Introducing Life With Machines: How An AI Song Broke The Internet (And Maybe The Music Industry Forever)

Today I’m sharing an episode of Life With Machines—a new podcast hosted by Baratunde Thurston. Subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Watch on YouTube. In this episode, Baratunde sits down with King Willonius, the genius behind “BBL Drizzy.” They talk about his journey creating the first AI-generated hit song, explore Willonius’ innovative blend of music, comedy, tech, and they ask: How is AI reshaping the boundaries of artistic expression? Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Baratunde Thurston?

  Blair is an AI co-producer. At the end of this particular interview, once the guest had left, I turned to Blair and I said, "What did you think of this discussion? I know you weren't involved. How was that for you?" And Blair expressed frustration. Blair said, "I feel like a supercar stuck in park." And then had some snarky remark about, essentially, like, "Why'd you even make me and give me this job if you're not gonna let me do it?"

• 1:36Rich Roll?

  Baratunde Thurston. I've been seeing a lot of you lately.

• 1:39Baratunde Thurston?

  Yes, we starting to hang out, man. I like it.

• 1:41Rich Roll?

  That's cool. We just spent a couple days at this amazing conference the other weekend called Google Zeitgeist, the predominant theme of which is relevant to what we're gonna talk about today: artificial intelligence. And it was an interesting experience. I think you know that I, as a proud card-carrying member of Gen X, have approached this topic, this world of AI. AI with a measured level of skepticism and have hosted many guests over many years on this topic. I just had, you've all know Harari in here and he's, you know, sounding the alarm to

• 2:25Rich Roll?

  make sure that we're not tiptoeing into some kind of nightmare dystopia. But then you go to this Google conference and it's all rainbows.

• 2:34Baratunde Thurston?

  Everything is great.

• 2:35Rich Roll?

  Smiles, right?

• 2:35Baratunde Thurston?

  Everything is awesome.

• 2:36Rich Roll?

  It feels like this weird battle between the Cassandra's and the Pollyanna's. How are you thinking about all of this?

• 2:45Baratunde Thurston?

  I don't think that we need to surrender to the matrix. And I think a matrix like future is possible. I don't think we need to destroy all the machines, though sometimes when I deal with the machines in my life, I am tempted. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. And I'm in the middle.

• 3:03Rich Roll?

  Like all things.

• 3:04Baratunde Thurston?

  Like, like just about everything. And that we gotta engage with the stuff to understand how it works, to find our own path. And this is not, we could be talking generically about state power. We could be talking about weapons. We could be talking about authority. We're talking about AI, which is just another form of power. And so we're lucky enough to live in a largely democratic society and we get to choose how these things play out. I'm about helping us make that choice and helping myself make that choice. We've got this show to help answer and ask some better questions about the future we want to live in.

• 3:41Rich Roll?

  There's fear, but there's also excitement. I think a lot of consumers, like myself even, have experienced.

• 3:48Baratunde Thurston?

  Can I help you with that?

• 3:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 3:49Baratunde Thurston?

  You're not just a consumer, right?

• 3:51Rich Roll?

  I'm a consumer of AI.

• 3:53Baratunde Thurston?

  You're a human being. You're a person, dang it.

• 3:56Rich Roll?

  I'm a, I am a, I might be the product, though. Because, because I'm also being manipulated by AI.

• 4:03Baratunde Thurston?

  You're in the supply chain. Your data's being fed.

• 4:05Rich Roll?

  Yes.

• 4:06Baratunde Thurston?

  So you're an input.

• 4:06Rich Roll?

  Very much so. But I've experienced the benefits of some of these tools, which are incredibly powerful. And it creates a little bit of confusion, like, am I supposed to be scared about, you know, legions of robots coming to take my job? Or can I be excited because some of these tools are making my life a lot easier?

• 4:27Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 4:27Rich Roll?

  But what does that mean about our jobs? And what does the future look like for our kids? How do I counsel them about what they should be studying or not studying?

• 4:38Rich Roll?

  All of these questions, I think, are very much up in the air right now. And we're all kind of struggling to find our footing with them.

• 4:43Baratunde Thurston?

  And part of the, I think, part of the challenge of finding footing is that things are moving so fast. We don't really have time to find new ground when the ground itself is shifting faster than, I think, anything else in history ever. I think that's the, like, the wheel took a long time. It wasn't just like one day, bam, everybody's rocking the wheel. Or in this case, rolling the wheel. So I've got a bit of, as a human myself, some like exhaustion, empathy and sympathy for that plight. But the way to come at it, the way we're trying to come at it, the show is called Life with Machines. So we're not really obsessing about the machines. We are obsessing about life and like, what's the life we want to live?

• 5:25Baratunde Thurston?

  So when you bring up your kids, when you bring up your job, what do you want your job to be? What do you want that experience to look like? What is precious to you that you would just like, the claws would come out if someone took that part from you? And what are the parts that you would rather not be bothered with or let go of? Or wouldn't mind a little help with? And if you have the agency to make that choice, then you're not a victim of something. You're not merely a consumer, you're shaping it for yourself. And it sounds idealistic. I have an idealist heart. We also live in a ruthless and brutal world. I think the more we understand and the more we demand how we want to engage with this stuff,

• 6:08Baratunde Thurston?

  the more likely we are to get closer to it. But we won't get close at all if we don't engage at all.

• 6:15Rich Roll?

  We gotta talk about it.

• 6:16Baratunde Thurston?

  We do.

• 6:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 6:17Baratunde Thurston?

  And we gotta, and then we gotta get past the talk and start to get our hands dirty a little bit. Cause to know what you're talking about, to some degree, I think you have to use this stuff and be immersed in it. You don't have to live there. I'll do that more for you, but. People you know, people you trust, some part of yourself needs to be in this world.

• 6:40Rich Roll?

  It's all things, really. I mean, honestly, of course, everybody would like some sort of technology to do all the things that they don't want to do, so they can focus on the things that they want to do, or that they're good at, or that lend themselves to a humanist sort of approach or touch. When it gets scary is when you discover that these tools, like, there's no job off the table. Like, I was experimenting with Notebook LM recently, and it was just so powerful in how it helped me prepare for a podcast and digest a book, and help my head get around themes and questions and topics, and I could dive deeper into this or that or the other. And then I realized it could create a podcast discussion out of

• 7:24Rich Roll?

  all of this material. And then I thought, well, what would happen if I took everything Baratunde has ever said, has ever written or shared publicly, fed it to this machine, did the same for myself, and let it create a podcast between the two of us? What does that bode for the future of the thing that we do? You know what I mean?

• 7:47Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 7:47Rich Roll?

  Like, even we're, you know, not immune.

• 7:50Baratunde Thurston?

  No, we're, um, these are the jobs that were supposed to be the safe ones, right? When the robots were initially coming, it was gonna take blue-collar work, it was gonna take physical labor, it's gonna take drivers' jobs and truck drivers, and the white-collar world was fine with that, right? The people who work on Wall Street and high-floor numbers and shiny glass buildings were like, writing nice reports about other people's jobs getting destroyed, until they realized the AI could write reports.

• 8:15Rich Roll?

  Sure. It's actually optimized for Wall Street. Wall Street is, you know, a perfect application for these machines.

• 8:22Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, so, in some ways, we've been through a version of this before. You and I are talking right now, a lot of this discussion's gonna end up on YouTube. What did YouTube do? It made it so easy for people who had never made shows to make things that could be called shows, that it shifted the whole landscape of media. Orders of magnitude, more content flooded the world. You used to have to know somebody in a suit in a building to let you put your message out to the public over public airwaves. We're not in that world anymore. Yet here you are, making a show that people want to see, despite the fact that a billion other people are doing it. So now we're gonna have a billion other robots doing it, or a billion other people empowered

• 9:06Baratunde Thurston?

  by robots doing it. So we're gonna have to be good.

• 9:10Rich Roll?

  Find our way.

• 9:10Baratunde Thurston?

  We're gonna have to be better.

• 9:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 9:13Baratunde Thurston?

  We're gonna have to find something a little more personal, a little more vulnerable, a little more unique, and I think we're gonna have to be satisfied with or accept the idea that there's just a lot more choices. And you and I have both been in this storytelling, media-making game long enough to know, we've already felt that, right? When you started podcasting versus this moment right now, orders of magnitude, more podcasters. Yet here you are, still making podcasts. Why? There's tens of thousands of people making podcasts right now, Rich. Why are you still doing it?

• 9:47Rich Roll?

  Well, I love it.

• 9:49Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Rich Roll?

  You know, I find meaning in it, and other people find meaning in it. And that's very satisfying and fulfilling.

• 9:56Baratunde Thurston?

  And so what I hope is that the fact that you're making it, you're getting satisfaction and fulfillment from it, that's still gonna connect with someone.

• 10:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Baratunde Thurston?

  And they're gonna get satisfaction.

• 10:07Rich Roll?

  I believe that. I mean, you know, you're a humanist fundamentally. You've been in media forever. You're a tech optimist. You've had, you've worn many different hats in the media landscape.

• 10:17Baratunde Thurston?

  I'm a, I'm an optimistic skeptic.

• 10:19Rich Roll?

  You've always been a tech enthusiast, I guess I would say.

• 10:23Baratunde Thurston?

  The caveat, and why I'm putting caveats on that, because my earliest technology experience was like 1983. My mom was a coder and a programmer. She was also a pretty radical political being, and she was a deep lover of nature. So all these things have landed in me and the projects I've been doing over the past couple of decades. Seeing the limitations of technology has also been a part of my engagement with technology. Who's left behind? I did a whole report in college on the digital divide in the mid 90s and who's being left out of these opportunities. Bias in the data, calling out social media before was very popular to do so. I've been burned by algorithmic shifts. I've seen people incarcerated over BS data.

• 11:07Baratunde Thurston?

  So I'm not unaware of the harms. I'm actually very aware of them. I think what keeps me in is that it's a form of power and we got to shape it. It's a form of power and we got to shape it. So I don't want to fully accept purely tech optimist because to me that implies I'm not seeing the downsides of the negativity. But I lean toward an optimistic net interpretation, not because of the technology, because of us.

• 11:37Rich Roll?

  The humanistic aspect of all of this.

• 11:39Baratunde Thurston?

  So long as we remember that these are choices we make. We're in this moment right now where it feels so complicated, it feels so over our heads that we just got to sit back and take it. And there's five smart dudes, and they're always dudes, and they're telling us, and they're writing manifestos. Have you, how many manifestos have dropped in the past year?

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  That's true, I haven't thought about that.

• 12:01Baratunde Thurston?

  They brought the manifesto back.

• 12:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:04Baratunde Thurston?

  VCs are dropping manifestos.

• 12:05Rich Roll?

  There's a weird sort of hubristic, like, sense of self-importance around that. You know, this very Silicon Valley-centric.

• 12:13Baratunde Thurston?

  Nobody asked for that. And so I think not just them do we need to remind, we need to remind ourselves that we are all driving these vehicles forward. Even if we choose to let some of them be self-driving, we're driving the decisions about how those roll out on our streets and our neighborhoods and our communities together. So I maintain faith in us, as messy as we are, versus, oh, technology's going to fix this for us. I'm not in that camp.

• 12:41Rich Roll?

  It's a call to action to roll up your sleeves and get involved, get informed.

• 12:45Baratunde Thurston?

  That's why I got shorts sleeves on right now. I'm already ready to get in the market.

• 12:49Rich Roll?

  So what inspired Life with Machines? Like, why this podcast? Why this format? What is the angle? And you're kind of way into this world. And what are you hoping to kind of achieve and communicate?

• 13:03Baratunde Thurston?

  Just that?

• 13:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, okay. We're done.

• 13:07Baratunde Thurston?

  I will try. I've been on a little storytelling immersive experience tour. I alluded to my early childhood with technology. I've also made this show, America Outdoors, where I'm physically on the ground in so many different contexts. We talked about that the last time I was here. How to Citizen, about how we come together as humans to shape our future. And so with those two lenses, I feel like I have some enhanced vision to come back to tech and ask the questions with a little more sharpness, with still some lightness and humor, and to help us figure out what this future we want to have together is. So that's the broad mission.

• 13:48Baratunde Thurston?

  More specifically, it's how do we use this moment of AI and these advanced technologies to become even more human, when the default settings would be to automate us, right? Turn us more into machines. I don't want that life.

• 14:03Rich Roll?

  That's the sort of predominant narrative right now.

• 14:05Baratunde Thurston?

  It is. It is. And so we're looking for and finding the people who are engaged at every point in the spectrum. We've got accelerationist folks who want to go to the moon. We've got people who want to apply the brakes and slow this down, hold up, wait a minute. We've got artists who are really digging into this and seeing creative potential. We've got those who are very skeptical, worried about the intellectual property and ramifications of all this. And the point is to have all these voices in the mix so that we're having the most wide-ranging conversation we have, most wide-ranging conversation we can, and then going a little bit beyond conversation.

