What is the human's place as an individual, creator and educator of the next generations of creators in a new, intriguing, promising – but also threatening world?

On 7 December, Shenkar College and Portfolio magazine, in collaboration with Tab Tab Tab Collective, will hold a multi-disciplinary conference dedicated to the meeting point between Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications and creativity and culture: design, art, photography, drawing, architecture, fashion, publishing, music and more. The conference will take place in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art between 18:00 and 22:00. It will serve as a platform for discussing the future of creativity in the age of artificial intelligence and machine learning.  

During the conference, attendees will have the opportunity for direct, hands-on contact with some of the tools, technologies, and concepts (deepfakes, Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, Midjourney, etc.) that have already become an inseparable part of the digital landscape. Additionally, they will meet creators and artists in the field. We will attempt to answer the million-dollar question: will these tools eventually replace the creator and make human creativity and imagination redundant, or will technology become another option in the existing toolbox?

Click here for tickets

The conference will include several sessions with leading speakers from academia, as well as key figures from culture, tech, media and communications, and will include fascinating and inspiring talks and panels. Tickets will go on sale at the beginning of November.

President of Shenkar, professor Sheizaf Rafaeli: “The attempts to prove the superiority of people over machines have been going on for thousands of years, from Galatea in Greek mythology, via the Golem of Prague and the Turing test. We struggle to clarify the added value of the human over the artificial. This is the final battle.

"We now find ourselves at another junction in this battle. This time, a leap is emerging not only in the artificial abilities of motors, sensors, calculation, memory, identification, learning and problem-solving, but something even more challenging.   

"Those involved in the creative industries, design, art and engineering, must ask: given the wide variety of databases and creations on an unprecedented scale and their level of accessibility, together with mechanized learning abilities that already exist, what should be the ethical, pedagogical, aesthetic, professional, normative, value-based responses? What should we be learning and teaching? What other changes should we get ready for?”

Founder and editor-in-chief at Portfolio magazine, Yuval Saar: “There is no doubt that the injection of artificial intelligence into the creative industries in the past year is on everyone's minds within the creative community in Israel. Even though new technology entering the creative industries is not new, the incredible rate and potential of the changes is something we have never encountered before.

"As the leading, trendsetting and influential online space for culture and creativity, we felt that it was not only important, but obligatory, to organize this conference and a professional content event dedicated to the creative industries, their fascinating intersection with AI developments and their impact on the development process of creators – beginning with academic training, through artistic work, to working in the industry. The conference will examine how artificial intelligence affects creation and creativity, the added value of human creation, and how the tech industry influences this endless race, with an emphasis on the local aspect."

Shachaf Rodberg and Tal Schweiger, Tab Tab Tab Collective: “The discourse about new technology threatening to take the place of artists is not new. What is different this time is the entry of the creation of art into the age of technical creation. On the one hand, new artificial intelligence models enable the full democratization of the creative process, but on the other hand, it makes many professionals redundant. It makes no difference if we’re talking about music, art, architecture, product design, or advertising – we all need to understand that machines are here, and they're not waiting for anyone.”

Images: midjourney, Offir Liberman