SXSW Day 4

Posted on the A Mind at Work LinkedIn company page on 3/16/26

DAY 4: A recurring theme for Sunday's sessions was the periodic nature of change. I started at a Q&A with Andrew Ross Sorkin, whose recent book, 1929:
Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History–and How It Shattered a Nation examines the events and players that led up to a financial reckoning a hundred years ago. Sorkin is a bit of a hero of mine, and his thoughtful candor is a balm in these uncertain times. I capped the day at a session hosted by Patreon founder and musician Jack Conte. Both a technologist and an artist, his emotional plea to AI companies to do right by individual creators, not just large media conglomerates, hit hard and got the first standing ovation I've seen at SXSW. More nuggets follow. (Attribution of ideas below intentionally not called quotes. I’m not a journalist, but I did my best to capture the spirit of what these folks said. Anything without attribution is all A Mind at Work).

-It’s historically always paid to be a professional optimist over time. It’ll be interesting to see if now is the time that will prove not to be the case. -Andrew Ross Sorkin

-If you create content for a living, you need to know your "one word," the anchor that grounds your series or show. Cut loose the things that don't make sense with your premise. -Jon Youshaei

-The next frontier for AI will be around the EQ (emotional quotient) of the models, not just the IQ (intelligence quotient). As more people turn to AI models for advice and counsel, smarts won't be enough. -Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D.

-Slop is always the phase that happens after a new medium is created, where old patterns are used for creation until the new ones are figured out. Artists will always have to face the sine wave of disruption as new technologies are developed that threaten older livelihoods, but AI needs to compensate individual artists, not just media companies. -Jack Conte