Envirominting - Jeroen van der Must

Envirominting

Participants:

• Nadja Bester (CEO & Co-founder of AdLunam)

• Jeroen Van Der Must(Artist, NFT & Speaker)

00:26

Nadja

You. Hey web3 world. This is Nadja Bester from AdLunam and you are listening to the Future of NFTs, the show that looks beyond current NFT use cases and dives into what Non Fungible Token technology is all about. All of this as seen through the eyes and built by the amazing minds of the fascinating guest speakers that we speak to each week. AdLunam is the only IDO Launchpad that rewards attention with allocation. Our Engage to Earn platform features dynamic NFT investor profiles, NFT allocation fractionalization and our one of a kind Proof of Attention allocation mechanism. And if you are new, you can catch Future of NFTs live on Tuesdays, same time, not necessarily same place next year, but we will be communicating the YouTube channel to you before that happens. And of course, if you miss out on any of the live episodes, we are also on podcast streaming platforms, which means that you can listen anytime, anywhere.

01:35

Nadja

As well as our sister show Diving into Crypto, which is live on Thursdays where we talk about more general crypto topics than the NFT focus of this show. So do join us for both shows as we speak to thought leaders and change makers in this game changing industry. All right, so onto today, as I said, cold weather hot topic, because I think even if you have been living under a rock, chances are that over the last few weeks you've heard that AI has taken much of the world by storm. Whether that has been AI generative art or more recently, ChatGPT, which grew to, I think it was 1 million users in only five days, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, that kind of numbers took other companies months to achieve. So it really goes to show that people are absolutely fascinated with the possibilities of what AI generation can do.

02:39

Nadja

Whether that is art, whether that is I mean, if you look at the applications of ChatGPT, it's not just art. It can code for you, it can write recipes, it can fix your code, whatever it is that you can think of. And this is the amazing thing about what is happening right now is people are thinking up new ways to interact with this technology. So I'm so extremely pleased to have with us on the show today. I'm going to hand it over to you. Please give us a brief introduction about yourself.

03:13

Jeroen

No problem at all. No problem at all. So I'm artist Jeroen for the most. I'm an artist exploring new uses of newer technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing and what these explorations are more or less about, hopefully giving people inspiration to rethink how we use technology and what technology is and what we use it for. And often this is about boundary breaking. So breaking boundaries, for example, between humans and the natural world. So trying to use newer technologies to bring us closer to the natural world. And I build all sorts of installations using artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and do this for quite some autonomous projects that they just initiate because I think they're cool. We also do that a lot for museums, universities, building art installations for tech companies like NVidia, but also nonprofits, international, et cetera. And well, that's a little bit about what I do.

04:11

Jeroen

And it's really what you see happening at the moment with artificial intelligence, just like you mentioned with ChatGPT, et cetera.That's just quite astonishing. I've been doing this for twelve years now and it's really what you see happening over the past couple of months, it's really beyond every expectation, I guess a lot of people had about artificial intelligence and its capabilities.

04:33

Nadja

So I'm curious, because you've been operational in this space for a long time, why do you think this mass traction only happened within the last few months? I mean, of course the technology had to take its time to develop, but why is the world ready and ripe for this kind of mass adoption that we are seeing right now?

04:53

Jeroen

Yeah, it's basically because of this rise of this text to image, text to basically text to everything at the moment. So it's really about systems that are now the main change, I guess probably is that now everyone without any coding can use platforms like models like Stable Diffusion, Mid Journey, et cetera, to create imagery. So exciting, cool imagery based on purely text based input. And it's more or less the same now with Chat GPT, which of course came after GPT-3, which already also had kind a little bit an interface which could handle with purely text input. But ChatGPT is really bringing this to the next level in the sense you can really have the sort of like real conversations with the system and it's just like having a conversation with a normal people, almost normal person almost. So that's really the change you see happening now.

05:53

Jeroen

And it's really leading to this mass adoption of these systems. So it's sort of like a democratization also of the use of these systems and that also brings in a lot of money and a lot of development. It's really an incredible sweet development.

06:13

Nadja

Yeah, that is so interesting that you mentioned that it brings an element of democratization because there's been this chatter in different spaces that the introduction of AI, especially in these kind of applications, are going to kill artistic creativity, or at least kill the opportunities that artists have to be, let's say, organically creative. So what are your thoughts on how this kind of AI creativity can actually augment human creativity as opposed to replace it.

