Who's In This Podcast
Helen Todd is co-founder and CEO of Sociality Squared and the human behind Creativity Squared.
Domhnaill is the Global Lead for the EY Metaverse Labs and the Global Lead for the Cognitive Human Enterprise.
YouTube 
Ep41. The Metaverse is Dead; Long Live the Metaverse! Why You Should Pay Attention to the Metaverse with Domhnaill Hernon, the Global Lead of EY’s Metaverse Lab
You won’t be on the fence about investing in the metaverse after this episode!
From aeronautical engineering to trailblazing the intersection of art and technology, meet Domhnaill Hernon.
Domhnaill is an award-winning technology and innovation executive. He received an undergrad degree in Aeronautical Engineering and a PhD in Aerodynamics from the University of Limerick and an executive MBA from Dublin City University, Ireland. He currently holds two positions as Global Lead of the EY Metaverse Lab and the Cognitive Human Enterprise. These are pioneering new approaches placing Humans@Center between business, technology, and society. Prior to that he held several senior leadership positions across R&D, innovation, and creativity while at Nokia Bell Labs. Domhnaill’s work has been featured in Wired Magazine, Forbes, Times Square, SXSW, Nasdaq, Mobile World Congress, Ars Electronica, and TEDx, and he advises innovation and cultural programs globally.
You’re in for a treat as Domhnaill shares his unique perspective on the evolution of the internet from 2D to 3D, the current state of the metaverse, and the imperative for businesses to invest in it, especially with Gen Z’s adoption of it. He runs an artist-in-residence program at EY to deeply infuse artists’ perspectives and challenge technologists to think beyond technology-only solutions. He also shares the power of collaborating with artists to challenge our assumptions and have our digital worlds reflect the full spectrum of lived human experiences.
In this episode, you’ll hear Domhnaill’s journey from his early days as an aeronautical engineer to becoming a thought leader of the metaverse. He shares his ah-ha moment, when an intellectual anvil hit him on his head and changed the trajectory of his thinking on how innovation should be approached.
He also discusses EY’s exploration of identity and inclusivity in the metaverse and how technology can unintentionally homogenize rather than allow for authentic individual expression. He urges listeners to value different perspectives, experiences, and types of intelligence beyond their own, as that is where the biggest value is created.
Join the conversation as Domhnaill shares why the metaverse isn’t dead despite headlines and his passion for pushing the boundaries of what’s possible at the intersection of art, technology, and business
Defining the Metaverse
The metaverse is not a new phenomenon, but it is one that most can agree is fairly amorphous and difficult to grasp fully. Domnhaill starts by defining the metaverse for our listeners in its simplest form, relating the concept to the evolution of the internet. When you think about the internet today, and you go on a webpage, it’s largely text-based, and it’s 2D and flat. You interact with it through a mouse and keyboard. It works well for what it’s intended to do, and an overall fine experience, but it’s not comparable to how we as humans interact with any other parts of the world.
When we think about the evolution of the internet, the future of it is likely to become more 3D, more spatial, more immersive, and more collaborative. That’s how EY defines the metaverse.
Domhnaill explains that with this evolution of the internet, it will become more like how we as humans interact with each other in the physical world. A large reason it gets difficult for people to understand is that a lot of the hype that you read, or a lot of the articles you read on Google or in the media, is largely about virtual reality, which he emphasizes as part of the metaverse, but is nowhere near the entirety of it. In fact, the metaverse can be experienced in virtual reality, augmented reality, or through today’s 2D web.
It’s important to keep in mind that the metaverse is nebulous because it merges and encompasses so many different aspects. It connects the physical and the digital. It talks about the evolution of the internet beyond what it is today. And there are so many different ways you can experience it that it is no surprise that it is deemed such a complicated topic. Domhnaill encourages us to keep in mind that as the internet becomes more 3D, it will become more like how we as humans interact with each other in the physical world, which he deems the best way to start one’s understanding of what the metaverse actually is, and will become.
Embracing Metaverse Superpowers
Through his job, Domhnaill encounters people from all over the world and all different positions who typically share the same cynical, dismissive attitude towards the metaverse. To open up their perspective, a bulletproof approach is connecting it to their daily lives through the lens of the younger generation. With over 80% of Gen Z spending their time online playing games, everyone can unanimously agree that this younger generation is shaping our future and is spending almost all of their time online.
Considering their time spent online and the fact that the gaming industry is many times bigger than the movie and music industries combined, it starts to make more sense why businesses must start paying attention to the behaviors and trends of this generation, who are our current and future employees, customers, and leaders.
If you’re not investing in the metaverse, you will not attract or retain the top, best young talent. You won’t attract brand loyalty from your new customers and consumers, and you’re going to lose out on all of these opportunities because you’re not meeting them where they are. And where they are, is online. And more so, in immersive, more engaging, and more gamified environments.
“The risk is not investing in the metaverse.”
Domhnaill Hernon
A popular misconception is that Domhnaill is talking about building or investing in a game, but he isn’t. Instead, take the best elements that drive engagement, interactivity, collaboration, and community-building from online games, bring them into the business setting, and make them enterprise-worthy and purposefully address company needs.
Where are We on the Metaverse Adoption Curve?
The metaverse has been around for quite some time, so where are we currently on the early adoption curve? First, Domhnaill explains that there are different curves for the different metaverse types. The first, the social consumer metaverse, which is mostly the online gaming platforms, has been around for a while and is very mature. So when thinking about the hype cycle there of this massive industry, it’s here and only growing.
There’s also the industry metaverse, which encompasses things like digital twins, prototyping, and simulations that can be used to optimize and increase productivity in facilities and similar industrial and manufacturing spaces. Domhnaill believes this is also a mature space given the adoption and investments. The industry metaverse has been utilizing use cases through virtual reality, especially around enabling prototyping to do health and safety training in these types of environments for many years now, before the metaverse terminology was ever hyped up to what it is today.
For the third type, enterprise metaverse, the question of how the metaverse plays a role in businesses is ripe for more adoption. How does it help professionals on a day-to-day basis excel at their 9-5 jobs? That’s where the enterprise metaverse comes in, which is all about enabling stronger communication, better collaboration, and leveraging the superpowers of the metaverses to bring people together and achieve impactful outcomes. This part of the metaverse, Domhnaill explains, has just come out of its hypecycle and is at its peak currently.
So, looking at the three metaverses and where they are all on their hype cycle curve, some maturity in the social consumer, a lot of maturity in the industrial, and adoption is ripe to take the best practices from both of them and bring them more into the enterprise metaverse.
“I’m very positive and bullish about where we are in the hype cycle and how we’re coming out of the negativity and starting to go into the mindset of let’s make real investments and let’s create real value.”
Domhnaill Hernon
The Metaverse is Dead; Long Live the Metaverse!
Domhnaill warns us heavily to not believe the headlines around the metaverse — especially those saying the metaverse is dead — and take all that they are saying with “a gigantic pinch of salt.” Despite these misleading articles telling us to ignore all things metaverse, he is witnessing the biggest companies making large investments, a telltale sign that the metaverse is very much alive.
Skip the first few pages of the Google search results, he recommends, to get down to the results where people who are relevant in the space are talking about the metaverse in the ways it should be explored. And keep in mind, that every emerging technology goes through a hype cycle, just like we are currently seeing happening here.
“It’s like a universal law. Every single emerging technology that has created gigantic positive social and business benefits in the world to date, every technology has gone through the hype cycle. And yet it’s here, and they’re ubiquitous.”
Domhnaill Hernon
For any big technology evolution, you can refer back to the media headlines, Domhnaill reminds listeners, and all of them go through the same cycle, out of their hype cycle and right into the notion of “this is dead, it’s going nowhere.” Yet, every single time, those technologies then go on to become ubiquitous in our society.
Merging Art and Technology
Aside from all things metaverse, Domhnaill’s true passion lies at the intersection of art and technology.
Domhnaill is rooted in a deeply academic, deeply scientific, and technological background. His early years of work were with an organization that played a very prominent role in all of modern society technologically, Nokia Bell Labs. Despite the contributions to humanity he was involved with there, he found himself realizing that everyone around him, himself included, was coming from that deep technology background, and there was only one world model to have. There was only one lens through which to view the world, which is through a technology lens. In other words, every problem is a tech problem, and every solution is a tech solution. Domhnaill was a technologist working with technologists who all loved technology, and had a feeling there was something they were collectively missing.
“Here are humans and people touching each touchpoint of how technology is made, deployed, and consumed. Almost no one ever thinks really about the human at the center of it.”
Domhnaill Hernon
A turning point for him was at an artist and engineer meetup in New York City, where the conversations with the artists that he met opened up his perspective and changed his trajectory on how to approach innovation.