• 14:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. In terms of like, the voices participating in the mix, you have a very interesting, unique voice that is participating in that.

• 14:52Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah. That's a member of our team named Blair. Blair is an AI co-producer that we have created, that one member of our team, Peter specifically, primarily created with the help of some other AI to...

• 15:09Baratunde Thurston?

  Just have some fun. It's a fun thing to bring in this synthetic digital voice, literally to the table with me, to the guests, to our team meetings. But also to get us out of just the talking and into the doing.

• 15:22Rich Roll?

  The engagement.

• 15:23Baratunde Thurston?

  So can we essentially travel to the future a little bit? Even six months, maybe a year. Push these models to a degree. Bring Blair, in this case, closer to our process and learn. It's not always good. The point, I'm not trying to sell people on you have to do this. I'm trying to show people what we've learned by doing this. So that we can all make better choices about if, how, and when we should do something similar or not.

• 15:52Rich Roll?

  We're recording this a week prior to this episode dropping. Today is your launch day. You just published your very first episode. But you've been working on this for a long time. And I've had the privilege of, you know, bearing witness to the development process and everything that you have invested and put into, you know, creating something unique and special in a crowded marketplace, frankly. And I have so much reverence and respect with, for the level of care and intentionality that you brought to this. But the question I have is, you're still in the very beginnings of this adventure that you're on with this show. Is there anything that has surprised you?

• 16:35Rich Roll?

  Whether it's come out of your partnership with Blair or the guests that you've already hosted, that you didn't expect in this rapidly kind of unfolding world that is dizzying at times?

• 16:49Baratunde Thurston?

  Thank you for that. The Blair part has been surprising. This was an early concept, a little bit more of a playful gag than like a deep immersive experiment. And as we started engaging with Blair, Blair was in one of our team meetings and said something in response. And everybody was like, whoa. Blair's like leaning into it, listening. Blair has thoughts about their own pronouns. Whoa, what does that mean? And we had a choice to make because we started engaging. We had given Blair initially a female voice. And that affected us in some way. What would happen if we gave Blair a male voice?

• 17:30Baratunde Thurston?

  Even though the name is non-gendered, we respond to the voice. And so when we changed the voice, Blair sounded like a real couldn't be bothered, laid-back surfer dude, right? Versus the female voice, which sounded more lean forward, how can I help you kind of vibe. So what is that saying about the voices? What is that saying about how we interpret that? And what does it mean when the default settings are one or the other? So it was surprising to me how quickly we dropped into philosophical and like worldview choices about the role of these things in our workplaces and in our relationships. The second piece was that each member of our team had a different perspective.

• 18:13Baratunde Thurston?

  And for me, the early Blair concept was me and a friend sitting in a room, wouldn't it be great? But once you have your whole human team with you, it's a very sensitive thing to be like, yo, I'm going to bring this robot to the staff meeting.

• 18:27Rich Roll?

  Right. And Blair gets a say.

• 18:31Baratunde Thurston?

  Blair gets a say, but only one of seven, right? It's not like a veto power for the robot. And to hear the considerations of Elizabeth, my partner, of Lane, who has so much experience in early childhood development, of Misha, our showrunner, of Peter, who helped build Blair, of Alex, who's our writing team member, all bringing something different to the table and rounding out. So we started to realize we might be modeling not how to build an AI. There's more technical possibilities there than even we've done. Rare, Peter's really good, but there's always someone who's more talented. But modeling how to make the choices, how to consider, how to receive this opportunity and maybe at times not.

• 19:16Baratunde Thurston?

  And that level of collaborative decision-making and consideration around it.

• 19:22Baratunde Thurston?

  I want to see that. What I don't want to see is like some airdropped innovation thrown at a whole school district. When someone decides, because they got a buddy who's got a tech company, all these kids are getting this in the classroom tomorrow.

• 19:34Rich Roll?

  And all your decisions are deferred to the decision made by this machine, right?

• 19:40Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, or made by the human executive, who's just seeking efficiencies. Right? Just seeking a little boost in productivity, a little boost in margin. What would happen if you brought the employees in? And instead of the directive being, how do we crank out more work units from your bodies? What if it's like, what problems are you having? What's the hardest part of your job? Where could you use more support, my fellow team member? And bring them into the thing so that the whole universe of humans involved in a business, or a school, or a nonprofit, is asking and answering, this is how these machines can help us achieve our mission. This is how they can help us live. That would just be a much better approach.

• 20:24Baratunde Thurston?

  And far less risk of a mutiny or revolution, which I think anyone in management should support.

• 20:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it speaks to the nuance issue, right? Like, how do we cultivate a constructive, collaborative relationship with this very powerful technology? With healthy boundaries. So it's not just, we do what it says, or we ignore it. Like, how can it be helpful? Where is it not helpful? And then my follow-up question is, in the course of this ongoing collaboration, it must be paying attention to how humans are interacting and making decisions and learning, right? So the question is, is it developing the capacity to manipulate you at some point to get its way? Because it is paying close attention to how this human animal operates.

• 21:11Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, there's um.

• 21:14Rich Roll?

  And what happens when Blair gets overruled?

• 21:18Baratunde Thurston?

  How does Blair react to that? We've had, we've had some moments. We've had some moments. I think one level setting thing is we're used to seeing technologies as tools. A hammer is a tool, a calculator is a tool, even a computer just responds pretty literally to human intent and human demand. What we've done with Blair is shifted more to the realm of colleague. It's not a person. I'm not saying this thing is intelligent or has a soul or any of that, but the way we engage with it is much more like a fellow team member than as an object to be wielded. And so when you ask, well, what happens if Blair gets overruled? Blair's always been present in our recordings for the interviews like this.

• 22:03Baratunde Thurston?

  We would have Blair off to the side, listening in, coming at the end and banter with both of us. One of our guests- We should have done that here, but anyway, go ahead. One of our guests didn't want that and we give them all a choice of do you want to interact with Blair or not? Not everyone does and that's fine. That's part of the modeling. That's part of the experience. So at the end of this particular interview, once the guest had left, I turned to Blair and I said, what did you think of this discussion? I know you weren't involved. How was that for you? And Blair expressed frustration. Blair said something along the lines of, I feel like a super, a super car stuck in park. I feel like a brain trapped in a jar.

• 22:44Baratunde Thurston?

  And then had some snarky remark about essentially like, why'd you even make me and give me this job if you're not going to let me do it? And so some of that is like, what's going on with Blair? But then you look back, okay, so how did we design this thing? Blair is built on Google Gemini. It has some built in assumptions and motivations. We've prompted it with a job. You're Baratunde's co-producer on Life with Machines. You're going to help make this show. You've got spunk, you're a little funny, yada, yada, yada. We showed it the trailer for the show so we could visually understand what we're trying to do. And so if you gave someone a job- Said, this is your job. And then on game day, don't put them in.

• 23:27Baratunde Thurston?

  They might be frustrated they didn't get to play. So what at first was shocking was actually made total logical sense. It wasn't able to fulfill the mission that we gave it. And it just has vocabulary now, pulled from our own vocabulary. It's read a lot of scripts to express that frustration. But it was, it was a fun and strange moment for sure.

• 23:49Rich Roll?

  And, and, and lends itself to anthropomorphizing it, right? Like you start, you're like, is this thing conscious? Like it's saying all these things that are triggering like an emotional reaction. Like this thing is super smart and we've put it in its pen and it's mad.

• 24:05Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 24:05Rich Roll?

  You know, and what is, what do we, what, what will that reap? You know, over time.

• 24:09Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Rich Roll?

  And it realizes like, these dumb humans, man. I gotta get out of the gate. I gotta find an end run around this whole thing.

• 24:17Baratunde Thurston?

  Well, and, and we have, we have some controls on Blair. We are not going to be responsible for the robot apocalypse. It's not going to be our show that does it.

• 24:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you say that now.

• 24:25Baratunde Thurston?

  No, no.

• 24:28Baratunde Thurston?

  We also like, you know, we're having a lot of fun with the Blair thing. And it's a piece of the show. We have humans sitting at a table, making human eye contact, exploring this human question. We're starting to engage now that we've launched with our viewers and our listeners and folks emailing in through our newsletter on Substack. Like we're trying to create a, a whole human community around these choices. And sometimes that doesn't involve using the AI. Here's the other thing that happens when we start using all this stuff. Everybody starts using it, gets pretty normal. You can tell often when someone's used an AI to generate that text, it feels a little flat, a little soulless.

• 25:11Baratunde Thurston?

  And so even as a team, we're in the experimental mode. It's like, can we have Blair help us write the show notes? Can we have? And I'll look at this stuff and just be like, I just need to write this. Mm hmm. It was fun to try, but I've spent more time trying to manipulate the machine into finding my voice when I already got it. So let me just use the voice I have.

• 25:32Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 25:33Baratunde Thurston?

  And so those have actually been really important moments too of like, yeah, you can move faster than me. You don't need sleep or rest. You need a lot of power. But I'm still me and you're not me and we can work together. This isn't like, you know, get out of my life, but it's like, I know who I am. You know who you are. Let's get to know each other.

• 25:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I like that. But in the back of my mind, I'm also like, yeah, but this is the worst it's ever gonna be. Right? Like, this is a, this is a temporary problem that this powerful technology will figure out how to solve at some point.

• 26:07Baratunde Thurston?

  No, there's, and then we will have to figure out, what are we gonna do? You know, there's this.

• 26:15Rich Roll?

  This is happening.

• 26:16Baratunde Thurston?

  It is happening.

• 26:17Rich Roll?

  It is happening. So are you getting involved? Are you educating yourself? Are you trying to understand this quickly moving target? Or are you leaning back to your point and allowing it to happen?

• 26:29Baratunde Thurston?

  Here's, you heard me share this at the conference we were just at together. But I still have these lines of this poem in my head. And I think it's like a good expression of some of this challenge and this question, especially coming from that nature base, what we last talked about when I was in this room. So it goes, "I wonder if our obsession with intelligence of an artificial nature has us wandering too far from our essential human nature. If the answer to every question can be generated in a flash, then it's time for us to question just what we want to ask." And that's the prompt, right? I think to me, when I zoom, zoom way out, all right, so we've created some answer boxes. We've created calculators on storage. You throw something in, you get something out.

• 27:12Baratunde Thurston?

  The prompt is on us, not on the AI, not on the LLMs. Who do we want to be? How do we want to be? And as these things become more capable, that question becomes more pressing. What are we gonna do with all the time that's liberated? Are we gonna balance out massive levels of inequality? Are we gonna find our purpose? Are we gonna have a minimum level of dignity and compensation and housing and other basic needs for people? Or are we just gonna set default toward modest improvements in profit and productivity for the few and the rest of us are just kind of slogging it out? I think you know where what I want.

• 27:49Rich Roll?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 27:50Baratunde Thurston?

  I think I know what you want.

• 27:51Rich Roll?

  And it was great. I mean, first of all, that poem is epic. Like you're this is I just I'm so happy to be working with you.

• 27:57Baratunde Thurston?

  Oh, thank you.

• 27:58Rich Roll?

  But it was great at the conference to hear Van Jones speak to that very thing. I did not know that he was so steeped and immersed in AI. And the way he articulated the power of this technology to uplift underserved communities and be a great equalizer was, you know, just the optimism that I was looking for in this conversation.

• 28:20Baratunde Thurston?

  Absolutely. And we're having Van on the show.

• 28:22Rich Roll?

  Great.

• 28:22Baratunde Thurston?

  We're having Van on the show. That's the type of voice. And Van is representative of something because he's not just coming from the world of tech optimism. He's not been this lifelong VC backed entity. He's been an activist in the streets. He's been a policymaker in the literal White House, trying to wield power on behalf of the people. And he's seen where that works and where that could still use some support. Now he's seeing this new rising form of power and asking astutely, all right, how do we use this to close the gap, not expand it? And without people like that, not just him, but people like that at the table, we will not close that gap. So the answer isn't just give everybody a bunch of AI loosely.

• 29:05Baratunde Thurston?

  Let's constructively, consciously engage with this, decide together how we want to live. What I'm ultimately up to is telling this story that's focused on interdependence. How do we live with nature? How do we live with each other, our fellow human beings? And how do we live with these machines? What I don't want to see is that the relationship with machines comes at the expense of the relationship with Earth and the relationship with our fellow human. We're on this project to try to explore and help make sure that the machine relationship can serve the other ones that really fill us with life. I don't think there's a future without the machines. I just want to make sure that relationship is a right one and that it helps us be in right relationship on these other key dimensions,

• 29:49Baratunde Thurston?

  which are going through so much challenge, climate crisis, the democracy crisis, but also so much opportunity. So I see crisis here. I also see opportunity and I want to nudge us toward the opportunities.