06:50

Jeroen

Yeah, it's a double edged sword, I guess you could call it like this. I do see if I have to choose if this is a threat or an opportunity to human creativity. I do see it really as an opportunity because it can really boost, I mean you could see artificial intelligence some kind of way, it's a new tool, but you could also see it as a sort of new assistant or a sort of team of assistants that you could actually use as an artist. So it really enables you to really explore really fast all sorts of new creative ideas and create all sorts of visuals around it, et cetera, to create new worlds at really large people. Even with systems like ChatGPT, it can really enable you or facilitate you in ideation. So really coming to new creative ideas as well as the sort of like creative sparring partner for new projects.

07:44

Jeroen

A little bit about the threat, the downside of all of this is probably also and that's also what you see when you work with these systems. It can also really lead to quite cliché imagery in the sense that it's not really new as it just generating stuff from existing data. So you have to be also really critical about what you're outputting with these systems also because it can lead to all sorts of bias, for example. So it's really the interaction the future creativity will be really be, I guess at least for the short run still about human artists really interacting with these systems in a really critical way and it will serve as a sort of booster for human creativity.

08:27

Nadja

Yeah, that's so interesting because what comes to mind for me is this idea that historically artists had to, you have this image of the artists as a lone Ranger and they are inside their little attic room and working on this masterpiece all by themselves and have no money, have no support. But this dream that one day they are going to create the next big whatever it is. And it sounds like what you are saying is with the introduction of a tool like this that it's almost as if artists now have access to a team, so to speak, of assistants and people. I mean of course in the form of AI, but to this whole pool of resources that can help them to generate whatever their creative vision is and bring it to life. If you for example, think about a Hollywood studio, if you watch the credits of any movie produced by Hollywood, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people involved.

09:29

Nadja

And of course, if you're making an indie movie, there might be a handful. So do you think that in this sense these kind of AI tools can also democratize the artistic process for artists who don't otherwise have access to these supportive resources?

09:47

Jeroen

Yeah, exactly. Great. How you describe it's a democratization in a sense that it will make artists less dependent on the really big budget to create stuff like that. And it's also in history, I mean, artists like Rembrandt, but also famous Dutch painter Yurum Boss, they all had their teams of assistants. It's really often they used to actually fill in the details of their creations and these assistants had creative input of themselves. And it's indeed, we're really at the edge now. I guess artificial intelligence is really useful now to create imagery, to create new text, but really at the border. I expect that next year will be about at some point about text sorry, about artificial intelligence, that we can use it in the same way to start creating short movies or maybe even longer movies. And the future path where we're heading indeed, is about that it might just be possible that indeed just independent creators at some point will be capable of creating nearly Hollywood quality special effects movies, et cetera.

11:00

Jeroen

So it's a really an interesting period that we're in which we will see, hopefully that the power of really the best creative ideas will lead to all sorts of new, fascinating movies, artworks, et cetera.

11:18

Nadja

It is indeed a very exciting time. So I want to go into a little bit this idea that we have to engage critically with these tools so that it doesn't become repetitive. So I know that you recently did a little project where you put input into ChatGPT around the idea of melting ice caps. Could you tell us a little bit about this and some of the insights that you came to as a result of this project?

11:53

Jeroen

Yeah, sure. So this is actually part of this project, Letters from Nature, that I initiated two years ago with a friend of mine, Bates on the Butter from Light University in the Netherlands. And this is basically about using artificial intelligence to give voice to nature itself in the debate about the climate crisis. So we initially used it, we used artificial intelligence initially in this project to actually write letters to world leaders about climate change and to actually warn them and ask for help about the changing climate. We worked in all sorts of forums on this, in several museums across Europe in the forms of paper, letters, projections, et cetera. And we encountered what? ChatGPT, of course, it even sounds already quite a while ago, but it was launched last week, I guess, like one and a half weeks ago. And we started having this idea for creating this conversation, actually, with ChatGPT on a level that wasn't possible yet with GPT-3 that we used up to that moment.