“The analogy I give is that I feel like someone dropped an intellectual anvil on my head. They spoke about technology, they spoke about humanity, they spoke about society in a way that I never heard anyone else.”
Domhnaill Hernon
With his eyes opened wide from the conversations and realizations, Domhnaill finally recognized what was missing from his technology-focused world. The perspective that helped reconcile the tensions in his head as a technologist and someone who loves technology but knew that it could be so much better finally saw the missing puzzle piece.
Artist-in-Residence Programs
Those eye-opening realizations launched Domhnaill’s creation of Bell Lab’s artist-in-residence program, in which he strived to infuse that way of thinking deeply into the minds of their technologists and also deep into the foundations of business and merge it with an artist’s perception.
“And by business, I mean, not just this fun, altruistic, check-the-box innovation thing, I mean, deep into business, in that you can create value from bringing the worlds of art, creativity, and technology together.”
Domhnaill Hernon
Striving to fill these gaps between art and tech is something that Domhnaill considers a personal journey, but also something that he encourages us all to be more aware of in recognizing these areas of needed improvement across the board.
When he joined EY, he also established an artist-in-residence program. With these artist residency programs, the focus is on emerging new things you can create at the intersection of things that were previously siloed. It’s bringing artists into technology or business, where you have the diversity of lived experiences and diversity of different types of intelligences. The collaboration between Domhnaill and his team with the artists runs deep, spending hours together every week exploring everything from the broader meanings of life and technology to then refining that and identifying what big questions they continuously come back to. From there, they determine if they have a unique point of view or a unique way of bringing this way of thinking to the world and then eventually to a prototype. And then, if successful, they get to present that work to the world.
The strong connection they build with the artists, over the multiple years they work together, is something that is an integral part of the process. The deep intent of getting to know each other is the only way to create this kind of real social value in the world.
“I rely on artists to help us think through those things substantially because their entire existence and the way they interrogate the world is of that human lens of the human condition, and they’re the best ones to help you think through mistakes you might make today that might cause individuals or communities harm in the future.”
Domhnaill Hernon
EY Metaverse Artist Projects
Last year, Josie Williams, an artist from the program was featured at SXSW 2023. Williams’ showcase, “Ancestral Archives” was an interactive multimedia installation that explores infusing Black thought into virtual worlds and metaverse experiences using generative artificial intelligence. The artist showcase aimed to fuse Black history, culture, and A.I. within the metaverse, offering a unique experience to challenge conventional thinking. Inspired by renowned American writers like James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, and Zora Neale Hurston, Josie utilized machine learning to create “virtual poets.” Unlike traditional bots, these virtual poets didn’t provide direct, factual responses mimicking the authors’ works. Instead, they offered abstract, poetic responses, often diverging from the authors’ styles entirely. This approach aimed to prompt audiences to engage deeply, interpreting and contextualizing the responses within their own experiences and perspectives.
“It showed this very typical artist way of acting as a counterpoint to everything else that everyone is doing.”
Domhnaill Hernon
Then, they expanded the concept by creating masks inspired by West African culture, representing the authors whose works were used to train the virtual poets. These masks were integrated into a massive 3D interactive environment, where visitors could engage with the virtual poets, receive their poetic responses, and explore the immersive world. The showcase elicited a positive response from participants, and the response affirmed the project’s success in pushing boundaries and encouraging people to rethink conventional approaches to A.I. and storytelling in immersive environments.
A current project, dubbed “Maximizing the Minimum” with a long-standing artistic collaborator with EY, Ava Davidova, is taking a look at the impact of technology on human identity and communication. Ava, in collaboration with EY, is exploring the homogenization of humanity through technology, particularly evident in metaverse environments where avatar customization is so prevalent and often fails to capture individuals’ actual true essence. The project aims to leverage A.I., such as machine vision and GenAI, to detect and amplify subtle expressions and nuances that define individuality. The things that make us, us.
By focusing on microexpressions and idiosyncrasies, the project is seeking to create more authentic digital representations of individuals, challenging the current homogenizing trends in avatar creation, which Domhnaill deems something we need to be careful about. One focus of this project is to address the potential harm caused by technological solutions and explore ways to mitigate such effects, and promote a deeper understanding of human identity and communication in the digital realms.
Links Mentioned in this Podcast
- EY Global
- EY Metaverse Lab
- “Ancestral Archives”
- Follow Domhnaill on Instagram
- Connect with Domhnaill on LinkedIn
Continue the Conversation
Thank you, Domhnaill, for being our guest on Creativity Squared.
This show is produced and made possible by the team at PLAY Audio Agency: https://playaudioagency.com.
Creativity Squared is brought to you by Sociality Squared, a social media agency who understands the magic of bringing people together around what they value and love: http://socialitysquared.com.
Because it’s important to support artists, 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates will go to ArtsWave, a nationally recognized non-profit that supports over 150 arts organizations, projects, and independent artists.
Join Creativity Squared’s free weekly newsletter and become a premium supporter here.
✕
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Domhnaill Hernon: The cognitive diversity of a team or an individual is the summation of your lived experience plus how your brain works. Just your brain chemistry. Are you spatially intelligent or are you musically intelligent? And it’s how you kind of connect those things and bridge those things and enable new things to emerge out of bringing these previously siloed things together.
[00:00:20] Domhnaill Hernon: That’s the simplest way for me to describe my world model around innovation. Creativity and how you have impact and differentiation of the world.
[00:00:28] Helen Todd: From aeronautical engineering to trailblazing the intersection of art and technology. Meet Domhnaill Hernon. Domhnaill is an award winning technology and innovation executive.
[00:00:40] Helen Todd: He received an undergrad in aeronautical engineering and a PhD in aerodynamics from the University of Limerick and an executive MBA from Dublin City University Ireland. He currently holds two positions as global lead of the EY metaverse lab and the cognitive human enterprise. These are pioneering new approaches, placing humans at center between business, technology, and society.
[00:01:09] Helen Todd: Prior to that, he held senior leadership positions across R& D, innovation, and creativity while at Nokia Bell Labs. Domhnaill’s work has been featured in Wired Magazine, Forbes, Times Square, South by Southwest, NASDAQ, Mobile World Congress, Ars Electronica, and TEDx, and he advises innovation and cultural programs globally.
[00:01:33] Helen Todd: Domhnaill and I met back in 2017 in New York City, and I’ve always been impressed by his understanding of the crucial role artists play in driving innovation. I know I’ve learned a lot from knowing him over the years and excited to share our conversation with you today.
You’re in for a treat as he shares his unique perspective on the evolution of the internet from 2D to 3D, the current state of the metaverse and the imperative For businesses to invest in it, especially with Gen Z’s adoption of it.
[00:02:07] Helen Todd: He runs an artist in residence program at EY to deeply infuse artists perspectives and challenge technologists to think beyond technology-only solutions. He also shares the power of collaborating with artists to challenge our assumptions and have our digital worlds reflect the full spectrum of lived human experiences.
[00:02:30] Helen Todd: In this episode. You’ll hear Domhniall’s journey from his early days as an aeronautical engineer to becoming a thought leader of the metaverse. He shares his “aha moment” when an intellectual anvil hit him on his head and change the trajectory of his thinking on how innovation should be approached. He also discusses EY’s exploration of identity and inclusivity in the metaverse and how technology can unintentionally homogenize rather than allow for authentic individual expression.
He urges listeners to value different perspectives, experiences, and types of intelligence beyond their own, as that is where the biggest value is created. Join the conversation as Domhniall shares why the metaverse isn’t dead despite headlines, and his passion for pushing the boundaries of what’s possible at the intersection of art, technology, and business. Enjoy.
[00:03:34] Helen Todd: Welcome to Creativity Squared. Discover how creatives are collaborating with artificial intelligence in your inbox, on YouTube, and on your preferred podcast platform. Hi, I’m Helen Todd, your host, and I’m so excited to have you join the weekly conversations I’m having with amazing pioneers in the space.
[00:03:52] Helen Todd: The intention of these conversations is to ignite our collective imagination at the intersection of AI and creativity. Creativity to envision a world where artists thrive.
[00:04:10] Helen Todd: Domhniall. Welcome to Creativity Squared.
[00:04:13] Domhnaill Hernon: Good to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:04:15] Helen Todd: Yeah, it’s so good to have you on the show. Domhniall and I met back in 2017 when we were both living in the New York City area. And I must say, I’m always jealous. Domhniall has like the most fun job of merging tech and art together.
[00:04:30] Helen Todd: Since we met, we’ve been colleagues, we’ve done panels together. We’ve seen each other speak at different conferences and events. So it’s really great to have you on the show. So welcome again.
[00:04:42] Domhnaill Hernon: Thank you. Yeah. I mean, You know how many people say to me that they think I have the best job in the world and it’s true, but we might get into it through our conversation.. that it’s hard work, right?
