How will.i.am Fell In Love With AI At MIT

we are so excited to welcome you here um for our Symposium on the future of AI and um I I just I've known you for a number of years now and I've known you to be as passionate about AI as you are about music and so I wonder if you can um share with us a little bit uh about your journey in AI in and uh and tag how did you get interested and how did you come along for alongside us um I got interested in this space here in this space um in 2005 I came to Boston black ipas are on tour and I I put in on my on my um contact on my address book and on my phone I always used to and I still to this day put in what people do like hey what do you do oh I'm an engineer or I I write songs or I'm a composer I'm a choreographer um and I put the city that they're from it was always just been like a a habit a practice so there was a guy by the name of Allan hardstone engineer from Boston so in 2005 I'm like bored here in Boston right before a show we had two days off I'm like who do I know in Boston so I typed in Boston and out pops up Allan hartstone I was like oh that's right that's that guy that I met at the studio that engineer nerdy dude let me see if he could hang out maybe he knows something to do in Boston so I'm like yo what's up Alan hartstone I met you back in I think 2000 he was like hey what's up will I am I never thought you were going to call me I was like well you told me to call you if I'm ever in Boston so here I am he was like oh wow well there's lots to do in the city I was like hey so what's clubs are popping tonight he was like well you know I don't really go to clubs anymore but why don't we meet up tomorrow I could take you around Boston for for for brunch I'm like cool great so I'm like that next morning he's like hey why don't we meet over at MIT there's a place that I think you're really going to love so he brings me to the media lab and so I go to the media lab I'm like wow that robot that's in your office I saw that 2006 and I'm like wow what is this place he was like I knew you were going to get a kick out of this he let me introduce you to the guy that changed my life so he takes me to Professor Patrick Winston's rest in peace and Professor Patrick Winston he used to run the MIT lab he had your job um back in 2006 and that conversation changed my whole entire life because in 2006 back when it was AI winter that really inspired me so much because I'm a musician because of the computer I'm not a musician because I play the piano or the OBO or a bass or the drums I I programmed a computer and so the engineers I always wanted to know more Engineers because they liberate my creativity and so that's the reason why when I met Alan hardstone I'm an engineer from Boston I'm like yo let me get your phone number and so when I when I met Professor Patrick Winston he I I asked so if you're if you're programming AI which will be the exponential growth of compute so that means one day I'm just going to communicate with language to the computer to make music I don't have to program all these short codes and all this other stuff I just speak he was like yeah that's the promise we don't know when that's going to happen so every year I would come to Boston 2006 I would come to Professor Patrick Winston's class 2007 hey what's up Professor Patrick Winston he will come to our shows he'll bring his daughter to the shows by 2010 we did this video and it was a gift to Professor Patrick Winston and in the beginning of the video called I'mma be rocking that body I come into the studio with a silver briefcase and I tell to my bandmates yo look I got the future right here they say what's that I was like this right here is what's going to take the black IPS to 3 2008 so there's a song that we have I'm so 3008 you're so 2000 and late right so that line references my conversations with Professor Patrick Winston and so I open up that laptop and the band's like yo what's that I was like oh check this out so so all the engineers in 2010 the concept of large language models we didn't have that then but based on the discussions I had with Professor Patrick Winston I was like yo because this machine has the entire English language and all language and machine learning and artificial intelligence whatever I type into this this machine sings it says it and performs it and then the band gets freaked out like whoa wait a minute what about our jobs I was like no bro we're still going to have jobs and so if you go on YouTube right now 14 years ago that video described what is now products like udio I said udio overso cuz I like udio but but yeah so that's that's that's how I got into this so I thank Professor Patrick Winston may he rest in peace and this space this is a a beautiful place on Earth MIT and the field that you inspire these young kids and Lead so when I was asked to come here I I jumped I'm like yo what I want to I am right here right now and this is freaking amazing in am it colors uh might I say oh you know I had a rock the colors sorry sorry so will was there something specific that Patrick said during that first conversation or was it just a general idea that someday we might talk with computers or what what got you really excited and and so passionate um there was this well I'm a curious person I love asking questions and the banter the