It had been clear to Hugh Forrest for some time that artificial intelligence (AI) would play a major role at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, this year. In an interview with the F.A.Z., the head of programming at the digital festival recalls discussions with his colleagues last October as to whether enough events around AI systems were already planned. For example, Dall-E 2, a software that generates realistic-looking images after entering text descriptions. At the time, Forrest didn't know that another AI product would soon cause a huge stir in the tech world.

Roland Lindner

Business correspondent in New York.

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At the end of November, the ChatGPT language model was released, which, like Dall-E 2, was developed by the Californian company Open AI. It provided answers to inquiries of all kinds in astonishing quality and sent the technology industry into turmoil. Major corporations such as Google, Meta and Microsoft, a close partner of Open AI, have since been making announcements about their various AI projects. And according to Forrest, the organizers in Austin were hectic about adding more program items around so-called generative AI, including ChatGPT.

As the head of programming says, AI will now be a dominant topic at the festival, which is scheduled to start this Friday. On the first day, there will be a panel discussion with Greg Brockman, one of the co-founders of Open AI, who holds the title of president in the company. In addition to events that deal directly with AI, Forrest expects the topic to be discussed on a broad front. For example, when it comes to the working world of the future, or the production of music and films. "The great leitmotif of South by Southwest is creativity, and generative AI is rapidly changing what our definition of creativity is, even if the technology is not yet as reliable as we would like."

The festival is about to make its second comeback

The man identified primarily with Open AI and the current AI craze, on the other hand, is unlikely to be in Austin. Sam Altman, the CEO and also a co-founder of Open AI, is missing from the program so far. Forrest says the organizers have tried to pull out all the stops. They had addressed "everyone" who had a connection to Altman ("including his dog sitter – okay, that's a bit of a joke"), but it didn't work out.

Altman has been very reticent from public appearances and interviews in recent months, despite the enormous interest, and Forrest shows understanding for this: "If I put myself in his shoes, the less he says at the moment, the better it is probably at the moment." But the program chief consoles himself with the fact that Altman's co-founder Brockman has been won, and says he expects him to provide insightful insights into the company and its plans.

For South by Southwest, also called "Southby" or "SXSW" for short, it is the second year of the comeback. In 2020, the festival was one of the first major events in the US to fall victim to the corona pandemic, in 2021 it took place purely virtually. Last year, it was held on-site in Austin again, but it wasn't a return to the old normal. Attendance was significantly lower than before the pandemic, bringing $280 million to the local economy, up from more than $2019 million in 350. Forrest expects a further recovery this year. The number of participants will move closer to earlier times, and the proportion of foreign visitors will be even higher than before the pandemic.