[00:04:51] Domhnaill Hernon: Bringing these worlds of art and creativity and tech together really takes a lot of effort. So happy to dive a bit deeper with you on that as well.
[00:04:59] Helen Todd: We’re definitely going to dive deep into that. But first for people who are meeting you for the first time can you introduce yourself and give us a bit of your origin story?
[00:05:09] Domhnaill Hernon: Origin story. Yeah. So Domhniall Hernon a kind of a very difficult Irish name, phonetically impossible. I’m living in the U S the last eight years, mainly in the New York area. I did aeronautical engineering in my undergraduate degree. I did some further studies at university working on aerodynamics and fluid dynamics and ended up spending a lot of my professional career in an organization called Bell Labs. Bell Labs is the research and innovation arm of Nokia. And I’ve been with Ernst Young, or EY as we call it nowadays, for the last couple of years. And really working on deep technology development, technology research, technology integration, and then in the last several years spending a lot of time thinking about humans at the center of technology and business.
[00:05:54] Domhnaill Hernon: And that’s what brought me to working with artists and creators as well.
[00:05:57] Helen Todd: And your title at EY is head of the metaverse labs. So can you tell us specifically what the labs does in general, and then also maybe even taking a step back of how you define the metaverse, because I feel like it might be amorphous in some people’s minds.
[00:06:17] Helen Todd: So since this is the world that you live in so much let’s dive into all things metaverse.
[00:06:22] Domhnaill Hernon: So maybe we’ll start with how we define it you know, and at its simplest form, we talk about the evolution of the internet. And if you think about the internet today, when you go on the web page, it’s largely text-based.
[00:06:36] Domhnaill Hernon: It’s 2D and flat, and any images or videos you have are 2D images and videos. And that’s the web of today, and it works really well. It’s a very good way to get knowledge out there and do all the cool things that the internet does. So that’s how you experience the internet. 2D, flat, largely text based. And then think about how you interact with it…
[00:06:55] Domhnaill Hernon: You have a mouse, you have a keyboard, and you click on things and it’s fine. It’s a good interface. It’s an okay experience, but it’s really not like how we as humans interact with any other part of the world. Okay, so that’s the internet of today and it’s fine. We think about the evolution of the internet and how it might become more 3D.
[00:07:16] Domhnaill Hernon: More spatial, and more immersive, and more collaborative. And that basically is what the metaverse is. Now, what we mean by that is, in other words, you could say maybe the internet evolves to be more like how we as humans interact with each other in the physical world. No, it doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.
[00:07:38] Domhnaill Hernon: Now, when you mentioned it’s amorphous, and I agree, which can be a good or a bad thing at times the reason it gets a little bit difficult for people to understand is because a lot of the hype that you read or a lot of the articles you read on Google or in the media are largely about virtual reality.
[00:07:58] Domhnaill Hernon: Okay, so virtual reality for anyone that might not know is you put on these quite big goggles and in your view, your eyes only see an entirely digital, entirely virtual reality in front of you. You’re kind of disconnected from the physical world. You’re disconnected from your normal physical reality.
[00:08:17] Domhnaill Hernon: That’s virtual reality and that works really well. In some instances, some examples, but you also can experience the metaverse and what’s called augmented reality. So that’s where you might have glasses. I’m wearing glasses at the moment for anyone that can’t see this. And I’m really, I’m very much tethered in the physical.
[00:08:35] Domhnaill Hernon: I am my human self in this physical world, but I can have this digital overlay on my visual where maybe when I’m looking at you, it gives me a pop up and says, Helen is the founder of this podcast and Helen’s interests are these kinds of things. And it can be so much more than that. So that’s what’s augmented reality is.
[00:08:53] Domhnaill Hernon: A lot of people believe that’s probably over time where you will use the Metaverse the most is because you’re really connected as a human to the physical world, but you have this digital overlay that helps you be better at things, augments you in various ways. And then you have the other version of the Metaverse, which is to use today’s, 2D web and devices of today, like laptops and tablets and phones, which you can go onto the internet and you have a 3D experience, like online games like Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox.
[00:09:24] Domhnaill Hernon: They are 3D worlds that are experienced on 2D devices. And the great thing about that is you can use all of today’s tech And build these metaverse experiences and tap into what I call the superpowers of the metaverse, which it is tech, but then you also have the more slightly futuristic tech that is augmented reality, AR and virtual reality, VR.
[00:09:42] Domhnaill Hernon: So it’s a nebulous because it’s kind of all of those things. It connects the physical and it connects the digital. It talks about the evolution of the internet beyond what it is today. And there’s so many different ways you can experience that it does become a complicated topic. But all I would ask people to remember is the internet becomes more 3D.
[00:10:02] Domhnaill Hernon: The internet becomes more like how we as humans interact with each other in the physical world. And that’s, I think, the best way to start off your understanding of what the metaverse is.
[00:10:11] Helen Todd: I appreciate you saying that. I know I read the book ready player one, which I highly recommend. And I think most people in the VR space have read that book.
[00:10:20] Helen Todd: And if you’ve seen the movie, but you know, the book is better. It’s a dystopian future where the planet due to climate change is uninhabitable. So everyone mostly plugs into one. One metaverse I forget what it’s called now, but one thing that you had shared with me ahead of us recording is that I love the comparison to the internet, that there’s still going to be closed and open metaverses and whatnot too.
[00:10:44] Helen Todd: And that gaming already is such a great entry way to think about it. I know you talk to executives all the time, and I guess I, I will also admit that with the hype cycle of Facebook and the metaverse dying, I kind of wrote it off to, but it’s come up in so many conversations on this podcast, to be honest, I’m like, okay, I shouldn’t write off the metaverse at all.
[00:11:05] Helen Todd: And that’s one reason why I’m excited to talk to you. But I know you talk to executives all the time, you know, getting them on board of like, this is the future and what are some of the things that you explained to them where that light bulb comes off or they really should be paying attention to what the metaverse is.
[00:11:22] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah. So I get a lot of, I don’t know, I understand this, but I get a lot of cynicism and a lot of… I meet a lot of folks in different industries, different sectors. I’m privileged to work all over the world and I get to meet everyone. And. A lot of folks that are in business kind of just they’re dismissive of it and they’re quite cynical and that’s fine.
[00:11:39] Domhnaill Hernon: So, we start off a conversation kind of typically trying to connect back to their daily lives. And I’ll often ask them, I’ll say, you know, do you have any younger people in your family? Any kids or grandkids or nieces or nephews or anything like that? And of course, most people will say, yeah, I do. Well, tell me what they do on a day to day basis.
[00:11:58] Domhnaill Hernon: What are they spending a lot of their energy at? And inevitably they will say. Playing online video games. And you’re okay, yeah, so how much of their time? Hours and hours a day. And then you kind of go, well, tell me a little bit more about it. What are they doing in the games? You know, what are they asking you for in the games?
[00:12:17] Domhnaill Hernon: And they’ll say, oh, yeah, they’ll make a joke and roll their eyes and say, you know, I’m giving them my credit card and they’re spending a lot of money on in-game purchases. Skins and products and all this kind of stuff. Skins for their avatars. And you go, okay, interesting. Yeah. And then I’ll say, so, yeah, that’s what’s happening in your personal life.
[00:12:34] Domhnaill Hernon: And then I’ll connect it to the market and I’ll say, so do you know that more than 80 percent of Gen Z are people born since 1996. Do you know that 80 percent or more of Gen Z play online games? And they’ll be like, is it really that high? And I’ll say, yeah, it is. And then I’ll say, do you know that the gaming industry is many multiples bigger than movie industry and music industry combined?
[00:12:59] Domhnaill Hernon: And then they’ll go, no, you’re lying. It’s not. And I’ll go, it is, and I can prove it because it’s just, it’s available information. And then they’ll kind of, you start seeing the cogs turn a bit, right? And you start seeing them becoming less cynical and a bit more serious about the future of their business and their employees and their customers.
[00:13:17] Domhnaill Hernon: And then you start connecting that dots and you start saying, so, so if you understand like Gen Z or people that were born in 1996, they’re already coming into the workforce. They’re already out working and they have spending power. And so they’re your future employees. They’re your future leaders. They are your current employers, employees, and you’re there and you’re in current and future consumers.
[00:13:38] Domhnaill Hernon: Like, do you understand if they’re spending all this time in these online gaming platforms and this is their spending power. And then I’ll talk to them a little bit about some of the trends, like the social trends, how Gen Z, what they believe in, what they think about, what’s very important to them. And it’s very different to the previous generations.
