tl;dr: 100,000 people pretend to care about AI but really just like “Westworld.”

It shouldn’t be too surprising that a trip to Austin, Texas isn’t nearly as unique as it used to be.

I say this with a bit of solemness. Both of my parents, an uncle, cousins, and siblings all went to the Univeristy of Texas (at Austin), and even a few of them remember when the term “Keep Austin Weird” was a legitimate rallying cry to preserve the type of quirky authenticity that came to define a sleepy central Texas college town.

Memories are “hazy,” but I think my mom once sat in very large oak tree on UT’s campus, protesting some sort of environmental overreach of city and university officials. My dad got a Ph.D in the humanities (the HUMANITIES) and seemed to think that was a reasonable bet on a sustainable economic future (spoiler alert: it wasn’t). Both of them could eek out a modest living and be happy doing what they did. And that was just fine in 1970’s Austin. Par for the course. Not a big deal. And it’s kind of OK now.

But now, things are definitely different. Austin is both a major tech hub and home to perhaps the largest festival in America — South By Southwest (SXSW). The borders between Austin and once-provincial suburbs such as Round Rock are virtually indistinguishable. Major thoroughfares like the MoPac are basically parking lots during rush hour. Suburban sprawl has even extended as far out as Lake Travis, a few dozen miles outside of downtown.

To be sure, Austin is still a college town, too, but it’s not unusual to hear older Austinites recall in somewhat nostalgic amazement at a protruding skyline ascending up from the banks of the Colorado River and wonder “when did that happen?”

Don’t get me wrong. The food is great. People are more or less friendly and helpful. And the weather (at least in March) is oppressively wonderful. For someone who grew up in Rust Belt climate misery, all of the sunshine last week not only replenished a significant vitamin D deficiency, but also simply forced me to be in a good mood — all of the time. What a great place.

Seasonal Affective Disorder be damned. Texas has no time for that.

So, regardless of how remarkable Austin’s evolution is, I’m not going to focus on why Austin is now Austin™, or celebrate 80+ degree weather in March. Or great tacos. Or longhorns. Or whatever else makes Austin one of America’s oft-celebrated “it” towns. And, largely, I’m going to ignore some of the fairly obvious downsides of Austin’s explosion — a growing wealth gap, the pretty blatant gentrification of East Austin, and the natural tension within any place undergoing a massive amount of change.

No. Instead, I’m going to talk about the very small slice of a little bubble called SXSW Interactive, and the eight square blocks of downtown that I called home for the better part of a week in early March. And of the seemingly endless amounts of content, I ended up attending about 25 sessions. So, whatever I say here can, and should be, taken with a very generous serving of 3D-printed, lab-synthesized, natural language processed salt.

It’s a fake world (and a Westworld, too). It also has very real moments — you just need to look hard for them.

The Quick and Dirty Takeaways (7 Things)

I had never been to SXSW prior to this year, which is kind of weird and ironic, considering many people refer to Thrival as more of a boutique version of it — and I even made the comparison to keep introductions and networking as tight and tidy as possible. Here are a few, fast takeaways:

