The Exchanges

Q Is it, is it the phone Matrix one?

A Yeah. It's like the low budget camera tricks. So, uh, there was one video actually where I attached like a phone to a ceiling fan and then made that into like a matrix bullet time effect. And I got. 300,000 followers from that one video. So every time I got a surge of followers, it was the same thing. It was like, I would, I would attach a phone to some household object, find like some like hack to do a camera trick with it. And, um, People are following me for that. And I was just like, I'm like out of household objects. I'm out of ideas. Um, and I just felt like I was, I just felt like I was running out of ideas and I was like, I have to find new like tools to, new toys to play with. And in the meantime, I was, I was starting to see some of like the really insane AI stuff coming out in white papers, but it was all like two minute papers, like Research videos of researchers like shooting whatever they had in their bedroom. And of course they're so focused on the research. It's not their job to think about the storytelling or the cinematics of it. And I was like, huh, that's interesting. I don't think anyone is actually doing that yet. So I could try doing that. And so I started experimenting with like, well, let's take the research from white papers and make it a social media friendly video, you know? Um, and I started doing that at the beginning of this year. And it was just …

AI assessment note: “Yeah. It's like the low budget camera tricks.”

Q Is it, is it the phone Matrix one?

A Yeah. It's like the low budget camera tricks. So, uh, there was one video actually where I attached like a phone to a ceiling fan and then made that into like a matrix bullet time effect. And I got. 300,000 followers from that one video. So every time I got a surge of followers, it was the same thing. It was like, I would, I would attach a phone to some household object, find like some like hack to do a camera trick with it. And, um, People are following me for that. And I was just like, I'm like out of household objects. I'm out of ideas. Um, and I just felt like I was, I just felt like I was running out of ideas and I was like, I have to find new like tools to, new toys to play with. And in the meantime, I was, I was starting to see some of like the really insane AI stuff coming out in white papers, but it was all like two minute papers, like Research videos of researchers like shooting whatever they had in their bedroom. And of course they're so focused on the research. It's not their job to think about the storytelling or the cinematics of it. And I was like, huh, that's interesting. I don't think anyone is actually doing that yet. So I could try doing that. And so I started experimenting with like, well, let's take the research from white papers and make it a social media friendly video, you know? Um, and I started doing that at the beginning of this year. And it was just …

AI assessment note: “Yeah. It's like the low budget camera tricks. So, uh, there was one video”

Q Like lying on the ground and then you basically get dragged across and that's, is that using Dane?

A Right. Exactly. So, um, if you're just listening to this, imagine like a stop motion of someone like on the ground, like, uh, planking basically, and then just like slithering across the ground in stop motion. Right. But then with, with Dane, you can make it perfectly smooth. And so it looks like I'm literally being dragged on the ground by like an invisible string or something. Um, but actually that was just a stop-motion video that we used AI to smooth out, and so I did that with James Perlman, so he helped me out with, like, smoothing everything out. Um, other tools are Nerf, so Nerf has gotten pretty popular. Nerf is a way to use any camera, like your phone, to scan a scene, and then all of a sudden you have this beautiful, three-D, like, scan of it, and the, what's interesting about it is it's different than photogrammetry because it can handle Like, light. It's basically constructing, like, a particle light field, and so when you look at things from different angles, the light changes, and so that's why it can handle mirrors, whereas, like, traditional photogrammetry can't. Then there are other tools, too, that we've played with. Um, I recently discovered EBSynth, which I actually learned is not an AI tool, um, but I use that to basically figure out how to make Dali work for Um, video. So Dolly's photo only, but using EBSynth, I was able to make Dolly work for video.

AI assessment note: “Right. Exactly... But then with, with Dane, you can make it perfectly smooth.”

Q graph where you followed your friends and your family, and then now it's an interest graph where you follow just things that this algorithm is serving you. Have there been any other changes that you've noticed in terms of just like bird's eye view how social has changed that really matter to creators? Like, is there a way that we're, a lot of creators are thinking about this art Incorrectly.