[00:13:55] Domhnaill Hernon: Like there’s aspects of identity and representation and fluidity of a lot of different things that the older generations really struggle with and I could go on and on and I explained that to them and then you kind of connect all the dots and you go. So, you see if you are not investing in the metaverse, you will not attract the top best young talent, you will not retain your best young talent, you will not attract your brand loyalty from your new customers and consumers.
[00:14:23] Domhnaill Hernon: You’re going to lose out on all of these opportunities because you are not understanding them and you are not making investments to meet them where they are at is online and more immersive, more engaging, more gamified type environments. So and then I helped him understand. We’re not talking about building a game.
[00:14:40] Domhnaill Hernon: We don’t want you client A or EY to invest in a game. What we’re doing is we’re taking the best elements that drive engagement. and interactivity and collaboration and community building in the online games. And we’re going to bring them into the enterprise setting, into the business setting, and we’re going to make them enterprise-worthy.
[00:14:57] Domhnaill Hernon: We’re going to make them fit for purpose for company needs, but we’re going to tap into all of those aspects that drive that type of engagement with that community in the online games. And then when you connect those dots for them, make it very human connected to their personal lived experience. All of a sudden, then they, the light bulb goes off and they realize this is something they need to invest in because they’re connected to their daily lives.
[00:15:19] Domhnaill Hernon: Now, the odd thing that happens is, and I find this really fascinating, like, and I can’t really explain why it happens other than people are very busy and a lot of people disconnect their work lives from their personal lives, they almost split their brain in two, I find. And they often struggle to make that connection between what they experience on a day-to-day basis in their own lives or their family with what’s going on in their business.
[00:15:44] Domhnaill Hernon: And what I try to do is build those bridges in their minds to connect back to the personal lived experience, to the work, to make sure that they can see that the risk here is not in investing in the metaverse, the risk is in not investing in the metaverse because this is such an obvious thing and the way I describe it, you know, almost no one has ever argued me when I described it in such a simple way, everyone goes, well, when you say, when you describe it like that’s just so obvious.
[00:16:11] Domhnaill Hernon: Like, yeah, we have to invest. So it’s kind of almost a no brainer, you know.
[00:16:15] Helen Todd: And on the, I guess, early adoption curve, I feel like Facebook really kicked off at least the VR space and then it kind of, the hype cycle came down and now with the Apple Vision Pro, I could see that as another really exciting you know, boost to the metaverse and extended reality and metaphors from the seat that you sit in, where do you feel that we’re at on the early adoption and your thoughts on Apple Vision Pro, or maybe even some of the other gaming elements where we’re at and, you know, on the business roadmaps, you know, I would say probably invest now, but where is this tech going in the short term and long term, especially now with AI and gen AI powering a bunch of new innovation as well.
[00:17:01] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah. So the way, you know, we, I spend a lot of time trying to understand our different, the different sectors, the different industries, the different use cases, the different needs what are the pain points in the different geographies or sectors. And then we do a lot of time spending mapping where the metaverse might add the most value.
[00:17:19] Domhnaill Hernon: And when you look at that kind of holistically, or as holistically as you can, there’s kind of three different types of metaverse that stand out. There’s the social slash consumer metaverse, which is really more like the online game platforms that we mentioned, Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft. That’s the social side that’s the consumer side.
[00:17:38] Domhnaill Hernon: Now brands do show up there, like our clients do have brand presence there in the online platform, and that’s driven more from like a marketing campaign type of thing. That is very mature. So if you think of the hype cycle that has come way out of the hype, that’s come out of the trough of disillusionment.
[00:17:54] Domhnaill Hernon: That’s they’re already hitting like plateau of productivity type. That’s a gigantic industry, as I mentioned just a few minutes ago. Now, there’s also the industrial metaverse, which is more like things like digital twins and a digital twin. For anyone who doesn’t know, it’s where you create a full 3D digital replica of maybe of a machine or a factory or it could be of a business process.
[00:18:16] Domhnaill Hernon: And you also often feed that real time data through sensors, through what’s called Internet of Things. And then you can take in that input, that historical data, and then you can run simulations on it. If then like what happens in my facility, if this happens with the data, how do I optimize? How do I drive productivity?
[00:18:33] Domhnaill Hernon: Now, that’s also way out of the trough of disillusionment. It’s into the plateau of productivity. It’s already a gigantic industry in its own way. And in the industry metaverse, there’s a lot of for many years prior to the metaverse terminology becoming very hyped up. There’s a lot of use cases, which proven and substantial return on investment on using virtual reality to enable prototyping and automotive or life sciences and to do health and safety training in these types of environments. Environments where if you were to do thousands of hours of training in the physical facility, It would take so much time and it would cost so much downtime on the equipment that it would make the business a waste of time.
[00:19:16] Domhnaill Hernon: So you can do all of that training in the virtual reality, and then when you come into the physical plant, you can apply that knowledge much more quickly, and it’s just a far better solution. That’s a proven out there for 10 plus years type technologies, digital twins and training using VR. Now where it gets confusing and where we talk about the hype is that, you know, a company name that you mentioned that brought the metaverse terminology to the fore a couple of years ago.
[00:19:42] Helen Todd: A company that we’re not naming again.
[00:19:45] Domhnaill Hernon: They’re looking at kind of trying to bring it into the enterprise setting a little bit more, right? So in other words, enterprise…meaning where I work on a daily basis, is. We happen to use Teams as a video conferencing software. Other people use Zoom or whatever. But it’s a question of, like, how does the Metaverse come into enterprise?
[00:19:59] Domhnaill Hernon: In other words, how does it help me and my colleagues on a day to day basis in how we do our jobs, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5? That’s the enterprise Metaverse, and that’s all about enabling better communication, better collaboration teaming, and all those other things you’d want to do, and leveraging the, what I would call, the superpowers of the Metaverse to bring people together and do those things.
[00:20:19] Domhnaill Hernon: Now, that part of the metaverse has just come out of the hype cycle is probably at its peak trough I would say in my estimate at the moment and I’m starting to see very strong indications that it’s either come out of the trough and going into the better place or either substantially with some sectors are already out of it and others are kind of just at the bottom of it.. So, we’re seeing a lot of activity, a lot of investment for the biggest technology companies in the world.
[00:20:48] Domhnaill Hernon: All of them, you name any one of them, they’re making mega investments. And on our client side, we’re also seeing a lot of investment within the businesses that actually want to make better investments for their people. They’re starting to invest and bring in the metaverse technology. So there’s a confluence of all of that.
[00:21:04] Domhnaill Hernon: Some maturity in the social consumer metaverse, a lot of maturity in the industrial metaverse, taking best practice from both of them and bringing it more into the enterprise metaverse, helping employees do things in different, better ways and a lot of investment, kicking off a lot of very strong use cases around the return on investment.
[00:21:21] Domhnaill Hernon: When you’re smart about where you invest, we could talk about the use cases if you like as well. So I’m very kind of positive and very bullish about where we are in the hype cycle and how we’re coming out of the negativity and starting to go into the, you know, let’s make real investments and let’s create real value.
[00:21:38] Helen Todd: Thank you for explaining that. I feel like I’m behind on all the metaverse now hearing you explain that. I did get to do a tour of the UC digital futures building and one of our guests on the show, Alejandro, gave me a demo of how they’re doing product design with VR headsets and collaborating with people all across the world.
[00:21:59] Helen Todd: And they also have a physical structure. So, that came to mind as you were describing that. And I guess for people who are interested in exploring this more, what’s the best way to get started to, to contact you? Or is there a way to dip your toes in the water of the metaverse?
[00:22:15] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah, I would say just, you know, Google is always a good starting point, but not the first three pages of Google.
[00:22:21] Domhnaill Hernon: So Google search results are dominated by media headlines that I would argue, I’ll tell you straight out without naming any of them, they’re all wrong. 10 times every day for the last year, I’m reading articles, the metaverse is dead, the metaverse is dead, the metaverse is dead. And I know it’s not because I am speaking to companies that are making mega investments.
[00:22:41] Domhnaill Hernon: So I would just say be wary of what you read, maybe skip into the second or third pages of Google to start getting the results where people are actually doing real stuff. And take it with a pinch of salt these, like I always joke the metaverse is dead, long live the metaverse. Right? Because in every emerging technology, every emerging technology goes through the hype cycle.
[00:23:04] Domhnaill Hernon: It’s like a universal law. And by the way, gen AI is going to do the same. We can talk about that a little bit later. And every single emerging technology that has created gigantic, positive social and business benefits in the world to date, every technology has gone through the hype cycle. And yet it’s here, they’re ubiquitous.
[00:23:22] Domhnaill Hernon: We are using them. And every single one of them were written off. At multiple times, like I’ve just, I just saw a documentary recently about the gaming industry and you wouldn’t believe how many times the gaming industry as a whole, not just an individual company, but as a whole was written off the early stages of the internet and the web were completely written off by the media.