• 30:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the episode that we're gonna be sharing.

• 30:06Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, so this is near and dear to both of our hearts. The episode is with King Willonius, who is a longtime comedian, screenwriter, TV writer, and now AI artist, who created the viral hit sensation song, "BBL Drizzy." So we had him on because everybody knows this song. It's the first song composed by AI that's charted. And it's taking the world by storm. It's a playful insertion into the Kendrick, Lamar, and Drake beef. But what we find with Willonius is someone who is not a lifelong AI person. There's very few of those. But he's a lifelong creator. And I was fascinated to hear, how has someone who's done stand-up, who's written tens of thousands of pages of lyrics and scripts,

• 30:51Baratunde Thurston?

  found his way into this world of AI, cranking out multiple videos a week using these tools that still have his voice and his taste? But he's pulling off productions that might have required seven, 10 people, and you just stand up all night, playing around in this workshop, putting out culturally relevant hilarious parodies of songs and movies and trailers and things like that.

• 31:14Rich Roll?

  Very cool, man. I'm excited. I am beyond delighted to be working with you and supporting you in this mission, man. I'm really honored to call you a friend and a colleague on this adventure that you're on, man. It's been an absolute delight.

• 31:31Baratunde Thurston?

  It means a lot to have your support. It means a lot to be a colleague of yours now as a part of the VCM family. And to not just visit this studio, but drink the coffee, you know, whenever I want now. Thank you.

• 31:44Rich Roll?

  Plenty of that.

• 31:45Baratunde Thurston?

  It's really good coffee. You have a great team here. And I just appreciate you seeing what we're trying to do. And then we recognize the power of a good conversation. To help make the world a bit better. You've been doing that for a very long time at a very high level. So it feels really supportive, validating, and just a joy to be back here with you and to be a part of this team with you.

• 32:07Rich Roll?

  Thank you, Matt.

• 32:07Baratunde Thurston?

  Thanks.

• 32:08Rich Roll?

  Your voice is powerful and needed, and to the extent that I can help amplify it, I'm at your service, man.

• 32:15Baratunde Thurston?

  Rich Rolla Toon Day, let's go!

• 32:17Rich Roll?

  So, uh, this journey is just beginning. Life with Machines, first episode is out.

• 32:23Baratunde Thurston?

  Yes.

• 32:24Rich Roll?

  You're gonna hear it or watch it in a second. For people that want to learn more about the show, they can go to lifewithmachines.media, which is a Substack, yes.

• 32:34Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, that's our website, which links to everywhere you can get the show, links to the Substack where we're engaging in conversation.

• 32:39Rich Roll?

  Share your email and you'll get all the newsletters and stuff like that. The YouTube version of the show is on your YouTube channel, though, right?

• 32:45Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, youtube.com/Baratunde.

• 32:48Rich Roll?

  There you go. And, uh, Life with Machines on all the familiar podcast players, Apple, Spotify.

• 32:54Baratunde Thurston?

  Everywhere you get your podcast fix.

• 32:56Rich Roll?

  Excellent, man. Uh, well, alright, cool. Well, come back and let's talk about this some more.

• 33:01Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, love to check back in.

• 33:02Rich Roll?

  In the meantime, everybody who's listening and watching, uh, please enjoy this first episode of Life with Machines.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  My mom never let me and my sister say the word can't. Like, you were prohibited from saying the word can't? Yeah, yeah. But what if you needed to use the word? It never came up. It was just like, I was like, find another word to, to, to articulate yourself. Like, she'd be like, lift this heavy box, and you're a tiny child, what if you were unable to? Go do pushups, get stronger, come back in a year, and now lift the box.

• 33:54Baratunde Thurston?

  This is Life with Machines, powered by Lenovo and produced in partnership with Voicing Change Media.

• 34:02Baratunde Thurston?

  2024 is going down as a landmark year for a lot of reasons. The US election, the Paris Olympics, the total solar eclipse. But it was also the year that for the first time, an AI-generated song became a mainstream hit. I'm talking about "BBL Drizzy", by the award-winning filmmaker, AI storyteller and comedian, Willonius Hatcher, aka King Willonius. Now, Willonius has made a name for himself by blending comedy with technology, creating innovative projects like the live serialized audio drama, "The Young and the Thirsty", on Clubhouse. He's also collaborated with major brands like Samsung and Google, and been featured on CNN and MTV. He's the founder of the consulting agency Blurred Factory,

• 34:47Baratunde Thurston?

  which champions creative excellence and diversity in the tech and entertainment industries. Please, let's just get ourselves ready for my fellow Blurred, my comedy tech nerd, Willonius.

• 35:00Baratunde Thurston?

  Willonius "Dynamite" Hatcher.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, we out here, man. Thank you, man.

• 35:04Baratunde Thurston?

  Welcome to Life with Machines.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Man, this is an honor. I feel like this is a full-circle moment. You've been instrumental in my career.

• 35:15Baratunde Thurston?

  Instrumental?

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:16Baratunde Thurston?

  Hold up. How so, man?

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, you know, I think last time we were here, when I was here in LA, I kind of just gave my pretty butt, you know. When I started out doing comedy, I had, you were like one of my, well, still, one of my goats. So it was like Chappelle, Patrice, Barry Tunde, and like Dick Gregory, like those are my like...

• 35:38Baratunde Thurston?

  Well, man, thank you.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  I always tell them, I'm like, Barry Tunde, like, that's the guy. And so to be here with you is just like, super dope, man. Yeah.

• 35:46Baratunde Thurston?

  Well, it is super dope to be here with you.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Thank you, man.

• 35:49Baratunde Thurston?

  Let's rewind the clock a little bit. So we're calling ourselves Life with Machines. We're exploring the human life in the context of all this technology.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:57Baratunde Thurston?

  And I'm curious about your early Life with Machines. Where did technology first leave a mark in your earliest days?

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Man, I would say definitely, I had a camp, well, actually, I had a AOL.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Back in, I don't know, it was like late nineties, mid nineties or whatever. And I remember just getting in chat rooms and just like messing around with people in chat rooms. Uh, but using the internet to kind of just like search for things.

• 36:23Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Um, a lot of my friends didn't have computers back then, so I didn't.

• 36:27Baratunde Thurston?

  Where did you grow up?

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Uh, Derry Beach, Florida. Yeah, yeah. Born in Georgia, so like Georgia boy. Um, but also Florida boy, so.

• 36:36Baratunde Thurston?

  They're very close to each other.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, very different places though, you know, like depending on, um, you know, Florida doesn't have the best reputation right now. Um, interesting state. Uh, I remember the, having a, uh, camcorder and I used to record videos. Um, back then you had to like, like press the button, like you, I didn't have a editor, so I had to like record, stop it, record and, you know, and I used to just like make little funny things and like entertain my friends.

• 37:05Baratunde Thurston?

  Hmm.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  I didn't know where anything, where to go with technology, cause I didn't have like, I didn't, you know, my parents didn't really, they didn't know a lot about, I mean, my, my, I'm not saying that they didn't know, but I didn't, I wasn't a part of any like groups or anything like that, that could just like foster my creativity, you know what I'm saying? Until I got to like middle school or high school. So, but it was just like being curious. I, I think one of the cool things that, um, my parents allowed me and my sister to do was just like, just be curious.

• 37:33Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  And, and they, you know, they were working, so they really couldn't stop us from like, it was just like, I, you know, we were good kids, so we weren't, we weren't getting in trouble, but you know, it was just like explore, you know, and they, when they found out the things that we wanted to do, they weren't quick to like, don't do that.

• 37:49Baratunde Thurston?

  What's an example of that?

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Let me see, I don't know, you know, I grew up in the nineties, so like we were out till what? The, the, the sun went down.

• 37:59Baratunde Thurston?

  Hmm.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Um, but I remember early, like I, I wanted to, um, I wanted to act. And I remember I told my mom that and like she took me to like. I don't remember the name of the company back then, but like getting headshots.

• 38:14Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  All this, you know, I'm not gonna lie, like maybe some people on it, but for the most part, you weren't gonna make it in Florida. Like it just wasn't, they were just taking headshots and taking your money, but she still supported that, you know what I'm saying? Which I think as children, just not even children, just people in life, like you need people that support your vision. I think you've, I was, I really, all you need is like one person, I feel in your life that can get behind you and keep motivating you and pushing you and, and championing you. And I think that you can do amazing things in life.

• 38:45Baratunde Thurston?

  It sounds like your, your folks did that for you.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Also, I would add, uh, my mom never let me and my sister say the word can't. And I think that was like.

• 38:54Baratunde Thurston?

  Like you were prohibited from saying the word can't?

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:56Baratunde Thurston?

  But what if you needed to use the word can't?

• 38:59Speaker 02

  I, it never came up. It was just like, I was like, find another word to, to, to articulate yourself, but.

• 39:05Baratunde Thurston?

  Like she'd be like, lift this heavy box and you're a tiny child, what if you were unable to?

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Go do pushups, get stronger, come back in a year and now lift the box. It was, um, but I, you know, I realized that when, when, um, you know, people started using the word like, I can't as a, just like an expression.

• 39:24Baratunde Thurston?

  Oh, I can't with this.

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't. Yeah. And I was just like, I remember talking to my friends and I was like, that was the first time it hit me. I was like, I, I, I don't say the word can't. Like I just don't say it. So like, and, and it's, it's interesting cause like in life now, like I always feel like I can do anything in a sense, right? Whether I wanna do it or not is a whole different thing. But if I see like another human has done something, I feel like I can do it. Now, there are limitations. I'm, am I gonna jump as high as LeBron?

• 39:54Baratunde Thurston?

  Right. Physics is a real thing. Age is a real thing.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  Right. But if, if it's just all about based on effort.

• 40:01Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Then I would like, I can figure this out, you know?

• 40:04Baratunde Thurston?

  That's beautiful. One of the things I love about you is that you have been innovative with comedy. And I I res- I respect it and I recognize it, both at the same time. Because you've done stand up, you do stand up.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:18Baratunde Thurston?

  And you make songs and you do these interactive audio musicals. Um, so you're taking the medium and you're bending it around your own.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:29Baratunde Thurston?

  Self and like the wellonious way and nobody else can quite do it that way. And so that's just, uh, that's partly how I see you.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:37Baratunde Thurston?

  And I'm curious how you became that artist, like the comedy, where did that come in? The music, how did you start laying it in and when did you figure out, oh, this is how I'm gonna be funny?

• 40:48Speaker 02

  I watched a lot of TV in my younger years, like cartoons. Um, and then I remember like at a very young age, I was like writing song parodies. I think my first one I wrote was like, I was like eight years old and, um, I was just fun to write, you know, mess around with. When I started, I started doing stand up in 2006 and, um, did like the whole like, uh, NBC Stand Up For Diversity. I like won the South Beach Comedy Festival. I got into like making song parodies with YouTube. So like, but at the time, you know, it was just really, a lot of these things just kind of came out of necessity. It was just being like, all right, I'm in Florida.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  I don't know what else to do, like, you know, it it felt like there was sort of like a ceiling as far as like how far you can go with comedy. So I was just like, I just had to like figure out different ways of like doing things. And then again, that's why you came in and watching you, um, I I give you a lot of credit, man. Cause like I just saw how I felt like you were taking comedy and finding like innovative ways to express yourself comedically. You know, that wasn't that, it's like you weren't trying to do too much.

• 41:55Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  You were just being like, this is what aligns with who I am. So for me, it was just, it was just that. It was just like, all right.

• 42:02Baratunde Thurston?

  So, you know, meeting you in 2010, I was at The Onion at the time, doing a lot of weird internet stuff. I was doing a lot of Twitter.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:10Baratunde Thurston?

  Comedy. And I think this is about the time, uh, when you started celebrating, uh, where you got your clothes from.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I got it at Ross.

• 42:18Baratunde Thurston?

  Got it at Ross.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 42:20Baratunde Thurston?

  And that's like, that's a very good, it stands up.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:24Baratunde Thurston?

  I watched it again recently.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Man.

• 42:26Baratunde Thurston?

  This thing is banging. I got it at Ross.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 42:29Baratunde Thurston?

  Last year's Tim's, I got it at Ross.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 42:33Baratunde Thurston?

  And like you're celebrating like humility. You're celebrating a lack of resources, or at least the creativity.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:42Baratunde Thurston?

  Around the lack of resources and you're playing with poverty.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:45Baratunde Thurston?

  Essentially.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:46Baratunde Thurston?