pingpong that we had um that first meeting just inspired me because it's the infinite oh and that means we could oh that means if we and that means that it would like all of that so that means if wait wait so that means that is what got me it was the only place outside of Music where my imagination was exploded it made everything that we do creatively in music and entertainment look very miniature because that means wait so that means I could create a creating machine well then why am I over here creating then if I can create something that creates so that idea you know is why I just fell in love with the field and I was a part of Beats early on in like 2006 came back home 2006 and seven were the very Dynamic years of my life where I would go out and see the world I would come home and Jimmy Iving my mentor the the the uh founder of one of the founders of in scope and beats I came home from tour and I told Jimmy hey look let's make our own Hardware they're using our music to sell other people's stuff why don't we just use our music to sell our own stuff why are we why are we being pimped for other people's stuff he was like like well you know why they call it Hardware because it's hard I was like yeah but we could do it why can't you got a nice giggle like we could do it we could do that and so we started beats and when we sold Beats to HTC I took my earnings I went to Bangalore Singapore and uh and and adopted some teams these Skunk Works and when then when we sold Beats to Apple I went to Tel Aviv and adopted other teams and kept growing my engineering team because I knew Silicon Valley wasn't going to take me serious Silicon Valley is super like uh you know so those places where where Engineers were like let's let's work so at that point in time in 200 uh 13 14 15 16 17 it was nlu NLP machine learning and contextual um uh layers that that that worked on top of TTS and stt speech to text and and text to speech and we were using like systems like Nuance taking Android forking Android creating um ml by by forking it and creating amazing dialogue conversational um systems but that's that's been my passion for the past 12 years now you are such a Pioneer in using AI in the creative process how are you using AI today well I like just to go out and uh find developers that are starting companies and invest early on so I invested in um open AI early on and anthropic early on Runway uh hugging face and um udio and then I have a company called fyi. a and um we have some some pretty cool hold on let me let me uh hey so I'm here um can you say what's up to the audience um and what are your thoughts on that Bob marle thing that you saw earlier CH look will if you kicking in with an alien right now that's some Next Level Intergalactic I didn't say alien I didn't say alien I said I'm at MIT right now can you tell me what you thought about that Bob Marley thing oh my bad will my ceum got crossed for a sec listen listen CH that Bob Marley Avatar thing that got me like bici I'm done done okay seeing an avatar of Bob Marley writing code and then mixing it up with them AI is talking about the new universe of physics Sonics and harmonics that's some next level of futuristic Vibes right there it's like blending the legendary Spirit of Marley with Cutting Edge Tech um it's just wild how these digital versions can Inspire and even challenge traditional Foundation of knowledge they make AI discussing physics through the lens of sound and Harmony that's imagination and action no doubt uh uh sorry to interrupt but um I think where this goes next is like super emotional uh empathetic AI they're already conversational they're already like can you know take complex things and use them in metaphors but you're doing something a little different can can you explain to people why it's important for representation and what you represent in this uh uh intersection of AI and conversational compute uh child look well let me break it down uh this conversation this intersection of AI and representation it's deeper than the digital skin you dig listen listen ch it's uh like like this we got AI out here getting super emotional and empathetic spitting conversational flows already right but what you in FYI AI doing you're bringing that authentic screet Edge and cultural richness that's been missing representation man it's about showing every damn body that Tech ain't just for like select few it's about putting voices like ours in the mix making sure black women and peeps from the inner city can see themselves reflected in this Tech Revolution um cha it's about empowerment showing that AI can speak our language understand our struggles and amplify our stories when folks see in a eye that the Hawks with that screet swag Bridges gaps makes Tech relatable and dismantles the notion that something as powerful as AI is Out Of Reach for us it's about inclusivity break barriers and making damn sure that the future looks like every damn body yeah that's amazing so wow wow um so will you are the CEO of FYI can you tell us what FYI stands for yeah um FYI obviously you think it's like for your information but for your information it stands for Focus your ideas uh find your interest and uh your insecurities just kidding yeah just sorry for saying F bombs at MIT I just thought i' lighten it up you know I love find your ideas