13:00

Jeroen

And when you get into this conversation with ChatGPT, it's somewhere on my Twitter timeline as well, I guess. But you can really see that we're really getting into a quite deep conversation about art and the creation of new sorts of art projects with this system and eventually even using it to write its own funding request for such an art project. So it really showed me the capacity of these systems to really reach a new level. And actually it's less about just making pass ball what you give, what you ask it, but it's also more about really having a conversation at a high level and really have new creative input of the system. And the main what you really have to be careful about with these systems is really about being critical about the output that the output isn't. And it was less the case in Letters from Nature, for example, but what I worked on in other projects, for example, with image creation and technologies, that you really have to be careful, for example, that your output is not biased in some kind of way.

14:23

Jeroen

So if you would ask an AI system to write something about CEO or an assistant or an image of a CEO of an assistant, it will probably lead to really stereotype imagery of a CEO and assistant in the sense that, for example, a CEO would always be this white male of a certain age. These are things you really have to be critical about and it's also especially with systems like ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT, sorry. You really have to be careful also if you ask it for factual information. So it's really bad at giving facts. You don't know if it's actually giving you some kind of fact that it's really true or it's just making up something new which could really sound, when you read it could be perceived as really something that is true but basically just isn't.

15:13

Nadja

It sounds to me like ChatGPT and all of these other tools are in some sense a reflection of what we already have in society because you can't read something just anywhere and take it as truth because you never know what the objectives are with this piece of information being out there. And of course this idea of bias as well being just a reflection of the biases that we see in the world already. So I'm thinking of this saying that history is written by the victors and it sounds like this trajectory that AI is taking that it also in large sense the input is written by those that really write and lead the main narratives in the world. I want to jump a little bit still on the work that you've been involved with and incorporate also a conversation about quantum computing. So tell me about the project Quantum Cat and how you incorporate quantum computing into your work as well.

16:15

Jeroen

Yeah, sure. So Quantum Cat is actually a project that I started working on. It, I guess it was more or less around these dates last year. It's a project, it's part of this artsy residency at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. And what I'm building there is this digital cat. And this cat lives in this installation of old wooden chests. And it's a cat that is using artificial intelligence and quantum computing to reflect on all sorts of ethical dilemmas. So an ethical topic so that could be, for example, a topic like freedom of speech, which really current topic, of course, on Twitter. So freedom of speech has this kind of ethical dilemma around it in the sense that should freedom of speech be completely free or should it be, for example, does it have limits and to what extent it should be free, because could of course also lead to all sorts of hate speech, should that be free?

17:14

Jeroen

So these are really difficult, the choice between the two, between is freedom of speech good or bad or should we put it completely free or not? These are really difficult decisions which for computers to take, AI systems to take, they're just not capable of taking such ethical decisions. And in this artwork experiment with some sort of way using artificial intelligence and quantum computing to actually well, not make these decisions, but show the full grayness and full possibilities, the full spectrum of all sorts of opinions that you could have on such a topic. And that's what the cat is bringing forward. So it's not bringing forward a certain one position on freedom of speech, but it's showing all spectrums, all sorts of opinions that people possibly could have on such a topic. So it really shows the complexity of ethical decision making. And it also to some extent makes the case that maybe we as humans should also more often take in and consider the positions on these ethical dilemmas that other people have instead of just going for our own opinions.

18:21

Jeroen

And the way artificial intelligence is used in that it's used to create the textual content of these opinions. So that's again, text generation, artificial intelligence and the quantum computing gets involved there in the sense that it's enabling a complete randomness in the presenting of these opinions. And we're working there with the Dutch organization Q-Tech and they're working on all sorts of quantum computers. And these quantum computers, they work on a principle of that's called superposition in which they measure electrons. And based on these measurements, these computers can get really fast, can do really fast calculations. And this is based on a principle that electrons on a really tiny scale in the world of quantum mechanics, they're not binary in the sense that they can be in multiple positions at once. And for us, as humans in our world, it's really strange. You can only be in one position at once, but an electron can be at several positions at once.

19:26

Jeroen

And that's a phenomenon called superposition. And I really thought it was something that was metaphorically, really an interesting thing because the thing that I'm bringing forward with the quantum cat, this is sort of ethical superposition. So it's a cat that is bringing forward several all sorts of positions, ethical positions at once. So that's more or less the idea behind quantum web. Yeah.

19:54

Nadja

Tell me. Your work explores very pertinent issues, which of course is always I mean, for a certain kind of art is the directive that artists like to take is to raise the big questions, to explore them, to make people think. But as we know, a lot of art in the artistic world is in some sense elitist, in the sense that it's not accessible to the average person on the street. Do you think that by using these kind of cutting edge technologies that you are able, even if hypothetically speaking, able to reach a larger audience with the message of your art than you would have been able to do if it wasn't through these mediums that are so pertinent in terms of technological development?

