Philosophy, Ideas, Critical Thinking, Ethics & Morality: The Creative Process: Philosophers, Writers, Educators, Creative Thi The Creative Process

“I realized very young and very early on in my career that film does more than just inform and inspire and entertain. It can move people into action, whether it's personal or collective action. As a filmmaker, I've always made films about extraordinary women whose lives are faced with extenuating circumstances who've had adversity thrown at them and who've risen to the occasion. And when I began to look at Diane's story, for me, Diane is a fashion designer, but she's so much more. Her central ethos is woman before fashion, and we felt it was very important to take that ethos and weave it into the spine of our film, and make it about the woman.
In 2015, with A Girl in the River, I created a film that was about a young girl who had been shot by her father and her uncle because she had decided to get married on her own free will. They left her to die in a gunny sack in the river, and she survived. Sabah's story was deeply inspiring, because she wanted to send her father and uncle to jail, but in the end, she forgave them using a lacuna in the law. And when it was nominated for an Academy Award, we wrote a letter to the prime minister of Pakistan, and we used the film to educate and inform the government about the impact of the lacuna in that law, and how it was being misused. The film played a role in closing that and changing the law, which ensured that men who killed women in the name of honor would go to prison.”

How can we free ourselves from fear and social barriers to live more fulfilling and meaningful lives? What does it take to overcome trauma and turn it into triumph, and failure into reinvention? How can we shine a light on the marginalized and misunderstood to create social change that transforms the lives of women?
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning Canadian-Pakistani filmmaker whose work highlights extraordinary women and their stories. She earned her first Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary Saving Face, about the Pakistani women targeted by brutal acid attacks. Today, Obaid-Chinoy is the first female film director to have won two Oscars by the age of 37. In 2023, it was announced that Obaid-Chinoy will direct the next Star Wars film starring Daisy Ridley. Her most recent project, co-directed alongside Trish Dalton, is the new documentary Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge, about the trailblazing Belgian fashion designer who invented the wrap dress 50 years ago. The film had its world premiere as the opening night selection at the 2024 Tribeca Festival on June 5th and premiered on June 25th on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. A product of Obaid-Chinoy's incredibly talented female filmmaking team, Woman in Charge provides an intimate look into Diane von Furstenberg’s life and accomplishments and chronicles the trajectory of her signature dress from an innovative fashion statement to a powerful symbol of feminism.

“When I was producing that documentary with my producer at the BBC, I don't think I was expecting us to have accelerated so quickly into that future. The world has been quite synthetic for some time. I just don't think we've necessarily been aware of it, but whether it's computational photography in every single smartphone, even when you think you're taking a photo, no filter, there's still quite a lot of shaping of the reality that you're presented with at the end by these phones. Movie magic and entertainment, recommendation algorithms for your Facebook feed or Grammarly are all AI-powered. But we're now interfacing with AI in a much more intimate and personal way. When you were taking a photo or scrolling through your Twitter feed, AI was working behind the scenes, but you weren't necessarily aware of that. Whereas in the age of generative AI, we are becoming almost kind of synthetic conductors of the reality that we're creating. That could be via a large language model or through one of these companion based apps. We're starting to see some really powerful tools like Suno coming out which can generate AI-generated music. We are starting to see AI-generated content seep into areas of our lives, particularly around what we traditionally see as human-to-human communication or human creativity, that I think does fundamentally change the way that we kind of almost evaluate the value of human creative endeavors, but also the way that we think about interacting with each other in the digital world. How is that going to shape expectations of what normal messy human relationships look like? There's a huge swathe of gray. There's a big question of are we feeling uncomfortable about these use cases because they're new, they're unfamiliar? Or are we feeling uncomfortable because a deeper ethical intuition is being disturbed?”

How is artificial intelligence redefining our perception of reality and truth? Can AI be creative? And how is it changing art and innovation? Does AI-generated perfection detach us from reality and genuine human connection?

Henry Ajder is an advisor, speaker, and broadcaster working at the frontier of the generative AI and the synthetic media revolution. He advises organizations on the opportunities and challenges these technologies present, including Adobe, Meta, The European Commission, BBC, The Partnership on AI, and The House of Lords. Previously, Henry led Synthetic Futures, the first initiative dedicated to ethical generative AI and metaverse technologies, bringing together over 50 industry-leading organizations. Henry presented the BBC documentary series, The Future Will be Synthesised.

How can we show more kindness, respect, and love to the animals we share this planet with? What lessons can we learn from non-human animals about living in greater harmony with nature?

Ingrid Newkirk is the Founder and President of PETA, actively leading the organization and advocating for animal rights. PETA is the largest animal rights organization in the world with more than 9 million members and supporters globally. Under her leadership, PETA has achieved significant victories, such as ending car-crash tests on animals, pushing major fashion brands to go fur-free, influencing Ringling Bros. to become an animal-free circus, and helping pass a law that allows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve new medications without conducting cruel tests on animals. Ingrid has written 14 books and has been featured in major publications like The New Yorker and The Guardian, and was the subject of HBO's documentary I Am an Animal and was named one of Forbes’ “100 Most Powerful Women.” She joined One Planet Podcast to reflect on her 75 years as animal rights advocate.

“My dad fought in World War II in France, and my mom was an electrician building warships in the United States. They were both war workers very proud to be Americans and instilled in me from an early age that the wonderful thing about America is that anybody could be an American, that you didn't have to be born here, that you didn't have to be a particular ethnicity or speak a certain language or be a certain religion. The wonderful thing about America was that you just had to believe, and that meant it was open for everyone. I find great hope in that because despite all the horrible rhetoric about people seeking asylum and immigrants, I'm cheered by just the casual conversations I have with people who have just come to this country. Despite all of our flaws in the United States, I really believe we have great diversity, and that sustains me. I think deep down, some Americans have been poisoned into thinking immigrants are a threat, and I think that's wrong. And so in my work, I'm trying to fight that by fighting for the idea of truth. As a philosopher, I don't ever get burned out. I mean, what do philosophers believe in more strongly than the concept of truth?”