will.i.am talks AI, the future of creativity, and his newly-launched AI app to 'co-pilot' creation
In an exclusive conversation with Euronews Next, will.i.am talks AI, the future of creativity, and his new AI-powered platform to “co-pilot” creation.
Transcript
00:00 anything to get good at something, it has to reference and copy something.
00:07 And AI is already great at mimicking.
00:12 Paintings, illustrations, marketing plans, strategies, it mimics.
00:19 But it also creates, I've heard amazing creations that AI has made of music that sounds like something that I would have written.
00:29 That sounds like me.
00:33 And some people would be convinced that I did it.
00:36 That I sung it.
00:39 And it wasn't a recreation of something.
00:42 It was something from scratch.
00:45 And it will continue to get better.
00:47 How do I feel about that?
00:49 I feel that regulations need to be put in place around essence and likeness, ASAP.
00:57 I urge every person that's working in the AI space, every person that works in governance and regulation and setting protection protocols for people and humanity,
01:12 essence and likeness is important.
01:15 And we're going to look back at this time on the folks that are working in AI, that if they didn't wave the flag, hey, this is where we should be doing fighting for people's likeness, people's essence,
01:26 protecting people and their civil liberties and their communities, that is what we should be doing.
01:31 We're not saying regulations to stop innovation.
01:34 We're saying, I'm saying regulations for people.
01:37 Do you think it's a bit premature the way in which we are adopting artificial intelligence already before there is a national regulation put in place that we can follow?
01:46 That's hard to say.
01:48 That's hard to say.
01:49 That's like saying when the automobile was invented, was the DMV around?
01:54 Fact is, no.
01:56 That's like saying when the airplane was invented, the FAA was already around.
02:01 Answer is no.
02:03 But now that there's flight,
02:06 there's vehicles on the road,
02:08 I think it's time for the Department of Motor Vehicles and the FAA to ensure people are safe in the communities that they live in.
02:16 I would like us to touch down on FYI.
02:19 Maybe, Will, you can tell me what is it about and how is it different to other language models like TeleCity or BART?
02:25 FYI is a messenger first.
02:29 It's a messenger with your file management, your digital asset management, storage connected to the messenger.
02:40 Because why should your conversations around your digital assets, the projects that you're working on, be separate from where your teams and your communication plan strategy are?
02:55 So it's a messenger, digital asset management, file storage.
03:00 It's a calendar, a music organizer, generative AI for team flow.
03:10 It's a messenger from the perspective of project-based collaboration, project-based ideation, materialization with AI to help you.
03:22 Who do you think or who do you expect will be using FYI?
03:26 So the creative community are working across six different tools up until FYI.AI existed.
03:32 We were on WhatsApp.
03:34 To work off WhatsApp, you need a Dropbox.
03:36 If your files are too big, you need a WeTransfer.
03:39 But if you can't open it on WhatsApp, you need to send that WeTransfer to email, so you need email.
03:46 You need calendar, and you need Zoom, and then a chat GPT.
03:51 So you need seven things for creatives to get work done remotely on a phone.
03:57 On FYI, you just need one tool called FYI.
04:00 And so the key ideal customer is the hyper-creative, the person that is ideating, putting teams together, or small teams.
04:09 And with AI, small teams become big teams.
04:11 First, we're starting with basic NDA, idea protection, IP protection.
04:16 And it will grow from there.
04:18 FYI right now, let's call it FYI 1.0.
04:22 3.0, 4.0 is amazing.
04:25 FYI right now for a messenger is beyond any traditional messenger currently.
04:31 And by 2.0, 3.0, we will be light years.
04:35 And we invite the creative community to be on the journey with us.
04:39 The whole premise of the product is to champion the creative, support them, protect them and their IP and their data
04:46 by issuing elliptical curve cryptography keys that we worked with IBM to ensure that everything is protected soup to nuts.
04:54 I could tell you about the work that we're doing with IBM as far as the business of creativity.
05:02 Right now, if you're a creative and you have an idea that you want to start, but you want to protect that idea before you go reach out to folks.
05:10 Right now, that's kind of impossible if you're from some inner city or from some rural area or living in the suburbs and don't have access to an attorney to create an NDA for you to protect your idea.
05:26 And so on FYI, in collaboration with IBM and Watson X, in the near future, you're going to be able to create a thread, evoke your FYI business agent to create an NDA, protect your idea,
05:47 start a company and build ideas from ideation and materialization without having to worry about how do you find an attorney or afford an attorney to do the basic thing that is protect and do business while you create.
06:03 And I was wondering if you were concerned in general and then specifically for FYI about the bias.
06:11 Yeah, so the only way to tackle bias is to have people from different communities, different backgrounds, training data and writing algorithms.
06:20 And I've been super passionate about this subject for the past decade plus.
06:26 That's why I have a school and a program in East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, with Todos Mexicanos y Milagros, and we teach them computer science, robotics and programming.
06:38 So they can grow up and fill jobs that are needed, address data biases and algorithmic biases.
06:46 That is my core passion. But you can protest.
06:51 You can go out and ensure that companies address these biases or you could go out there and you could do work and adopt a school and encourage kids to go down this path.
07:03 And to the folks that are that are working in the space, it's not that it's they're malicious and they don't want people of color to train models.
07:12 It's set up from the school systems and the zoning from the get go.
07:18 Because there's not a computer science program in every school, but there's a basketball program or a football program or a soccer program in every school, but no engineering or algorithmic programming or data training program mandatory in every school, inner city, rural area, poverty stricken area, underdeveloped community, underserved community.
07:43 Is it the folks that made the model to where they're like, oh, we're not going to we don't want. That's not the case because there is engineering gaps.
07:52 The world needs more engineers. Where are the engineers going to come from?
07:57 Now there's engineering for engineering. Now there's an algorithm that can engineer for us, but that still doesn't address the data bias.
08:06 That still doesn't address the algorithmic bias. So the only true way, like I said, is to have people of color, black and brown and women and tran and gay and LGBTQ plus training models, writing algorithms.
08:25 It's the only way I started 12 years ago with 65 kids. Now we serve 14000 students in L.A. I put STEM programs in inner cities.
08:36 That sounds like something to do. Why? Because they're not doing it. And when you don't have STEM programs in inner cities, you have data bias, algorithmic bias.
08:45 Are you concerned about a future in which machines will be doing all the creative and fun works and the humans will just be prompting machines?
08:53 No, because I believe in humanity's creativity, spontaneity, curiosity and competitiveness.
09:01 I believe in that, just like calculators out calculate mathematicians. That doesn't mean people aren't doing calculations.
09:10 That's not that doesn't mean people aren't building structures and, you know, working with advanced mathematical models.
09:17 People are still thinking. People are still trying to solve problems. It's just a massive it's an amazing tool.
09:25 But that's not going to stop our innovative spirit or ingenuity inventions right now in popular culture.
09:32 The word is innovation. Invention hasn't been said or talked about in a long time.
09:39 This new renaissance is going to spark new inventions, not innovations.
09:46 This next leap is like we're going to invent things, not just innovate.
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