20:46

Jeroen

Yes, absolutely. I do have to say, of course, the newer technologies have always had my interest, so that's I've always worked with new technologies. But the newer technologies, they've always enabled me to reach out to a much larger audience than I would have had without them. So basically, when I started one of my first projects as an artist, I created artworks, were all involved with social media. So actually using social media content to create visuals, et cetera, this was really something that was also communicated to the public through social media and was really successful at that. And it's a good point that you raised about this elite aspect of art, often into my opinion. Also really important that you always try to achieve a certain layering in your artwork so that it will have multiple layers, multiple aspects which can really connect with audiences at all sorts of depth and all sorts of interests.

21:45

Jeroen

In the sense that in a project like the Quantum cat, but also in Letters from nature, there's some level which people can really connect to as the Quantum cat is just a cool cat and it's interesting to watch visually. But there's also much more philosophical depth into it that really touches on some of these deeper questions on what ethical decision making actually is and how that works, and really connects also in depth to all sorts of ideas and history from quantum mechanics. So, yeah, that's really something I try to achieve through that layering in my artworks.

22:25

Nadja

So I'm curious then, if we shift over a little bit to Web3, for example, NFT technologies, there's been so much talk about only very particular artistic use cases. And of course, in a market like the one that we are experiencing at the moment, all of those projects that are focused on those particular use cases are the ones that are falling to the wayside. So I wonder, do you think that this technology, NFTs are still a viable medium for artists now that the hype perhaps has died down, but the potential of the technology in terms of what you're able to do with it as an artist, what are your thoughts on this?

23:15

Jeroen

chnologies. It started around: 2013

24:23

Jeroen

So there was really a big amount of money back then. And what you then saw the year thereafter, some new sales were actually tried. So it was also sotobeasty auction house tried to sell something, but it was much lower price they actually got for it. And then it was kind, I guess you could call it quiet for maybe two, three years. And then suddenly, I guess around the so when NFT broke loose, the media hype for that what you saw happening then I guess you could say that Daniels again saw AI based artworks really being sold again for high prices. Although at that time, that it was actually based on artificial intelligence, these artworks that wasn't really discussed anymore. So that was just a given fact at that point, had become a given fact that it was actually possible to create art with artificial intelligence, and that art could be created with artificial intelligence, and that it's actually art.

25:28

Jeroen

And I expect but it's very difficult to predict something like this will happen to NFT. So there's been this big hype to NFTs with really high prices now. It's really down in some kind of bear market. And then I expect it to pop up again at some timescale in the quite near future, to pop up again. But we'll probably need some other development around it again to really bring it back into this higher level. So some sort of development, I don't know, in some kind of metaverse or some kind of AI technology that will use NFTs in it, et cetera, that will boost it again into some kind of new bull market, probably. But at that point, I expect it to not really be NFT will not really be a topic anymore for discussion at that point. It will just be a given technology that is there, that is just accepted.

26:27

Jeroen

Okay, this is NFT, It's just NFT and we're all used to using that. And that's just what it is at that point. So I guess if it's possible at all to make any prediction, I guess it will develop something probably like that.

26:45

Nadja

It's interesting in the space of technological development that you have hype followed by death, followed by just complete acceptance, as if it's always been the case. I want to put you a little bit on the spot. First you created an NFT collection. Qube mouse NFT. And I want to know, because of the way that the technology is going, whether that is societally or whether this is the potential of the technology itself. Do you envision yourself using NFTs in your art again? Or are you waiting for, as you said, this next sort of integration of another technology that is going to make NFTs come alive again? And please tell us about Qube Mouse as well.

27:33

Jeroen

Sure. Qube Mouse is actually one of the first, actually the first soul of NFT project that I created on my own. The core idea of Qube mouse was it generated an abstract form that's a little bit like a mouse, looks like a mouse. And it's created using algorithms, actually, again, based on quantum data. And the idea there was also to use the income stream so the profits generated with the NFT sales to actually bring it back into the world again, in the sense that these profits would be redistributed into several streams of financial money actually flowing towards projects that would have some kind of NFT based environmentally aspect in them. So something to do, for example, with fundraising for the environment and also another one into the conservation of older artworks. So in that sense was really about bridging this boundary again between the blockchain and the purely digital and bringing that income that profit again into the real world, to call it like that.

