How Many Miracles Can Ordinary People Create Once They Have AI: The "Love, Hate, Passion, and Vengeance" AI Video Creation Project

十字路口Crossing·April 19, 2024·2·1

Come become the new legend

Hi, I'm Koji, and Crossing is my personal newsletter. The name comes from something Steve Jobs once said — about standing at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts.

I'm co-founder of the sleep environment brand Tangdao and the content company The Fair. I previously founded the Jiepang app and was part of the founding teams at Fanfou and Jumei International Holding Limited.

As a classic cross-domain entrepreneur, I've let curiosity carry me across all kinds of "crossings" — from mobile internet to e-commerce, from content to consumer goods.

💡 A Word Before We Begin

The first-ever AI Art Festival (AIAF) is finally here!

As the initiator of this festival, I've felt a kind of joy I haven't experienced in a long time throughout the preparation process: an idea appears, you seize it, act on it immediately, your inner "Xiaoyuzhou" ignites, you call in friends, and the snowball keeps growing.

It's also reminded me, once again, of the seamless teamwork with my partners at The Fair, and the surge of Gao Neng Liang that comes with it — charging ahead, breaking new ground.

Special thanks to Yusen Dai. Over lunch at Beijing's Liangmaqiao, he floated this idea and gave me an enormous push — "You guys at The Fair say you want to change the direction of the tide. Well, this is something you absolutely must do. What could possibly change the tide's direction more than this?"

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What follows is an invitation brimming with excitement. We are launching the first AI Art Festival (AIAF), and announcing our first collective action — the "Love, Hate, Passion, Vengeance" AI Image Creation Project.

At a moment when order is being reshaped, we are waiting for new legends.

We are practitioners of literature, art, technology, and creative industries. We are enthusiasts who love and continually search for modes of human spiritual expression.

This is a spirited gathering at the busy crossing of "technology and art." This brief list includes scientists, entrepreneurs, and emerging tech companies drawing attention across China and the world; cultural icons and institutions that have left lasting imprints on China's spiritual life and stirred resonance across generations. Most importantly, through our community and media partners, we have the privilege of standing alongside tens of thousands of creators who have spontaneously joined the wave of AI creation out of pure passion.

Today, when the prevalence of AI needs no elaboration, and the creative process that most embodies human spiritual uniqueness is being replicated by AI, we want to answer this with you:

What is human uniqueness? What is human value?

We are launching a comprehensive program spanning online open calls, offline exhibitions, forums, and workshops. If you hope to practice AI creation, or already are, we can connect you with fellow travelers and help show your work to more people. We will also invite you to join our industry forums and offline co-creation sessions, and to bring your work to the offline exhibition at Anaya.

If we asked AI to shoot an ad for humanity — an expression of the human spirit — what would it look like?

Since AI's emergence, the technical barriers that once blocked many people's creative passion are no longer thresholds or privileges of the few. Anyone has the opportunity to express their taste, aesthetic, and uniqueness — whether artist, lawyer, skilled worker, driver, student... beggar or king. New creators are emerging. New content idols are being born.

We invite creators and AI enthusiasts, primarily of Chinese heritage worldwide — or rather, we invite all who have experience, understanding, and the desire to express the human spirit — to use AI as a tool, join our creation project, and submit still image works to us.

Together with our human partners, using our influence and persuasive power, we seek the broadest possible consensus at this moment and push for the smallest incremental progress.

Please join us.

For more questions about the participation process, please click here, or reply "AIAF" in the official account chat window.

New language, new value, new inspiration and creation are happening. The Fair is a content brand with sharp instincts for new methods and tools. We try to explore new possibilities of content expression within them, and their value to ordinary people.

What makes the AI era exciting is that it shatters the threshold of creation with tools.

Just as when digital photography became ubiquitous, an ordinary person with an eye for beauty could capture moving images with a phone. Just as when music production software spread, a talented high schooler could compose a symphony in a dorm room.

If you too have a hunger for creation, a fascination and pursuit of the new;

If you too want to climb the ladder of code and test the upper limits of your own creativity;

If you too want to write of "love, hate, passion, vengeance";

Please join this collective creation. Together we will show the power of the human.

All outstanding works will be presented and published as part of the Human Creators Alliance collection for the AI era.

We invite outstanding representatives from AI technology and art and culture to form an advisory council and jury with us, to select works that best demonstrate human creativity and spirit through AI tools. We also hope that through serious, thoughtful exhibitions and fitting, wondrous offline presentations, the works and the event can achieve completeness.

What we want to illustrate is something rarely considered before:

How does a person express love? How do they understand hate?

How does a person draw on their experience, memory, and imagination to convey more complex, authentic emotion?

Sitting before AI's dialogue box, each of us can gradually find answers from within our own bodies and minds.

Past discussions framed around this proposition often pointed toward a pessimistic hypothetical: as technology keeps evolving, humanity's future grows cold and emotionless.

We hope that through this creative opportunity, in your interaction with artificial intelligence, you will speak to the temperature of the human soul.

Benefiting from years of science fiction descriptions of the AI era, humanity has gained an unprecedented sense of alliance. Now we want to go further, to find the greatest common denominator within it.

"Union" is what we value. The description "alliance of humans" is, in this era of rapid AI growth, a warmly intimate proposition. We hope to use AI to make a declaration for the human spirit, to shoot a set of "ads" centered on complex yet diverse fundamental human emotional experiences.

Therefore, we have themed the first AIAF "Love, Hate, Passion, Vengeance."

It is an opportunity for humans to fall more deeply in love with themselves through dialogue with AI. It is an opportunity to begin expressing oneself and sharing oneself with the world.

In terms of creative standards, what matters most remains human comprehension, human resonance, human unpredictably shifting emotions, and human joys and sorrows. We quote Xi Tao to express our attitude toward human creation in the AI era:

"Whether AI will replace human creation — I think that's itself a ridiculous question. If it actually happened, it would prove that humanity has no emotional warmth left, that we've entirely enslaved ourselves to machines, enslaved even our own emotions. I completely disagree with any direction of artificial intelligence that seeks to replace art. I think it's a waste of time, with the purpose of turning people into machines."

We hope you will primarily use AI to complete your work.

You may choose one or more characters from "love, hate, passion, vengeance" as your creative theme.

Your work may reflect on emotion, individuality, and how AI understands and expresses these complex feelings. Imagination, creativity, grasp of reality, and resonance are the criteria for outstanding works.

Additionally, our advisory council will create alongside you or select works that best demonstrate human creativity and spirit through AI tools.

They are —

Literary Advisors: Bei Dao, Stanley Chan

Art Advisor: Philip Tinari

Image Advisors: Hyacinth, Xiao Quan

Technical Advisors: Yusen Dai, Hidecloud, Kazik

Creative Advisor & Special Curator: Deng Li

All selected outstanding works will be presented and published as part of the Human Alliance collection for the AI era. We will also select 100 works that meet our standards to complete an offline exhibition with our joint presenting partner, Anaya.

During the open call and exhibition period, we will invite partners, friends, and outstanding creators for offline co-creation and exchange.

One of AIAF's missions is to provide an opportunity that inspires more creative people to join AI creation and collectively explore exciting new possibilities for content and creativity.

New image creativity may be born here. Richer dimensions of the human spirit may be born here. More open, warmer visions for humanity's future may be born here.

We have invited advisors and partners from various industries to provide ordinary people with technical and resource support, including documentation on how to create AI images, and auxiliary GPTs specially developed for creators.

Yet what we lack most is your action — more people watering new creative soil with their own talent and understanding.

Order is being reshaped. We look forward to you becoming the new legend.

First AI Art Festival (AIAF)