1. Logistics are incredible. Kudos to the SXSW team for absorbing what is essentially another city every March. Some estimates had SXSW attendance at 400,000 (!) this year. That makes Austin’s city limits (ahem) grow by about 50% for over two weeks. What a remarkable job their team and an army of peppy volunteers do to make you feel at home and taken care of.
2. Choose a lane(s) and stay in it(them). I’m all for diverse experiences of all kinds. But SXSW is an untamable monster. There is a TON of content. Go with what you know will provide value. Leave everything else on the cutting room floor, or save it for the next SXSW.
3. Interactive is nerd paradise hosted at a convention center and a series of hotels. Maybe film and music get the “cool” Austin treatment, but Interactive host sites were mundane conference environments. In other words, the experience is all on the content and the people. Unless you really like gaudy ballrooms and taupe.
4. The best stuff is probably the least attended. It should come as no surprise that SXSW doubled down on the tech buzzwords du jour, i.e. artificial intelligence, machine learning, design-thinking, etc. However, the most well-attended panel discussions offered the least in terms of actionable knowledge and mindshare (more on this later). On the other hand, the “boring” stuff (a panel on re-training coal miners to be coders, and a heavy talk on child labor, for example) was sparsely attended yet yielded tangible and compelling insights and practical takeaways.
5. Your tolerance for posers should be high. Is “poser” even a legitimate insult nowadays? Nonetheless, SXSW’s audience composition is basically like everywhere else on the planet Earth: 90% imitation and posturing, and 10% the real deal. Honestly, I think the critiques around SXSW being a fresh harvest of bitcoin bros and half-interested marketing directors is tired —but rings true. The crowd still reeks of people being there because they should be. I even noticed a well-established tradition: a panel will become full at the start of a program, then the herd will steadily thin over the first 20 to 30 minutes, with people self-importantly rushing out of rooms fixating on whatever (un)important news just popped up on their phone. When the Q&A starts, the room resembles a small college classroom.
6. Always ask a question. Get up off that thing and park it in the awkward, center aisle mic line. Say something relatively provocative to wake people up from their third morning panel malaise, then hit the speaker with your card at the end with a quick and grateful, “Thanks for taking the question. I really appreciate what you had to say.” Rinse. Repeat. I know that sounds self-evident, but do it and you will become the temporary rock star of whatever room you happen to be in. And, frankly, that’s WAY more effort put forth than 98% of the room that’s pissed because they have to wait to get into the “Dell Experience House Platform Brand Activation Super Patio.”™
7. Give credit where it’s due. For all of the market rate criticisms of SXSW, it should be emphasized that the event is incredible. They do a fabulous job organizing and producing a large conference that tackles large topics and issues. And there are very, very smart people there with very, very smart things to say about important stuff. So, while it’s super tempting to dunk on “South By,” I encourage you to take a step back and use some perspective: it is, after all, an event; albeit an imperfect one. SXSW can only be held to certain thresholds of critique, and after that, the mudslinging becomes a bit unfair.

High-Level Stuff

Moving along from the operational and observational, I noticed a few high-level, relevant overtones at the conference, which I think will be at the core of most industry conversations in 2018 (and perhaps beyond).

Maybe We Shouldn’t Trust Facebook

In the time I left Austin last Wednesday evening, to this weekend’s news talk show roundups, Facebook had again stepped into another gigantic pile of tech ethic dog s@%*. This time, it was Cambridge Analytica, a data mining and analysis firm, that propelled the tech giant’s name into the headlines for basically sharing the information of 50 million unwitting Facebook users for a host of purposes that we’re still unpacking by the minute.

To keep track, this is different from selling out to Russian troll farms (along with other Valley blue bloods, Google and Twitter), or playing weird, one-sided psychological head chess with users, or implementing hard-to-process tweaks to its news feed features — although they deserve credit for trying to improve on this.

Taking a few steps back, I’d like to reflect on what I considered a poor SXSW showing by a Facebook executive pontificating on “modern tech ethics.”

Margaret Gould Stewart, Vice President of Product Design at Facebook, spoke briefly at SXSW during an afternoon session on Saturday, March 10 titled “Able, Allowed, Should: Navigating Modern Tech Ethics.” She was the only person scheduled to speak.

The audience demand for the talk was substantial, and I found myself located in the back half of the room, after winding through a hotel hallway line that stretched over the expanse of an entire floor. There was some palpable hype to this, insofar as you’re willing consider hype as something that can be achieved on a Saturday afternoon in a Marriott. My initial curiosities revolved around, “Hey, Facebook, this should be interesting,” and more or less, “At least they’re putting themselves out there in the middle of this corporate s@%* storm they’re dealing with.”

Alas, the talk was just about 30 minutes on the dot. Stand alone. No Q&A. Up and down, with a nice PowerPoint that, at one point, compared Facebook’s technology to how disruptive the technology of WRITING was to ancient society. Just let that sink in.

