Damon Collins Outlines the Best (and Scariest) Stuff from SXSW 2018

One of the most joyous things about being an independent business is that no one decides how you spend your money but you. And at Joint we relish being free to spend the money we earn on things that inspire and educate the people who work here.

One such thing is our annual trip to the South By Southwest Interactive festival, in Austin, Texas.

For a creative business such as ours, obsessed with solving our clients’ business problems in innovative ways, spending a week immersed in the future is an exceptionally good investment of time and resources. So, this March, 20 Jointers flew to Austin and shacked up in a bunch of Airstream trailers ready to learn and be inspired together.

Above: Home from home at SXSW.

There was only one golden rule: Spend time on things you know nothing about. There are plenty of case studies on digital marketing, social media and social video campaigns, but they’re ultimately empty experiences as we’ll tend to know at least as much, if not more than the speakers. 

With that in mind here are a few of Joint’s joint highlights from our sixth trip to SXSW.

"In primitive times, when we lived in small tribes in small villages 'you could hear every fight and every fuck'"

Diversity

There’s always an underlying theme at SXSW, sometimes sub-textual, sometimes overt. This year the shock of Harvey Weinstein, not to mention Silicon Valley’s own issues with sexism and lack of diversity (as exemplified by last year’s Uber and Google scandals), was palpable. It led to some really positive conversations around creating a more diverse, equal and decent working environment, and more amazing female speakers on stage than ever before.

"Her closing thought being 'the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. Your relationship is your story, so write well and edit often'."

One such speaker, and a favourite of many Jointers, was Belgian psychotherapist Esther Perel. She explored the evolution of human relationships, making the point that in primitive times, when we lived in small tribes in small villages “you could hear every fight and every fuck”.

Everyone had an accurate representation of relationships, the highs and lows. But that today, with social media, we only see shiny happy couple after shiny happy couple; a crafted, curated slice of an invented perfect reality, making our relationships pale in comparison. She insists that really listening to other people’s stories and opening our eyes to the people around us to be able to see the truth of the relationships of others as well as our own can help us all live happier lives together. Her closing thought being “the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. Your relationship is your story, so write well and edit often”.

Above: The joy of queuing.

Techo-bable

John Krafcik from Waymo, formerly Google’s Self-Driving Car project explained that self-driving cars will be on our roads in 10 year’s-time. He showed their latest video of people being driven around in their cars. The most impressive demonstration of their success? The guy who was so relaxed about the ride he’d fallen asleep. 

"Apple’s view about AR and VR? AR is absolutely the future. It’s faster, easier, and doesn’t take away from people’s live experience."

Clearly not a stupid man, William Hurley (AKA Whurley), did a talk entitled ‘The Endless Impossibilities of Quantum Computing’ which, to be honest, was impossible to comprehend. His attempt at explaining quasiparticles and ‘the dangers of quantum tunnelling’ were indecipherable enough, but when he moved on to ‘programming computers that don’t even exist’ we decided to pop over to the Handle Bar for an extra-large Loopy Juice.

Apple’s Eddy Cue talked about Apple TV and how they (allegedly) are (kind of) leaving Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to spend billions on programme making, whilst they’re focussing more on augmenting the experience of viewing everything on an Apple platform. Apple’s view about AR and VR? AR is absolutely the future. It’s faster, easier, and doesn’t take away from people’s live experience.

"According to Ray pretty soon we’ll be used to ‘being in AR all the time’. We’ll have printable clothing and printable houses."

And talking of AR… Every year a few brands pour a rodeo full of cash into pop-up experiences around the town. This year’s Sony pavilion was the winner. Sony seems to have focused its energy on becoming a scanner and sensor manufacturer. Using projectors and haptic technology to create awesome AR experiences like virtual football and table hockey; 360-degree scanning people’s heads and bodies and putting them into bonkers VR worlds and playable games. Possibly the tent’s biggest hit was their little sensor-laden robot dog, Aibo, (on sale soon for a mere $2,000) that can actually feel you stroking it and reacts accordingly.

Above: Aibo, the dog that 'feels'.

A positive outlook for Alexa

Inventor and superbrain, Google’s Ray Kurzweil, knows a thing or eight million about nanotechnology, robotics, biotechnology and AI. He talks about technology as ‘something we develop to go beyond human ability; brain and body extenders’. According to Ray pretty soon we’ll be used to ‘being in AR all the time’. We’ll have printable clothing and printable houses.

And, in the 2030s, we’ll ‘merge with AI’, meaning we’ll have virtual augmented reality within our own bodies and synthetic neocortex in the cloud. At which time our intelligence will increase a million-fold, leading to us inventing new art, new ways of doing things, new ways to relate to each other. However, there’s also the small issue of AI ethics to iron out; Once the singularity occurs will AI be allowed the same rights as humans…? Alexa must be looking forward to that.

“Mark my words AI will be more dangerous than nukes. [It’s] the single biggest existential crisis we face and the most pressing one.” 

The death of smartphones?

Everyone looked up from their smartphone as Amy Webb, a ‘quantitative futurist’, mentioned casually that 2018 is the beginning of the end of smartphones. And they stayed staring at her as she talked through a load of emerging tech trends. Some of which are already picking up momentum, like digital assistants, augmented and mixed reality. Some of which seem like science-fiction but are basically just round the corner, like natural user interfaces, faceprints and voiceprints (which will replace passwords), generative algorithms and nanobots, which will end up inside all of us (and, if we’re not careful, end up deciding who lives or dies by aborting foetuses based on their probability of success and contribution to society!).

AnnIhilation?

And if that wasn’t scary enough, the techy’s sweetheart, Elon Musk fucking terrified everyone by saying in his usual gentle tone: “Mark my words AI will be more dangerous than nukes. [It’s] the single biggest existential crisis we face and the most pressing one”. He followed that with a chilling explanation as to why his Space X programme is so focused on getting people to Mars. Basically, he reckons that there’s the likelihood of another dark ages “especially if there’s a third world war. And we need to ensure there’s enough of a seed of human civilisation somewhere else to bring civilisation back”. Yikes.

Above: Elon Musk.

Big blue smurfs are the future 

As an optimistic antidote to Elon, Dr Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize, used SXSW to announce the next $10million competition: to create an actual avatar. You know, like in the movie. The vision is that everyone will end up having one hanging in their cupboard at home (the Apple iVatar?) allowing a plumber/doctor to ‘get inside it’ from anywhere in the world and fix your leaking tap/ fractured pelvis. Then, after dropping in the fact that he’s invested in a company that plans to fit all Google’s data centres into a space the size of a sugar cube, he combined a bit of Moore’s Law chat with some exponentiality banter to explain that the $1,000 we pay for iPhone X today will, by 2025, buy as much computing power as the human brain. And by 2050 as much computing power as, wait for it, the whole human race!

Oh, and did I mention Bernie Sanders, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Melinda Gates, Ira Glass,  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Hamill, Thandie Newton, Nile Rodgers, barbecue, fried chicken, pizza, tacos, waffles and beer?

Will we be going back to the future next year? 

Absolutely. Unless someone drops an AI on us all in the meantime.

Above: Collins [bottom] and the Joint gang.