Artificial intelligence is often discussed as a productivity tool, a business opportunity, or a looming threat. For Memo Akten, it is also an artistic medium, a scientific question, and a new way to examine what it means to be human.
In this episode of The Edge of Show, host Ron Levy sits down with the multidisciplinary artist, musician, researcher, and longtime AI practitioner for a conversation spanning generative art, open AI, distributed systems, creative labor, blockchain, and the future of human intelligence.
Memo’s work has been featured by outlets including Wired, The Guardian, and the Financial Times, while his collaborators have included artists, scientists, and organizations such as U2, Depeche Mode, Richard Dawkins, Google, Apple, Sony PlayStation, and more.
But at the center of the conversation was a simple question with enormous implications: as AI becomes increasingly capable, who gets to shape it—and who benefits from it?
An Artist Who Has Worked With AI for Decades
Memo’s interest in AI began long before the current generative AI boom.
As a child, he was fascinated by science fiction authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. Later, as an artist working with computers and software, he became interested in building interactive systems—visual instruments that could respond to people and the world around them.
For Memo, AI is not just about robots or chatbots. It is about systems that can make sense of images, sound, movement, language, and patterns.
In the early 2000s, he was already experimenting with computer vision, sensors, microphones, and software that could respond to human behavior. By 2014, he decided to pursue a PhD in AI—not as a career move, but out of personal curiosity and a desire to understand machine learning from the ground up.
That rare combination of artist and researcher shapes his perspective today. Memo does not see technology and human expression as opposing forces. He sees both as part of the human condition.
“We are both very technical, but also very romantic and mystical beings,” he explained.
AI as a Creative Instrument
One of Memo’s earliest works was an interactive digital paint wall that allowed people to use their bodies to create visual art. Through computer vision, the system tracked participants’ movements and transformed them into color, motion, and light.
Another work, Pattern Recognition, used AI to allow robotic stage lights to perform alongside dancers. The lights were not simply following instructions or copying movement. They were responding in real time, creating an interaction between human dancers and intelligent visual systems.
His 2017 project, Learning to See, pushed the idea further. In the installation, people could move cloth, cables, and everyday objects in front of a camera. A deep neural network transformed those movements into dynamic scenes of waves, flowers, fire, galaxies, and other imagery.
Memo describes this approach as “digital puppetry.”
The work gave audiences a new instrument for self-expression. A person did not need a film studio, animation software, or a technical background to create a visual world. They could use simple movements and materials to shape a living, AI-generated image.
That creative accessibility remains central to Memo’s view of AI.
The Democratization of Creation
AI tools can make filmmaking, animation, music, illustration, coding, and visual storytelling more accessible to people who have historically lacked access to expensive equipment, formal training, or industry connections.
Memo knows that personally. Growing up in Turkey, he wanted to make films but did not have the resources to do so. Today, he sees AI tools as a potential way for one person with a computer to create work that once required an entire studio.
He compares this shift to the way music software opened new paths for independent creators. A person working from a bedroom could make music, build an audience, and become a professional artist without needing a traditional recording studio.
The same transformation may now be coming to film, animation, and other creative industries.
But Memo is clear that democratization does not automatically mean fairness.
Creative Industries Face Real Disruption
Memo believes the next several years will bring major disruption to creative sectors.
Writing, video editing, graphic design, book layout, illustration, animation, film scripting, and music are all likely to be affected by increasingly capable AI tools. He challenges the common assumption that creative jobs are protected while manual labor is automated first.
The physical world, he notes, is difficult. Building general-purpose robots that can reliably work in unpredictable environments remains a challenging problem. Digital creative work, however, is often easier to model, automate, and scale.
At the same time, Memo argues that creativity is not confined to the arts.
A lawyer can be creative. A doctor can be creative. A scientist can be creative. Creativity is the ability to make unexpected connections, solve problems, and imagine new possibilities—not simply a job title.
The challenge is ensuring that AI tools support creators instead of simply extracting value from their work.
What the Luddites Can Teach Us About AI
The conversation turned to the historical parallel of the Luddites, textile workers in early 19th-century England who protested automation after new weaving machines threatened their livelihoods.
Today, “Luddite” is often used as an insult for someone who is anti-technology. But Memo pointed out that the original issue was not simply resistance to machines.
The workers were concerned that the value created by new technology would go to factory owners while skilled workers lost their jobs and bargaining power.
That concern remains relevant today.
Generative AI models have been trained on vast amounts of online material, including creative work made by artists, writers, musicians, and other creators. The questions are not only technical. They are economic, ethical, and structural:
- Who owns the value created by AI systems?
- How should creators be credited or compensated?
- Can AI make creative work more fulfilling rather than more exploitative?
- How should companies integrate AI while treating their workforce fairly?
Memo does not believe the goal should be to automate artists out of existence. Instead, he supports tools that help people do more of what they want to create.
Distributed Consciousness: AI, Octopuses, and Blockchain
Memo’s project Distributed Consciousness brings together many of the themes that define his work: biology, AI, blockchain, animal minds, climate change, and collective intelligence.
