What I Took Away from the Grimes Talk at UT Austin
During a recent talk with Grimes and her collaborators, the audience got a unique perspective on creativity and ethical questions for artists in the “Age of AI”
Earlier this week, UT Austin’s School of Design and Creative Technologies hosted a “Conversation with Grimes,” which featured the now-Austin-based artist and her music and gaming industry collaborators Mac Boucher, Daouda Leonard, and Koto Murai in conversation with the school’s assistant dean, Doreen Lorenzo.
I must admit, I feel behind the times. I didn’t discover the work of Grimes until she started receiving all of the media hype that comes with dating Elon Musk. Then, after reading her Vanity Fair cover story, an exceptional example of profile storytelling, my curiosity was further piqued. The story revealed Grimes to me as a smart, independent, innovative thinker. For someone like me, who’s passionate about the arts and creativity, she stood out as someone to watch. So, about a year later, when I heard that Grimes would be on campus, I signed up to hear her thoughts.
I arrived at the LBJ Auditorium on April 24 not knowing what to expect, but fully leaning into my curiosity. I hoped to hear a little about using generative AI to create visual art and music, and what it could mean for the future of creativity and artists’ rights. For all of us in the audience, we got some of that and much more, from actionable insights on fostering and maintaining creative inspiration to fresh takes on the role of collaboration in the arts from someone who’s shifted from self-producing every element of her work to working closely with a team that shares enthusiasm for pushing the boundaries of art as far as possible, to the point that something novel emerges.
Here are a few of my key takeaways:
(These are based on handwritten notes, jotted down during the event. I tried to be accurate, but these may not be precise quotes.)
On Being Open to Open Sourcing: Regarding copyrighting efforts by artists and companies, Grimes says, “It seems like fighting the inevitable and fighting creativity.” She’s in favor of open-sourcing and taking advantage of the attention economy. She mentioned that she’s always been inspired by other artists and creators, and encourages creatives to use “whatever is available to them.” (This came on the heels of a tweet she posted earlier that day, “‘I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”). “Don’t be scared [of putting your work out there to be used by others’] — be open to innovation. People collectively building worlds and sharing imagination will propel everyone further.” Grimes mentioned examples — like Star Wars and Anime fan fiction cultures — to emphasize how being open to sharing material has benefitted creators. She revisited this idea toward the end of the talk, “Power will shift to the people who care the least about ownership and copyright.”
On Finding the Right Collaborators: Koto Murai encouraged, “It starts with finding people who share a common goal and intention.” Grimes explained that she views art as a decentralized, collective process. She was filled with passion when she remarked, “A human brain that you’re in sync with is ultimately the best tool…it’s not like Grimes + 1, it’s like Grimes2 (“Grimes squared”).”
On Nurturing Your Creativity: Grimes talked about “optimizing her neural plasticity” by reading for a least one solid hour each day and dabbling in psychedelics. What really resonated with me were the 7 things Daouda Leonard mentioned he does each day, including focusing on meditative and intentional breathing, making time for physical movement, and appreciating the art of others.
On Building Fear Tolerance: “Creativity is failing,” said Grimes. She spoke to the number of songs of hers or projects she started that went nowhere — comprising the majority of her work. She encouraged UT Austin students to build up the fear tolerance. Other panelists, including Leonard and Boucher, added that when an idea feels dangerous, it’s probably the most interesting one to put to the test. (There’s a line to be drawn, though. Grimes divulged, somewhat hesitantly, an idea her team had discussed — creating an OnlyFans account using a Grimes DeepFake — and explained why she had decided that idea was too dangerous to pursue. Apparently she had tested the idea a bit and her avatar fell in love with Koto.)
On Bypassing Gatekeepers: Grimes does not subscribe or tie herself to any label. She feels that technology better allows us to forge our own paths. With the technology and platforms we have today, who needs gatekeepers or professional curators? Grimes prefers public curation. “We can see more diversity of the human spirit and more weirdness,” she says, “when you allow things to organically rise to the top.”
On Artists Building the Future: The panel discussed how artists are needed in all sectors, and how artists can benefit from not seeing industry or engineering as oppositional. “We need to engage with Silicon Valley,” urged Grimes, “Artists have a moral imperative to try to shape the future and approach engineers and corporations.” Artists can help show technologists and businesses how they can design better.