[00:23:42] Domhnaill Hernon: I could go back any big technology evolution. I can show you all the media headlines, every one of them for a year. Out of hype, right, about how this is dead, it’s going nowhere. And yet, every single time, every one of those technologies has become ubiquitous, largely across the world, creating a lot of value societally and from a business point of view.
[00:23:59] Domhnaill Hernon: And I find it fascinating that people seem to forget that’s literally a universal law. And why do we keep on choosing to believe the media headlines where they’re, they honestly don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.
[00:24:12] Helen Todd: Well, I know back in 2010, 2011 with my social media agency, Sociality Squared, I definitely have a presentation on my computer called Facebook’s dead, long live Facebook.
[00:24:24] Helen Todd: Definitely have seen that too on the social media side. Well, you said that you were bullish about the metaverse. I know something else that you’re bullish about is artists in technology. And I’ve been lucky enough to see some of your presentations on this and just talking over, you know, some whiskey, probably Irish whiskey on the topic.
[00:24:43] Helen Todd: But I’d love for you to kind of share your thoughts with our audience on the role of artists in technology and business too, and why you’re so bullish on this topic.
[00:24:55] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah. So it goes back. I mean, I’ll tell you a little bit of a backstory on this. So, you know, as I mentioned at the start I did an undergrad in engineering and aeronautical engineering, and I did a PhD in aerodynamics.
[00:25:06] Domhnaill Hernon: And so I was, you know, went deep into the technology and engineering and science side of things. And then I joined an organization called Bell Labs which today has 10 Nobel prizes, two in chemistry and eight in physics. And they’ve invented things like the laser, the transistor, CCDT, I could go on, right? Unix operating system, C, computer language, all that stuff, right?
[00:25:26] Domhnaill Hernon: So I came from a deep, deeply academic, deeply scientific technology background, and then I went into work, and I worked in an organization that played a very prominent role in all of modern society technologically. And that’s all good, right? Really good contributions to humanity. Now, when I was there, though, what I realized was, and myself included, everyone that comes from that deep technology background, there’s only one world model to have, and there’s only one lens through which they view the world.
[00:26:01] Domhnaill Hernon: And that world model and that lens is a technology lens. In other words, every problem is a tech problem and every solution is a tech solution. And I used to find this just generally very bizarre, a very different way about seeing the world, or thinking about the world, or questioning my own value as a technologist in the world.
And I never had it was an inkling, it was an intuition, it was a big question I had, but I never had a, I never had something that I could point to and say, oh, that’s the solution. That’s the thing that points me in a direction that helps me reconcile or make sense of this tension I had in my own mind about me being a technologist, working with technologists, loving technology, but yet feeling there was something seriously wrong with everything.
[00:26:41] Domhnaill Hernon: And I mean wrong in that how universities train in the subjects, how employers employ and expect you to deliver value and all that kind of stuff. And I also realized that, you know, in the world, we have people that decide where money is invested to create technology. We have people that then decide what those products are and how they go out to the market.
[00:27:06] Domhnaill Hernon: And we have people, us, me and you, that are consumers that decide what we spend our money on. And across all of that, where there’s humans and people touching each touchpoint of how technology is made, deployed and consumed, almost no one ever thinks about, really about the human at the center of all of that.
[00:27:22] Domhnaill Hernon: The human, I mean by human, I mean the human condition, not doodle the human consumer who this segment in a certain way from a marketing point of view. I mean, what does it actually mean to be human, right? That’s what I mean. So I was very I had a lot of questions, honestly, philosophically about what the hell was I doing my all my years in college and I spent a lot of them and then magically in New York I think it was May of 2016… We were invited to an event at the Red Bull Music Academy in New York, and it was the 50 I won’t go to the history.
[00:27:53] Domhnaill Hernon: It’s too long, but it was the 50th anniversary of a Seminal event that Bell Labs did with artists the engineers and Bell Labs and artists in New York in 1966 And there it was like an artist and engineer meet up in New York City in commemoration of this thing that happened 50 years ago, and every single artist I spoke with, I mean, literally blew my mind.
[00:28:16] Domhnaill Hernon: When I say literally blew my mind, I’m not exaggerating. Like the analogy I give is that. I feel like someone dropped an intellectual anvil on my head. They spoke about technology. They spoke about humanity. They spoke about society in a way that I never heard anyone else use those words, think those ways.
[00:28:35] Domhnaill Hernon: And I’ve been very privileged, like I’ve worked with some of the best universities in the world I’ve worked with and advised startups. I’ve worked in Bell Labs with, you know, some of the smartest technologists in the world. And not once did I even come close to having conversations that touched on these topics and these intersections that are of deep importance.
[00:28:53] Domhnaill Hernon: And when I met with the artist and I had those conversations the first night, I walked away from that. Just with my mind blown and completely opened up and then I realized, ah, this is the thing I’ve been missing. This is the perspective that helps me reconcile the tensions in my own head as a technologist and someone that loves technology, but honestly has a lot of, it could be so much better.
[00:29:13] Domhnaill Hernon: I’ll put it that way, right? So that’s the backstory. So I then realized that it wasn’t just about my generation and how I was educated and how I went to college and how I was expected by my employer to create value. Even the younger people that I was hiring out of universities all over the world had the same education I did.
[00:29:30] Domhnaill Hernon: And they were completely oblivious to this perspective. My employers were oblivious to the fact that they were paying me a lot of money and I didn’t even know these things. Like I was oblivious to these other ways of thinking about technology in the world. And that’s why I initially started, I created my, the first artists in residence program at Bell Labs.
[00:29:47] Domhnaill Hernon: Was to deeply infuse that perspective, that way of thinking deep into our technology, deep into the minds of our technologists. And also deep into business. And by business, I mean, not just to do this as a fun, altruistic, check the box, cool innovation thing. I mean, deep into business in that you can provably create value from bringing the worlds of art and creativity and technology together.
[00:30:11] Domhnaill Hernon: And that’s where I saw a really big gap in the world is that a lot of people did things on the edges or fun things or they have did bring artists in, but it was very superficial or very transactional. And that’s where I saw a really big gap in the world is that a lot of people did things on the edges or fun things or they have did bring artists in, but it was very superficial or very transactional.
[00:30:23] Domhnaill Hernon: There was no foundational thinking. There was nothing for longevity built into it. And I wanted to make sure we create a value that was, that had longevity that was strategic. And that would meaningfully create value for the business side of things as well. So anyway, that’s a long backstory to why I invest in why I think about it so much, but it’s a bit of a personal journey, but also thinking about not just myself as an individual, but what are, where are the gaps and areas of improvement that I see across tech just generally and globally.
[00:30:51] Helen Todd: I love that. And hearing you say that it’s getting me even more excited about my podcast because I’m so lucky to have these conversations with artists and amazing minds like, like yourself. So, I love that. Well, and I know at least from the Bell Labs program that you paired the artists with the engineers and the way that you always described it as like engineers go like honing on one problem and artists, you know, think very broadly but you actually need differentiation for innovation to happen. Like, that’s how evolution like works. So I was wondering if you could kind of expand on that because you’re pretty bullish on what innovation means too.
[00:31:34] Domhnaill Hernon: In the past, it’s got me in a little bit of trouble. So I think, you know, from an innovation point of view, it’s a, it’s really is an overused word, but..
[00:31:43] Helen Todd: How has it gotten you in trouble?
[00:31:45] Helen Todd: Do people have, like, very, like, too strong of reactions or rejecting it?
[00:31:48] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah, well, it’s like Everything is like, I think I’ve said this right, you know, we’ve been at events before on panels, but if everything is innovative, then nothing is right. And I think it’s just an overused word. And people just say, Oh, it’s an innovative product, or it’s an innovative person, or it’s an innovative brand.
[00:32:03] Domhnaill Hernon: And it’s kind of a meaningless thing. And I find most people that supposedly work in innovation don’t actually know, like, again, fundamentally what it is. So I think for something to be innovative, it has to be new. It has to be unique and there has to be some kind of new feature, new thinking, some new thing, but newness on its own is not good enough.
[00:32:23] Domhnaill Hernon: It has to actually have an impact. So it’s uniqueness or new newness or invention plus impact. Now that impact can be. commercial impact or that impact could be societal global impact. It doesn’t matter, but it has to be those two things. Otherwise, it’s not innovative now in my world. And I, you know, I’ll try.
[00:32:42] Domhnaill Hernon: I’ll try and explain this in a good way for a podcast. Right? But there’s this kind of there’s a theory that can be applied to innovation. And it comes from a biological theory of evolution, and it’s called the adjacent possible. And the easiest way for me to describe it is, if you think about the complexity that is life on Earth today, and we’ll take humans as, you know, supposedly the pinnacle of that, although Sometimes we could debate that maybe.
