Tech, Innovation & Society - The Creative Process: Technology, AI, Software, Future, Economy, Science, Engineering & Robotics Interviews

What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be?  In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning?Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, and the Booker Prize 2022 for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. Born in Colombo, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore.www.shehanwriter.comhttps://wwnorton.com/books/9781324064824www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto credit: David Parry/Booker Prize Foundation

What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be?  In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning?Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, and the Booker Prize 2022 for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. Born in Colombo, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore."But I always think new ideas are what have led us forward. And new ideas, they come out of the humanities. They come out of understanding the classics, psychology, philosophy, and sociology, and being able to think.I think I'm okay for a couple more books before the robots start writing Booker Prize-winning novels. At the moment I think we're okay because I've tried this technology, and I think it's at the level of a junior copywriter who works hard. The first draft and all of that. But who knows where it's going to go? And we're all reminded this technology is in its infancy. So it's conceivable that these things are going to be writing novels and writing pretty good novels. Perhaps AI can write a formulaic detective thriller? But I don't think it's going to produce a Margaret Atwood or a Salman Rushdie. I think the real challenge is to write stuff that hasn't been written before. And that's what we are all trying to do. So the technology can replicate what's been done before, but the real novels that are going to move us, the stories that are going to move us, are the stuff that hasn't been done before. And that's where I think writers come in. And that's where an understanding of the humanities and being able to come up with new ideas rather than just replicate or rehash new ideas...I think we're still going to need human brains. And there's still room for originality because we think everything's been done, but I think it's just a fraction. There are lots of ideas out there, so I'm hopeful. I'm not too worried. And if this ChatGPT will help me. Instead of spending seven years on a novel, if I can knock out a novel in seven weeks, I'll be happier. The more writing I can do."www.shehanwriter.comhttps://wwnorton.com/books/9781324064824www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto credit: David Parry/Booker Prize Foundation