A I think it's gotten a lot more competitive. I think people are a lot more aware of the downsides of social media now, so we're no longer in, like, the honeymoon phase of it for sure, you know. It's kind of interesting that, like, for most of history, I feel like humans have prayed to God, you know, but now I see that, like, content creators, we pray to the algorithm. It's almost like a superstition. It's like, What does the algorithm think? My video is not doing well because of the algorithm. It's like, how can I optimize my video for the algorithm? And it's like, we're no longer, it's like, we're almost no longer designing ourselves for like human taste, but we're designing ourselves for like the algorithm. And I do think there are quite a few downsides to doing that. Um, and there are good reasons to resist that as well.

AI assessment note: “we're almost no longer designing ourselves for like human taste”

Q of how you deployed AI, which is something I mentioned before. You got commissioned by Cosmo magazine to create their first AI-generated magazine cover. We'll throw it up on the screen. It looks awesome, um, and you've also done, as you talked about, a behind-the-scenes explainer, but for those who are not familiar With this project of yours. Can you share a little bit more about how it went down?

A Uh, yes. So, um, this was kind of shortly after Dali was released. The people at OpenAI gave me a call and they were like, hey, we have this really cool potential opportunity where Cosmo wants to make the first ever AI generated magazine cover. And they were like, and we want you to generate it. That's crazy. Um, and So, I mean, my first reaction was like, uh, worried, I guess, like, I hope I can do a good job. Like, um, because keeping like, it's not, I can't emphasize enough how much like the human is needed in this process, you know, like, yeah, they could have just, you can't actually have a fully AI generated magazine cover. Cause you have to give a prompt. And I guess you could theoretically ask like an AI to generate the prompt, but still the human needs, the human needs to give some input. Right. And so for, for our process, actually, we went through so many different rounds. Of, of iterations. And, um, eventually we land on a creative direction of, of woman astronaut. And this was actually a, I thought, a really clever workaround by OpenAI to not show a human face. Because at that time, human faces were not allowed in Dali. In the early days, human faces were not allowed for Dali. And so we, and we also were like, well, what race is this woman going to be too? Like, we didn't want to make a race statement. And so by making it a woman astronaut, it could be any ethnicit…

AI assessment note: “The people at OpenAI gave me a call and they were like”

Q you because they're, like, Karen is this inspiring person. She's learned all these technologies. She's creative. So they view you as truly, like, this This creator that they more so, like, want to be like, instead of, I think, pessimism sometimes is quite surface level, right? It does capture your attention, but you're not, like, inching to go back to, like, hear from that creator, right? It's very, like, transient.

A Yes, and that's a great insight. It's like, you can make something go viral, but it's a one-off, and people aren't necessarily going to be inspired to continue to hear from you. Or you can continue to put out positive content and each piece of positive content isn't going to get as many views, but you will kind of form a more long-term relationship, uh, in people's minds. And there's actually this really incredible quote that I saw a while ago, and it actually like changed a lot of how I think about things as a content creator, uh, in doing social media. And I don't remember who said it, but the quote is seek respect, not attention. It lasts longer. And I was like, Because I was on this hamster wheel of chasing likes and views. And as anyone who has made a viral video knows it, it, it, it's over so quick. You can have like a million views one day and then like, it's, it completely dies down by the next. And so people get on this hamster wheel of addiction of like continuing to churn out content to try to get viral videos. And I was on that hamster wheel for years and just being like, when does this end? Like, why am I doing this? Why am I continue? You know? And it's, It doesn't feel good. It's addicting. And then I saw that quote and I was like, oh, If I actually just put more effort into making more memorable, good content, I don't have to put out content as often. And yeah, …

AI assessment note: “seek respect, not attention. It lasts longer.”

Q and it doesn't seem like nothing within our lifetimes, but, um, yeah, I mean, coming back to the idea of it helping people, it hurting other people, how do you think about, like, What creators or, or people should be focused on? Should they be focused on, like, learning prompt engineering? Should they be focused on a field that they think won't be touched with by AI if that exists?

