"You shouldn't be afraid of AI," says Joshua Davis at OFFF Barcelona

AI is a big topic right now, which means that it's inevitably come up a lot during this year's OFFF Barcelona. In his talk, Max Ottignon of Ragged Edge shared how technology, algorithms and society are leading us to an age of convergence, where everything looks the same, and "AI is making it easy to make more of the same". He gave some tips on how people can create brands that are different, but he also talked about the "fight against AI, against apathy and against algorithms". 

The next talk consisted of a panel, where the discussion quickly turned to AI, and the feeling was that creatives shouldn't be fighting the technology, but instead should embrace it as an AI art tool, as long as they know how to use it properly.

Visual artist Joshua Davis said he was: "all in for AI," and likened the AI revolution as "how painters felt when cameras showed up". He said it has "such immense potential as a tool," and admitted he is even training AI on his own work. 

Director duo Vallée Duhamel said that they use AI for brainstorming. "To brainstorm, Midjourney is the go-to tool," said Julien Vallée. "Though what it produces is 95 per cent bad."

Aside from the results being bad from an artistic point of view, digital fashion artist Stephy Fung warned that you need to be careful when writing your prompt, because the results "can be stereotypical". She likened AI to social media, where the algorithm knows what you like and therefore shows you the same stuff over and over. In terms of inspiration, "don't solely focus on AI," she said. "Take outside inspiration too."

Vincent Lammers of creative company Buck agreed that creatives should use a range of tools. "Don't stick to one thing," he said. "AI shouldn't be the only thing you do." 

Still worried AI is gonna take your job? "If you have the mentality that everything out to fuck you, you're in the wrong industry," said Joshua. "You should not be afraid of AI."

A few hours later, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister touched on AI at the end of his chat with Ben Tallon, who is an illustrator. "Ultimately, we'll do a lot with AI," Sagmeister said, "but we'll have to take care of the side effects in the future." Sagmeister was not pessimistic though, saying that if he had a time machine, he'd like to travel to the future. "50-70 years from now is gonna be mind-boggling." Indeed, who knows what we'll be doing with AI then.

Find out more about OFFF Barcelona.