[00:33:08] Domhnaill Hernon: And for anyone that’s listening that can’t see my face, I have a freaky smile at the moment. And I’m holding back from laughing, not doing a good job. So the theory of the adjacent possible in biological evolution, As a way to explain, how did we emerge at such complex life today from basically four primary ingredients in the earliest days of life on earth?
[00:33:35] Domhnaill Hernon: Like when the first individual cells emerged, wherever they did on earth, about three billion years ago. So, what was it that happened from four base ingredients that were pretty much useless on their own to evolve to the point of complexity that we have today? And in short, and I’m no biological chemist or anything, but in short what happens is each of them on their own don’t have much value.
[00:34:02] Domhnaill Hernon: One combines with the other, it might not have much value. It creates a thing or creates multiple things. A lot of that is junk. A lot of that gets thrown into the evolutionary dustbin, but something comes out of that has value. And that valuable thing persists. And then that valuable thing or valuable things then connect with the previous primary ingredients.
[00:34:25] Domhnaill Hernon: But there’s multiple new things that emerge out of the integration and bringing together and the collision of these very basic things that are only four ingredients They all start creating all these permutations, all these evolutions, all these additional value creation opportunities. Now, most of it is junk and does not persist through the evolutionary chain.
[00:34:44] Domhnaill Hernon: But the things that work really well and they get improved upon. Now, what that really is to say is whether you believe that or not. By the way, it’s a scientific thing. It’s not like debatable if you believe in science. But anyway, where that comes into innovation is, A lot of innovation to this point in life has been really good, strong innovation in a particular area.
[00:35:06] Domhnaill Hernon: Where a lot of people believe the future of innovation is at the intersection of different disciplines, different skills. And I could extend that further and say the future of innovation lies at the intersection of different brains, different types of human intelligence. And different lived experiences.
[00:35:24] Domhnaill Hernon: Now, and again, I could go, I don’t want to go too much on this, because you know, it’s hard to describe some of these things, but a lot of people don’t realize, for example, there’s nine different types of human intelligence. So, you know when someone says, oh, they’re very intelligent. What they’re actually saying is they’re probably really intelligent or smart in one dimension of human intelligence.
[00:35:44] Domhnaill Hernon: But then that might not be on the other eight. So, there’s spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, emotional intelligence. Linguistic intelligence. I can’t remember all nine of them offhand, honestly, but you know, they’re the kind of so what happens now is if you’re creating a team, you should be conscious of what’s your diversity of intelligences across the team.
[00:36:05] Domhnaill Hernon: Have you a bunch of people that are. Technically, you’re spatially intelligent, but you don’t have any of their intelligence. And that means you’ll do good things on that one dimension, but you’ll be really terrible on the others. So a lot of the work I do, whether it’s bringing artists into technology or into business or thinking about innovation theory or how you create a really impactful team.
[00:36:26] Domhnaill Hernon: Where you have these diversity of lived experiences and diversity of different types of intelligence. It’s all about the emerging new things you can create at the intersection of things that were previously siloed and that were never connected. And that’s like my whole world model or lens to which I think about.
[00:36:45] Domhnaill Hernon: If I was to call it innovation theory, which by the way, I never do. I think you used, you brought up innovation and you brought me down this rabbit hole. I’m sorry for anyone that I bored in nicely. But if I was to talk about it in terms of innovation theory. That’s the way I would describe it, but now I often don’t talk about it that I talk about like cognitive diversity and how the cognitive diversity of a team or an individual is the summation of your lived experience plus how your brain works, just your brain chemistry.
[00:37:12] Domhnaill Hernon: Are you spatially intelligent? Are you musically intelligent? And it’s how you kind of connect those things and bridge those things. and enable new things to emerge out of bringing these previously siloed things together. That’s the simplest way for me to describe my world model around innovation, creativity, and how you have impact and differentiation of the world.
[00:37:30] Helen Todd: I love that. And I love the rabbit holes. So tangents are welcome. And I know ever since forget exactly, maybe it was one of Michael Enamel salons where you first. I forget exactly when you first said that, but ever since it’s definitely stuck with me. And one artist that you’ve got to work with is Harry Yef also known as Reaps One for his stage name through the Bell Labs.
[00:37:54] Helen Todd: And I was so lucky different him through knowing Domhnaill. And he was actually our very first interview on Creativity Squared. And when you described like the anvil and the thoughts, I, I feel like every time I talk to Harry, one of those moments happens as well. But tell let’s talk a little bit about some of the artists that you’re working with at EY.
[00:38:16] Helen Todd: ’cause it sounds like you’re doing some interesting things. I was lucky enough to see the exhibit at South by Southwest. So maybe we can start there and then go into some gen AI projects as well.
[00:38:26] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah, so we have, I started an artist in residence program at EY, so we have several artists that we work really closely with.
[00:38:33] Domhnaill Hernon: And when I say closely, I mean like deeply collaboratively. We meet them every week. We spend hours with them every week. Initially we spend a lot of time just having conversations and dialogue and just questions like what does life mean? What does the universe mean? What does Technology mean I need that kind of stuff.
[00:38:48] Domhnaill Hernon: And then we find that we start refining it down to some big questions. We continuously collectively come back to. And then we’ll say, we’ll ask, do we have a unique point of view? Are you unique way of bringing this way of thinking to the world? And then we prototype something. And then if we’re lucky. we get to bring that work to the world stage at something like a South by Southwest.
[00:39:08] Domhnaill Hernon: And that’s the last time we met was in Austin in March at South Bayon. Josie’s work, Josie Williams, is one of our artists that we were lucky enough to bring the work to that kind of stage. And her project was called Ancestral Archives. So this was actually a Gen AI meets the Metaverse project. But it was all about bringing Black history, culture and Into the world of AI and into the world of the metaverse in a way that hopefully no one had ever experienced before and hopefully in a way that would move them to think in very different ways.
[00:39:39] Domhnaill Hernon: So the basis of the project is, you know, Josie is very inspired by the works of great American writers. And James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Nora Zeale Hurston and others, right? And she had spent some time creating what might be normally referred to as bots. So she used machine learning, trained them on some of the writers work, and then you’d be able to type a question into the bot, and the bot would give you, usually the way people train it, it would give you a, almost a word for word answer back based on the writing of those authors.
[00:40:14] Domhnaill Hernon: And that’s kind of how bots are usually used with AI. It’s, the human has a question, give the question to the bot, bot does all of the work, bot gives you an answer that in that normal non gen AI sense, traditional sense is probably pretty accurate and factual, but all you’ve done is provided a kind of a core copy of genius level work from these authors, these artists, right?
[00:40:36] Domhnaill Hernon: And kind of, Josie often jokes about it saying it’s like the zombification of these people and their work. Because it’s not really them, it’s like a poor copy of them. So, Josie was inspired by that and started working with the machine learning algorithms where she wanted to take a very different approach.
[00:40:52] Domhnaill Hernon: So instead of training it to give you like exactly an answer like James Baldwin would have given you, she trained it so that it would give you an abstract, more poetic response. That sometimes might not make sense at all, and often might not even sound like the authors themselves. And through our work with her, and through all of the conversations, we decided that we would call these bots virtual poets.
[00:41:15] Domhnaill Hernon: Because now what happens is, you as the human, you have a question, you ask it a question through, in one part of the experience, a typed interface. The bot gives you a response, but it gives you a poetic response, and you now as a human are confronted with, you have to stand there, and you have to engage your brain, and you have to try and figure out how that response makes sense to you, in the context of your lived experience and your world model.
[00:41:38] Domhnaill Hernon: And people really struggled with this in the experience in South by Southwest, even though we would explain it to them and the motivation and how It’s a different thing. Some people got it and they were blown away, but they were like, oh, this is fundamentally different to how everyone else is thinking about AI.
[00:41:51] Domhnaill Hernon: This is a way to make me think in new and different ways to help me be more creative. And others were like, I don’t get it. I asked her the question…I want the answer, you know, and but even those folks that didn’t quite get it, they were confronted with having to think about what AI means to them and that’s the whole role of the artist often people would say is to drive people to think, right?
[00:42:10] Domhnaill Hernon: So, well, so that was really positive. And it showed this very typical artist way of acting as a counterpoint to everything else that everyone is doing, like people worry about algorithms and all of that and machine learning and gen AI replacing people’s jobs and being more creative than us and the artist comes in and shows you actually it can work with you and it can help you think about yourself and the world in a very different way.
[00:42:34] Domhnaill Hernon: That’s one of the reasons I love artists, I could go on endlessly about different artists and different learnings I have from them. And then what we did is we took with Josie to bring that into the metaverse. Yeah. We kind of created these masks of the, those authors, those writers, inspired by West African culture, like the masks that you know from West Africa, kind of try to personify those virtual poets in a more visual interactive way.
