Hacking The Heart: Creative Technologist on Emotional Digital Intelligence, Omar Karim

Update: 2025-04-29

Description

In this week’s episode, Orlando sits down with AI Creative Technologist (Ex Meta, Ex R/GA, Ex Anomaly) and artist Omar Karim to explore the messy, playful, and sometimes deeply personal intersection of human emotion and machine intelligence.

Omar, whose unconventional career has taken him from groundbreaking ad agencies to leading creative tech at Meta, discusses the art of experimentation – why it’s the secret sauce in a world of generative AI, and how he’s turned tools meant for productivity into vessels for performance art and emotional exploration. The conversation delves into Omar’s viral “Mum AI” project – a digital companion built not just to automate, but to nurture and heal – and what it taught him about the limits and potential of emotional AI.

Orlando and Omar unpack the punk, pirate attitude behind creative repurposing of technology, the value of lateral thinking, and why failure is a necessary ingredient for innovation. The episode moves fluidly from the philosophical (what kind of questions are worth asking AI?) to the practical (the wild world of 3D printing, emotional feedback loops, and museum “heists” made possible by generative models).

Expect candid insights on what makes creativity truly human, how digital tools can be bent into unexpected shapes, and why the most interesting uses of AI are often the least expected.

Orlando & Omar cover:

How Omar’s playful approach to experimentation unlocks new possibilities for tech, art, and emotion
The story behind Mum AI - building a digital companion that offered real support and sparked global conversations
Why failure, creative risk, and lateral thinking are essential in an era of generative tools
The ethics and artistry behind Omar’s digital “museum heist” and 3D-printed artifacts
Why emotional intelligence, intuition, and a punk attitude matter more than ever in creative technology

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