OK — to be extremely fair-minded, Margaret did not say, “Hey, Facebook is as important a technology as writing.” But she did quote Aristotle, and dedicated a slide with this quote:

“…writing will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.”

Her main point was basically, “Look, society has always had a tense relationship with advanced technology, and its adoption into our daily lives has always been a bit of a rocky, windy road. Facebook is no exception.”

Or perhaps more cynically, “Guys, we’re Facebook. We’re big and very important. Give us a break. And we didn’t think we’d get caught chasing money and get called out. So, here’s some self-important stuff to chew on.”

And again, to be fair, all of these points, taken within context, are not entirely unreasonable. However, I think I’m not alone when I feel that Facebook continuously bobbles the snap. Whether it’s general tone-deafness, avoidance of responsibility, or attempting to spin very legitimate concerns into a narrative of “it wasn’t our fault!,” or “you’re overreacting,” these guys seem to continuously miss the mark. Make no mistake, Facebook is not a victim.

Altogether, it feels like an eternity since we were celebrating Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In gospel, and Facebook’s progressive work culture, and Mark Zuckerberg charmingly learning Mandarin in, like, six hours.

I think the final verdict is that, while Facebook spent a lot of time polishing the product and making the optics look right, they violated the most important internal mechanic: trust. We trusted Facebook. Perhaps we still do.

Maybe we should rethink that position.

Hard Science vs. Humanities

Since time immemorial, there has always been a tension between the lab geeks and the literature snobs. But SXSW should be commended for (superficially) attempting to bridge the gap during Interactive. With a few exceptions, most panels thematically-revolved around “___________ and AI” or “____________ and Machine Learning” or “People in the Age of AI” or “Design and Machine Learning” or some derivative thereof.

However, I did appreciate how passionately some of the humanities folks spoke out against the binary, pixelated approaches that sometimes — read: often—occupies the realm of engineers, data scientists, coders, software developers, and so on.

Largely, these design-focused panels were a general referendum on some of the poor returns of the first AI-centric products to hit the market in either commercialized or test form. Whether suffering from internal bias, or simple neglect during the build process, many of these products usually reflect the preferences and perspectives of those making them—essentially, young to middle-aged white men. And the conference was riddled with cautionary tales, or not-so-shocking, “truthy” illustrations of white dude bias in tech.

“Did you know that when you Google ‘smart person,’ the first 100 images are of white men? And the first image of a woman is Lisa Simpson!”

“Did you know that the latest facial recognition software only recognizes the faces of men?”

“Did you know that the newest wearable technology is designed for women, but only records and responds to predominantly male biomarkers?”

And so on…

You get the drift.

Still, it’s important that these conversations are happening and happening more often. If we’re all to accept that the next ten years will be characterized by massive automation and unprecedented technological advancement, we should be thinking about how it will affect all of us—not just white guys. It is 2018, after all. It seems like, at minimum, at least half of humanity is sick of banging their heads against a wall asking for these types of considerations to be more commonplace.

Fair enough.

But perhaps the even larger point is that the humanities and the hard sciences are destined for a collision course in the not-so-distant future, and how these disciplines will learn to live, work, and play with one another will be a important subplot to this whole Fourth Industrial Revolution™ thing. All of which begs the question, who does this revolution serve?

It’s a question we’ve yet to answer. And there will be winners and losers.

Rusty Justice: SXSW MVP! MVP! MVP!

For my final point, I’d like to paint a picture.

It’s 9:25 in the morning in the Continental 1–2 room of the Westin Austin Downtown. It’s a Tuesday.

The hallway of the hotel is sparsely populated, decorated with ostentatious chandeliers and ornate carpet. The wall paper is an inoffensive gray color. In fact, the entire hallway is an inoffensive gray color. There’s a water cooler.

Volunteers (wo)man their stations in front of double doors opening up to the handful of identical, compartmentalized rooms complete with a sound tech area, a small elevated stage, classroom seating, a projector and screen, and pipe and drape adorned with a crooked SXSW Interactive sign.

