WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

As the rate of technology development accelerates to unprecedented levels it’s increasingly difficult for people to see what’s coming and get their heads around it all.

Firstly, it was an honour to be invited to be the keynote at this year’s ICEFest in Romania where the atmosphere was as hot as the weather outside the venue. Surrounded by some of the latest vehicle technologies from Toyota, from the latest hybrids and driverless vehicles, the event was not just a showcase for some of the sponsors latest wears, but also a showcase for Romanian innovation that included the latest developments in TV and filming, and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

One of the questions I sometimes have is just how much of the content I produce is out there in the wild being used by other people because people tell me they see my material, especially my Starburst, all the time, and that was answered when after my keynote I went into another stage, looked up, and saw my DeepFake content being played while the presenter discussed how he and his company were one of the primes educating the EU Council on the development and trajectory of the technology as they become increasingly worried about its weaponisation. What made the situation even odder though was the fact that during my own keynote I’d already taken the wraps off of the latest bleeding edge developments in DeepFakes and Synthetic Content that went way beyond “his” content, and frankly I found it rather ironic that the EU was being fed information about developments in the field that were, frankly, #OldNews.

On the one hand though, on a positive note, at least the EU are trying to get a point of view, but on the other hand it also highlights how fast the technology is moving, and the challenges that governments and regulators face when trying to tackle the issue – something that’s not helped by the fact that the advisors they’ve chosen to work with, as I see so many times around the world, continue to share out of date information rather than future forward information.

DeepFakes asides though during the remainder of the keynote I showed the audience things they’d never seen before, lifted the lid on Creative Machines, and jauntily walked through the large number of breakthroughs that are now helping transform sectors as diverse as agriculture and transport, as well as energy and healthcare.