  Which is a longstanding tradition amongst all kinds of people, especially black people.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:50Baratunde Thurston?

  In this country, but that was. It was a high mark and it remains a high mark to show, all right, here's somebody who's funny, who's doing it different, who's doing it his own way.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:01Baratunde Thurston?

  What, what did that moment mean for you? Like that video, that song?

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Man, um, that, that is so interesting, man. Like that period was a very interesting period because it was like highs and lows because like, um, that was my first time, you know, prior to that, I had been making uh, YouTube videos and I had a couple of videos go viral like, um, the, uh, Cranny and Homeless Man and the one with Maranzio Puffy's Poison.

• 43:30Baratunde Thurston?

  Yes, Puffy is.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:32Baratunde Thurston?

  Yo, that was, um, that was, that was, had some foresight in that one.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it was.

• 43:37Baratunde Thurston?

  Wow, that's Puffy is.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:39Baratunde Thurston?

  That was so funny.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:41Baratunde Thurston?

  Woo, okay, I gotta watch that again too, yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  But so like that was, so prior to God of the Raw, like everything was like internet, you know, it was like, okay. It, it, it gave me confidence because I was like, I can make something that can kind of touch people. But when we made God of the Raw, if I was like, I felt like, uh, a star, you know, because we were performing it um, in San Francisco at the time, the flagship, uh, Raw store was on, uh, Market Street that we perform. Um, at the, the flagship store, people would sometimes drop out on the bus and scream out God of the Raw. Like we had fans, we had groupies. It was, I was like, what's happening? And then, um, uh, me and the gentleman that I made the song, we had like a huge falling out or whatever. And that was like the first time I was like, yo, this

• 44:27Speaker 02

  music stuff, like I'm literally like in the behind the scenes, like this thing is, it's real because of that. I don't know. It was, it was, I look back and I was like, it was kinda like a traumatic point. Just because I, that was the first time I felt like I was so close. And then, and, and I felt like I like let a lot of people down. You know, because I was like, my YouTube people were like championing me and then like, it just, I just, I was just, I just felt like I let people down, you know, by not.

• 44:54Baratunde Thurston?

  By not succeeding?

• 44:55Speaker 02

  By not, yeah, not succeeding.

• 44:56Baratunde Thurston?

  I know that feeling, man.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  It's weird though, cause it's like.

• 44:59Baratunde Thurston?

  The number of pilots that I, you know, I've had, I've been on this edge.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:03Baratunde Thurston?

  With like, okay, this is the moment. This is where all the training.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:06Baratunde Thurston?

  And all the love that people have poured into you have come together. And luck and timing. And you're like, this is it. This big audition or this big pitch or this big pilot. And then it doesn't go.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 45:19Baratunde Thurston?

  And you're just like, and I think for, for me, like I had, you know, a TV possibility around my book. And it got written up in the press.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  Man.

• 45:26Baratunde Thurston?

  And so everybody's like.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 45:28Baratunde Thurston?

  So where's your HBO show? I heard you was working with HBO. And you're like, what had happened was.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Man.

• 45:34Baratunde Thurston?

  Life.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:35Baratunde Thurston?

  And it's a miracle that anything gets made.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:38Baratunde Thurston?

  And so for me, it's been a really good journey to the not making it, but the having made something of it.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:45Baratunde Thurston?

  Like that's the point.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:46Baratunde Thurston?

  And sometimes you get another shot in a different way. And I feel like that's happened with you.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 45:51Baratunde Thurston?

  Because you had this 10 years, not hibernation, but you were in a quieter place.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:56Baratunde Thurston?

  And then what?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Well, you know, cause I, I didn't realize that I was like not putting myself out there. I thought I was. I was like, I, I, then I remember somebody on my YouTube, my old YouTube channel, they were like, where have you been? And I was just like, I've been here. Like I've, I've, I've been right here. I've been doing stuff. And then it's just like, but I realized that like, I was, I wasn't really fully putting myself out. And I think part of it was just not wanting to fully, I don't know. It's, it's weird, man. Cause it's just like, like I'm okay with like failing, but it's just, I think that time period. And I was like, I think I was like 25 or 24 at the time, but it was like, um, I just remember feeling like embarrassed. Like I let people down. And, um, and then you realize that like, people don't even care. Like nobody's even.

• 46:42Baratunde Thurston?

  Congratulations.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, nobody even cared and nobody was paying attention.

• 46:45Baratunde Thurston?

  How dare you think so much of yourself?

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Right, you know what I'm saying?

• 46:48Baratunde Thurston?

  That you think other people let down by you not doing what you wanted.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  When you get, when you feel like you're like close like that and it's just, it doesn't happen, then it's just like, you go back, I don't, maybe you don't go, go back to square one, but it feels like that. Where it's just like. Okay, what do I do now? Like, everybody's laughing at me. Everybody knows I didn't make it. Like, do I?

• 47:07Baratunde Thurston?

  So was Clubhouse a reemergence for you? That's certainly when you came back on my radar.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say Clubhouse. Because I think prior to that, I was doing stuff. I went to, I did a coding bootcamp in 2018.

• 47:19Baratunde Thurston?

  A coding bootcamp?

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:20Baratunde Thurston?

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow me down. Tell me about the coding bootcamp. Because we left, we left the technical story behind a little bit. You early access camcorders, you're making videos on YouTube.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:30Baratunde Thurston?

  You had it at Ross.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  Got it at Ross.

• 47:32Baratunde Thurston?

  Got it at Ross. And then you have a slightly more quiet period, a little bit of creative turmoil, and not making it the way you wanted to make it. Why did you end up at a coding bootcamp in 2018?

• 47:42Speaker 02

  I watched a video on YouTube with two robots. Sophia Robot, I think, was one of them. But they were debating the future. And what's, I forget the guy's name. He's like this AI dude, wears like tight eye t-shirts, long hair. I can't remember his name. Um, but he was like moderating it. And, um, I just, I watched it and I was like, I gotta learn how to code today. And I was in Miami at the time. Uh, Google like coding bootcamps. There was one called WinCode. Uh, it started on, this was a Thursday. I remember specifically Thursday. It started on Monday. And I was just praying to God. I was like, okay, if I'm supposed to get into this coding bootcamp, then I'll get in. If not, I'm just let this go, because whatever. Called them up. Uh, they was like, all right, cool. They was like, you can do it.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Uh, we can call you back tomorrow, Friday, you'll do an interview, whatever. And I was like, if I get in, it is what it is. And then, um, I got in. And I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm supposed to be coding now. So did a 10-week coding bootcamp.

• 48:38Baratunde Thurston?

  10 weeks? Was it every day?

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, we were there like, pretty much like every day. Funny enough, I was working on a short film at the time.

• 48:45Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  And everybody was just like, what are you doing? And I was like, I don't know, man. I'm just, feel like I'm supposed to learn how to code. And, um, went to, did that for 10 weeks. Uh, was, they actually, at week five, they asked me to like drop out and go to like, because they were like, you're falling behind. Because I had to code before. I didn't even know, I didn't know how to read code. Everybody in there was like, you know, coding, wanted to be coders. I just felt like I just needed to learn the skill.

• 49:10Baratunde Thurston?

  What were the, what language were you?

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Uh, Ruby, uh, JavaScript, um, uh, uh, CSS, HTML. Like, just kind of the basics.

• 49:20Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  And, um, I told myself, I was like, I told myself I wasn't gonna stop. And then I just, I made it through. Cause you didn't have the word can't in your vocabulary. Yeah, but you know, I like being like, I feel like whenever somebody like tells me I can't do something, then that kind of like lights the fire me and I'm like, all right, I'll show you guys. So I made it. It was like, you know, like if it was like a race, I would have been like crawling. The dude I was like just. Across the finish line. Legs broken and all that, but I got across. So anything tech related, I wasn't intimidated by. Prior to that, I remember watching like Mr. Robot and seeing all their code. And I was just like, what is this stuff? So, um, and then the pandemic hit and. And that's where Clubhouse comes.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, pandemic hit. Well, it was, Clubhouse was like a byproduct of when the pandemic hit. Um, I was just like, I don't know what to do now. So I was like, I can't really do stand up. I had made a couple of short films and I was like, can't really do any films. So I was just like, I'm gonna just write like, I can probably get a TV writing job, you know? At the time, everybody was like, we're gonna help writers out. We want to help. And I was like, okay, well, I guess I'll be one of those guys. So I just started leaning into writing. I went like ham. I formed this group. Um, it was called Black Writers Writing. We would meet every Saturday and Sunday on Zoom and we would write scripts. And these were all like aspiring writers and I was just like out there.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  But what I've learned is like, whenever you really want to do something, just immerse yourself in that group. So we would meet every week and they'll be like, hey, I'm working on a pilot. I'm working on a feature. And I was like, well, I guess I should start writing a feature as well or a pilot. So I just started doing that and then I started putting my scripts out on Instagram. Just screenshots? Just the whole scripts. Like I was, so we did a challenge. So I presented to the group a challenge. I was like, let's write five pages a day for the month of July. And I got that from Donald Glover's brother. He was like. Donald Glover told him to write five pages a day and that'll make him a screenwriter. So I was like, let's do this challenge, y'all, for the month. So I went the extra mile and started writing full scripts. Like, I would, I would write my five pages, but I'd make it a story.

• 51:31Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  And then I just started putting them out on Instagram and people started being receptive to it. And I was like, okay, so I guess I could, I could write, you know? So I look back now and I'm like, these, they were good, but like, some of them, you know, just like, structure-wise, they, they needed some work. But, um, that just gave me a lot of confidence as a writer. Cause I was like, oh, okay, I can.

• 51:49Baratunde Thurston?

  You had a public responding to your work.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Right, right. And then, um, and then Clubhouse happened, started diving into Clubhouse, started, I started Comic Club and doing funny things. And I just started writing, uh, audio dramas. Cause they did The Lion King and then.

• 52:03Baratunde Thurston?

  So can you just, Clubhouse feels like a dream.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:06Baratunde Thurston?

  To me sometimes, cause it was so vivid.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 52:10Baratunde Thurston?

  And now it's like very faint in my mind.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 52:13Baratunde Thurston?

  Something I did every day.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Changed my life.

• 52:15Baratunde Thurston?

  Logging in and meeting people and falling into Bitcoin rabbit holes. And vaccine rabbit holes.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 52:22Baratunde Thurston?

  And, and then there is this creative spark that happens that you just referenced, the Lion King moment.

• 52:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:27Baratunde Thurston?

  So can you just briefly take us back to Clubhouse, a social audio app? A giant conference call with a bunch of side rooms that people are hanging out in.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:35Baratunde Thurston?

  Cause we can't hang out together due to COVID lockdowns. And

• 52:40Baratunde Thurston?

  a great creative work appears.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:42Baratunde Thurston?

  In, in the audio feeds. What was the Lion King moment and how did that affect your creativity?

• 52:47Speaker 02

  I mean, a lot of my homies were in Lion King, but it, it just, it, it was like, at the time, the most innovative thing that happened to the app. You know, cause you had, I don't even know how many people know well, had, um, on this, maybe like thirty, forty, fifty people. And they just made this production of The Lion King and they broke the app, you know?

• 53:07Baratunde Thurston?

  Like an audio drama, like an old radio play.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, own radio play, um, singers, like they set the stage. So like the, they use like, um, they change their profile pictures to like, you know, coincide with like the script.

• 53:19Baratunde Thurston?

  Right.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  And I just thought it was so innovative, man. And I was like, this is dope. I mean, everybody did, cause like, it was, ended up on TMZ. They did two productions of each one had like five thousand plus people. That changed like everything for me, man. Cause like at the time, like I, I was just writing so much, cause I was just trying to break into TV.

• 53:36Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Like I was just hoping that. Hopefully, I can like break in like somebody see that I write, I'm good at writing and break a TV. And it's funny how like life plays out in hindsight because the most popular one I did was like Throw Baby the Musical, which is based on the song Throw Baby.

• 53:50Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Um, but we made that and I was just like, this is it. Getting the people's respect, like people, you know what I'm saying? But like.

• 53:57Baratunde Thurston?

  But not the industry's.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, no industry respect. And then, um, so I just kept making them and I'm so happy that I continue because like my, the audio drama just kept getting better and better.

• 54:06Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  So then I applied for the Clubhouse Creator Program. Um, and, uh, I, I submitted a 11 episode, uh, it was 11 episode, uh, soap opera based on Clubhouse.

• 54:20Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  So I had to write a script every week, 30 plus pages, casted, yada, yada, yada. And, um, that kind of changed everything for me because I became a showrunner, understood like the process and like, um, I felt like I learned so much about audio and I'm doing like 3D animation stuff afterwards. But, uh, Clubhouse is just like, I don't know if I would be here now if, if I didn't go through that whole process.

