Sasha Stiles in Conversation with Nicholas Thompson
Theme
For those who weren’t with us in New York, we’re excited to share the full session recordings with you over the coming weeks. There was so much substance in these conversations, from Sasha Stiles in conversation with Nicholas Thompson on poetry in the age of AI, to King Willonius and Wes Hopkins on AI-powered storytelling, to frog and Archetype AI on the design stakes of physical intelligence. This week we’re recapping a few early highlights.
Summit
Poet and artist Sasha Stiles joined Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, on the Main Stage for a conversation on the evolving relationship between poetry, language, and technology. Together, they explored what it means to create in a more-than-human age, tracing the intersection of emotion and algorithm, ancient forms of memory and expression, and the new artistic possibilities emerging through AI, code, and hybrid imagination.
What does AI-powered storytelling actually look like in practice? At the AI & Creativity Summit in New York, our presenting Creative Partner Adobe joined the Main Stage for a fireside chat with Wes Hopkins and King Willonious. The two regaled the audience talking about how Adobe Firefly Foundry is helping creators move from vision to execution across image, motion, and sound, without losing the creative intent behind it. Alongside, Adobe also brought to life an engaging workshop on our Machine Stage and an activation that offered attendees the chance to build their own Sphere using the power of GenAI and creativity. Full session premiere coming soon.
Jason Severs and Inna Lobel of frog joined Leonardo Giusti of Archetype AI for ‘The Shape of Intelligence’, a conversation on the design stakes of physical AI. As AI moves from screens into objects, spaces, interfaces, and lifelike systems, design becomes central to how people understand and trust it. The discussion explored how form, behavior, context, and interaction shape our relationship with embodied intelligence, and how decisions made at the design level will influence whether these systems feel useful, intuitive, safe, or alienating.
After Hours
Our AI & Creativity Summit is the room where the field’s most consequential artists, technologists, executives, institutions, and builders come together to shape the future of this space. After Hours is how we expand that surface area. It will bring the same caliber of guests together, with room for practical exchange, deeper learning, and access to the people defining the next creative era.
The Lighthouse
The AI & Creativity Summit brought this full day of programming to The Lighthouse Brooklyn. The Lighthouse is a campus for creators with connected spaces in Los Angeles and New York. Built for artists, founders, storytellers, and culture makers working across disciplines, the campuses are where ideas move from concept to execution. Shaped by a community that collaborates through shared studios and programming. Tour the Brooklyn campus.
Pulse
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More NY Summit photos hot off the press: You’re more than welcome to share, and please tag @artistandthemachine when you do. Powered by our incredible partner, Air.
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We have partnered with Bloomberg: To give Artist and the Machine attendees a special offer. Get 3 months of unlimited access to Bloomberg.com.
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Community member Andrew Rosen published: ‘Bottlenecks and The Greenlight Gap’ inspired by his discussions at our AI & Creativity Summit in New York.
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Community member Jeff Ortegon created a Summit recap: Covering highlights and takeaways from conversations and programming across the day.
If you’re creating something aligned with Artist and the Machine or you’d like to recommend work shaping this space, we’d love to see it for the chance to be featured. Reach out to us at community@artistandthemachine.com.
Til next time,
Artist and the Machine.
xx
Paige Piskin is an award-winning AI and XR creator, known for pushing the boundaries of digital makeup, character design, and augmented reality experiences. With AR effects generating more than 300 billion impressions, shared 2 billion times, Paige has worked with major brands like Netflix, Bratz, Warner, and Coldplay, bringing immersive storytelling to life. She has also been a guest judge for Netflix, consultant, and 2x hackathon winner, recognized for her innovative work in AI-driven AR experiences. Paige is passionate about blending generative AI with character design, expanding the possibilities of digital self-expression and interactive storytelling.
Claire Silver is an anonymous AI-Collaborative artist that works with oil, acrylic, collage, photography, and different digital mediums to create her work. She often blends the classical style and mythos into her art, collaboratively producing work that feels at once familiar and strange. Her work explores themes of innocence, trauma, the hero’s journey, and how our view of them will change in an increasingly transhumanist future. Claire’s art can be found in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has been at Sotheby’s London and Christie’s New York and in galleries, museums, and festivals all over the world. Featured in the New York Times, WIRED, Fortune, NPR, and countless podcasts, Claire takes every opportunity to explore her unending fascination with AI, fight for visibility for this budding art movement, and wonder at the magnitude of this moment in history. She often feels like a caveman painting fire. Claire is vocal in her belief that with the rise of AI, for the first time, the barrier of skill is swept away and that in this evolving era, taste is the new skill.