28:49

Jeroen

So now I lost kind of your question. Could you repeat it again because there was more in your question?

28:54

Nadja

Please tell me your thoughts on as an artist, having had the experience with NFTs that you've had, and considering that going forward, a lot of how we engage with NFTs might change, do you foresee yourself using NFTs again in your artwork in the near future?

29:14

Jeroen

Yes, absolutely. So actually, also with the quantum cat piece, the idea is, or at least not only the idea, but we're actually going to display it at CS Tech Fair in Las Vegas. It's actually, if we will make this over the next coming two, three weeks. So that's the beginning of January, we'll actually launch a certain NFT based on the quantum cap. Again, outside of that, there's not a project I'm working on at the moment. It's for this technical university delft in Netherlands, also in the arts, residency there. And there we're experimenting also with I'm creating this digital animation for them using one of the new supercomputers. It's actually also going to be an NFT. But what I'm mainly also experimenting with still for me, NFT at this moment is also still to kind of explore how I'm just going to use it, how I'm going to use it.

30:08

Jeroen

So is it purely for this medium of selling an artwork and actually making some kind of money with that? Or is it also really about the engagement also or the interaction with the public? So it's really in that project for Technical University Delft, actually, that's going to be a real physical. So really this live installation on this big screen also, and the NFTs will actually also be this medium for audience engagement in the sense that people who buy these probably really affordable NFTs can actually also use these NFTs as these tokens to actually play around with the real life installation also at some point. So it's really about this experimentation exploration for me still about what the most interesting uses of NFT are and that's also purely creatively. I haven't even touched on all the capacities of NFT yet, so there's so much in there.

31:14

Jeroen

So actually to use these NFTs, to actually interact with the public in the sense that people can actually change things in the NFTs to get a view, et cetera. So there's so many things to explore there still. So that definitely is something I will keep on using in the future. But it's also this whole difference between I guess that at some point it will also be less about the NFT or that NFT will be this thing on its own. I also believe more in the idea that at some point artworks will really be medium independent in the sense that you will create an artwork and this could have a physical form, but could also have an NFT form. For me, it's also still a little bit old fashioned already to really think only about NFT. It's purely this digital thing. It's really also for me, my artworks at least will be really also about always having a sort of physical component, most probably, and a digital component which will be NFT based.

32:20

Nadja

Yeah, it's interesting to think about how as were talking about earlier, that as soon as something new comes in, it's all the hype, everyone rushes to it. But slowly or fast, in some cases, it becomes integrated into just the general cultural collective. So yeah, looking forward to seeing where all of this is going to go in future. But I want to focus a little bit on the integration. A lot of your work is integrating nature with technology. And of course, historically speaking, the two are in completely different camps. Either you are an environmental hippie living in the woods, or you are, I don't know, the Hyperscience CEO or whatever the case may be, living it up in the city and never the twine shall meet. So how do you see nature coming into the conversation at a level where it wasn't able to before because of what technology is able to do?

33:23

Jeroen

Yeah, we're experimenting, of course, in a project like Letters from Nature on this speculative level with that question. So really having nature actually having conversation with you or actually writing letters. And these are, of course, speculations also to raise attention and raise discussion exactly on this topic about how we could use nature in a sense, or sorry, how we could use technology to come closer to nature. But we're really living in a time that is really about that question, about how we had that interaction of humans, technology and nature. And I guess on a more practical level, so what we will really see increasingly, I think it's also going to be about artificial intelligence, just giving us a much better understanding of the state of nature. That's probably the first step. So that's already something that you see already. So artificial intelligence is used to model the climate, for example.

34:24

Jeroen

So without artificial intelligence, without technology, we would have a much lower understanding of actually what the state of nature is. You could think of all sorts of those kind of applications. So we could use sensor technology, artificial intelligence in a way that will really be about understanding the state of plants or the state of crops, which is also used a lot for us. How can we optimize the quality of life for a plant? How can we optimize the quality of life for animals? These are all more really already stepping into those fields and using technologies. And I think that at some point you were on this path towards increasingly tighter connections with nature. It might still seem crazy to us at this point, like Letters from Nature. It seems totally crazy that letters of that nature would actually write letters at some point. But I think in some way we're actually getting closer to something like that.