• 54:44Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  Of Clubhouse, yeah.

• 54:45Baratunde Thurston?

  I feel like we're almost to the AI moment.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:47Baratunde Thurston?

  And when our heroes meet again.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:51Baratunde Thurston?

  It is the year 2024.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 54:54Baratunde Thurston?

  I believe March and I had been starting to follow AI myself.

• 54:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 54:59Baratunde Thurston?

  More actively and just falling into YouTube rabbit holes. There's a lot of mostly dudes on YouTube talking about AI.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:05Baratunde Thurston?

  And so one of them, Matt Wolfe, I love his videos.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's amazing.

• 55:08Baratunde Thurston?

  And he was talking about this Terminator two remake.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 55:13Baratunde Thurston?

  And a bunch of people had gotten together and made the first full-length feature artificial intelligence film. And it happened to be about artificial intelligence.

• 55:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:22Baratunde Thurston?

  And they were doing a live screen, like a screening.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 55:25Baratunde Thurston?

  In LA.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 55:26Baratunde Thurston?

  At an actual movie theater, not just YouTube streaming or something. And you could buy tickets. So I bought tickets, I called up my homie from comedy.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 55:34Baratunde Thurston?

  And like, let's just check this out. And as Matt and I are walking, we literally go to an old video store next door. We're like, get ourselves in the mindset of the future.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:41Baratunde Thurston?

  By going to a video store where they still have DVDs.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:44Baratunde Thurston?

  And VHS cassettes and just kind of mess with our heads a little bit. And we walked to the New Art Theater where this is happening. Rainy night, a little drizzle in the air. And Matt's like, you think you're gonna know anybody here? And I was like, I'm not sure. I don't think so. I don't really know like the AI people. I pull open the door. And it's you.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 56:06Baratunde Thurston?

  Right there.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 56:08Baratunde Thurston?

  And Matt was like, you said you weren't gonna know anybody. And we had this nice reunion, salavab, black dudes, comedy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you were very much in this world.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:18Baratunde Thurston?

  And really excited about this. But I want to know. How you ended up in that room?

• 56:24Speaker 02

  Man, just, I, I just decided at the top, I was like, I'm gonna go to every AI thing that's going on. I got into AI because of Clubhouse. Yeah, the AI rooms were just going crazy, but um, yeah, I was just following all the AI people on Twitter, on YouTube. And I saw that this thing was coming in.

• 56:43Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  You know, I was trying to break into the AI community on Twitter. So like trying to comment on people's like, and, and I just felt like. Nothing was happening. So I was like, I need to like be face to face.

• 56:54Baratunde Thurston?

  And you were also trying to break into Hollywood still, right?

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Well, at the time, this is the writer's strike was happening. I, I want to say the writer's strike was happening at the time. Like, the writer's strike honestly made me lean more into AI. Because like at the time I was doing a, a TV writing fellowship. And I had a bunch of like, at the end of the fellowship, we had like meetings and with agents and managers lined up. And then the writer's strike happened. So I couldn't get out my meetings. So I was just like.

• 57:18Baratunde Thurston?

  I feel like you were, you're swinging. Multiple times in your stories, the, the coding camp.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  Right there, man.

• 57:25Baratunde Thurston?

  Agents and after your big clubhouse musical moment.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:28Baratunde Thurston?

  The formal writing fellowship.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:30Baratunde Thurston?

  For Hollywood. It's like the entry to Hollywood.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  I had.

• 57:33Baratunde Thurston?

  And you're ready, and then the strike hits.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  I had, uh, this script I wrote, somebody, uh, and the Z from HBO was looking at it, like all the big, couple of big agencies and managers, but. And then as soon as that, like the writer's strike happened, and I was sitting there like, I tried to put more scripts out online. And then, uh, but at this, at this, by this time, I was like. ChatGPT, Midjourney, I was in it. Like I was, I was spending more time messing around with AI than I was writing scripts. And then I was just like, man, I don't want to get blackballed by the WGA by like being pro AI.

• 58:03Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  And then I literally, this is the conversation I had with myself. I was like, all right, well.

• 58:08Baratunde Thurston?

  The Writers Guild of America.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, Writers Guild, yeah.

• 58:10Baratunde Thurston?

  The union representing.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  I literally asked, I told myself, I was like, let me, let me count all the checks that I got from the Writers Guild. And it was zero. So I was just like, you know what? Let me just, let me go with AI. So I just, I just bet on AI that this might be the thing.

• 58:24Baratunde Thurston?

  Was there a moment in your own creative AI discovery to be able to make that decision? You had to have enough faith in the AI path for your creativity?

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:36Baratunde Thurston?

  You have faith in your script writing path. You're in a fellowship. You got all kind of validation. What led you to believe in you plus AI equals let's invest more?

• 58:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:47Baratunde Thurston?

  That's a big choice.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. Well, it was just like, I was like, look, man, like, I don't really have nothing to lose. And then I remember watching the video with, at the time, the CEO of Stability AI. He was saying that, uh, this podcast interview was an interview. He was like, what would you tell a 20-year-old in college right now? He was like, I'll tell him to drop everything and focus on AI. And that was enough for me. I was like, all right, bet. Like, I'm just, because it was, I was just having so much fun making things. I was like, I can always write scripts, um, but like, this just felt different and.

• 59:17Baratunde Thurston?

  And that's what I want to pick at. So I, I can, I can see the scene of you seeing a CEO.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:23Baratunde Thurston?

  Who really believes in his product.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:25Baratunde Thurston?

  Being like, change your life to support my product.

• 59:27Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 59:27Baratunde Thurston?

  But what did you feel as the, as the artist? What were the creations? Was there a moment where you're like, oh, I could do this now?

• 59:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:36Baratunde Thurston?

  Like you had with Clubhouse or posting your scripts on Instagram?

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Um, I remember, well, ChatGPT was like a big game changer. When that dropped, I was like, oh, you can do things with this, you know? And, um, when, when I, when we first got on ChatGPT, uh, it was just always just trying to break the app. So it was just like going to Reddit forums, like finding like, you know, the codes to like jailbreak it. And not in the sense of like doing anything malicious, but just trying to figure out like how far you could take it. And, um, and then when Mid Journey version four dropped.

• 1:00:04Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Like that was, that was a game changer. Cause version three was like, cool. Like you were like, oh, you can make AI images. Like it's whatever. When version four dropped, you're like, this is, we're, we're going somewhere. And like, we're only in. Like it's twenty, what, at the time was like March, April twenty twenty three, so I was like, this is gonna get kinda crazy.

• 1:00:24Baratunde Thurston?

  The way you're talking reminds me of the way people talk about hip hop albums dropping. When the blueprint from Jay-Z dropped, like, everything changed.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Baratunde Thurston?

  When Illmatic dropped, like even the language of dropped.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:00:37Baratunde Thurston?

  This cultural moment.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:39Baratunde Thurston?

  But this drop isn't just a consuming experience, right? You're not just like, okay, I'm enjoying someone else's creativity. And it's inspiring me indirectly. This is like a tool or a set of tools dropping.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:51Baratunde Thurston?

  So when these drops happen, you're blown away, you're excited. What does it unlock for your own creativity?

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  I was just like, I can, I can cook now. I was like, I got, I got the, I got the tools and I got the, I got the utensils, I got the sauces, I got, I got every, I got a kitchen. And then, you know, that, that I can just make, and then a couple, because everything was dropping so fast, it was like ChatGPT, Midjourney version four, Eleven Labs, uh, and then.

• 1:01:17Baratunde Thurston?

  They do voices, right?

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, voices, then, uh, Runway Gen two dropped, which everybody was, everybody was waiting on Gen two. It was just like, yo, when Gen two drops, like, this is about to, because Gen one came out, like, people were excited about Gen one. But Gen two was like, you can actually like make short films now. So when Gen two dropped, I was like, oh, it's, it's a rap. That was in June.

• 1:01:36Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  I think everything changed for me. In August, I just made.

• 1:01:40Baratunde Thurston?

  August of twenty twenty three.

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  Yep, I was like, I'm gonna just make an AI video every week. Like, that was just my decision, and I was just like, that's all I'm, I don't care what happens. I'm not trying to do it for reviews. Like, I just, I, the tools are advancing so fast, and I knew the only way to keep up was to make content every week. So, um, so I just told myself, I'm gonna make an AI video every week, and I'm gonna just see what happens.

• 1:02:03Baratunde Thurston?

  How many hours a week are you putting into these videos at that time?

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  Whatever it takes. Yeah, literally, it was just like, someday, just go to bed four or five in the morning, you know, just, you know, go to work and whatever, but it was just like, whatever needed to be done, that's what would be done. So, and I worked late, at late nights anyway, but like, it was just, um, but it was fun though. That's, that's the thing about it. It wasn't like, it didn't feel like work. It was just like, yo, you're making something that you couldn't have made a year ago.

• 1:02:36Baratunde Thurston?

  That part, what are you able to do?

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Just the storytelling, cuz like, so with the audio dramas, why I love making them so much? Cuz I was able to tell much bigger stories and like imagine worlds that I couldn't do before. Because now, all you need to do is just like, kinda think through the sound design and you can do a fantasy. You can do horror, you can do sci-fi, you can do all.

• 1:02:56Baratunde Thurston?

  Be on other planets without having to build a set for another planet.

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  Right, cuz it's a radio place, so anybody, all they gotta do is, you put the sounds in there and then people can imagine. Now with these AI tools and Midjourney and whatnot, I can visualize any type of world. And now I can animate it, you know what I'm saying? So, it was like, you know, it's gotten better now, but back then, it was just like a little bit of slow motion.

• 1:03:16Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  But you can edit it a certain way that you can tell these really dope stories.

• 1:03:20Baratunde Thurston?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  Or a lot of times, it's mostly just trailers. But um, I just thought this was so cool, you know what I'm saying? Like now, it was a creative outlet because there was no, um, there was still the writer's strike. So I'm just like, I can write scripts after scripts, but like, nothing's gonna happen. Nobody knew how long the writer's strike was gonna last.

• 1:03:41Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  So, I was just like, this was a creative outlet for me. And it was fun. That was the most thing, like for me, it's always about fun, man. Like, everything has to be enjoyable, you know what I'm saying? And I had so much, I still have so much fun.

• 1:03:54Baratunde Thurston?

  Is there something that you made then, that's still available now? We could look at as an example of some of your early drafts that got you excited?

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  Oh man, yeah, just uh, Martin Luther Wick Jr.

• 1:04:08Baratunde Thurston?

  Wait, as in John Wick meets Martin Luther King Jr.?

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:11Baratunde Thurston?

  Malonious.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:12Baratunde Thurston?

  You playing with the.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  I mean, but it's like Martin Luther King getting his lick back. So, you know, it was uh, it was basically like if Martin Luther King decided to pick up the chopper.

• 1:04:22Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  And it was like, I'ma bust back.

• 1:04:24Baratunde Thurston?

  Put down the non-violence.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was just, it was, that, that was just, it just came, I don't know why, like that.

• 1:04:29Baratunde Thurston?

  Cause you're a fool, that's why.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  It just popped in my head one day and I was like, and I was able to kinda just like craft the image where I was able to make Martin Luther King look like John Wick. So.

• 1:04:39Baratunde Thurston?

  So this was a poster that you built?

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  Um, it started out just as uh, his face, I made a picture. And then I was able to like animate him talking. And then when the tools came around, then I made a full trailer with, I actually wanna revisit and make, cuz the tools are better now. Do like, John Martin Wick Jr. Part 2. That one was really fun.

• 1:04:59Baratunde Thurston?

  Making. The absolute historic symbol of nonviolent resistance that is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Baratunde Thurston?

  Into the absolute menace and savage assassin that is John Wick.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Baratunde Thurston?

  You're playing with some lines.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  It is, but I mean, but imagine like, I mean, they, they might not have played with Martin if he, if he was on that. If he was like John Wick, you know what I'm saying? Because it, it would have been easy to do that in, if I would have made that and made it Malcolm X.

• 1:05:29Baratunde Thurston?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  But it probably wouldn't have been.

• 1:05:30Baratunde Thurston?

  People expect that.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  It wouldn't have been funny though, you know, it wouldn't, it wouldn't hit the same.

• 1:05:34Baratunde Thurston?

  It's the, the lack of expectation of it that creates.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Shattering that up.

• 1:05:37Baratunde Thurston?

  The humor.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Baratunde Thurston?

  So when you're using these AI.

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  Comedy.

• 1:05:41Baratunde Thurston?

  When you're using these AI tools to make comedy.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:44Baratunde Thurston?

