Dr Fazal Ali

Cre­ative in­for­mat­ics sits at the in­ter­sec­tion of the cre­ative in­dus­tries, dig­i­tal, da­ta, cre­ative AI, com­merce, the arts, cul­ture, and her­itage. In the Al­go­rith­mic Age, da­ta-dri­ven in­no­va­tion can be as valu­able as the cre­ative prod­uct it­self. Or­gan­i­sa­tions and cre­atives in cer­tain sub-sec­tors of the cre­ative in­dus­tries are mas­ter­ing da­ta-led ap­proach­es and in­no­vat­ing with da­ta.

Dig­i­tal cre­ative in­dus­tries are a new hub of in­no­va­tion, of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised as a pri­or­i­ty In­dus­tri­al Strat­e­gy Sec­tor piv­otal to de­vel­op­ment, job cre­ation, and the strength­en­ing of the glob­al po­si­tion of screen economies. De­spite their scale and im­pact, Stan­dard In­dus­tri­al Clas­si­fi­ca­tion (SIC) codes in some ju­ris­dic­tions strug­gle to cap­ture this new sec­tor in its en­tire­ty.

Pri­vate da­ta and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies have ad­dressed this plan­ning gap by build­ing Re­al-Time In­dus­try Clas­si­fi­ca­tions that serve as Da­ta-Dri­ven In­no­va­tion Ob­ser­va­to­ries. They of­fer bu­reau­cra­cies a lu­cid, up-to-date view of Da­ta Artists in the econ­o­my, where they are work­ing, their projects, and in­de­pen­dent per­for­mance met­rics.

Gen­er­a­tive de­sign­ers, da­ta artists, cre­ative in­for­mat­ics spe­cial­ists, and cre­ative tech­nol­o­gists are the jobs of the fu­ture. Some cre­atives have even dis­cov­ered that the da­ta gen­er­at­ed by their cre­ativ­i­ty is more valu­able than the orig­i­nal busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty and have piv­ot­ed to re­alise the “new” val­ue in their da­ta.

In every mo­ment, we pro­duce a con­tin­u­ous string of da­ta points that flow un­hin­dered in­to da­ta re­finer­ies, da­ta lakes and da­ta co­op­er­a­tives, all sunk deep be­neath a pletho­ra of Apps. Tik­Tok and Spo­ti­fy are su­perb at re­main­ing hid­den in plain sight.

Clicks on Spo­ti­fy are not colour­less. Clicks gen­er­ate in­valu­able user da­ta in re­al time. Spo­ti­fy’s smart rec­om­men­da­tion en­gine, seam­less mul­ti-de­vice con­trol, and rich so­cial and mix­ing fea­tures al­low users to dis­cov­er and per­son­alise streamed con­tent us­ing its “Dis­cov­er Week­ly and Re­lease Radar”.

Cus­tom playlists can be up­dat­ed week­ly to match the user’s per­son­al taste and dis­cov­er new tracks. The AI Playlist and AI DJ al­low users to gen­er­ate cus­tom playlists from text prompts. The Daylist is a dy­nam­ic playlist that match­es your niche mu­sic tastes and mi­cro­gen­res to spe­cif­ic times of day, com­plete with quirky, AI-gen­er­at­ed ti­tles.

Play­back and Au­dio Qual­i­ty al­low you to seam­less­ly switch play­back be­tween de­vices with­out los­ing your place. The Loss­less Au­dio fea­ture en­ables High-res­o­lu­tion FLAC stream­ing up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz.

Smart Mix and Tran­si­tions of­fer cus­tom cross­fades, gap­less play­back, and a mix­ing tool that fades tracks in­to one an­oth­er like a pro DJ. Blend com­bines the mu­si­cal tastes of up to 10 friends in­to a sin­gle shared, up­dat­ing playlist.

Jam is a re­al-time col­lab­o­ra­tive lis­ten­ing ses­sion for groups, whether you are in the same room or miles apart. In-App Mes­sag­ing al­lows lis­ten­ers to share and re­act to songs, pod­casts, and au­dio­books di­rect­ly in­side the App.

This is the in­fos­phere that our chil­dren now in­hab­it. They are in a dif­fer­ent world. Per­haps this is why we find it hard to un­der­stand them.

Be­ing or­di­nary is the worst out­come in the In­tel­li­gent Age. The rise of AI needs a pro­por­tion­ate in­crease in hu­man cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion. As na­tions build hy­per­scale AI cam­pus­es and ar­ti­fi­cial life flour­ish­es, we will crave “hu­man-ness” even more. Brands will be­gin to em­body lov­able im­per­fec­tions and blurred cul­tur­al iden­ti­ties.

Da­ta-dri­ven in­no­va­tion will shift from craft­ing ex­pres­sions to ar­chi­tect­ing brand hu­man­i­ty. This means mas­ter­ing AI, hu­man­is­ing brands, and dri­ving in­no­va­tion through dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and da­ta. Suc­cess will be a blend of cul­tur­al vic­to­ries and cre­ative in­for­mat­ics.

Cre­ative AI al­lows us to be more in­no­v­a­tive than just gen­er­at­ing shorts and reels. Big in­no­va­tion can be­come da­ta-dri­ven. As AI per­fects, hu­mans must dis­rupt. Cul­ture has con­sis­tent­ly served as the are­na for imag­i­na­tion, and now, AI is firm­ly es­tab­lished with­in our cul­tur­al métis­sage. All that re­mains is to ex­plore AI cul­ture even fur­ther.

Cre­ative Screen Economies dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween da­ta and dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion. Dig­i­tal in­cludes the digi­ti­sa­tion of cre­ative prac­tice, dig­i­tal sys­tems, and dig­i­tal skills. Da­ta in­cludes scrap­ing, re­fin­ing, and com­bin­ing dis­crete da­ta to cre­ate new da­ta. Screen economies are not built for an end­less stream of same­ness. Re­sem­blance ex­hausts con­sumer in­ter­est. Al­go­rithms op­ti­mise for im­me­di­ate needs, not for cre­at­ing eter­nal brand ado­ra­tion.

At­tach­ment is not de­sir­able. Re­la­tion­ships are flu­id. Liq­uid mod­erns crave im­per­ma­nent bonds that are slack enough to pre­vent suf­fo­ca­tion, but tight enough to pro­vide se­cu­ri­ty. The ha­bit­u­al sources of so­lace are less stead­fast.

Our deep­est wish is to stop our con­nec­tions with cre­ative brands from cur­dling and clot­ting. But if we tilt the bal­ance too far to free­dom, we find our­selves des­per­ate to be­long. We want a con­tra­dic­tion; to be free and to be shield­ed at once. The nou­veau em­brace is tight but ten­ta­tive.

The cur­ric­u­la vi­tarum of liq­uid mod­erns are beau­ti­ful­ly un­sta­ble, re­plete with short en­gage­ments and amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ences. This is at the heart of da­ta-dri­ven in­no­va­tion in the cre­ative in­dus­tries us­ing dig­i­tal and da­ta.

Dr Fazal Ali com­plet­ed his Mas­ter's in Phi­los­o­phy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. He was a Com­mon­wealth Schol­ar who at­tend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge, Hugh­es Hall; the Provost of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go; the act­ing Pres­i­dent of UTT; and the Chair­man of the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. He is the Pres­i­dent of NI­HERST and an ex­ter­nal ser­vices con­sul­tant with the IDB.