A Like, what are you doing as a creator to say, like, you know what, I'm, I don't want to be left behind, so I'm going to be learning X, Y, and Z. Um, well, I don't think the answer is focus on prompt engineering because I wouldn't be surprised if, um, in a very short amount of time, AI gets extremely good at Prompt engineering. And so those people are less, you know, relevant. Um, in fact, I was actually just talking to someone who was using GPT-III to write prompts to run through stable diffusion. So, um, I would say that the best thing to do Is not to learn a specific skill, but to, cause that's going to change. Um, probably by the time this podcast comes out, you know, um, I think the best thing is to adopt a mindset that you have to always be learning and to accept that the model that humans had for much of humanity, which is that you could kind of choose a career and then have that career for life. That's gone. We are at the, like, the last dying grasping breaths of those days. I think the sooner you can accept and embrace the mindset that, like, the world is always changing, the skills you have to learn always need to change, the better off you'll be.

AI assessment note: “I don't think the answer is focus on prompt engineering”

Q there's a different filter and now the filter is prompt engineering versus painting or drawing or singing or whatever it might have been in the past. Um, so do you think that's still the case where you're still gonna see these like outliers who are just so much better than the rest? Or do you think it'll be more of a level playing field than what we were seeing before?

A Okay, so I think that, um, what this is gonna do, what AI art is gonna do is it's going to Significantly lower the barrier to entry to become an artist. So to be an artist right now, you have to have a lot of time, um, a lot of training. Um, sometimes the monetary financial need means to be able to do that, or the willingness to be like a starving artist to do it, or it's a hobby on the side. Um, but there are kind of some, there's definitely a barrier to being an artist and, and now it's like everyone can do it. And it's almost like, I almost liken these image synthesizers like Dali or Mid Journey to like a Peter Pan, but instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, it, Takes the artistic skill of artists and it's like, gives it to everyone. Like, here you go, you know? And so I do think that a lot more people are going to be empowered to be artistic or to be artists because they didn't necessarily have the patience to go like learn oil painting, but now, but they actually do have the talent to be able to describe what's in their imagination and continue to refine until they get the result they want. So a lot more people are going to be empowered to be artists. There will still be the standouts and the extraordinary people because they're going to be the ones who are finding like different or creative or innovative ways to do it. There's, you know, as much innovat…

AI assessment note: “There will still be the standouts and the extraordinary people because they're going to be”

Q me that you feel almost like a responsibility to portray this technology, these tools in a certain way, maybe even, you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but more of this optimistic versus pessimistic doomsday lens. So can you just speak to like why you feel that responsibility or almost like how you think, um, AI should be portrayed or how you want to portray it?

A I've had to unlearn a lot of my Bad habits in terms of, like, I am a trained viral video creator. And so in many ways I'm trained very similar to the way a reporter would be, which means that I'm rewarded for making clickbait headlines. And so when all this AI stuff came out, I knew that like my, my first instinct was like, Ooh, let me make a bunch of like human versus AI. Like let's, let's have the AI do something and a human do something and let's have like judges critique and say which one's better. And like, that was my first instinct to do that. And then I realized, like, well, what is that just gonna do? That's just gonna It's just gonna freak people out, you know? Um, and I do think, you know, people are, there, there are reasons to be worried for a, about AI. I think there are very many legitimate ones and it will negatively impact some people more than others. Um, but AI is the technology. It can be used for good. It can be used for bad. And I just, I think it clicked that, like, There's gonna be every gravitational force for the media is gonna push towards the bad because that is what's gonna get more clicks and engagements and views. And what's, what's not the natural gravitational force is to actually think of ways to use AI for good. And so I was also sort of in this turning point in my career where I just spent like two years optimizing for growing followers. And …

AI assessment note: “what's not the natural gravitational force is to actually think of ways to use AI for good.”

Q because it does just get the wheel spinning, and like, man, there are, there's so much to figure out, and when you're dealing with an exponential technology, policy, regulation, IP, a lot of this stuff takes time, right? And so it, like, I also wonder whether we create regulation or policy, let's say in 2023, and then by 2025, like, it's, It's already just like, you know, it's completely different.

A I actually think culture can change a lot faster than regulation. Much, much, much faster. And I'll give you an example. The fastest I've ever seen culture change was the handshake during COVID. You know, how many, like, how many thousands of years or hundreds of years has the handshake been the golden standard? And then all of a sudden, like socially unacceptable. So many things became socially unacceptable almost overnight Because of COVID. And I was like, wow, human culture can change like that. And then now that the pandemic is better than like, we're back to doing it again. So, um, I do think that, uh, we're going to need a lot of cultural forces, um, to kind of sprint ahead of regulation because regulation will take time.