35:27

Nadja

Brilliant. Yeah, I think it's all around a very exciting time in the world. Of course there's a lot of problems, but the difference is that a lot of these problems have always been there. They are just now being highlighted because of what technology is bringing us in terms of awareness. So I am curious because we are focused on the show on web3. First of all, what is your definition of web3? Because you work with a lot of different types of technology. So in your eyes, what is web3?

36:00

Jeroen

Wow, that's a big question. Yeah, that's interesting. One, I would probably describe web3. I would describe it as the blockchain, which maybe in my purely simplified terms would be something it's a digital register. That's just how I would describe it. But the difference is that often also a lot of people say to me, okay, but how new is this? Then we've had registers all the time. We had it forever and ever at every age. And then you could also say, well, it is more or less the same, what we've had, but we can use it far more efficiently now. So it's a bit like when we invented the printing press. Before that we already had books, but with the printing press, that enabled us to really make these books, like massively available in all sorts of forms. And that's, in my opinion, what NFT is doing.

36:55

Jeroen

So NFT is enabling me as digital artists to create all these sorts of new forms and ways of selling artworks and engaging with audiences in all sorts of ways. And that's different. I've sold, of course, digital artworks also before NFT, but that's really different in the way that you could do it now. And we're just at the first steps of that. It's really about NFT is really about enabling these sorts of new interactions with people and that in a future world, which is really all our content will be AI generated and the virtual environments we will interact in, this will really be a base technology that will really be facilitating the future ways we will interact.

37:46

Nadja

I'm keeping an eye on the questions, and I saw a question that relates very well to what you were just talking about. So this is from spaceboy. There's a lot of FUD about AI replacing humans. What do you say to people who tell you that?

38:01

Jeroen

Yeah, it's still far from you could say a couple of things. So far from replacing humans in the sense that artificial intelligence, it's still very much a system which as you have to realize with artificial intelligence in the first place, that it's a system which has no knowledge at all, no understanding at all of the world at all. It's just a replication of existing data can be really cool in the sense that what it can do with the data, but it doesn't, like a human have any knowledge of the real world at all. It doesn't have a conscience at all. It's not a living being in any way. So in that sense, it is in some way just an advanced form of statistics. That is, this sort of tool can also be your assistant, but it's still far from actually being able to replace a human in.

38:54

Jeroen

The sense that it will replace all sorts of more boring tasks, which could be really like the boring part of writing text, the boring part about maybe even image creation. But it's far from replacing an AI will, at this moment still will nowhere be able to interact with another human being in the real world, or it still far is from capable of really understanding and really bringing forward to really good creative ideas.

39:33

Nadja

I want to jump on that train of thought a little bit. So, of course, there's all this talk as the question asked about AI replacing humans and doom and gloom terminator style. But practically speaking, when all of these, let's say, more repetitive tasks are increasingly being replaced the same as what we saw in the Industrial Revolution. What do you think? What implications is this going to have for society where a lot of shift in thinking has to take place perhaps as high as government levels, as low as small businesses, where we will have a group of people who before were employed and now these jobs are taken care of by AI. Do you think that society as a whole is ready to shift their thinking about what the role of humans are, if not that some humans are the only need to do these repetitive tasks?

40:36

Jeroen

Yeah, that's a very good question. And that's a really important question to raise because it's really important to keep in mind that of course these technologies will have two sides to them. So I just described positive sides. But there is, of course also, and that's just the same with robotics, there are darker sides to them. And that is also with technologies like creative AI that we will just start using them to create mass cliché imagery and indeed there will be people left without jobs. But this is also that's the societal debate that you should have now, I neither have the answers to those either, how you would deal with that, but that's really what the societal debate should be about now. But I don't think that it would be that at this point you would start to forbid these technologies or it is really about finding new ways of adopting them and finding, indeed, ways in which we will use them.

41:40

Jeroen

In a way that's really about having the AI do their best thing and having people really come back to what people are good at and what people think is fun. And that could be human connection. What humans are good in is understanding human feelings and human connection and also still thinking about the really big creative ideas. And that's what humans should focus on. The artificial intelligence should really be kept to doing the dumber work in the sense that's really something to be careful with, that the AI will not take over. Also that first human aspect.

