In a world where AI is scaring the living daylights out of the creatives, artists and makers, here’s a sparkle of hope that it might do something more than just make us more efficient, bland and lazy.

Sarah has played a small but exciting part in Tigris’ latest project, the Emotional Alchemy.

Tigris is an inspiring Artist and Creative Technologist, and she’s more interested in using technology as a means of building creative toys to experience, explore and play with than using it to speed up and dull down the world.

On her website, Tigris describes what she does as “reimagining technology as a catalyst for meaningful human connections.” 4160Tuesdays has always, and will always, be a catalyst for meaningful human connections. We make fragrances that get people thinking, feeling and sharing.

The Emotional Alchemy is a fascinating piece of kit that allows the user to share their stories and memories with it, through an AI conversation, and then it blends a bespoke perfume that smells like something from within their mind.

The fragrances used and blended in the Emotional Alchemy are 4160Tuesdays’ fragrances, all made by Sarah. The fact that Sarah regularly makes fragrances based on memories is the reason this collaboration works so beautifully.

The idea that this technology means one day we could all experience our memories outside of our minds, in the form of scent, and that we could even share them with others, is captivating.

Sarah and I often have conversations about AI and the most recent ways it’s invading us. We are almost aligned on our views, for me, the verdict is still somewhat out, though. The optimist in me hopes that in time it will give us something so good it outweighs the bad, a solution to the climate crisis perhaps. Ideally, the people with power and influence would be more eager to help solve this, but as it stands, that wouldn’t make business sense, so maybe with the right technology (that doesn’t impact their immediate wealth) they’d accept or even support it. Not ideal, but probably realistic.

I look at AI in a similar way to the internet. While my life wouldn’t look a thing like it does today without the internet, and I am thankful for all that it has allowed me to do, I do think it has contributed significantly to negative changes in society, and we possibly would have been better off without it. I’m not suggesting we just pull it; society would collapse, but it’s an interesting exercise to imagine a world where it simply never existed.

At heart, I wouldn’t consider myself a creative, so that could be why the risks of AI capabilities don’t feel as scary to me. What I am though, is someone who cares about people and the planet, and if we abuse (or ignore) what’s coming, we could be in big trouble.

AI is made by people, and we can choose how it’s used. We need purpose-driven leaders, innovative creators, inspired artists, and anyone who wants to explore how it can bring more to the beauty of life, to get involved. Just like Tigris.

We need rules and regulations, clarity and transparency and regular, everyday people to understand it. And we should never be accidentally using AI without knowing.

We also need to consider accessibility and equality; it should not be used to further the gap in society.

There’s a lot to be done, but AI is being built. If we leave it to the people ‘interested in AI’ it will only serve them. The world will be a much more interesting place if creatives and purpose-driven businesses get involved too.