From

Charles Costa

Advertising Reporting Director

Few festivals concentrate as much content as South by Southwest (SXSW), the meeting born 37 years ago in Austin, Texas, as a celebration of music, today presents the technological breakthroughs that will soon change the way we live, work and play. But SXSW isn’t just about music and technology, it’s also cinema, comedy, gaming and new forms of storytelling. This year we’ve seen a new star for the first time, learned why de-extinction of the mammoth matters, how we can apply AI to creative work, and new treatments for struggling mental health.

The event that brings together more than 270,000 people and 1,500 conferences organizes its programming in 25 tracks that allow us to immerse ourselves for a while in the future.

On the music track, Argentina was present with the performance of Tiago PZK who rocked the audience on March 15 in Mala Vida and with Dat García giving a trademarked show at Speakeasy. On the Film track, director Tomás Gómez Bustillo made his debut with “Crónicas de una Santa Errante”, the film starring the great Mónica Villa and for which Gómez Bustillo received the Adam Yaucht Hornblower Award, recognition for a unique and timeless proposal time.

Argentina also surprised at the XR exhibition (extended reality) of the festival with “Eggscape”, a fun mixed reality game created by 3dar, the Argentinian company that reached second place in Latin America in the world ranking of the 50 most innovative companies of the prestigious Fast Company. A playful and shared experience of immersive entertainment that combines virtual reality with real scenarios.

If 2022 has been invaded by the crypto and web3 world, the concept that dominated the scene this year was Artificial Intelligence with the irruption of the GPT Chats. The AI ​​based chat system is trained to do language related tasks, you can write an article, marketing plan, social media post or recipe. Launched in November 2022, it is the application with the highest adoption in history (100 million active users per month) and the tool that seems to revolutionize all sectors. That’s why the presence of Greg Brockman, the co-founder of OpenAI (responsible for Chat GPT), was a must. “Chat is about amplifying what humans can do. It’s like having six assistants. They aren’t perfect, you have to train them and they get it wrong from time to time, but they are eager to help. It is a tool capable of synthesizing information, predicting and seeing patterns. It’s great at the beginning and end of processes, to unlock the blank page and spark ideas,” Brockman explained and added, “We’re clearly moving into a world where the internet is alive. he understands you and helps you”. Quantum futurist Amy Webb presented her report on technology trends and warned about the risk of being left out of these new technologies “Generative AI is ubiquitous, invisible and will change our society. But today we don’t have the knowledge of basis for using these tools. That leads to, “There’s a big gap between those who will be able to use AI and those who won’t. And it is more complex in the case of young people. We ban tools like GPT Chat in schools and colleges instead of perfecting ourselves at it,” Webb pointed out.

For the CEO of FIT, artificial intelligence will undoubtedly have many advantages. We will soon rely on artificial intelligence to learn, work and govern, but still has some issues to resolve: preconceptions, prejudices and a great lack of common sense.

But don’t panic, according to experts artificial intelligence doesn’t steal our jobs, It comes to empower us like any good tool. You just have to be clear where, how and what to use it for. What is AI good at? “In those jobs that humans don’t like to do. Productivity and efficiency are for robots. A terrible metric for humans. Conversely, science, innovation, exploration and art are properly human, because they are inefficient and need error to advance. said Kevin Kelly, writer and founder of the legendary Wired magazine, who understands artificial intelligence as a PPU: Universal Personal Intern. Some kind of co-pilot, guide, assistant, who it helps produce better but it doesn’t do your job. In this centaur-like integration of humans and AI, programmers, for example, are 56% more productive and writers complete tasks 37% faster.

Past and future

Ben Lamm presented the latest progress of Project Colossal, the ambitious epic which, in the best Jurassic Park style, seeks, far from science fiction and with the help of Al, regenerate the DNA sequence of extinct species that are essential for recovering the biodiversity of our planet, protect critically endangered species and repopulate ecosystems. An environmental proposal that has already raised more than 225 million dollars for the development of genetic engineering and reproductive technology, and which today works on the genomes of the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian wolf and the dodo.

NASA’s James Webb Telescope presented it to us a new era of astronomy, with the largest and most complex observatory ever launched into space. Led by Knicole Colón, Macarena Garcia Marin, Stefanie Milam and Amber Straughn (scientists from NASA and ESA), we witnessed the first images of the star Wolf-Ryan. “This is a very exciting time for science and astronomy. We discover stars that are bigger and brighter than expected. Webb allows us to see new galaxies and molecules. We are rewriting the manuals. These images are for everyone to inspire us and get to know each other better,” the astroscientists shared.

Another time, SXSW has allowed us to uncover the themes that keep the brightest minds of our time awake and peek into a future where humanity cannot risk losing importance.

journalistic production: Majo Acosta and Marta González Muguruza of Austin, Texas.