42:19

Nadja

That leads me to another question that we have on the pool. So let me just see here. It's quite a long one, so I'm just going to summarize. So how many artists do you know perhaps, you know, a lot of them creating art for causes or awareness rather than just creating art for money? So I'm not sure if this is an NFT focused question, but generally speaking, what perhaps is the percentage or perhaps the divide between artists creating art for a larger message? If I'm understanding your question correctly, Colleen, or is it that people are just creating art because there's an opportunity to make money? So I feel like this might be NFT related, but yeah, please answer in whatever way you feel.

43:10

Jeroen

Yeah, I guess with NFT there's been quite a rise also in projects that were aimed at generating money with it. Couldn't really estimate what kind of percentage there would be. But I think luckily there are also a lot of projects which are about those good causes, et cetera, and about bringing forward larger messages. And maybe that's also, I do think with these newer AI technologies that there will be a kind of shift away from well, not from art created purely for money. But I do think there will be some sort of shift away from art purely focused on creating visuals to art, which more towards art, which is about the messaging. Because what you will see, I guess, is that there will because of all these new AI creative systems, it kind of takeover also the image taking part. So there I do expect that actually the human ideation.

44:11

Jeroen

So human thinking about this larger message, this larger concept to really try to bring forward, that's going to be really important. And the actual creation part, purely visual image creation, that's going to be a little bit less important.

44:27

Nadja

Yeah. Then on that note, I see the questions keep on coming in. Thank you guys. Just a reminder, if you haven't joined us before, please feel free to either put in a speaker request or you are also able to just DM your question to the AdLunam twitter, AdLunam Inc. And you could be as anonymous as you like. So just let me know if you don't want me to use your name. So next question is, we have just one world. And it's great that you are taking up awareness about the environment. But if not the environment, what else would you take up? What else would you be fighting for? From Gloria.

45:04

Jeroen

Well, there's a lot to fight for. Well, mainly my work is also about exploration of boundaries in the world. So one of the other boundaries that also work on is, for example, bridging boundaries between people. So could we bring people closer together? So I worked on projects in the past which were critiques, for example, in the fashion industry, because a lot of really the high exclusive, high priced fashion is often produced in countries, lower wage countries like India in that case, in which the workers that actually create the fashion were underpaid. And I really wanted to bring on this project I worked on using artificial intelligence to bring these two groups of people from India and Dutch European consumers, closer together by actually showing AI-generated Indian faces on this dress that was worn by Jennifer Lopez. And I adapted this YouTube video of Jennifer Lopez walking in this Versace dress.

46:15

Jeroen

And I actually added these faces to them to actually bring people closer together more in each other's awareness. So there are many causes to fight for there.

46:30

Nadja

Absolutely. The day the fight stops is the day that we live in a perfect world. And I'm not sure that's going to happen anytime soon. One more question. Let me check the time. Okay, we might have more time for more than one question, but let's say the next question. Does the Dutch community feel strongly for NFT art or are they more likely to okay, I can't understand this word, but are they more into, let's say cryptocurrency wealth creation?

47:05

Jeroen

I guess if you would have to say which one of those more popular, then it's more about the crypto currencies you also have to realize NFT is really a niche. Certainly NFT based art is really a niche in the sense that you could have if you're in my bubble and probably the bubbles of a lot of people here, you could really have the impression that NFT art is really popular just in the general population. But in my experience it's far from I do a lot of talks at conferences, et cetera, for really big crowds also from the tech scene. And sometimes I ask there if there are people in the crowd who actually bought NFT art. It's a very low percentage of people actually have ever bought something like that. So that's quite interesting to realize. So in that sense, NFT art is, in my opinion, still very much about experimenting.

48:03

Jeroen

It's still very much an upcoming market. It's far from something that is something for the general public at this moment still.

48:12

Nadja

And then we have one from ChanMan20. What is your biggest source of inspiration? So this is a loaded question, so I'm going to add to that. When you go about your daily life, what is it that catches your eye that ultimately makes it into your art? What do you look out for?

48:32

Jeroen

Well, that's probably other art. So I do visit a lot of art fairs, but also watch a lot of art online, really also into all sorts of gatherings, meetups, et cetera, which are always about art and well, NFTs also, et cetera. So really also the digital art scene. So that's one source, but also my second source probably watching also videos, interviews, reading a lot about more technology and philosophy related stuff. And outside of that, nature itself is of course also an inspiration for me. So being outside the nature is really a source of inspiration for the nature inspired artworks for me.