There are three people sitting on stage. There are 25 people in the audience. It is 9:28 AM.

The moderator (his name is Sam) checks his watch. He looks left. Co-panelist, Aileen, gives a quick nod.

Sam looks to his right. There sits a hero.

Majestic in a blue blazer, khakis, and a stone cold, no-doubt-about-it blue striped button-down from JoS. A Bank, he is in his late 50’s or early 60’s.

Powerfully built. Salt and pepper hair. High and tight. Discerning, inquisitive blue eyes with a hint of guile. His drawl could drag the deepest ocean.

This man’s name is Rusty Justice. And he’s a coal man.

Never mind the fact the Rusty’s name is Rusty, and he’s a COAL MINER (technically an engineer, but I doubt the hungover AI futurists are comparing notes). He came to play—equipped with laser-focused analysis and folksy aphorisms that KILLED. IT.

I’ll use a few turns of phrase straight out of Appalachia:

On the lack of focus on the internal dynamics of the state: “Kentuckians are all sittin’ at a table with the chairs facin’ out.”

On social and economic mobility: “Appalachia is a lot like a bushel of crabs. One tries to get out and the rest of ’em are pullin’ him back in.”

On overcoming domestic obstacles: “We call that ‘gettin’ above your raisin.’”

OK. This was the best panel at SXSW and perhaps the most relevant discussion of Interactive. I know, I know, the future of machine learning is very important, but the future of millions of Appalachians who are looking for work and trying hard to discover a sense of hope in their lives is an issue we should have been addressing yesterday. And we won’t get around to it until next year—if we ever do.

Admittedly, I’m biased. I grew up in the Rust Belt. A lot of my family lives in Appalachia. I live in Appalachia. In fact, we call Pittsburgh the “Paris of Appalachia.” I understand that sounds weird.

And there I was, thoroughly enjoying what was essentially an economic development and education discussion early in the morning, with such concrete, practical examples of people making a difference. And while Rusty Justice is awesome, Sam Ford and Aileen Owens are rock stars themselves—dedicating their careers to transforming an economy, culture, and collective mindset to better adapt to a future that’s rapping on Appalachia’s door.

Here are a few notes:

1. One coal mining job creates an 8X impact of the tax base of a community, and five support jobs.
2. Broadband connectivity is essential to rural communities. As Rusty Justice says, “You build a house on the foundation. You can’t see it, but it’s there.”
3. A displaced miner has a high aptitude for tech, as mining has evolved from heavy labor to a much more technical, mechanical job.
4. And finally, Appalachians are by default, very creative people.

Yet, only 25 people were in attendance, and the room fell victim to the SXSW audience erosion effect. More time for me to ask a ton of questions, I figured.

I’d like to emphasize that SXSW is largely a bastion of liberal, progressive thinking. You’d be hard pressed to find a large chunk of card-carrying GOP members hell bent on supporting aluminum and steel tariffs.

However, coal country in Kentucky and the rest of Appalachia are in a fight not only for their livelihoods, but for their lives (remember opiods?), and they’re looking for and seeking help. But when leaders from Appalachia come to SXSW and deliberately put themselves on stage, they were received by a somewhat expected small audience.

And, to boot, they were cool with that. Because for Rusty, Sam, and Aileen, it was about the quality of the content and of the individuals in the room that mattered the most. So you can bet the farm that I invited all of them to attend and speak at Thrival this year.

Just remember, when we’re all hanging out and drinking craft beers and whining about the state of the world, don’t come to me with, “I just can’t understand why Kentucky voted for Trump.”

We need to start listening and caring. That means sometimes forfeiting the late night brand activation with free cocktails, heading to bed early, and gearing up for a deep dive at 9:30 AM. Honestly, it’s the least we can do.

— — — — — —

OK — that’s all I got. And remember, the second season of Westworld premieres on April 22 on HBO.