On How AI is Changing Art & Processes: Panelists seem to agree that generative AI tools are helping to create a culture where it’s cool to test, experiment, and push boundaries. Grimes shared her thoughts on time and relevance, calling this the era of “Early AI Art,” and describing it as “a perfect relic of this time.” She mused on how it fascinates her that some visual art may only be relevant for 4 weeks based on how quickly technologies evolve, but that some work that is perceived as failure now is work we may look back on ten years from now and appreciate. The panel elaborated to examine the idea of permanence. With nothing in life being permanent, why are we attracted to the idea? It could be holding us back as artists. Panelists also talked about how generative AI is creating increased access and driving the free and open source mentality mentioned above, creating a new “neighborhood of thought.” “Now’s the time to play,” said Koto Murai.
Creative Consumption: The panelists riffed off of one another as they explored this concept of consuming art while you create art. They gave examples like using Midjourney, where creatives simultaneously take in what other people are creating in the stream and also share their own creative work. The way they explored this reminded me a bit of platforms like Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s HitRecord or even an old-school equisite corpse exercise. Perhaps technology is providing us with an even more connected, immersive and immersive way to participate in co-creation, and with new capabilities?
On the Questions AI is Raising for Artists: What is the value of original art when you can train and AI on someone’s voice and easily create “the Kanye album you never had, but always wanted”? What happens when we’ve “fictionalized reality” as we experience the rampant spread of disinformation? What happens when we confuse entertainment with reality? How do we perceive consciousness and sentience? Will we consider Twitter accounts that use DeepFake tech to be art? These are a few of the questions the panel raised.
On What AI Will Eliminate: Mac Boucher said, “Advertising will collapse,” hinting at ChatGPT, bots, and artifically inflated metrics. He talked about how metrics will not be trusted, and the industry will need to redefine itself. Other panelists suggested that a lot of businesses will seem “old, outdated, and boring,” and will need artists to intervene. And, with ChatGPT writing our blogs, news articles, speeches, ad copy, and more, panelists imagined that language as we know it today will disappear. We’ll need to re-learn how to use language, at a foundational level, perhaps learning language in conjunction with and in relation to the code, hardware, and software that we use in our daily lives.
On Ethical AI: When it came to pressing ethical issues related to the use of AI technologies and the rapid pace of development, the panel touched on the damage of trust in society as a result of the rampant spread of misinformation. “When it comes to [AI ethics] I feel like we haven’t even cracked what those are… we are not thinking long-term.” Grimes emphasized that AI safety and alignment is the most important thing we can focus on right now. She said we need a great public discourse about AI safety. She also suggested that society will want to create “low-tech enclaves” to give people the right to opt-out of having certain technologies in their lives. She sees a world where people choose their path and lifestyle, and we have room for high-tech and low-tech champions to exist together. Daouda Leonard talked about the dangers of bias in the way we currently train AI tools, “AI exists because someone fed it us,” he stated. He encourages us to approach AI with humility and empathy. “We have to feed AI what we want to get out of it,” he explained, and that means helping it to be better than we are, with all of the faults of our own human biases and evils. Grimes built on his comments, “AI could be like raising a child and trying to break the generational trauma of all humanity.”
Advice for Educators: Panelists encouraged educators to teach students in the arts management, and to connect them with opportunities to shadow people and intern, ultimately to empower themselves. Grimes mentioned how she’s “shadowed people close to genius, for better or worse” at SpaceX and Midjourney. Daouda Leonard shared that he felt it was important for educators to teach breathing techniques in school, at all grade levels, because controlling your breathing allows you to feel more in control of yourself and your destiny. Koto Murai encouraged faculty to encourage “cheating” and not to block anything or any method. “Colleges have value as incubation spaces,” he said. Mac Boucher suggested that material sciences may emerge as an important field of study, because we’ll need to learn how to translate digital information into the physical world. I’m not totally clear on this, but Grimes saw this as related to “transhumanist cyborgism.”
Grimes’ Advice for Students: Grimes studied computer science in college, and, while she did not finish her degree, mentioned that it opened up new understanding and possibilities for her as a creative. She expressed that she felt AI Alignment and AI Safety was the most promising and important field students could be part of. When asked what advice she would give to students in the arts, she shared two questions she asks herself each day: “How can I be passionate? and How can I be helpful?”
I walked away from the talk feeling hopeful and excited about the potential for boundary-breaking creativity that we can all seize right now. The present looks bright.
