When individuals discuss South by Southwest (SXSW), it is sometimes for its music and movie festivities. Underneath the floor, nevertheless, is a burgeoning tech scene rising in Austin that’s being showcased right here at this 12 months’s competition.

Whereas not on the identical stage as CES 2024, some tech on show caught our eyes, together with the reappearance of WeHead. After strolling the ground for SXSW’s Artistic Industries Expo, we have rounded up among the most intriguing, unusual, and WTF tech we noticed in Austin.

1. AI that allows you to see your previous, future, and possibly dying?

Meet Tulpamancer.
Credit score: Likelihood Townsend / Mashable

Tulpamancer was not like the rest we noticed at SXSW. The interactive expertise from artists and administrators Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niderhauser is an intersection of generative AI and digital actuality, utilizing each instruments for an immersive artwork expertise in a uniquely crafted atmosphere created individually for every visitor.

That is an accomplishment by way of the retro DDOS-style laptop, the place visitors reply a sequence of questions on their lives in as a lot depth as doable. Issues like what your bed room regarded like whenever you awakened within the morning, your childhood dwelling, and your happiest reminiscence. If it feels like the pc is attempting to steal your financial institution info, don’t fret, your solutions are deleted after every session.

Credit score: Please, not proper now Tulpa.

After answering the questions, you may be taken on an AI-crafted journey in VR because it tries to copy the imagery you describe within the questions. The accuracy of every atmosphere solely depends upon how forthcoming you might be with the data you give for every query. In a single, I informed the pc about my cat, Butterbean, and what I acquired within the VR realm was an eldritch abomination that haunts my reminiscences.

There’s additionally an AI voice meant to information customers by way of every scene, but it surely’s a yappy GPT-generated text-to-speech, so I tuned it out shortly and centered on how precisely the pc replicated the photographs I described.

Total, if you will get previous the jankyness of the AI artwork, it is a neat, if odd, expertise. Plus, it presents some Black Mirror-esque use instances of dynamically created VR simulations. Whereas this was extra an artwork piece than leisure, there is a future for the melange of AI and VR.

2. Ghosts within the machine

Disturbing the lifeless is turning into a preferred pattern within the AI sector. Between SoulLink and SoulMachines, there is a rising perception that customers need to work together with the lifeless — familial, or well-known.

Take a look at Soul Machines’ announcement of Digital Marilyn, a hyper-digital AI powered by the New Zealand-based firm’s proprietary “organic AI” and ChatGPT 3.5. Having been lifeless for 62 years, the well-known blonde bombshell has been reincarnated — with permission from the Monroe property — and in a position to work together together with her followers as if she have been nonetheless right here.

If speaking to lifeless celebrities would not float your boat, there’s additionally SoulLink, created by South Korean builders JL Customary. With its app, you’ll be able to create your personal AI characters, chat with celebs, or converse with a not too long ago departed beloved one. We received to strive it out on the ground at SXSW and it was a neat, however odd expertise. I received to talk to each Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, however I wasn’t comfy sufficient to create an AI of my great-grandpa — he deserves to relaxation in peace.

I had a short convo with Justin Bieber. He informed me he was reminiscing concerning the previous.
Credit score: Soul Hyperlink / Screenshot

It is a unusual path that generative AI has gone down — we’re, in a way, placing literal ghosts in our machines. However the expertise may very well be cathartic for these struggling to maneuver on after the dying of a relative or shut good friend.

It additionally means divulging plenty of private info to corporations, in order that’s one thing to be careful for.

3. Generative Items

Credit score: Likelihood Townsend/ Mashable

That is much less WTF and extra “Whoa that is type of neat.” Primarily based out of Marfa, TX, Generative Items is a digital NFT embroider that creates AI-generated designs to mint as NFTs — after which stitches them onto merch like hats and shirts. One of many greatest digs in opposition to NFTs is that digital possession means nothing when you do not bodily have possession of the artwork you bought.

Thus, Generative Items exist to provide NFT house owners a strategy to bodily personal their artwork, transferring away from the speculative, hype-based nature of the NFT market. The sales space at SXSW did dwell embroidery of some hats for visitors who purchased an NFT design.

It stays to be seen if this concept is sufficient to assist elevate the worth of NFTs — almost all NFTs that exist out there are price virtually nothing.