Michael Schießl, co-founder and CEO of eye square, opened the Memex Conference in Gdańsk. Together with artist Denis Rudolf, he was giving a talk on the intersection of technology and human art.

Artificial intelligence can create beauty, but it does not touch the viewer the way human works do. Nevertheless, he and the artist Rudolph are convinced that AI will increasingly influence the future of art.

Introducing eye square's 4-level crisis experience model, Schießl and Rudolph described the human response to AI.

In this psychological model, “hyper strength” appears in two forms after a period of time. Either alpha, as apositive mood, which emphasizes opportunities, or omega, “fighting the machine.” Only when the speed of change fades, a state of “neo-normality” can occur.

All stages of the model are dominated by symbolic iconography and System 0 responses. System 0 is part of eye squares' System 012 terminology.

Dr. Mateusz Bonecki, Chief Innovation Office of DAC.digital, addressed issues around AI and knowledge.

Meaningful data (knowledge), in the context of narrow AI constructed for specialized application, can lead to disintegration of knowledge and takes “expert knowledge” to a whole new level. Immense data structures can be created that are meaningful in their own way, but may not fit into society.

Bonecki reminded the audience that AI is only as good as the data is used, which are the biases of AI developers. So, predictions are dependent on preferences and biases, which in some ways makes AI processes seem like self-enlightenment.

Bonecki explains that recognizing the meaning of preferences creates a sense of reality.

Florian Passlick introduced the audience to SPARK, the InContext research platform developed by eye square and DAC.digital.

The InContext research is the base to test media in natural environments and responds to the need of researchers and customers by helping to understand the unique and complex situations in which media is consumed today.

By presenting media in a natural media environment (e.g., YouTube), the results of the tests are fast, reliable, cost-effective, and accurate in predicting media performance.

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Yash Chawla, researcher and consultant in the field of marketing and innovation, addressed innovation processes in general.

He emphasized that innovations usually appear in times of economic or social crises. Often, new technologies are the driving forces that bring significant changes.

Today, most important innovations are no longer carried out in the companies of large corporations, but through the promotion and financing of innovative start-ups and smaller players.

This enables the innovation sector to respond more flexibly to limits and risks in the areas of finance, ecosystems, talent and political framework conditions.

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Krzysztof Kania, Associate Director at eye square, considered gaming as the next frontier for advertising and market research.

He explained to the audience that gaming is more popular than perhaps thought. More than 80% of Gen Z members say, that they spend at least 5-7 hours a week playing games and feel positive emotions while playing. Especially games that reflect reality, e.g., sports games are popular.

Krzysztof describes that many companies have noticed that the attention to their products has increased due to their appearance in games.

Even though long development times, sometimes offer limited placement opportunities for advertising, there is no doubt that games have become a frontier for advertising innovation.

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Karol Duzinkiewicz, technical lead of the DAC project for the eye-tracking tool, gave insights into the state of eye-tracking, a technology for understanding users' digital experience.

Duzinkiewicz emphasized that predicting viewing patterns based on AI learning is the key to understanding what's happening on users' screens.

Eye tracking, he said, is a truly groundbreaking technology in research that eye square has been using for nearly 20 years.

eye square and DAC will intensify their collaboration to bring modern concepts and technologies to market to take InContext Testing into more and more areas of the human experience.