AI assessment note: “we're going to need a lot of cultural forces, um, to kind of sprint”

Q of how you deployed AI, which is something I mentioned before. You got commissioned by Cosmo magazine to create their first AI-generated magazine cover. We'll throw it up on the screen. It looks awesome, um, and you've also done, as you talked about, a behind-the-scenes explainer, but for those who are not familiar With this project of yours. Can you share a little bit more about how it went down?

A Uh, yes. So, um, this was kind of shortly after Dali was released. The people at OpenAI gave me a call and they were like, hey, we have this really cool potential opportunity where Cosmo wants to make the first ever AI generated magazine cover. And they were like, and we want you to generate it. That's crazy. Um, and So, I mean, my first reaction was like, uh, worried, I guess, like, I hope I can do a good job. Like, um, because keeping like, it's not, I can't emphasize enough how much like the human is needed in this process, you know, like, yeah, they could have just, you can't actually have a fully AI generated magazine cover. Cause you have to give a prompt. And I guess you could theoretically ask like an AI to generate the prompt, but still the human needs, the human needs to give some input. Right. And so for, for our process, actually, we went through so many different rounds. Of, of iterations. And, um, eventually we land on a creative direction of, of woman astronaut. And this was actually a, I thought, a really clever workaround by OpenAI to not show a human face. Because at that time, human faces were not allowed in Dali. In the early days, human faces were not allowed for Dali. And so we, and we also were like, well, what race is this woman going to be too? Like, we didn't want to make a race statement. And so by making it a woman astronaut, it could be any ethnicit…

AI assessment note: “The people at OpenAI gave me a call and they were like, hey”

Q to the point, it's like, well, try converting those followers into something You know, that, that generates you money or that, that is long lasting and, and it's very hard, right? Because those followers don't actually love your content. They don't buy into you. They just happen to be like, oh, okay, another thread. Like there, it's almost like a habit for them to engage with that kind of work.

A I am so glad you said that because I, I feel the same way. And ultimately this is my job. The millions of followers are useless to me if I can't make a penny. Off of it. Like, I'm not going to put in all this effort. It's my job, right? I need to make money out of it. And I remember that I used to feel really bitter when I would see like these TikTok videos blow up and get millions and millions of views. And they would be the most inane things. Like, for example, I'll give you an example of a TikTok video that can go really viral. Um, it's a video where someone's like, try to get the number of hearts and the number of comments to be the same. Right? And so everyone's just, like, it gets, like, tens of millions of views because it's, like, a very smart engagement bait, right? It's a very clever engagement bait, and I'll be mad at that, or I, or, you know, there's, there's other examples that are less clever. There's, there's just straight up garbage on TikTok that is getting millions and millions of views, and that is so demotivating for creators, VFX creators, artists who are putting, like, Hundreds of hours into their craft to make something look really beautiful. And then it completely flops and it doesn't get very many views on social media. And I would, I used to be so bitter about that. And then like someone told me, and then I learned over time that this was actually very…

AI assessment note: “The millions of followers are useless to me if I can't make a penny.”

Q and so I do wonder if there's some version of that, right, where, like, we have access to unlimited two-D art, so maybe three-D art is important, just as an example, but then, of course, AI will eat that, so I don't know. I, I think it's interesting to kind of think through how humans Might evolve? Or do you think that this stuff is just moving so quickly that?

A Um, I think humans are remarkably adaptable. Um, and so we will adapt. I do think that, um, you know, already the world is moving much faster than human evolution can keep up with. So for example, like we weren't really evolved to sit in like office chairs all day. We weren't evolved to hear the comments of thousands of people on social media. We were evolved for like 30 person tribes, right? And so you see all of these like mental health and physical health problems that we have. A lot of those are because human evolution hasn't caught up to how much culture has changed. And so I, I say two things. One, humans are remarkably adaptable, but two, there is a limit to how much humans can actually evolve from like, you know, a Charles Darwinian evolutionary perspective, uh, to keep up with some of this stuff. So we are entering a completely unknown time. I'm just, I'm trying to stay positive and try to highlight as much of the positivity as possible. But, um, yeah, there is a lot of uncertainty.

AI assessment note: “already the world is moving much faster than human evolution can keep up with.”