"Death is the imperfection of life. Because life is just a fleeting thing for everyone, for all of us. And so there's no way that a black box AI can know death. So AI can never, in that sense, know life, because every day you walk, you think. So AI doesn't touch us because we exist on a level of such mortal frailty and mortal cruelty, and mortal love, and hate, and jealousy, and insecurity and freedom and joy and wackiness, and being in the moment.We used to edit film on a flatbed. And every time you would take a scissors and make a cut and if you made the wrong cut you had to put the pieces back together and it wasn't a simple little thing.I believe Angels and Insects was the last film edited on a flatbed. Anybody who looks at that film sees the difference in the edit because when you choose to do something really thoughtfully and carefully as opposed to like, you know, I could put that scene there and I could put that scene here and what we've done today is we've made everything so fast and so easy that I think there's something to the creative process about it being a little bit more of an exploration than it is wham bam, it's done. Let's go have lunch. And I think there is something to the creative process where it's allowed to develop. It's called process because it is a process." -Catherine CurtinWhy do we make art? What can the performing arts teach us about how to engage in dialogues to overcome conflict and division?Our guests today are actress Catherine Curtin and artistic director Kate Mueth. Curtin is known for her roles on Stranger Things, Homeland, and Insecure. She played correctional officer Wanda Bell in Orange Is the New Black, and for this role she was a joint winner of two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.Mueth is the Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning dance theater company The Neo-Political Cowgirls that seeks to deepen and challenge the ways in which audiences experience stories and awaken their human connection. Based in East Hampton, New York they have performed to audiences in America and Europe.www.imdb.com/name/nm0193160/www.npcowgirls.orgwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Why do we make art? What can the performing arts teach us about how to engage in dialogues to overcome conflict and division?Our guests today are actress Catherine Curtin and artistic director Kate Mueth. Curtin is known for her roles on Stranger Things, Homeland, and Insecure. She played correctional officer Wanda Bell in Orange Is the New Black, and for this role she was a joint winner of two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.Mueth is the Founder and Artistic Director of the award-winning dance theater company The Neo-Political Cowgirls that seeks to deepen and challenge the ways in which audiences experience stories and awaken their human connection. Based in East Hampton, New York they have performed to audiences in America and Europe."Death is the imperfection of life. Because life is just a fleeting thing for everyone, for all of us. And so there's no way that a black box AI can know death. So AI can never, in that sense, know life, because every day you walk, you think. So AI doesn't touch us because we exist on a level of such mortal frailty and mortal cruelty, and mortal love, and hate, and jealousy, and insecurity and freedom and joy and wackiness, and being in the moment.We used to edit film on a flatbed. And every time you would take a scissors and make a cut and if you made the wrong cut you had to put the pieces back together and it wasn't a simple little thing.I believe Angels and Insects was the last film edited on a flatbed. Anybody who looks at that film sees the difference in the edit because when you choose to do something really thoughtfully and carefully as opposed to like, you know, I could put that scene there and I could put that scene here and what we've done today is we've made everything so fast and so easy that I think there's something to the creative process about it being a little bit more of an exploration than it is wham bam, it's done. Let's go have lunch. And I think there is something to the creative process where it's allowed to develop. It's called process because it is a process." -Catherine Curtinwww.imdb.com/name/nm0193160/www.npcowgirls.orgwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"One of the things we have to do is we have to increase the rate of learning. We are entering into increasingly uncharted territory and not just in terms of climate change, but in many other areas of activity, AI being one of those, of course. And I think what we need to do is we need to find ways to learn more quickly, as a society, as communities, as villagers, as professional groups. And there are advantages of using some of those technologies in terms of accelerating that learning.We need to be discerning about the technologies we use, and we need to think about the relationships between those technology and social outcomes, environmental outcomes, how to redesign our systems, and how to redesign our governance. So I think there's going to be a need for a lot more thought and creativity in the future."Our window to adapt to a warming world is narrowing quickly. What it will take to avert the climate crises? Mark Howden is Director of the Climate Change Institute at The Australian National University and a Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a member of the Australian National Climate Science Advisory Committee. He has been a major contributor to the IPCC since 1991, with roles in the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and now Sixth Assessment Reports, sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC participants and Al Gore. He was on the US Federal Advisory Committee for the 3rd National Climate Assessment and contributes to several major national and international science and policy advisory bodies. Mark has worked on climate variability, climate change, innovation and adoption issues for over 30 years in partnership with many industry, community and policy groups via both research and science-policy roles.https://iceds.anu.edu.au/people/academics/professor-mark-howdenhttps://iceds.anu.edu.au/www.ipcc.chwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Our window to adapt to a warming world is narrowing quickly. What it will take to avert the climate crises? Mark Howden is Director of the Climate Change Institute at The Australian National University and a Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a member of the Australian National Climate Science Advisory Committee. He has been a major contributor to the IPCC since 1991, with roles in the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and now Sixth Assessment Reports, sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC participants and Al Gore. He was on the US Federal Advisory Committee for the 3rd National Climate Assessment and contributes to several major national and international science and policy advisory bodies. Mark has worked on climate variability, climate change, innovation and adoption issues for over 30 years in partnership with many industry, community and policy groups via both research and science-policy roles."One of the things we have to do is we have to increase the rate of learning. We are entering into increasingly uncharted territory and not just in terms of climate change, but in many other areas of activity, AI being one of those, of course. And I think what we need to do is we need to find ways to learn more quickly, as a society, as communities, as villagers, as professional groups. And there are advantages of using some of those technologies in terms of accelerating that learning.We need to be discerning about the technologies we use, and we need to think about the relationships between those technology and social outcomes, environmental outcomes, how to redesign our systems, and how to redesign our governance. So I think there's going to be a need for a lot more thought and creativity in the future."https://iceds.anu.edu.au/people/academics/professor-mark-howdenhttps://iceds.anu.edu.au/www.ipcc.chwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto credit: Lannon Harley/ANU

