve ever taken at SXSW,” he said.
The generative AI was also used to create whurley’s private web site, which debuted Wednesday, that includes tons of of blogs in whurley’s voice. He labored with collaborator David Hudson of Big Human on the weblog mission.
Those blogs had been deleted to make way for one more mission that launched Thursday. The Strangeworks CEO ran the immediate by means of ChatGPT once more, this time asking it to publish the web site and blogs in 10 languages, together with Spanish, Chinese, Italian and Arabic.
Whurley said the response has been overwhelmingly constructive. He noted that just a few people who’re anti AI/expertise have made snide feedback or veiled threats via social media, however “again the detractors are few and far between.”
Strangeworks could be the first startup to depend on AI to create every little thing it brought to SXSW by Kirsten Korosec initially revealed on TechCrunch