Q you have stable diffusion, you have mid journey. There'll be many more. A lot of them, um, are similar, but also what I'm imagining if we, like, extrapolate many years, like, how will they differentiate? How will you as a creator or how will consumers decide I'm gonna use Dolly or I'm gonna use Stable Diffusion? Will they be different business models or how do you think that's gonna evolve?

A Um, I can speak from the creator side, maybe more from the business side, but, um, I think right now, AI in the, in the, in the mass media, there's sort of this misconception or perception that AI is just this like all powerful thing that's going to replace humans. Um, um, but I think a more interesting way to think of it is that they are, they are tools and each one is a specific tool for a specific purpose. Just like I would have like a calculator or a compass or something else. So, and you can combine and like what, where you get interesting things is where you combine the tools. Right? So for example, Um, you can generate an image in Dali, and then you can use CapCut, which is a program, which is like an app on your phone that will literally turn any image into like a three D image. Then there's another problem, which is, uh, like Dali and Midjourney that, and I think all of these images synthesizers have, which is that they make faces, they don't do human faces very well. There will be like artifacts on the eyes. They'll just look kind of droopy or a little messed up. Well, guess how you can fix them? You can run them through Facetune, the app that all influencers use, and that'll make, that'll make, that'll fix it.

AI assessment note: “they are tools and each one is a specific tool for a specific purpose”

Q there's a different filter and now the filter is prompt engineering versus painting or drawing or singing or whatever it might have been in the past. Um, so do you think that's still the case where you're still gonna see these like outliers who are just so much better than the rest? Or do you think it'll be more of a level playing field than what we were seeing before?

A Okay, so I think that, um, what this is gonna do, what AI art is gonna do is it's going to Significantly lower the barrier to entry to become an artist. So to be an artist right now, you have to have a lot of time, um, a lot of training. Um, sometimes the monetary financial need means to be able to do that, or the willingness to be like a starving artist to do it, or it's a hobby on the side. Um, but there are kind of some, there's definitely a barrier to being an artist and, and now it's like, everyone can do it. And it's almost like, I almost liken these image synthesizers like Dali or Mid Journey to like a Peter Pan, but instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, it, Takes the artistic skill of artists and it's like, gives it to everyone. Like, here you go, you know? And so I do think that a lot more people are going to be empowered to be artistic or to be artists because they didn't necessarily have the patience to go like learn oil painting, but now, but they actually do have the talent to be able to describe what's in their imagination and continue to refine until they get the result they want.

AI assessment note: “what AI art is gonna do is it's going to Significantly lower the barrier”

Q there's a different filter and now the filter is prompt engineering versus painting or drawing or singing or whatever it might have been in the past. Um, so do you think that's still the case where you're still gonna see these like outliers who are just so much better than the rest? Or do you think it'll be more of a level playing field than what we were seeing before?

A Okay, so I think that, um, what this is gonna do, what AI art is gonna do is it's going to Significantly lower the barrier to entry to become an artist. So to be an artist right now, you have to have a lot of time, um, a lot of training. Um, sometimes the monetary financial need means to be able to do that, or the willingness to be like a starving artist to do it, or it's a hobby on the side. Um, but there are kind of some, there's definitely a barrier to being an artist and, and now it's like, everyone can do it. And it's almost like, I almost liken these image synthesizers like Dali or Mid Journey to like a Peter Pan, but instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, it, Takes the artistic skill of artists and it's like, gives it to everyone. Like, here you go, you know? And so I do think that a lot more people are going to be empowered to be artistic or to be artists because they didn't necessarily have the patience to go like learn oil painting, but now, but they actually do have the talent to be able to describe what's in their imagination and continue to refine until they get the result they want.

AI assessment note: “what AI art is gonna do is it's going to Significantly lower the barrier”

Q actually, we're gonna, like, we are gonna replace our photographer with AI, or, you know, to use Cosmo as an example, Was working with you just something where they could, like, put their flag in the ground and say, hey, like, we're innovative, we're, we're working with AI, or do you see them actually going and, like, doing every fifth cover with AI? How, how are companies thinking about this?