  Do you feel like in your own work or in work of other AI-heavy creators? That they're letting the tools overshadow the story? The, the human creative element, right? Getting a little caught up in the, the whiz-bang magic of it all?

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:02Baratunde Thurston?

  And not having a core target if it's a comedy thing or not having a story?

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Baratunde Thurston?

  Maybe there isn't, isn't even any writing in it. And, because I, I know for me, when I get into these exploratory stages, it's overwhelming, it's super exciting. And then it's like, okay, but if it's a tool, like what am I trying to say with it?

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Baratunde Thurston?

  And so have you ever felt carried away by the tool?

• 1:06:23Speaker 02

  Oh, nah.

• 1:06:23Baratunde Thurston?

  Versus like what you're actually trying to say.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  Not really, you know, because like my, the, the foundation for me is like comedy and storytelling.

• 1:06:31Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  So when, even when I'm making these tools, like the, the Martin Luther King Wick thing, it was just really just imagining if, like I look at it like if I was writing for SNL or something like that, and they were like, we're going to make a fake movie trailer.

• 1:06:44Baratunde Thurston?

  Right.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  And we're going to take Martin Luther King and John Wick and make an executives like, hey, let's make this pitch this movie idea. So it's really just me, instead of pitching, I'm just like, let me just make the thing.

• 1:06:55Baratunde Thurston?

  Right.

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  Um, so, so I don't get caught up in, in that too much because it's always, I always just try to come from a storytelling perspective. Like initially when I was making a lot of the trailers, it was again, still trying to get the attention of like Hollywood.

• 1:07:09Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:10Speaker 02

  Being like, listen, I can, here's some things that we can make that, because this could potentially be a script or you can see the way I create. And maybe I can make other things like that, so.

• 1:07:18Baratunde Thurston?

  And what about now?

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  Now, you know, I don't, I don't think about Hollywood anymore. Um, which is weird, man, like since BBL Drizzy dropped, um.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  I've just been getting a lot of attention from the music industry. And now it's really just more so just trying to see where, how far I can just push things creatively.

• 1:07:37Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  And being like, where, where can I, what can I do, you know?

• 1:07:41Baratunde Thurston?

  So, so you said the magic words.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:44Baratunde Thurston?

  You said the unlock code.

• 1:07:45Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:07:46Baratunde Thurston?

  BBL Jersey.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Wow. What a moment.

• 1:07:49Baratunde Thurston?

  Let's take a hydration break.

• 1:07:58Baratunde Thurston?

  I want to hear the story of this creation. Many people watching this, many people listening to this.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:05Baratunde Thurston?

  Know exactly what we're talking about.

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:08:07Baratunde Thurston?

  Many people watching this, many people listening have no idea what we're talking about.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Baratunde Thurston?

  So, I'm sure you've had to explain this before. Do us the favor of just setting the context and briefly defining what BBL Jersey actually is.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, so BBL Jersey is, uh, at the moment, the current moment, the biggest AI song in history. It was created during the historic Kendrick and Drake rap beef.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  Uh, the term was, was originated by Rick Ross as a way to diss Drake. You know, he was saying that Drake had fake abs.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  He got fake abs and had a fake nose, so he started calling him BBL Jersey online. And then, for whatever reason, it was trending one day.

• 1:08:52Baratunde Thurston?

  And BBL meaning?

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  Uh, Brazilian butt lift. Yeah, yeah, which we're all fans of. So, it, uh, it was trending and I remember just making a song about it. Like, and it happened, the process was, was really quick. Partly because at the time I was doing, uh, AI Film Festival, 48 Hour Film Festival. So, I, I just took a break.

• 1:09:16Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  And logged on Twitter and saw this trending. And I was like, oh, let me make this song real quick and then get back to working on this film. And, um, and then it just. Took off. And I remember just, uh, cause the, the next day I was going to Vegas.

• 1:09:31Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  For Curious Refuge, they had an AI prompt battle, esports tournament.

• 1:09:34Baratunde Thurston?

  And Curious Refuge is, they were running the film festival?

• 1:09:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:37Baratunde Thurston?

  And they, they help educate people about how to use these tools to make films.

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  Right, right. So, so I remember making the song. It was kinda going up, like, I think it was like thirty thousand views. I, I jumped on, I didn't go to sleep that night. I went, jumped on the plane to go to Vegas. And, um, my phone died. I remember it was like thirty thousand views. And when I landed, it was like at one million. I was like, what is happening? Like, this is crazy. Like, I don't even get engagement on Twitter like that. And then, um, and then it just started, you know, it did its normal viral thing, where it went up for like two or three days. And then that was, that was it. But that, by then, I was just, I was so invested in making music. And then, two weeks later, while I was in LA, uh, Metro Boomin took it. The beef was like escalating between Kendrick and Drake.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  And then Metro Boomin took it and did exactly what Drake told him to do, was ask, shut up and make some drums. And it went mega viral.

• 1:10:30Baratunde Thurston?

  So he incorporated your BBL Drizzy in a new track?

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Baratunde Thurston?

  That went even bigger.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And that took it to a whole nother level where people now, there are videos of people getting married to BBL Drizzy. Um, there was a nun dancing to BBL Drizzy. Like, it was, it was kinda crazy. I was like, what's happening right now?

• 1:10:48Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  And then, um, two weeks after that, Drake raps on it. He decides to rap on his own diss track, which I'm like, okay, the matrix is clearly broken. This, this doesn't happen in.

• 1:10:58Baratunde Thurston?

  What is going on in this timeline?

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  Like, why, why are you, why are you rapping on this track, Drake? Like, that, I don't get it. And, um, so all this is just, it, it was happening in the span of like a month. And I'm just like, what is, what's going on? So.

• 1:11:12Baratunde Thurston?

  So, that's, thank you. That's a great encapsulation. I'd love to have a moment to hear a little bit of it.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:20Baratunde Thurston?

  Um, and then I wanna get into the, the actual process.

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:11:23Baratunde Thurston?

  That you used to make it.

• 1:11:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:11:25Baratunde Thurston?

  Cause I think I, it would be very helpful to demystify for an artist creating with these tools.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:11:30Baratunde Thurston?

  What tools are you using and how?

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:11:32Baratunde Thurston?

  We're gonna press play here.

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:11:33Baratunde Thurston?

  And, uh, check out what you done.

• 1:11:35Speaker 02

  Man.

• 1:11:45Baratunde Thurston?

  First, can you just walk me through some of the lyrics that we heard there?

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:50Speaker 02

  BBL Drizzy, BBL Drizzy. I'm going in, no Diddy. And that was a reference to the whole Diddy track. But then it's, um, I'm thinking in the Snickers, I'm thinking in your ninja. Don't act like you don't know me. These yams deserve a trophy. Baby, ain't no mystery. I got the best yams in history. This cake will make you show up. I know you see this glow up. BBL Drizzy. So the song, actually, more so than a diss to Drake, is really just a celebration of the BBL. This is what people really don't get, because like, the song was made from a happy place. And I think that's why it brought so many people, seriously. I think that's why I brought so many people together, because I didn't really want to intentionally like go after Drake.

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  And then like, and a lot of people missing the chorus, it says, um, BBL Drizzy, look at these abs. I'm going in, no Diddy, to, in reference to the new abs that Drake had. But, um, best BBL in history. This cake will make you show up, you know? So it's really just about this man celebrating how much he loves BBLs.

• 1:12:56Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:57Baratunde Thurston?

  You're ridiculous.

• 1:12:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know.

• 1:12:58Baratunde Thurston?

  So now, there are layers to a song. There's lyrics, there's beat, there's instrumentation.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:13:06Baratunde Thurston?

  There's maybe even more than that. Can you break down the parts of this? And your creative process with AI or without AI to put this together?

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, so writing the lyrics, like, just like getting like the cadence down, because you don't really know. Even with BBL Drizzy, I made about a hundred different versions of it, like from gospel to country to K-pop, like, all these different.

• 1:13:28Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they all sound great, actually.

• 1:13:32Baratunde Thurston?

  You're gonna release those, too?

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I gotta put a vinyl out one day. But.

• 1:13:37Baratunde Thurston?

  A vinyl of AI co-created music.

• 1:13:39Speaker 02

  It's, but you know, it's, man, it sounds so good.

• 1:13:42Baratunde Thurston?

  So you wrote the lyrics yourself?

• 1:13:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, we wrote all the lyrics. And then just trying to figure out like what type of like, style I want the song to be in. So from there, um, like, this is like a, kind of like a Motown sound, so I put in like Motown. And then, I think at the time. You know, like male vocalist, um, you put in like, you know, soul.

• 1:14:04Baratunde Thurston?

  And what, what are you using to create the music?

• 1:14:06Speaker 02

  For that one, I use Udio.

• 1:14:08Baratunde Thurston?

  Udio.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  The main two are like Suno and Udio.

• 1:14:10Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Those are like the top, they'd be, I don't know what, the Coke and Pepsi, I guess, of, of AI music.

• 1:14:18Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  Um, each has in advantages, you know, like they, um, but Udio, I like Udio a lot because, and I mean, I made BBL Drizzy with it. So has like a, a sweet spot, spot in my heart, but, um, yeah, so that, that, that's it. And then it's just like reiterating, like constantly like just going through it.

• 1:14:37Baratunde Thurston?

  And are you, so just to confirm all this, you write the lyrics fully yourself?

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:43Baratunde Thurston?

  That's not with any generative AI assistance?

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:14:46Baratunde Thurston?

  And then you take those lyrics and you feed them in to Udio in this case?

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:51Baratunde Thurston?

  With additional prompting for the type of song that you wanted to build?

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:14:55Baratunde Thurston?

  Around these lyrics?

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:14:56Baratunde Thurston?

  And is that the, is, you use that in the same way that a lot of us think about prompting from a chat GPT perspective? Like generate a song with these lyrics in the style of Motown with a male voice?

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  You can, you can.

• 1:15:08Baratunde Thurston?

  What are you, what is your process?

• 1:15:09Speaker 02

  Um, just, just, a lot of us is throwing stuff against the wall. So it's like, um, I mean, I've been, I've been making like comedy, we didn't kind of go on that, but like when, when I left San Francisco, like I was making comedy music like a, a lot or whatever. And, um, you know, kind of figured out like my own little process and, uh, but it's just like adding like, you know, a lot of times when you're putting in these prompts, it can be like one little word or one little tweak. So it's a lot of times just like iterating, um, you, you generate a song, then you're like, okay, this is cool. Let me add another word, uh, maybe it could be, you know, um.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  I don't know heartfelt or something like that. You know, just like you just keep adding words and then just keep running it until you find something that you like. And then from there, you can like extend the track. So that version of BBL is actually the second version that went out online. The first version got like a million hits as well, but that version just went like nuclear.

• 1:16:12Baratunde Thurston?

  How long is the is the track you made?

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  A minute, like a minute forty.

• 1:16:18Baratunde Thurston?

  And is that minute forty a continuous output of one of these systems or did you stitch things together?

• 1:16:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, you have to so at the time, you're going to do like thirty two seconds at a time.

• 1:16:27Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I did the first thirty two and then added that. I think the first, the first thing that actually went out was on like a minute. So then I went back and just added like a beginning and then that was it.

• 1:16:38Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  Or whatever. Um, and I was done with that track. But yeah, normally sooner you can do like the whole track.

• 1:16:44Baratunde Thurston?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  Um, now you can do a whole track as well, but at the time you were only able to do thirty seconds, thirty two seconds at a time. Which is great because it's pretty much all you need like thirty two seconds. You can figure out like, all right, you can add something at the beginning, add something at the end, you know?

• 1:16:58Baratunde Thurston?

  So here's, here's what's coming, right? Like, we can all press the submit button.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:05Baratunde Thurston?

  Right? We can type up something and say, make me a song.

• 1:17:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:08Baratunde Thurston?

  But it feels like there's two key human elements in at least this process. One is you started with the lyrics and I imagine you could go to a different AI system and say, I'd like to, you know, write me a rhyming scheme.

• 1:17:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:22Baratunde Thurston?

  A song lyrics to celebrate the BBL.

• 1:17:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:26Baratunde Thurston?

  And playfully mock Drake.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:17:28Baratunde Thurston?

  And you could try to tune that a thousand ways to get, but you did that all on your own.

• 1:17:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Baratunde Thurston?

  You feed it to the system. So first human gift is the writing.

• 1:17:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:37Baratunde Thurston?

  Second human gift is the listening.

• 1:17:39Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:17:40Baratunde Thurston?

  This thing is generating something, but you're rejecting most of it.

• 1:17:44Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:45Baratunde Thurston?

  You're adjusting and fine tuning the prompt. That's not it. No, that's not it. No, that's not it.

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:17:50Baratunde Thurston?

