Shanghai Conference Welcomes AI Artists and Content Creators

A 90-year-old historical building found itself unusually packed on May 7, as more than 200 A.I. industry experts and 1,500 attendees gathered for the first-ever Digital Design: AIGC Builders and Creators Conference.

AIGC — or Artificial-Intelligence-Generated Content — is taking off quickly as A.I. technology advances in leaps and bounds worldwide.

The conference was organized by Tezign, a leading Chinese technology and design company, and aimed to promote the development of AIGC across industries from design and content creation to education and management.

Over the course of the day, the three-floor building hosted more than 100 events, including keynote speeches, hands-on seminars, pitches from startups, and stage performances. Millions who couldn’t make it to the conference tuned in via livestream.

“We didn’t want to organize a conference about technology, industry, or products. Today, we wanted to organize something about the people,” Tezign Founder and CEO Fan Ling said during his welcome speech.

One event that stole the show was a street dance showcase. After collecting suggested words from the audience and feeding them into A.I. music software, dancers Ye Yin and Ye Zheng improvised a performance to the newly-generated song, showcasing AIGC’s unexpected applications outside the tech world.

The event’s organizers hope that, through gatherings like these, Shanghai will become a global capital for the next generation of design.

All images via Haedi Yue