A In twenty-twenty-two, it is most certainly a gimmick and a headline grabber. It is like, let's be innovative. Let's be first. Let's be on top of this. I would imagine in 20, 23, the answer to that will be probably be different. Um, people will actually start using it as their workflow, um, because it makes sense and not as a headline grabber. Really interesting. I saw that there was someone and a reporter who used a mid journey art for his article, I think about Alex Jones, and then he went viral. In a bad way in that he got like majorly attacked on Twitter for using mid journey art for, um, a magazine article. Um, and he was attacked because he didn't hire like a human artist instead, you know, like, um, it was, I think the Atlantic, uh, correct me if I'm wrong. Um, but I think what, what people didn't have context was, was that the department he was in, The image that he would have used instead would have been, like, a Getty images or, like, some stock photo. It wouldn't have been, like, a official commission, right? So that was what he was replacing, but he still got attacked for it. So I think, you know, the first few, you know, the, the leaders go, the arrows attack the leaders, right? So I think the first few people who are going to start using AI are going to get backlash, but it's going to get less and less and less and less until it's accepted. I honestly discussing so…

AI assessment note: “In twenty-twenty-two, it is most certainly a gimmick and a headline grabber.”

Q video you had around 10,000 followers on Instagram. So that might seem like a lot to some people, but compared to today, where you're just smashing it, you have over a million followers, everything you create almost goes viral. Um, was there a specific Unlock? Were you found along that journey that, like, you noticed something that really worked or you, you honed in on something that people really wanted?

A Yes, absolutely there was. So, um, for a very long time I struggled to grow my following. Um, first I resisted. First I was like, well, I don't even need to grow my following. So I was just making, like, viral one-off videos. Um, that was back in the days when you can make things go viral in a completely different way that doesn't work anymore. So back in, like, 2000, like, 12, up until around 2016, you could make videos go viral just by coming up with something clever that would be a good headline, cold emailing, like, 300 reporters, getting them to write about it, and then it would almost guaranteed go viral. Um, that does not work anymore because Facebook ate, like, all the reporters' jobs. So, um, and now videos don't spread through reporters, they spread through algorithms. And so, It is actually so, so competitive now. It's so much more competitive now than it was like 10 years ago. Uh, it is, it is much harder to make a viral, a video just go viral. And so the way to do it now is you, you kind of have to build a following. And so it's not, it's not so much about making everything go viral, making things go viral, but it's more about just like building an established follower base so that your baseline of like the number of people who see your videos or your work just steadily gets higher. And I really struggled to grow my following. Um, I, Remember when I first tried gro…

AI assessment note: “the unlock for me was actually sharing my behind the scenes”

Q there's a different filter and now the filter is prompt engineering versus painting or drawing or singing or whatever it might have been in the past. Um, so do you think that's still the case where you're still gonna see these like outliers who are just so much better than the rest? Or do you think it'll be more of a level playing field than what we were seeing before?

A Okay, so I think that, um, what this is gonna do, what AI art is gonna do is it's going to Significantly lower the barrier to entry to become an artist. So to be an artist right now, you have to have a lot of time, um, a lot of training. Um, sometimes the monetary financial need means to be able to do that, or the willingness to be like a starving artist to do it, or it's a hobby on the side. Um, but there are kind of some, there's definitely a barrier to being an artist and, and now it's like everyone can do it. And it's almost like, I almost liken these image synthesizers like Dali or Mid Journey to like a Peter Pan, but instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, it, Takes the artistic skill of artists and it's like, gives it to everyone. Like, here you go, you know? And so I do think that a lot more people are going to be empowered to be artistic or to be artists because they didn't necessarily have the patience to go like learn oil painting, but now, but they actually do have the talent to be able to describe what's in their imagination and continue to refine until they get the result they want. So a lot more people are going to be empowered to be artists. There will still be the standouts and the extraordinary people because they're going to be the ones who are finding like different or creative or innovative ways to do it. There's, you know, as much innovat…

AI assessment note: “There will still be the standouts and the extraordinary people”

Q video you had around 10,000 followers on Instagram. So that might seem like a lot to some people, but compared to today, where you're just smashing it, you have over a million followers, everything you create almost goes viral. Um, was there a specific Unlock? Were you found along that journey that, like, you noticed something that really worked or you, you honed in on something that people really wanted?