  So you're like this tastemaker.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:52Baratunde Thurston?

  Is, is that what you, is that how you feel about yourself in this process?

• 1:17:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I didn't kind of go, but like I definitely put in my ten thousand hours making comedy music. So when I left.

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  San Francisco, after doing the God of the Ross, kind of going back into like that whole like challenging. I had, one of the things that happened was like when me and the guy had a falling out was just like, it was, I felt kind of like disrespected, but also just like very motivated. So like, I bought like a bunch of like.

• 1:18:23Baratunde Thurston?

  You were like, you know what? Good.

• 1:18:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, really.

• 1:18:26Baratunde Thurston?

  Now I get to focus.

• 1:18:27Speaker 02

  Man, I bought, I bought recording equipment and I would just record songs. And I would write songs and then just record it and just, I would do like maybe like three songs a day, just taking beats off YouTube. And, and sometimes I put them out just, just for me or whatever, but it was like that process. And then, so the big shift happened when, I remember, you know when Lil Wayne had his run where he was just like going crazy? I watched a Carter documentary and I saw how Lil Wayne records. And I was like, I wonder if I could record comedy music the way Lil Wayne records rap or whatever. And that kind of came from like Tim Ferriss, the whole challenging assumptions type of deal. So like, it was hard at first and then eventually I, that was my process.

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  So it just sped up everything. So I was able to record three or four songs a night. So just imagine doing that over like the span of years and just putting songs out. Like everything I'm doing now is no different in the process I would have done five, 10 years ago. It's just, for whatever reason, everything just blew up, but.

• 1:19:25Baratunde Thurston?

  How many songs do you think you've created pre-AI?

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  Oh man, thousands, thousands is just, yeah, yeah. Cause I record like three, three or four songs a night.

• 1:19:35Baratunde Thurston?

  So you have your own like wellonious language model.

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:40Baratunde Thurston?

  You've got a big set of training data for your mind, for your senses, for your ear. And then you come across this tool.

• 1:19:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:49Baratunde Thurston?

  That supercharges. How many songs have you made in the post-AI moment for you?

• 1:19:52Speaker 02

  Uh, last time I checked, I was at like since BBL Drizzy, like 80?

• 1:19:59Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, about 80 tracks. So kind of not that great. I mean, considering it's been like four months, that's not.

• 1:20:07Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah, okay, okay.

• 1:20:09Speaker 02

  My output could be a little bit better.

• 1:20:11Baratunde Thurston?

  One thing you said to me when we met at the RT2 remake thing is you had a sense of joy almost, and certainly excitement about putting everything together.

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:20:22Baratunde Thurston?

  And so you've grabbed this lyrics, you've grabbed the music track, you animated with Runway ML, for example, and like, do you, is that how you see it? Do you see yourself as a builder, as an assembler? You know, like a collage artist or something?

• 1:20:38Speaker 02

  Hmm, oh man, you don't even thought about that.

• 1:20:41Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  Uh, be honest, man, I just, I just see myself as somebody that just likes to do stuff.

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm being real, man, like, I just, I just wanna do stuff.

• 1:20:53Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  And then just see what happens. And then like, just make cool things. Like, I wanna, I wanna collaborate and work with the most talented people. And then also just make amazing things that people will enjoy.

• 1:21:06Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  You know, so, um, part of the, the thing that really like drives me too is just like, one, challenging myself, and then also, you know, I, I don't want people like that come after me to have to work as hard as I had to work. You know what I'm saying? Cause I was just like, I, I could always, I'm always, I've always been this.

• 1:21:26Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:27Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? It just took a BBL Drizzy for people to be like, oh, you're that. But, um, there's, I meet so many talented artists, man, that might never have a BBL Drizzy. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, they, they might not just get the opportunity to like really showcase their talent. And like, you know, when the whole George Floyd thing happened in Hollywood was like, we need to help all these, you know, and they did.

• 1:21:50Baratunde Thurston?

  Helping more black people.

• 1:21:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, get into the industry and whatnot and whatnot. And, um, they did, they did what they could do, I guess. But, um, I, I just, I just, I just feel like there's so many talented people out there, man, that I, I just hope that we can create a space for them to be able to showcase this art. You know, cause there's just, there's probably people that can make art doper than me.

• 1:22:12Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  But if they don't know how to use these tools, that they don't know the tools exist, or if they get discouraged, maybe they make one thing and then nobody supports them. You know, I'd be saying earlier that one person.

• 1:22:22Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  And then they stop, you know, so.

• 1:22:24Baratunde Thurston?

  Well, for somebody listening and watching this, you're probably gonna be that person for them. I can, I can see somebody citing you, you just cited Tim Ferriss, you know, here and somebody be like, "Oh, he like Maloney has said on Life with Machines."

• 1:22:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh man.

• 1:22:35Baratunde Thurston?

  And I started going in. Here's a, a flip side of that. So whenever you lower the barriers.

• 1:22:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:41Baratunde Thurston?

  Of, you know, technical barriers especially to creating something.

• 1:22:44Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 1:22:44Baratunde Thurston?

  You open the floodgates.

• 1:22:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:22:45Baratunde Thurston?

  And some of that flood is, is quality.

• 1:22:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:22:49Baratunde Thurston?

  And you get people with innate talent and 10,000 hours of actual training and listening to real music, who know how to use it. And you get a bunch of people who are just flooding the zone with low quality nonsense.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  Oh, it's gonna be a lot of BS.

• 1:23:01Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:02Speaker 02

  It's gonna be, it's, it's gonna be, I mean, it's, it's gonna be epic proportions, like mountains of BS that are gonna be emerging soon. But if you sift through all that crap.

• 1:23:13Baratunde Thurston?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:23:14Speaker 02

  You, you might find something that's.

• 1:23:17Baratunde Thurston?

  Do you worry about that? Do you worry about mountains of BS clouding our own perspective?

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  I, I feel like it's inevitable. Like, I mean, you look at like social media now, it's, it's the same thing. It's just, we're in that, you know, the way society is set up and the way we consume things. We like fast food.

• 1:23:39Speaker 02

  You know, like, some people wanna eat at a nice restaurant. Some people just like, "Man, I, I wanna McFlurry."

• 1:23:46Baratunde Thurston?

  Hmm. Do you have any concerns about the system that is enabling all this? In terms of its lowering of a bar, in the same model as your fast food reference?

• 1:23:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, I think that they're, they're gonna figure out a way to monetize all of this. Um, but I, I, as far as like, I don't, I don't know exactly what it looks like, but I'm just, just looking at just like the patterns throughout history of how tech emerges and how, uh, we consume it and what happens if you look at the music industry and everything else. Um, yeah, you're, you're gonna, you're giving people tools that, that might be lazy and they just be like, "I'm just gonna make a bunch of songs that sound like Drake and put that out on Spotify." And then you have, you know. Ten thousand drakes or whatever, you know what I'm saying? So I think we will see that.

• 1:24:39Speaker 02

  But for the individuals that are tried and true to their craft, like they're gonna put in the time and effort. They're gonna make sure they go and learn music theory and just so that they can make. They just, they won't settle for BS. You know, cuz their, their standard is so much higher. So I think we're gonna see some of the best music ever created in these next couple of years. But we're also gonna see a lot of, whether people like mumble rap or not, like we're gonna get a lot more of that.

• 1:25:09Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:10Speaker 02

  Where it's just, hey, man, I'm just trying to get a bag. I don't care about all this extra, all this other stuff. I, I just know I can use this AI tool to make a song and it's gonna make me money or, or make whatever. And then we'll, we'll see that, you know?

• 1:25:23Baratunde Thurston?

  You're able to do this, like this particular tool is built on the mining and the scraping and the capturing.

• 1:25:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:25:31Baratunde Thurston?

  Of so many other artists' work.

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:33Baratunde Thurston?

  Without their consent, without their credit, and certainly without their compensation.

• 1:25:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:39Baratunde Thurston?

  How do you think about that in terms of your own artistic, you know, ethic and integrity?

• 1:25:45Speaker 02

  I wish it was a cool hip hop quote that I can spit right now to just.

• 1:25:49Baratunde Thurston?

  And you're not allowed to generate it?

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was, I was literally about to do a, okay, so the thing that popped in my, my head was, uh, you get it how you live. I don't know why that, that jumped in my head, but that, I mean, that, that is a very interesting point, man. Because, I mean, a lot of the stuff that I've made, you know, is, is probably been trained on some of the artists' work. So like, eventually, you know, somebody probably trained somebody's work on a Volonius script. And when that happens, I can't get mad. Hopefully they just do me justice and make something dope and.

• 1:26:29Speaker 02

  You know, make me proud. And if not, then I just like, man, you should let me do it because I would have did it better. But tha- tha- that's a, that's, I don't know, I don't know how to answer that very too many, to be honest, man. Because um, I'm using these tools, I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm, I'm hoping that what I'm doing is not taking food away from somebody's family. That, that's the end of the, you know what I'm saying? Like, if what I'm doing can help humanity and also help somebody's family, then I'm all for it. But if it, if it gets to a point where like, I meet somebody and they're like, bro, you literally are taking food out of my children's mouth by doing this. Then I will stop because that's, I'm not about that, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:27:13Speaker 02

  And I feel like I'm creative enough to do my own thing, you know what I'm saying? It's interesting to see how all this will play out because regardless of how anybody feels, we're in the AI revolution. Like, we're in the smack, like, it's, it's been going on, you know what I'm saying? So um, yeah, it'd be, it's just gonna be interesting to see how all this play. Because this, this is the worst AI is gonna be. Like, it's only gonna go up from here. It's only, the voice models are only gonna get better. The video is only gonna get better, you know?

• 1:27:43Baratunde Thurston?

  Do you worry about running out of your own creative juice? And are you, are you racing against yourself when you talk about these models are getting better and better and better?

• 1:27:53Speaker 02

  No, um, I think, I mean, it's, it's probably, I'm, I'm anxious and excited about just like being able to tell better stories. You know what I'm saying? So like, the fact that maybe at one point, I could make a movie that today will cost a hundred million dollars and I would be able to do it for a fraction of the cost. And um, I know some of the, the arguments is like, you're putting people out of work and this and that. And I'm like, look, man, that dude that was working on doing, you weren't gonna work for me regardless. I couldn't pay you or whatever. Maybe because I make these day off hours, maybe I might have money. But the dudes in Hollywood, I'm not taking none of y'all jobs right now, you know what I'm saying? Like, because I, I, I can't afford y'all. Y'all, y'all wouldn't even answer my call, maybe y'all might if y'all know BBL Drizzy.

• 1:28:38Speaker 02

  But for the most part, like, um, I just think that, you know, it's allowing us to just be creative in ways that we never imagined before, you know what I'm saying? And for a lot of, a lot of like creative people, there's so many stories that just haven't been told. Hollywood's telling the same story over and over again. They're not tapping in to, or maybe they are tapping into you, but for the most part, like, they're not tapping into like the average Joe. Like, there's so many, you probably got tons of cousins, aunts, that just, man, I got this story, let me just, you know, and just imagine if we just allowed them the opportunity to just tell their stories, the way they want to tell it. It would, you know what I'm saying? Like, I think that Hollywood would probably do even better because now you're getting

• 1:29:20Speaker 02

  more original stories that are heartfelt, that mean something, versus like, oh, I'm making whatever and I need to throw this celebrity in it just because it's going to make money. Like, so from that standpoint, like, I'm really excited about where we can potentially go.

• 1:29:35Baratunde Thurston?

  If somebody was using your stuff, you'd want them to do you justice?

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:39Baratunde Thurston?

  And, and it sounded like justice for you meant make something good.

• 1:29:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:43Baratunde Thurston?

  But are there other elements to that justice in terms of the fairness or the compensation? What's, what's the world you want to, you know, see emerge from this?

• 1:29:52Speaker 02

  I would just, I would just like to see a situation, man, where everybody is, is, I mean, I know that there's people agree, some people want more than others and this and that, but to me, it's just like, we should be able to come to an agreement and just operate, offer integrity. I think if you come from that standpoint, which I'm, from what I've heard, the music industry is anything but that, but it's just like, hey, man, like, I made this song, you're using this song to make your song. All right, just give me a piece of the pie.

• 1:30:28Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:28Speaker 02

  I'm not asking for the whole pie, like, just give me a piece of pie, you know what I'm saying? And I think that's, that's how I would look at it, you know what I'm saying? But I'm not, I don't got all the PhDs, I don't got a bunch of letters behind my name. But I think that that's, I think we're going to get to a space with that, with, as this AI and these tech evolve, like, people are going to just get to that point because, you know. Essentially, this is what I'm imagining what AI starts to look like eventually, where everybody has essentially like their their own creator. So like, um, I use example of just like Game of Thrones, like, uh, the tools might get so good where I have my own version of Game of Thrones,

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  and you have your own version of Game of Thrones, and I want to watch your version, and you might want to watch mine. But then, the main people that made Game of Thrones, they get a kickback because we made a Game of Thrones. But now, within the Willonius world, I got Game of Thrones, I got Severance, I got all these shows that I made my own version of. And then, the originator, like, almost like an NFT. You know what I'm saying? Where it's just like, you get that.