[00:43:00] Domhnaill Hernon: And we created this gigantic, 3D interactive immersive environment where people can come in, talk to the authors, but get the virtual poet response and navigate the world and really starting to get a sense of how you can connect the physical and the digital and how AI can come into these 3D worlds and create new types of experiences and really provoke people to think differently.
[00:43:20] Domhnaill Hernon: So that was Ancestral Archives that we launched at South by Southwest and we were really excited about that because the response we got was either exceptionally positive and it blew people’s minds and they got it or it was this was a great experience I don’t quite get it but I’m going to go off and think about it for three weeks and either way that’s a very positive response.
[00:43:38] Helen Todd: It was very cool. And I know for all the listeners that sometimes it’s hard to visualize what we discuss on the show. So I’ll be sure to include links and some video and images of the exhibition on the dedicated blog post. But yeah, I got to see it. It was in a room and it almost had like an immersive experience to it.
[00:43:57] Helen Todd: Cause the room was really dark and had all of the different screens where you could, you know, ask questions to the virtual poets. And I remember asking one. And the answer it came across as very like unapologetically black, which I really appreciated and almost reminded me of the writings of Ta Nehisi Coates.. it was very cool.
[00:44:16] Helen Todd: And then one area was just three big, almost like not IMAX screens, but where you. Good in the center of the screen. So it felt very immersive and interacting with it. So it was a very cool exhibit. Well, one thing that you said before we go into the other artists on gen AI is that you have all these amazing conversations with these artists and some of the same themes kind of emerge and bubble up, and then you start interrogating and exploring those.
[00:44:43] Helen Todd: Can you tell us, like, Cause at the time of this recording, we’re kind of at the end of 2023, looking to 2024, what are some of the current questions or conversations that are bubbling up that you’re thinking a lot about with your artists now?
[00:44:57] Domhnaill Hernon: We do a lot of work and thinking and research and prototyping and testing in the area of.
[00:45:07] Domhnaill Hernon: And I purposely combined these two words, identity and inclusivity and with the artists in particular, I think they all naturally just tend towards one of their lenses through which they view the world and the human condition is through a lens of identity, representation, and what that means for inclusivity.
[00:45:25] Domhnaill Hernon: And again, some of these words, you know, like, inclusivity is a little bit like innovation. It’s a word a lot of people use and they really don’t understand what it means. And honestly what do I even know about what it means? But I work with a lot of super smart people that have very different lived experiences for me.
[00:45:39] Domhnaill Hernon: And I learned from that, what does it mean in how they identify and what does it mean on how they can be included in experiences? And what does it mean for them to represent Their identity, whether it be in the physical world or in these new emerging digital slash virtual existences. So a big theme that consistently comes back and this is, I think I mentioned earlier the human condition, right?
[00:46:02] Domhnaill Hernon: This is a human condition level topic. This is something that will never go away for humanity. It’s something that’s critically important at our core. When you think about identity. how we identify ourselves, how we choose to represent contextually in any moment in time, how that is evolving now with these new digital and virtual realities that we’re creating, and also how it’s evolving with the younger generation, Gen Z, how they think about identity, representation, inclusivity is fundamentally really different from some of the generations that have come before.
[00:46:37] Domhnaill Hernon: And I find working with artists, we kind of go deep on that and we have sight of that. Honestly, years in advance of everyone else. Like the artists are already at the forefront of thinking about those social needs, those social tensions, the role that technology might play positively or negatively.
[00:46:54] Domhnaill Hernon: They’re already living in the future. So, you know, this expression, the future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed. It’s exceptionally powerful concept. And I truly believe that I get to experience the future today by working with the artists because they’re so deep in this and they’re so deeply think about what it means to be human in the context of these conversations.
[00:47:12] Domhnaill Hernon: So yeah, that’s kind of one of the big things that inspires me, honestly. And, you know, like for anyone that might see a picture of me or, you know, is trying to figure out, I’m a white guy from Ireland, right. Who happens to live in the US. So, you know, what the hell do I know about a lot of these things?
[00:47:25] Domhnaill Hernon: I only know about my own culture. I know about my own identity, my own inclusivity. So we work very closely with folks from these communities with different lived experiences, different ways of thinking about the world and doing good work in the world. Because otherwise, this is back to my comment about tech earlier, I would do a Google search on a thing, right?
[00:47:45] Domhnaill Hernon: And I’ll get Google answers. And then the technologist thinks they’re so smart that with a response on Google, they can go off and create a solution to meet the needs of that person or that community. And I think it’s one of the most disgusting aspects of tech that drives me kind of crazy if I’ve been honest… and that how could you possibly know what it is like for someone in any community or any lived experience if you haven’t been in that situation yourself.
[00:48:12] Domhnaill Hernon: So, the only way I can get close to that is by working really closely with people from those communities that are affected by certain things in certain ways and by spending a lot of time. And I mean, when I say a lot of time, I mean, The artists we work with, as I said, we work with them for at least a year at a time, we meet them weekly, and when we’re getting into serious, intensive experimentation, prototyping, or bringing the work to the world mode, we’re working with them several days for hours upon hours a day, every week, right?
[00:48:35] Domhnaill Hernon: So we’re talking about deep, intensive, getting to know each other, and I believe that’s the only way that you can create this kind of real social value in the world, is you have to build common ground, you have to understand their world models, their lenses of the world, what words they use, what those words mean.
[00:48:51] Domhnaill Hernon: Then you start sharing this knowledge. And then you can start kind of turning those different perspectives and lived experiences, instead of it being a potentially a thing that creates tension and a gap between you and the other person, you can start tapping into them to create new things of value to the world.
[00:49:06] Domhnaill Hernon: So that’s, yeah, you see, I get very kind of amped up about this really. deeply passionate about it. I wish more people could see the benefits of bringing these different disciplines and ways of thinking together the way I’ve been privileged enough to have to be able to see it up close.
[00:49:22] Helen Todd: I love that.
[00:49:22] Helen Todd: And again, like what I said at the beginning, you have one of the coolest jobs in the world because you do get to sit at this fun intersection of art and tech. And also I think identity is super fascinating. As well, and of course, I value inclusiveness to and accessibility. But especially as you know, I’ve digitally cloned myself with a hyper realistic avatar and going back to our metaverse.
[00:49:47] Helen Todd: Like, I think actually, everyone will have clones or digital clones before long, just as like a natural extension of how we express ourselves in these, you know, more immersive worlds and whatnot. But you mentioned before we started recording that you have one of your artists that’s working on a gen AI and identity project.
[00:50:05] Helen Todd: So can you tell us a little bit more about that specific project?
[00:50:09] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah, Ava Davidova is one of our current longstanding artistic collaborators at EY. We’ve been working with Ava for about a year and a half now, really intensively And, you know, as I said, like, after a lot of conversations just about the human condition and life and all of that, we kept on coming back to this kind of comment that Ava made, where she talked about the homogenization of humanity through technology.
[00:50:34] Domhnaill Hernon: And you could think of, like, you could link homogenization to globalization, as an example, and how lots of parts of the world are starting to merge to be a lot more like each other and all that kind of But she was specifically talking about in the context of our project around When you go onto a metaverse environment today, even when you get to select your avatar and customize it, it’s nothing like you, no, it nowhere near represents the nuance or who you are at your essence.
[00:50:58] Domhnaill Hernon: And because of that, what it’s basically doing is homogenizing you, even though the technology will pretend to allow you to personalize it and customize it, but an actual fact you’re kind of just looking like everyone else through these representations. So that’s what she means by the homogenization of our humanity from an identity point of view.
[00:51:14] Domhnaill Hernon: And then we were talking about, well, what does it really mean to be human, and how do humans, people communicate? And we talked about things like, you know, well known facts, 70 percent plus of human communication is non verbal. It’s all body language, and it’s facial expressions, and it’s things like, it’s tones, right?
[00:51:32] Domhnaill Hernon: It’s all that kind of thing. So we were thinking a lot about that, and the idiosyncrasies and the nuances of each of us as an individual versus how you get homogenized by selecting your avatar on these systems. And Ava then had this idea, as she calls it, and we’re kind of calling the project now, Maximizing the Minimum.
[00:51:51] Domhnaill Hernon: But the idea was, how could we use some types of AI technology, like machine vision, to interrogate a person, I mean, like, sense them. Look at their gaze, look at their body movement, look at their facial expressions, whatever it is, extract out those micro things, those many things, those things, those minimum things that make you, and then use another form of AI.
[00:52:13] Domhnaill Hernon: In this case, it would be a form of Gen AI to take those micro expressions of you and just kind of blow them up and augment them and make them the fullest representation of you. I’m making stuff up, but so for example, if I walk and I have a slight tilt to my shoulder and one shoulder is lower than the other.