A Yes, absolutely there was. So, um, for a very long time I struggled to grow my following. Um, first I resisted. First I was like, well, I don't even need to grow my following. So I was just making, like, viral one-off videos. Um, that was back in the days when you can make things go viral in a completely different way that doesn't work anymore. So back in, like, 2000, like, 12, up until around 2016, you could make videos go viral just by coming up with something clever that would be a good headline, cold emailing, like, 300 reporters, getting them to write about it, and then it would almost guaranteed go viral. Um, that does not work anymore because Facebook ate, like, all the reporters' jobs. So, um, and now videos don't spread through reporters, they spread through algorithms. And so, It is actually so, so competitive now. It's so much more competitive now than it was like 10 years ago. Uh, it is, it is much harder to make a viral, a video just go viral. And so the way to do it now is you, you kind of have to build a following. And so it's not, it's not so much about making everything go viral, making things go viral, but it's more about just like building an established follower base so that your baseline of like the number of people who see your videos or your work just steadily gets higher. And I really struggled to grow my following. Um, I, Remember when I first tried gro…

AI assessment note: “the unlock for me was actually sharing my behind the scenes and that was it”

Q you have stable diffusion, you have mid journey. There'll be many more. A lot of them, um, are similar, but also what I'm imagining if we, like, extrapolate many years, like, how will they differentiate? How will you as a creator or how will consumers decide I'm gonna use Dolly or I'm gonna use Stable Diffusion? Will they be different business models or how do you think that's gonna evolve?

A Um, I can speak from the creator side, maybe more from the business side, but, um, I think right now, AI in the, in the, in the mass media, there's sort of this misconception or perception that AI is just this like all powerful thing that's going to replace humans. Um, um, but I think a more interesting way to think of it is that they are, they are tools and each one is a specific tool for a specific purpose. Just like I would have like a calculator or a compass or something else. So, and you can combine and like what, where you get interesting things is where you combine the tools. Right? So for example, Um, you can generate an image in Dali, and then you can use CapCut, which is a program, which is like an app on your phone that will literally turn any image into like a three D image. Then there's another problem, which is, uh, like Dali and Midjourney that, and I think all of these images synthesizers have, which is that they make faces, they don't do human faces very well. There will be like artifacts on the eyes. They'll just look kind of droopy or a little messed up. Well, guess how you can fix them? You can run them through Facetune, the app that all influencers use, and that'll make, that'll make, that'll fix it.

AI assessment note: “each one is a specific tool for a specific purpose”

Q think it was, like, around 13 dollars, um, with that pricing, so that gives you an idea, and as you said, it'll depend, but I think The, the maybe more interesting question is how fungible was Karen in that process? And I don't want to dismiss you, but if you gave Average Joe the same project and the same tool, do you think they would come up with anything comparable?

A I think a lot of people would have been able to make a really good Cosmo cover. Um, I think those people would have been The people who would have done it best are people who have a good artistic eye, have the kind of the patience and the motivation to keep going and keep refining on the prompt, and who can like describe what they see in their head. And so a lot of these people are not necessarily traditional artists. You know, I think a lot of people could have made a really, really good result. I, there's actually an example that I have that we can show up, that we can show on screen. I, a while ago, wanted to expand the girl with the pearl earring. So you may have seen one thing that you can do, ah, that was actually just announced, is you can expand paintings in Dali. Um, and so you can basically, like, take a famous painting and then imagine what was all around it. So you can take, like, the Mona Lisa and imagine, like, where was she? You can take the girl with the pearl earring, imagine, like, Everything that was around her. And so I made a video a while back where I imagined her like in a like library and she was holding a book and I was like, I want her to be like an educated woman, you know? Um, and so I made that. Um, and then I actually, um, am working with a project, uh, with open AI actually right now. It's one that they commissioned. Uh, it will, it's not out yet,…

AI assessment note: “I think a lot of people would have been able to make a really good Cosmo cover.”

Q fact the artist is losing relevance in this equation. Karen, I think, makes the perfect analogy to Peter Pan, highlighting the democratizing force of these new technologies. The maybe more interesting question is, How fungible was Karen in that process? And I don't want to dismiss you, but if you gave Average Joe the same project and the same tool, do you think they would come up with anything comparable?