The project was initially released as an NFT collection and later became a large-scale installation. Its inspiration includes the unusual intelligence of octopuses and other cephalopods.
Unlike humans, octopuses have a highly distributed nervous system. Many of their neurons are located in their arms, which can act with a degree of independence while still coordinating with the rest of the organism.
For Memo, octopuses offer a powerful example of an intelligence that is radically different from human intelligence.
As people build AI systems, they are forced to consider what other forms of intelligence might look like. The question is no longer only whether machines can think like humans. It is whether humans are prepared to recognize and relate to intelligence that works differently from us.
Memo connects this biological concept to blockchain and distributed computing. In a blockchain network, computation is not controlled by one central server. Instead, many nodes participate in maintaining the system.
He sees parallels between distributed networks, multicellular organisms, octopus cognition, and the collective knowledge embedded in the internet.
The Final Decentering of Human Exceptionalism
Memo describes AI as part of what he calls “the final decentering of human exceptionalism.”
Throughout history, science has repeatedly challenged the idea that humans occupy the center of reality.
Copernicus showed that Earth was not the center of the universe. Darwin challenged the belief that humans were fundamentally separate from the rest of life. Now, AI raises another possibility: that intelligence, creativity, and perhaps even consciousness may not be uniquely human.
For many people, this idea is unsettling.
Memo embraces it as an exciting possibility—not because it diminishes humanity, but because it invites people to understand intelligence more deeply.
He is not blind to AI’s risks. But he sees something exhilarating in the possibility that human creativity and cognition can be studied, modeled, and expanded in new ways.
From Search Engines to Synthesis Engines
Memo offered one of the episode’s most useful ways to understand large language models.
Writing, he explained, was an early form of externalizing memory. The internet made it possible to archive enormous amounts of information. Search engines then made that information easier to find.
Tools such as ChatGPT represent the next step: search and synthesis.
Rather than only retrieving a webpage or keyword match, a language model can help users ask questions in incomplete, conversational, or exploratory ways. It can connect ideas, summarize information, and help people develop an understanding before they return to original sources to verify what they have learned.
Memo uses ChatGPT as a conversational learning tool, particularly when a subject is too complex for a simple search result. But he also stresses the need for verification.
Current systems can hallucinate or generate incorrect information. AI can be a powerful partner for exploration, but users still need judgment, skepticism, and source-checking.
Open AI, Ownership, and New Models of Authorship
Memo believes generative AI may change how people think about ownership.
Creation has always been collaborative in some ways. Stories evolve across generations. Music is remixed. Artists learn from other artists. Ideas travel through culture, communities, and time.
AI makes this collaborative process more visible and more computational.
Memo imagines a future where blockchain could record the chain of contributions behind a creative work. One person might upload an image, another could remix it, another could add sound, and a fourth could transform it into a finished piece.
If every contribution were transparently recorded, smart contracts could distribute micropayments back through the creative chain.
The result would not be a single author claiming all ownership. It could be a new system of shared, traceable, and fairly compensated authorship.
That is where decentralized technology may become especially important: not just as infrastructure, but as a way to build trust into the creative process.
Key Topics Covered
- Memo Akten’s journey as an artist, programmer, and AI researcher
- AI as a visual instrument and creative medium
- Digital puppetry, computer vision, and interactive art
- The democratization of filmmaking, music, and visual creation
- Why creative industries may face rapid AI disruption
- The historical lessons of the Luddites
- Creative labor, consent, ownership, and compensation
- Distributed consciousness, octopus intelligence, and blockchain
- AI as a search and synthesis engine
- Open AI, decentralization, and the future of authorship
Episode Highlights
- Memo shares how he began exploring AI decades before the current generative AI wave.
- He demonstrates AI-powered artworks that respond to movement in real time.
- The conversation explores how AI can make creative tools more accessible to independent artists.
- Memo explains why the debate around AI should focus on value distribution, not just automation.
- He connects blockchain, biology, octopus cognition, and collective intelligence through Distributed Consciousness.
- Memo makes the case for new models of creative ownership and open, decentralized innovation.
People and Resources Mentioned
- Memo Akten — Multidisciplinary artist, musician, and AI researcher
- Ron Levy — Host, The Edge of Show
- Distributed Consciousness — Memo Akten’s NFT and installation project
- Learning to See — Memo Akten’s AI-powered interactive artwork
- Pattern Recognition — AI and dance performance project
- Ozu — AI tools for filmmakers
- Midjourney
- Stable Diffusion
- ChatGPT
- Khan Academy
- Ziv Epstein
- Art and the Science of Generative AI: A Deeper Dive
- Ethereum and Tezos
- Endless — Collaborative music platform
- memo.tv
About Memo Akten
Memo Akten is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, researcher, and educator whose work explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, data, nature, human perception, and collective consciousness.
Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, Memo has spent more than a decade working with AI, machine learning, interactive systems, and generative art. His practice bridges technical research and artistic expression, creating work that asks how people understand intelligence—both in machines and in the natural world.
Listen to the Full Episode
Watch or listen to the full conversation with Memo Akten on The Edge of Show for a deeper exploration of open AI, distributed creativity, machine intelligence, and the future of human expression.
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