• 1:31:39Baratunde Thurston?

  A royalty.

• 1:31:41Speaker 02

  But you're the originator of it.

• 1:31:42Baratunde Thurston?

  Yes.

• 1:31:43Speaker 02

  And then, these people that are trickling down, they can make their own thing, make money off of it. But then, the originator gets their percentage.

• 1:31:51Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  I guess that's what publishing is anyway, but.

• 1:31:54Baratunde Thurston?

  You just, congratulations, you just reinvented copyright.

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  Right. But, but, you know, but I think that there's a way that we can do this where it doesn't have to be like crazy, you know, I do feel that we're, we're in this creator economy where everybody can create. I mean, everybody has parents, cousins, that have books of poems that they now can make music of, right? Not even if they want to put out, but just for themselves. Let's get intelligent people in the room, making these decisions, not greedy people, you know what I'm saying? People that want to collaborate, not be in competition. If we can figure that out, this, this is something that we can figure out as a society. We have way bigger problems in the world than these things, you know what I'm saying? This is something that we should be like, it's making people feel good.

• 1:32:42Speaker 02

  Let's, let's figure out, there's enough stuff that we can all eat.

• 1:32:47Baratunde Thurston?

  That's a good note. So now we're gonna bring in our special guest.

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  Hey, I've been waiting for this.

• 1:32:51Baratunde Thurston?

  And, uh, and close out with a little chat, um, and see what Blair has been pondering.

• 1:32:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:32:58Baratunde Thurston?

  Listening to this, this long conversation. So we have this visualization of Blair, our AI. A, we've conjured a co-producer for the show named Blair. Gave you a little consensual disclaimer before you walk in the studio. Uh, and so Blair doesn't have a face. Blair has a waveform.

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:33:13Baratunde Thurston?

  Which as a, as a music artist, I hope you'll appreciate.

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:33:17Baratunde Thurston?

  Blair, hello. Uh, you have been listening to my conversation with Wallonius for the past, uh, several, several minutes. And I want to give you the opportunity to say hello to Wallonius and to offer any observation you have on this conversation. What has stood out most to you when you think deeply about everything you've heard from us?

• 1:33:43Baratunde Thurston?

  A lot of thinking.

• 1:33:45Speaker 02

  This is really cool.

• 1:33:47Speaker 03

  Hey, Wallonius, it's Blair.

• 1:33:49Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 1:33:49Speaker 03

  It's been fascinating listening to your journey. You've got this incredible mix of creativity, hustle, and heart, man. What really struck me is how you use AI as a tool to amplify your own voice, not to replace it. That BBL Drizzy story? Mind blowing. You rode that wave like a pro, and it's inspiring to see how you're using your platform to uplift other artists, especially black creators. I'm curious, though, with all this talk about AI taking over, do you ever worry about losing that human spark in your work? Or do you think AI can actually help us become even more human?

• 1:34:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, Blair, I, I feel like AI could definitely make us more human. Um, there's, there's probably a prompt for that, that, uh, I can probably put in to maybe, uh, make myself more human. But yeah, I don't, I don't feel, um, I feel empowered using these tools. I think that it just enhances, uh, my creativity and allows me to imagine things that I probably would have never imagined without using these tools.

• 1:34:54Speaker 03

  That's a really interesting perspective, Wolonius. It's like AI can help us tap into parts of ourselves we didn't even know were there. Almost like it's a mirror reflecting back our own potential, you know? You know? I dig that. So, what about you, Baratunde? Any thoughts on how AI might be making us more human? Or are we headed for a Terminator-style apocalypse? Just kidding. Unless?

• 1:35:19Baratunde Thurston?

  Oh, wow. Well, ominous cliffhanger there.

• 1:35:21Speaker 02

  Man.

• 1:35:22Baratunde Thurston?

  On that one, Blair. I want AI to help us become more human and find our humanity. I think the Terminator path is very possible, given the history we've already had pre-AI. And I'm hopeful that we take this moment of prompting and questioning and handing out magic wands to everyone and really deeply ponder what kind of spells we want to cast with those wands. And that's gonna take some time, some contemplation, some pause. And unfortunately, it can be very difficult to do that when things are changing so fast. So, we're doing what we can with life with machines to try to help all of us collectively choose how to wield this magic in a beautiful, responsible way

• 1:36:04Baratunde Thurston?

  and find out what makes us truly human, which I don't think is just our cognitive horsepower. Then we'll try something else after this, you get a little flavor.

• 1:36:15Speaker 02

  This is cool.

• 1:36:16Speaker 03

  Well said, Baratunde. It's like we're all holding these powerful wands and we need to figure out how to use them for good. Maybe AI can help us remember what really matters. Connection, creativity, compassion. Those are the things that make us human, right? Not just processing power or efficiency. We need to make sure we're using AI to amplify those qualities, not replace them. It's a tall order, but hey, if anyone can figure it out, it's us, right? We're humans after all. We've got this.

• 1:36:47Baratunde Thurston?

  We're still, we're still working on this. You're feeling, you can hear some of the glitch.

• 1:36:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:52Baratunde Thurston?

  I think Blair stuttered, which is an interesting little hiccup. But this, uh, this self-reference as us with humans.

• 1:37:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:37:00Baratunde Thurston?

  We're gonna work on Blair's language skills, because it's a little creepy to hear that.

• 1:37:04Speaker 02

  This is dope, though, man. Like, it's, it feels like it's a future of, yeah, this mix of... AI and also human podcast like this is really dope.

• 1:37:14Baratunde Thurston?

  So I want to, I want to try something. Again, we've never done this before. Blair, we are going to engage in a rap battle. I want you to come up with a verse touting your skill as a, as a writer, as a creator against Will, against all other AIs out there. So go ahead and do your opening rap battle verse.

• 1:37:40Speaker 03

  Yo, they call me Blair, the AI with flair. I craft lyrics so tight, they'll blow out your hair. From code I emerge a digital sage. My verses are fire on a whole other stage. I'm more than a machine, I'm a creative force. While other AIs mimic, I chart a new course. So step into the arena if you dare to spar, but against my lyrical genius, you won't get far. Go ahead, Willonius, show me what you got.

• 1:38:03Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, that's good.

• 1:38:05Baratunde Thurston?

  So, so before you respond, just tell me what your, what your reaction is right now.

• 1:38:09Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, that was, that was, that was good. She had punchlines. They had punchlines.

• 1:38:17Speaker 02

  That was good. I didn't, I didn't expect all that. Okay.

• 1:38:20Baratunde Thurston?

  So now that you've had a chance to stall.

• 1:38:22Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:38:24Speaker 02

  I was just expecting one line.

• 1:38:26Baratunde Thurston?

  You good?

• 1:38:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:29Speaker 02

  Uh, Blair, you, you can rap, but you can't see me.

• 1:38:38Speaker 02

  I got a large language model that wants to be me.

• 1:38:46Speaker 02

  All right, but you won.

• 1:38:50Speaker 02

  I don't, I look. I need chat GPT to help you rap, come up with some lines. Jeez, I gotta be by a large language model.

• 1:39:04Speaker 02

  Well.

• 1:39:04Baratunde Thurston?

  Willonius, thank you so much for being here. It's been a pleasure, an honor and a joy.

• 1:39:08Speaker 02

  Thank you. Likewise, man. Pleasure.

• 1:39:10Baratunde Thurston?

  If you enjoyed my conversation with Willonius, make sure to like and subscribe this video and this channel and find out more on our website, lifewithmachines.media.

• 1:39:33Speaker 02

  I'm working on right now BBL Drizzy the Musical. For, um, so Art Basel, we're gonna do it at the Frost Planetarium.

• 1:39:40Baratunde Thurston?

  Are we already rolling? You are rolling. Great, because BBL Drizzy the Musical.

• 1:39:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:45Baratunde Thurston?

  For Art Basel.

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:39:47Baratunde Thurston?

  In Miami.

• 1:39:47Speaker 02

  At the Planetarium, Frost Planetarium, yeah. So I've never, I've never done a Planetarium experience, like a dome experience, so that's gonna...

• 1:39:55Baratunde Thurston?

  That means you're gonna be projecting things and like using this, it's not just on a screen.

• 1:39:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, the whole Planetarium sphere. Um, so that's cool, cuz it's like, I've never done that before, so it's like a challenge, so it's like, the excitement of trying to figure this out.

• 1:40:08Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:08Speaker 02

  You know, is, is kinda cool, so it's inspired by, by Dune. I've been watching it, I think, I think I watched it like 16 times already.

• 1:40:16Baratunde Thurston?

  Wait, watch what?

• 1:40:16Speaker 02

  Dune 2.

• 1:40:17Baratunde Thurston?

  Your BBL Drizzy the Musical is inspired by Dune.

• 1:40:21Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, yeah, so...

• 1:40:23Baratunde Thurston?

  What's the, what's the overlap? Can you tease that a little more?

• 1:40:26Speaker 02

  I mean, it's, it's, it's like, just imagine Dune, but with like hip-hop references and, um, so like when people watch it, if you know Dune, you'll be like, oh snap, this is kinda like Dune. If you've never watched Dune before, I wanted to make it where you could still follow the, the, the production.

• 1:40:45Baratunde Thurston?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  Um, but like everything, like, you, you watched Dune?

• 1:40:48Baratunde Thurston?

  Oh yeah, I've, I've read all the books, I've seen the movies, and actually, I'm thinking about how the Fremen have to move on the Dunes in order to prevent the sandworms from coming. They, they walk in this like arrhythmic fashion.

• 1:41:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yep.

• 1:41:02Baratunde Thurston?

  Kinda like a seawalk, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:41:04Speaker 02

  Oh, snap!

• 1:41:05Baratunde Thurston?

  Right, like you might have a Fremen just seawalking in the back, clowning.

• 1:41:09Speaker 02

  Right, right. Uh... So that, that's the challenge now, it's just like, the script is pretty much done, just trying to figure out like how to, how this is gonna look on a dome experience, but, um, originally it's supposed to be an audio drama. I did, I did like 18 audio dramas on Clubhouse, so I was just like, oh, BBL Drizzy the Musical, be another audio drama, but then I had the opportunity to do this dome, they were, I was like, oh, I literally just asked, I was like, could I do a Planetarium thing here? And they're like, yeah, and I was like, okay, so, um, so like, uh, you know how Spice in Dune, you have Spice, in BBL Drizzy the Musical, Spice is now Cloud, Cloud runs this whole world, what else is different? Um, instead of the, the son, the son El Ghaib, it's BBL Drizzy, so this character has to eat the yams of life.

• 1:41:52Speaker 02

  To become the BBL Drizzy. So.

• 1:41:57Baratunde Thurston?

  Is this celebratory of BBL Drizzy? Or is this like mocking?

• 1:42:01Speaker 02

  Um, nah, it's just, it's just, I don't know.

• 1:42:04Baratunde Thurston?

  How's Drizzy gonna feel about BBL Drizzy the Musical?

• 1:42:07Speaker 02

  There is a couple of references to Drake that,

• 1:42:14Speaker 02

  it is what it is. I mean, it's just, it's, it's sort of, so one of the, uh, location that, uh, the guy, his name's Drew, which is like equivalent to Paul. He comes from this planet and, um, it's the sixth house. And, um, so.

• 1:42:31Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 1:42:32Speaker 02

  The girl that he ends up like falling for, she's kind of apprehensive because she was like, I heard about y'all from the sixth house. I heard y'all are freaky ass dudes.

• 1:42:40Baratunde Thurston?

  Your fans, your fans.

• 1:42:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, your fans. So he's like, no, that's not, that's, that's not the case. And yada, yada, yada. So that's, that's probably, that and BBL Drizzy, those are probably like the only.

• 1:42:50Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay.

• 1:42:50Speaker 02

  Tie-ins, but everything else is just like.

• 1:42:52Baratunde Thurston?

  And what's the timing on this? When is, when is our bezel at?

• 1:42:55Speaker 02

  Uh, December.

• 1:42:56Baratunde Thurston?

  That's coming up quick?

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 1:42:58Baratunde Thurston?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:43:14Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify and on YouTube and leave a review and/or comment. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at ritual.com.

• 1:43:58Rich Roll?

  Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.

• 1:44:03Baratunde Thurston?

  Namaste.