Exceeding Limits: Intersections and the Evolution of Marketing in the Age of AI
by Manila Alfano
Crossing limits when the boundaries have already blurred.
This is, according to Sergio Amati, general manager of IAB Italia, the winning approach for the future that awaits us, and this is the philosophy behind Intersections, the mega-event scheduled to take place in Milan on 29 and 30 October at the Allianz MiCo: two days of conferences, workshops and exhibitions with international speakers. For the first time Iab forum, backed by a twenty-two-year tradition, is joining forces with If Italian Festival. A step backwards? Quite the opposite: the idea is precisely to show itself even stronger. ‘It is no longer just our forum, but the appointment of several subjects who want to count more, who want to network’. A choice that came practically natural in a world where marketing, creativity and technology in the age of AI coexist and converge: in fact, blurring their boundaries. ‘We realised, in short, that the time had come to systemise these two events that have been moving in parallel for too long and finally bring them together, thus sending a strong signal from the Industry’.
Because, as Amati explains, the world is changing and very fast, technical and creative roles are converging more and more. ‘We want to explore the profound changes in the world of marketing and understand how to face the challenges of transformation driven by Artificial Intelligence. ‘Intersections’ is precisely the perfect name to define this world of intersections that defies boundaries and limits as much as possible, where forays into worlds that are only seemingly distant are increasingly the order of the day. A bit like the Oscar winner for the music in Roberto Benigni’s film La vita è bella, Nicola Piovani, who will come to show us how music and creativity and AI can communicate and grow together. But that’s not all, to explain to us again how creativity and technology can find a perfect joining point there will also be Paola Antonelli, senior curator at Moma in New York. It is from her work digitising the data of the entire Moma collection that the artwork of Refik Anadol was born. One of the most influential newmedia artists in the world, the Turkish artist has reinterpreted the history of art through artificial intelligence, encapsulating 200 years of history in a digital work.
Why do we hear constantly about Artificial Intelligence nowadays, why has it become so present?
There is a date that marks this transition. It is 2022, when Chatgpt, the chatbot developed by OpenAI to answer users’ questions, comes out. From that moment we see the democratisation of this technology, so seemingly easy but so complicated at its core. It is from there that a definitive change takes place: on the one hand, a completely different perception emerges compared to the past, and on the other hand, enormous practical and therefore also ethical implications are glimpsed. The before and after is dated from this discovery.
as Amati explains, the world is changing and very fast, technical and creative roles are converging more and more
Had there been interesting experiments in the use of AI before?
Among the most controversial and sensational was the famous chess match between the champion Garri Kasparov and IBM’s Deep Blue machine. It was 1997, practically prehistory. The tension was sky-high, the expectations enormous. It was the first great man-machine challenge. The best against a computer. The World Champion against the computer designed for chess. Deep Blue won. It was sensational, but it remained an episode, certainly not a revolution like Chatgpt impacting the world.
Ai was less scary: today even one of its fathers, Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, says he regrets it. Should we be worried?
Yes, the story is well known. Last year he abandoned Google to denounce the danger. According to him, it is difficult to keep it at bay and under control, and it is difficult to prevent malicious people from using it for negative purposes. But that is why it is important to impose strict rules. Strong, ethical ones. The subject of rules and limits here is crucial. With one premise: technology can be roughly divided into simple, such as a tool, a hammer or a club; then there is automatic technology such as the computer, and finally autonomous technology where for the first time it is no longer limited by an input, but produces a complex output.
Manila Alfano
Journalist at il Giornale newspaper from 2004 to 2024; she covers foreign affairs and news. She graduated in moral philosophy, with a thesis on Minima Moralia and the Frankfurt School. She collaborates with the daily Il Foglio Donna Moderna and The Bunker. She has collaborated with the Fremantle company on documentaries. In 2019 she published the book ‘It seemed impossible’, Stories of successful entrepreneurs (Wise society) in 2022 she published ‘One hundred years as a Prince’ (Forma edizioni) and in the same year ‘One more gear’, Italian stories of successful female entrepreneurs (Wise society). In 2023 he published ‘La lunga notte di Vicarello’ (Jaba book) She teaches sports communication at the Iulm university in Milan. She is a member of the International Women’s Forum.