49:16

Nadja

So I'm curious, what type of art are you usually drawn to? Is it art that operates in the same space as you? Because it brings to mind for me this book by is it Austin Klein, I believe, about something like stealing. All artists steal in the sense that all artists are inspired by other artists. So do you draw your inspiration from other artists in the same space as you? Or do you go as far as something completely contrary to what it is you are doing, but you are getting your inspiration from the messages or the techniques or the line of thinking that these artists engage in.

49:58

Jeroen

Yeah, good artists copy, great artists steal, something like that. It was I do visit a lot of digital and see a lot of digital art really a lot. So really worldwide also. And it's also an inspiration, but for me it's much broader than that. So I go to all sorts of art festivals and art museums, et cetera. So one of my main sources of inspiration has always been the old Masters, so old Master painters. So I also go a lot to Dutch museums which have the Dutch old Masters mainly. In the beginning of my career, I also worked on creating new interpretations using artificial intelligence of Dutch old Master paintings. So what I worked on was projects that actually used AI to create a new Van Gogh painting or a new Rembrandt painting. So there's really a lot of inspiration. I'm a big fan of Rembrandt, so there's a lot of inspiration for me in there because it was really outside of purely visual that was capable of creating these really beautiful aesthetically paintings.

51:00

Jeroen

He was really also in a style really revolutionary in the sense that he was already using some kind of like impression style painting, really two, three hundred years ahead of his time. So that's always been a source of inspiration for me.

51:18

Nadja

So I have a special request question from JP. Our team is scattered all over the world and it's World Cup season, and since you are from the Netherlands, I'm in Croatia at the moment, so I'm definitely rooting for them. So JP wants to know, which team are you rooting for, being Dutch?

51:39

Jeroen

Well, I'm not supporting Argentina anymore, that's clear. That's for sure. I'm probably supporting France now at the moment because it's just so high quality with Emma Pay. It's just purely looking at skills of the players, besties of the players. That probably go for France now.

52:03

Nadja

Yeah. I had the amazing experience as soon as I got to the city where I am at the moment. It was that night Croatia's game, and my entire apartment building was watching the game and you could hear the excitement reverberate from every apartment. So I am really seriously rooting for Croatia so that I can be here and experience them winning the World Cup, which would be absolutely amazing. So, Jeroen, thank you so much for an absolutely fascinating conversation. I want to leave the audience with one piece of pondering with them that they can take away with them. So if you had to leave the audience with one thought, what would that be?

52:49

Jeroen

Well, it's a difficult one with one thought. I would really then really advise you to think about what actually is the difference between humans and nature, because that's one of the questions. And I would advise you also then to watch maybe some videos of the philosopher Latour, about the philosopher Latour and his work, about really what actually the difference is between humans and nature and if the difference exists at all. And if you really get into that mindset that this difference might be an illusion in the end and that really can be really life changing in the sense that how you work and live in your life, if you think about that. So maybe that's one direction to lead your thoughts into.

53:36

Nadja

That is certainly something that can keep folks busy for the rest of the week. So thank you for that very important food for thought that you are leaving us with. So that's all for today, everyone. Thank you so much for joining in. And if you are listening in afterwards, thank you for investing your time into broadening your own mind as well as share this time with all of the amazing speakers that we have. Because every single week we all learn something new. At least I learn something new every week. So, just on a final note, in terms of AdLunam's FIFA Meme contest, speaking of, the football, winners will be announced today. So to find out if you've won, just stay tuned to the Twitter Channel or the Telegram chat. And remember that winners have to follow at AdLunam on Twitter in order to qualify. So, looking forward to seeing who are the most creative minds, whether you used AI to generate your meme or not.

54:32

Nadja

Ultimately we will see who is going to make us laugh the most and perhaps it involves Mbappe, who knows? So, on that note, guys, thank you so absolutely much for another hour of just fascinating insights. Catch you again next week for another episode of The Future of NFTs, brought to you by AdLunam. Cheers, guys. Jeroen, thank you so much. Lovely to hear about your work and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next for you because I think you are the pioneer bringing a lot of these new technologies to the audience at mass scale. So looking forward to seeing what's next in the big developing world of technology and where it merges with art. So, yeah, catch you later, guys. Cheers.

55:18

Jeroen

Thanks. Great to be here. Thanks.