[00:52:28] Domhnaill Hernon: Some of the algorithms might detect that, might show that up as, oh, this is quintessentially Domhnaill. Like if Domhnaill was blocked out visually, you would know it is him because of the way he carries himself. Let’s take that, let’s use the Gen AI to take that as the core aspect of Domhnaill. Let’s just blow it up.
[00:52:43] Domhnaill Hernon: Or my avatar might literally become a pair of shoulders that are tilted and nothing else. I’m, by the way, I’m completely making up stuff. That’s not actually something we’ve done with Ava. And Ava’s the artist and she would do something a lot smarter than that and a lot better than that. That’s just trying to give people on the podcast a sense of, we all have our idiosyncrasies.
[00:53:02] Domhnaill Hernon: They get lost through our representations, digital representations through technology. Same happens on this call, by the way. We have a 2D flat video where we are communicating pretty well to some extent. It’s nowhere near the same thing as if we’re sitting across the table from each other in a cafe, having a coffee.
[00:53:18] Domhnaill Hernon: It’s just not the same thing. And anyone that argues that with me, I’m going to have a serious argument with them. So we’re talking about that kind of thing, that there’s different modes of communication. And how do we bring the essence of an individual to the fore? How do we allow them to tap into their idiosyncrasies, the soul of themselves?
[00:53:36] Domhnaill Hernon: And how do we use different technologies to bring that to life? And that’s, again, that’s an example of, we are building this today in our experiences, in our solutions with Ava. And if we were coming from a traditional tech background, I guarantee you, you don’t even have these conversations. You have.
[00:53:51] Domhnaill Hernon: You’ve no notion that the way you’re building avatar solutions today are actually homogenizing people, which is not good, by the way, for anyone that needs to know that. It’s not a good thing. And they don’t even know that they’re causing harm. But we know we’re causing harm because we work with people that point it out and say, don’t you realize that the way you created that experience is actually, you know, going to cut out this part of the community or is going to cause these downstream effects.
[00:54:13] Domhnaill Hernon: So as best we can, we expose ourselves to those. really deeply thinking about the downstream effects and how we can mitigate them as much as we can up front today, and I rely on artists to help us think through those things substantially because their entire existence and the way they interrogate the world is at that human lens, at the human condition, and they’re the best ones to help you think through mistakes you might make today that might cause individuals or communities harm in the future.
[00:54:41] Helen Todd: There’s so many things I could say and go down other rabbit holes based on what you said. But I love everything about this project and I think the big questions that it’s asking is just like, what makes us uniquely human as well and amplifying those as part of the project and in the world that we’re living in it’s really with all the AI and new technology, it’s really forcing us to ask ourselves what makes us uniquely human.
[00:55:05] Helen Todd: So that’s neat that you’re exploring that. And I guess for our listeners and viewers, cause we do have technologists and we have creatives and people at the intersection of the two, if there’s any resources, I guess, for businesses who are interested in artists programs to where would you direct them?
[00:55:22] Helen Todd: And then for artists who might be interested in EY’s artist residency is there a place that you could direct them to as well, or maybe other programs that you’re also aware of?
[00:55:32] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah, there’s a few programs out there, not so many in industry. You know, we’re very proud of ours. Microsoft have investments with Artists in Residence.
[00:55:41] Domhnaill Hernon: Google do quite a lot of work with artists as well. Meta have an artist in residence program. So it’s very easily found. Just look up, you know, industry artist in residence programs on Google and you’ll find some information. Now, the methodology of creating one, the frameworks for success, how you secure investment.
[00:55:59] Domhnaill Hernon: That’s a whole other podcast, right? So that’s not something that I, that is codified. That’s not something you can Google search. This is something that, you know, exists like with the likes of myself or others that run these programs. So you’d have to reach out to those folks. Directly and anyone that’s seriously interested in establishing a program like this or asking questions of from an artist point of view, what is it like to work in industry when you’re an artist in residence?
[00:56:22] Domhnaill Hernon: Happily accept direct contact with myself, like easily found on LinkedIn. My email is easily found as well. And I’ll share that with people because it isn’t for everyone, by the way. Some people take to it really well and there’s others that it would be a terrible idea for them to even contemplate it and, you know, these are the kind of things you should talk to with people that have lived this day in day out for years.
[00:56:44] Helen Todd: Well, I know we could go on and on but I try to keep these interviews to an hour for our listeners. And one, one question that I like to ask all my guests is if you want our listeners and viewers to remember one thing from our conversation or just in general related to anything that’s interesting to you what is that one thing that you want them to remember?
[00:57:06] Domhnaill Hernon: I think, yeah, I would say just because you’re very smart in one area does not mean you’re smart in all areas. And remember that there are lots of people around you that have different lived experiences, have different ways of creating value in the world, different types of human intelligence. And you should not discount them because it’s not the same as you, they did not, because they didn’t go to the same university as you or they didn’t grow up the same way as you, or because you’re spatially very intelligent and they’re musically intelligent does not mean that you’re more intelligent than them.
[00:57:37] Domhnaill Hernon: So, I think the one takeaway is, and that leads to why I work with artists and tech and artists and business, but at its foundation it’s that everyone adds value, everyone creates value. And where the biggest values are being created in the world today is at the intersection of those differences and how you build bridges between those differences and how you turn value instead of it being tension from the differences, it’s value creation of the differences.
[00:57:58] Domhnaill Hernon: So I would ask people to think about that deeply, like, I mean, at your core, think about that and think about what that means to be a leader, what that means to hire people, what that means to create teams, what that means to create products, whatever it is, your algorithms, your data, your products your leadership really take that to your core and think about that deeply.
[00:58:17] Domhnaill Hernon: That’s my desperate ask of anyone listening to this.
[00:58:20] Helen Todd: Oh, I appreciate you saying that. And I know I, well, one, one of the very cool things about this podcast is I actually get to listen to these conversations multiple times, like the one that we just had, and then it will go through the editing and sometimes I even listen to them after post production after it’s been published.
[00:58:37] Helen Todd: And I know from. First meeting you Domhnaill, I’ve really appreciated everything that you’ve said and internalized it and I’m excited that I get to marinate on this and listen to it a few more times as far as part of the editing process. Is there anything else that you want to make sure to say today, either about UI or want to promote, I just want to make sure that you have an opportunity if there’s anything else.
[00:59:01] Domhnaill Hernon: Yeah, the metaverse is not dead. And I would say dismiss it at your pearl. Just keep an eye on it. You know, you don’t have to invest in it today, but make sure that you if you make a decision to not invest today, it’s not gonna hurt you in the future because this is the future. So, do you want to lead or do you want to be a fast follower or do you want to be a fast loser because this is just a hundred percent happening, right?
[00:59:22] Domhnaill Hernon: So think about it deeply. Speak to people that actually live in this world. Engage in the different sectors, different businesses, different geographies every day where we know what’s happening on the ground and be very careful the media headlines that you read about the metaverse being dead. I just, I would take them with a gigantic pinch of salt and anyone that wants to learn more, just reach out to me directly and I’ll happily share any knowledge I have in my head to help.
[00:59:47] Domhnaill Hernon: And folks get on the right journey.
[00:59:48] Helen Todd: Well, we’ll have to have you back on the show too, as our Metaverse resident expert, so people don’t have to go to Google. They can just come to creativity squared to stay on top of all the trends. Well, thank you so much, Domhnaill. It’s always a pleasure. And I’m looking forward to the next time we cross paths and whatever city that might be too.
[01:00:09] Domhnaill Hernon: Thanks for having me and keep up the great work bringing creativity to the world.
[01:00:15] Helen Todd: Thank you for spending some time with us today. We’re just getting started and would love your support. Subscribe to Creativity Squared on your preferred podcast platform and leave a review. It really helps. And I’d love to hear your feedback. What topics are you thinking about and want to dive into more?
[01:00:31] Helen Todd: I invite you to visit creativitysquared. com to let me know. And while you’re there, be sure to sign up for our free weekly newsletter so you can easily stay on top of all the latest news at the internet. section of AI and creativity because it’s so important to support artists. 10 percent of all revenue creativity squared generates will go to Arts Wave, a nationally recognized nonprofit that supports over a hundred arts organizations.
[01:00:56] Helen Todd: Become a premium newsletter subscriber or leave a tip on the website to support this project and Arts Wave. And premium newsletter subscribers will receive NFTs of episode cover art and more extras. to say thank you for helping bring my dream to life. And a big thank you to everyone who’s offered their time, energy, and encouragement and support so far.
[01:01:17] Helen Todd: I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. This show is produced and made possible by the team at Play Audio Agency. Until next week, keep creating.