00:41:14 · Sofia Puccini, Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:41:14] S1: a little Yeah. Yeah. [00:41:16] S0: So that was, like, that movie, and then there's another short film that I made called Why Aliens Love America, which also uses AI, and we showed that earlier this year at the White Hotel. [00:41:26] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:41:29] S0: Yeah, I think that's... Especially, like, once again, like, I'm I'm writing about aliens. I'm making a movie about aliens. It makes sense that I want to think about this alien superintelligence. [00:41:37] S1: Yes. Yeah. Totally. I completely... I mean, I totally see that as, like, a use case. I just feel... I feel like if you remember when Dolly first came out, and it was such a cool experimental thing. And I remember I was, like, writing... Like, I did a lot of short story writing in the past. And then I was, like, starting to do stuff with music. Mhmm. And I was, like, a lot of the things I naturally want, the stories I wanna tell are about future scenarios. Or... And they involve AI as a character. And so I I just remember that era when AI was still very nascent and weird, and it was like an indie thing. Mhmm. And so I used it a lot and, like, talked about it a lot and referenced it. And then now it's become, like, such a meta character in, like, everything that we do. And it just kinda feels like it was never supposed to be the main character. [00:42:25] S0: Mhmm.
00:42:25 · Ruby Justice Thelot, Sofia Puccini
[00:42:25] S0: Mhmm. [00:42:25] S1: Like, it was all... It it was supposed to be something that we could still, I don't know, like like reference and dream about in our own way. And now it's... Everyone thinks of the same thing. Like, think of, like, the same two companies when they think about AI. And they don't think about this, like, amorphous blob that used to be a main, like, theme in science fiction. You know?
00:42:45 · Ruby Justice Thelot, Sofia Puccini
[00:42:45] S0: Yeah. I mean, I am, my dear friend Alexia Adana, who is now at Luma, Luma AI, was the video artist in residence at OpenAI when they had that program with Sora. And what she was doing was really, really cool because what she noticed is the thing Minne Atairu noticed and that a lot of thinkers like myself were, like, at the intersection of, like, blackness and AI. Realized that, oh, there's some things that are not in the dataset. Yeah. And so for for Alexia, for Minae, for people like this, it became a possibility to build these sort of alternative datasets that had... That represented, I think, their respective communities. And specifically for Alexia, who's almost like a futurist in how she approaches her art... Like, she has a... If you go on her Instagram page, we'll make sure to link to it. It's, like, really crazy stuff she's able to make with these different models and whatnot. But they are centered on a black woman and, like, how she can exist in the future. I mean, I also thought that was very beautiful and very interesting. Like, once again, it's the same thing that I talked about yesterday with techno and and and the techno rebel techno rebel by way of Toffler, how technology as a means to empower oneself. Yeah. And I think that that's what's very interesting to me in that work. Do you find that the stuff you see online, whether it be the media pipe stuff, whatever. Like, do do do The Yeah. Yeah. The touch designer stuff. [00:44:17] S1: Like, do
00:44:17 · Sofia Puccini, Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:44:17] S1: Like, do [00:44:17] S0: you, like, do you find that it's in line with, like, the self empowering? Or, like, how do you [00:44:23] S1: I don't know. It's weird. I... It feels like we're in, like, a truly, like, chaotic soup of content right now [00:44:31] S0: Mhmm. [00:44:31] S1: That's, like, half... It's like some of it is mildly impressive. Like, very... I think few pieces of content elicit, like, a very strong emotional reaction in me. I think there's, like, been a few times this year, and I like to think a lot about Instagram edits. Like, if you if you ever, like... There's a show that you like and somebody makes a really impressive edit of it, I feel like that's, like, such a powerful, evocative, like, form of art and has been for a while. So... Yeah. So it's just like whenever I'm, like, scrolling and I'm looking through these, like, touch designer projects or, like, edited videos, there's stuff that's, like, pretty impressive, but it all kind of tends towards the same thing. [00:45:12] S0: Mhmm.
00:45:12 · Ruby Justice Thelot, Sofia Puccini
[00:45:12] S0: Mhmm. [00:45:13] S1: Like, it it feels like we all mode collapsed in a in a way. And it's nowhere near, like, some... For example, in, like like, growing up when I was watching music videos on YouTube, and there were truly people taking it in, like, striking directions that was just, like, so weird and and truly, like, came from their own minds. And I feel like that era of YouTube is, like, kind of dead. The best that we have now is, like, short form that's, like, kind of creative. I've been, like, trying to find the, like, beauty in short form for a while. Like, because I think there there are reels that have moved me. You know? They exist. I... But I was... [00:45:49] S0: Someone made a someone made, like, a a list... A canon list of, like, the best... They had, like, the Casey Frey dancing video with the the... They're just like these... To me, there's like... As as a cybernography, like, there's these moments on the Internet that are so... I watched that, and I was laughing, crying because those videos were still so Yeah. Funny and impactful. [00:46:10] S1: Yeah. Yeah. [00:46:10] S0: Yeah. Yeah. And I think... You know what? I teach in a creative technology program, into a design and media. Like, the students can kinda do whatever they want with technology. Yeah. And I think the main thing that I tell them is, like, why are you making this? Sometimes when I see the touch designer thing with the things, I'm like, I'm not exactly sure what this is for. Yeah. [00:46:30] S1: And what's the purpose?
00:46:30 · Sofia Puccini, Ruby Justice Thelot
[00:46:30] S1: And what's the purpose? [00:46:31] S0: I don't know. But then again, like, art does not does not need a purpose per se. Yeah. But it really falls into this weird thing. Is it design? Is it art? Is it, and I guess it depends on the intent of the actual creator. But I'm often like, okay. But, like... Because we've we've seen the image in Heap glove. Like, we we know that this is possible. Is there something specific that you're trying to show with this, or is this just, you know, just a portfolio, just showing your technical ability and it's just like your... What you're able to do? In which... But that's also fine. You might just be looking for a job. [00:47:05] S1: I... No. I I totally agree. I also think, like, it's weird that that... I don't know how this has felt to you if you still use TikTok. I don't know what your, like, social media diet is right now. [00:47:16] S0: It's my TikTok weekend right now, so I'm having a great time.