Wildfire season is starting earlier and lasting longer due to global warming across the world. What will we do to save the world on fire? How can we cure our addiction to fossil fuels which is verging on pyromania?Simon Dalby is author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World and Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University. His other books are Rethinking Environmental Security, Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, and Security and Environmental Change. He’s co-editor of Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and Reframing Climate Change: Constructing Ecological Geopolitics."It's crucial because of how we design cities so we can live better together. If we are going to be sustainable: less personal car ownership, a lot more public transport, a lot more bicycles or scooters - they dramatically reduce pollution and they allow everybody to breathe easier because there's much less pollution from internal combustion engines actually in cities. All of this suggests that we need to reimagine cities as public spaces that are not dependent on the individual use of cars."https://experts.wlu.ca/simon-dalby-1www.agendapub.com/page/detail/pyromania/?k=9781788216500www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"And what's very interesting is that at the moment there is this mass movement of people to our cities, making them megacities. And so we are actually depopulating the rural areas. So the very strange thing is that the Earth, it's becoming a wilder place. And therefore there are so many opportunities where people are leaving to go to the big cities where we can rewild, we can reforest, and we can bring back nature to actually keep those services that we absolutely rely on.We are so powerful as a planetary species, not individually, but collectively, that we have had that impact, that we have changed the geological destiny of the planet through changing the environment, changing the climate, and changing the evolutionary destiny - because we're already causing lots of extinctions - but also lots of new organisms to be evolving. And we are creating them in labs as well."Can we imagine a world where we leave half the earth to the natural environment and use the other half for ourselves? Can we change history and protect the Indigenous, the vulnerable, and the very poorest in society?Mark Maslin is a Professor of Earth System Science at University College London. Maslin is a leading expert in understanding the anthropocene and how it relates to the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. He has written a number of books on the issue of climate change, his most book is How to Save Our Planet: The Facts.www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/mark-maslinwww.penguin.co.uk/books/320155/how-to-save-our-planet-by-maslin-mark/9780241472521www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage courtesy of Mark Maslin

Can we imagine a world where we leave half the earth to the natural environment and use the other half for ourselves? Can we change history and protect the Indigenous, the vulnerable, and the very poorest in society?Mark Maslin is a Professor of Earth System Science at University College London. Maslin is a leading expert in understanding the anthropocene and how it relates to the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. He has written a number of books on the issue of climate change, his most book is How to Save Our Planet: The Facts.www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/mark-maslinwww.penguin.co.uk/books/320155/how-to-save-our-planet-by-maslin-mark/9780241472521www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastAll images courtesy of Mark Maslin

“One of our great British artists is Brian Eno, and he spoke a lot about limitations. I had the great joy of having a conversation. We ended up chatting for a couple of hours and he said, 'Oh, I want to show you something. I want to show you my library, and this tool I've created!' His Sonic Library, which is decades of audio material. (I have something similar. I call it an orphanage of sound. These files and folders that will eventually find a home.) But he's created a piece of software using algorithms that will at random pull out sounds and play them. And he can set certain parameters: I want a string sound to be here. And I'd like some bass sounds to come in. And I'd like some drum sounds, but it's just choosing these layers and playing them all at the same time. Again, a bit like the cacophony of birdsong. It's a bit of a mess initially, but then you can edit, and you start to refine. And in those limitations that have come out of this tool - and this is the point I guess I'm trying to make - is that it can be used as a tool to set limits or to burst limits. Or to mix things up. Out of that editing process, you can output something that to your ear sounds good to somebody else's ear."How has music transported you? Where do you find inspiration from the natural world? Where do you find moments of every day magic? Erland Cooper is a Scottish composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Stromness, Orkney. He has released three acclaimed studio albums, four additional companion albums, and multiple EPs, including a trilogy of work inspired by his childhood home. His work combines field recordings with traditional orchestration and contemporary electronic elements. Through music words and cinematography, he explores landscape, memory, and identity. Cooper also works across mixed media projects, including installation, art, theater, and film. He is widely known for burying the only existing copy of the master tape of his first classical album in Scotland, deleting all digital files, and leaving only a treasure hunt of clues for fans and his record label alike to search for it. The tape has recently been found.www.erlandcooper.comwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast