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EmailFrom the printing press to the internet, transformative technologies were built by engineers but brought to life by artists. Today, AI is introducing a new canvas for creators.
On June 17th in New York City, Shared Futures: The AI Forum brought together cultural architects, artists, inventors and thinkers to explore how AI is reshaping the way we live, create, connect, and evolve. Through performances, conversations, and experiments, the forum offers a glimpse of how AI can deepen, and not diminish, what makes us who we are.
Co-hosted by Aspen Digital and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, this one-day forum goes into the heart of what it means to imagine in an age of intelligent machines.
2026 Agenda and recordings
WELCOME & FRAMING THE DAY
Technology, Humanity & the Road Ahead
Art has been influenced by technology for millenia. AI is not the end of that story; it’s the next chapter. What happens next is up to us.
Sinead Bovell, Strategic Foresight Advisor, WAYE
Opening Remarks from our Hosts
Why we’re here – an invitation to meet the moment.
Vilas Dhar, President, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
Vivian Schiller, Vice President & Executive Director, Aspen Digital, The Aspen Institute
THE NEW CREATIVE MAJORITY
The Artist is Still in the Room
One of the world’s most widely seen AI creators finds the sweet spot is where human imagination and machine intelligence meet.
Kelly Boesch, Multidisciplinary Artist, Gelsomina Studios
Let’s Make a Song Together
Now it’s your turn. We’ll experience a collective moment of creating together.
King Willonius, AI Storyteller, Filmmaker & Comedian, AI & the Culture
Starting “The Race To The Top”
As AI reshapes film, television, and the broader media economy, how creators can actively shape the future.
Ted Tremper, Interim Executive Director, Creators Coalition on AI
Baratunde Thurston, Co-Creator and Host, Life With Machines (Moderator)
How Do Americans Feel About AI Today?
New nationwide data on how Americans are actually living with AI — the rapid adoption, the persistent anxiety, the generational divides.
Monica Anderson, Managing Director, Pew Research Center
Who Gets to Create?
Technology has always shifted the pathways to creativity. A personal journey about an idea that led to an instrument now in MoMA, scoring Idris Elba’s film, and designing the Christian Dior immersive experience in Paris.
Manon Dave, Creative Technologist & Musician
Improvising with Intelligence
An improvised performance using AI as a live instrument.
Reggie Watts, Musician, Comedian, Writer, Actor
EXTENSIONS OF OURSELVES
Seeing Double
Where does “AI” end and “we” begin? The ever-evolving work in human and machine collaboration.
Sougwen Chung, Artist and Researcher, Founder of Studio Scilicet
Dancing Robots
Choreographed performances explore how emotion and expression translate from human bodies to machines. Experiments at the edge of what robots can express and what we’re willing to feel in return.
Dr. Catie Cuan, Founder and CEO, ART Lab
A LENS ON LIVING SYSTEMS
The Global Moment
How AI’s impact on culture transcends borders.
Amandeep Gill, Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies
How AI Can Help Us Find the New Agora
What does it take to make a city more human? Carlo explores how AI can help us understand the changing rhythms of public space—and design urban environments that revive civic life
Carlo Ratti, Director, MIT Senseable City Lab
The augmented mind
The Creative Brain on AI
What is AI doing to our neural circuits — and what does that mean for art and artists? The cognitive tradeoffs we face when we use AI.
Dr. Poppy Crum, Neuroscientist and Technologist; Adjunct Professor at Stanford University; Managing Director of Giant Step Capital; and former Chief Scientist of Dolby Laboratories
Unlocking the Artist Within
Taryn shows us what it means to push the edge of human capability, from her personal experiments with AI to working with paralyzed patients who use brain implants to create art and music through thought alone.
Taryn Southern, Speaker & Storyteller, Blackrock Neurotech, Far Future Studio
THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE
Poetic Intelligence: Finding Words for a World of AI
A hybrid performance-lecture draws on custom language models trained on her own writing.
Sasha Stiles, Poet and Artist
When We Have Proof
A duet between artist, instrument, and muse. What begins as a talk about AI, neuroscience, and the unstable nature of perception, then gradually transforms into a live musical exchange between human and machine-generated language.
K Allado-McDowell, Writer
Debi Wong, Multidisciplinary Artist & Producer
STORY, SCREEN, AND SENSEMAKING
The Stories That See Us Coming
Humans have always told stories about the futures they fear, and in doing so, made sense of what we’re grappling with in the present. How science fiction and speculative drama continues to captivate us.
Lynn Maxcy, Screenwriter, Futurist + Social Justice Advocate, CCAI, Miry’s List, Good Energy
Jesse Damiani, Founder, Urgent Futures Podcast & Reality Studies Newsletter
Nick Cain, Vice President, Strategy and Innovation, The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (Moderator)
AI Supporting Human-Powered Journalism at The Times
A conversation with the President & CEO of the New York Times Company.
Meredith Kopit Levien, President and CEO, The New York Times Company
Vivian Schiller, Vice President & Executive Director, Aspen Digital, The Aspen Institute (Moderator)
CLOSING – MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL
A Reflection on the Day
Key inspiration and perspective on the day’s conversations, performances, and experiments and what they mean for the future of AI and society.
Vilas Dhar, President, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
Playback: A Live Theater Performance
Your impressions and questions about the day transformed into improvised art.
Jaime Westendarp, Community Designer, Caravan Projects
Brenton Zola, Performance Artist
Aspen Digital is proud to co-host this forum with the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation.
About The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF) is a $1.5 B global philanthropic organization dedicated to advancing artificial intelligence and data science solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. PJMF works in partnership with public, private and social institutions to drive progress on our most pressing challenges, including digital health, climate change, broad digital access, and data maturity in the social sector. To learn more, visit mcgovern.org.