A I think a lot of people would have been able to make a really good Cosmo cover. Um, I think those people would have been The people who would have done it best are people who have a good artistic eye, have the kind of the patience and the motivation to keep going and keep refining on the prompt and who can like describe what they see in their head. And so a lot of these people are not necessarily traditional artists. You know, I think a lot of people could have made a really, really good result. I, there's actually an example that I have that we can show up that we can show on screen. I, a while ago wanted to expand the girl with the pearl earring. So you may have seen one thing that you can do, uh, that was actually just announced is you can expand paintings in Dali. Um, and so you can basically like take a famous painting and then imagine what was all around it. So you can take like the Mona Lisa and imagine like, where was she? You can take the girl, the pearl earring, imagine like Everything that was around her. And so I made a video a while back where I imagined her like in a like library and she was holding a book and I was like, I want her to be like an educated woman, you know? Um, and so I made that. Um, and then I actually, um, am working with a project, uh, with open AI actually right now. It's one that they commissioned. Uh, it will, it's not out yet, but it will pr…

AI assessment note: “I think a lot of people would have been able to make a really good Cosmo cover.”

Q in certain cases might not cost that much. It might cost like two dollars to, to run the prompts you're, you're looking for. Um, but some of those projects historically, like, I don't, I don't know how much Cosmo would typically pay for a magazine cover, but it's not two dollars, right? So how do you think about the way that you charge as a creator in this new ecosystem?

A Yeah, I, I think it, you know, one of the things that when I work with clients, I'll, I'll literally say to them, like, hey, like, you know, if, even if you don't hire me, um, and sometimes it doesn't work out, and so I'm like, hey, you know, I'm, you know, my schedule doesn't work out for this project, but whoever you hire, like, please pay them, please allocate this budget, because, um, we are at, like, a, We're at like a moment in history that's very vulnerable where like certain standards can be established. And I would like to see the standard established that if you hire a human to use an AI as a tool, then you pay the human.

AI assessment note: “if you hire a human to use an AI as a tool, then you pay”

Q fact the artist is losing relevance in this equation. Karen, I think, makes the perfect analogy to Peter Pan, highlighting the democratizing force of these new technologies. The maybe more interesting question is, How fungible was Karen in that process? And I don't want to dismiss you, but if you gave Average Joe the same project and the same tool, do you think they would come up with anything comparable?

A I think a lot of people would have been able to make a really good Cosmo cover. Um, I think those people would have been The people who would have done it best are people who have a good artistic eye, have the kind of the patience and the motivation to keep going and keep refining on the prompt and who can like describe what they see in their head. And so a lot of these people are not necessarily traditional artists. You know, I think a lot of people could have made a really, really good result. I, there's actually an example that I have that we can show up that we can show on screen. I, a while ago wanted to expand the girl with the pearl earring. So you may have seen one thing that you can do, uh, that was actually just announced is you can expand paintings in Dali. Um, and so you can basically like take a famous painting and then imagine what was all around it. So you can take like the Mona Lisa and imagine like, where was she? You can take the girl, the pearl earring, imagine like Everything that was around her. And so I made a video a while back where I imagined her like in a like library and she was holding a book and I was like, I want her to be like an educated woman, you know? Um, and so I made that. Um, and then I actually, um, am working with a project, uh, with open AI actually right now. It's one that they commissioned. Uh, it will, it's not out yet, but it will pr…

AI assessment note: “I think a lot of people would have been able to make a really good Cosmo cover.”

Q Yeah, but I do wonder in that case, like, yes, the good actors will use the technology that has that functionality, but then bad actors likely won't, right? Unless there's regulation.

A That's, that's why I'm, that's why I say that, like, somehow I want my wishlist is for the culture to change because humans are a self-enforcing society. You know, we are very naturally tribal and we behave well largely because that's what's Expected of us from other humans. It's not like someone's watching us at every single moment, but we still in general, you know, want to behave well. And a lot of that is the cues that you're getting from culture. And so I would love to see a culture developed where, Hey, as, as humans, as part of being a good human, um, we use technology responsibly and ethically. I don't know how that's going to happen. That's my, that's why it's my wish list.

AI assessment note: “my wishlist is for the culture to change because humans are a self-enforcing society.”