💙 Grateful to the whole team at @TIME for the #TIME100 Impact Award, recognizing individuals who have gone above and beyond to move their industries—and the world—forward in the AI space. I am honored to be one of these four recipients.

It's been a surreal few days, so many reflections and images to share, but first:

I took some time to reflect on the moment for my acceptance speech, excerpted below.

Sougwen Chung



"I’m inspired by Grace Lee Boggs who wrote that these are the times to grow our souls. She believed that creativity is vital in producing the necessary conditions not just for our survival, but for our evolution. Her words, and Grace’s life as an Asian-american philosopher and activist, are a testament to hybridity – hybridity of culture and of thought. Her authorship, the works of my peers, and the creative energy of the new generation continue to challenge and inspire me everyday.

I have learned that traditional forms of creativity must shape, but not be replaced by, technological development. That building our own tools and AI systems can help us sit with the existential questions posed by new technologies – A way that fear and hope can be held in the mind at the same time. We’ve observed the damage to our planet done by unchecked technological growth – the damage to our creative industries, too. We need now, more than ever, approaches that foreground hybrid creative innovation to help shape the development of the technology that shapes us, while stewarding what came before.

Sougwen Chung



This award is a spotlight on the meaning made by the artists of today, the artists that came before, and the ones to come. We carry with us the knowledge that exploring the human condition despite the odds, shapes the world in vital and profound ways.

We urge you to move beyond the binary – of thinking and of making and being – and to create the third path with us – To explore the in-between; as a space of imagination and hybridity.

Sougwen Chung


Together we can grow our souls to create the future we want to see, and there is much to do. Thank you so much."

https://time.com/collection/time100-impact-awards/