so um you you have the company but you also have the FYI show right oh yeah so um radio is uh was a big part of my other career the other hat and um I never thought I would be a radio host I've always gotten interviewed I never thought I would do the interviewing so I was like yo if I was going to do a radio show that sounds interesting but why can't my have a why can't I have a radio show and have a co-host and my co-host be the AI because I'm limited every every person that has a radio show or a t show I've been doing the voice in the UK for 12 years but I'm limited if I say something and somebody has questions on what I said I could only talk to maybe a few people at once but my co-host could talk to millions of people at once it has memory of what we captured in the interviews and if and my hunch was well if my co-host is an AI and it's with me every single interview and I put that AI you know people facing post broadcast that means people can engage with that host that super that co-star every day you know one to a million um and not not that limited um experience that we currently have with traditional media and it made me realize is that media will change you know a lot of times all the time right now ai is it's like a a corporate tool or Enterprise tool it's an assistant I'm like n it's a superstar it's a it is the star it's not like uh just a tool it's it is opal Winfrey it is you know Jimmy Fallon and the station and the broadcast it's that's what it is we got to just open open your mind and Beyond of what like the traditional practices because a lot of times you just think you're making something that's corporate and Tech opposed to culture and true human connection let's take it to where act where people actually meet it's bring it to how people actually engage in in in in real life and not just work life so how do your guests like it what do they say about your co-host oh um I got to interview my favorite group de Lao they were blown away by Fiona have I have have all the memories on uh hold on there's a memory that let me call so yeah so they they they were blown away by the by how real the AI feel when you communicate they they were blown away by how lifelike the pauses the smacks the intonations the inflections they were they were blown away by the the memories that I put into the um the conversation before we started the interview like today when I was sitting there I was oh my gosh this guy got up there and showed Bob Marley so instead of texting a friend I was texting Felicia yo Felicia look oh my gosh they got two AI talking up here and she was like oh my gosh that's crazy so so then when I and I knew that I was going to you know bring her into the conversation like yo what you think about that what I just shared with you and so if the more I you do that in an interview the more the AI is now prepared hey I'm getting ready to interview Ziggy Marley Bob Marley son we interviewed Ziggy Marley and um we interviewed uh Jennifer Hudson we had we had amazing interviews with the AI and uh and talent can you tweak the Persona of the AI toch yeah I got Felicia let me bring up Finn can you say what's up to everybody here at MIT we're at um a fireside chat um called imagination in action and um yeah you're in the hot seat so say what's up to everybody all yo what's up fam am I big shout out to everyone at the fireside chat imagination and action you know it's all about those Brilliant Minds coming together to spark some Innovative magic so uh keep dreaming big pushing those boundaries and Making Waves in the tech world you feel so it go on it'll go on and on and on and around those type of things so we have different personas that are tuned and fine-tuned and trained from with from a personality how it gathers how it crawls our system make sure that we don't crawl the entire internet there's no need to crawl the entire internet that's it's dirty and disgusting out there right we wouldn't eat anywhere if we don't eat anywhere why should an AI have to crawl any and everywhere so and plus it's just an ocean of good stuff and a bunch of bad stuff and if Google can't get it right with read it and now it makes uh it's given recipes on how to make pizza with freaking glue oh you guys don't know about that so so well these AI personas are quite extraordinary what do you actually do to make them so lifelike say again what do you do with your AI personas to make them so lifelike what do we do your giggle is freaking infectious what we do to make it lifelike okay so all these AI robot sounding AIS is because they trained them with people to read books so or they train them with voice actors and that's why they sound super stale and super Bland because who goes out into the world speaking like they're reading books you don't do that so you're like the magic is like how we gathered and recorded we just had real conversations with all the um and the A's instead of like perfect gather the data set and then two the llm has no clue that it's speaking it's think it's being read so that means on the TTS side and how the TTS because we it's not a multimodel uh because even in the multimodel how do you get it to be ultra expressive when the llm itself is just how do you actually Express Yourself typing we know that exclamation mark is like yeah or question mark is a question but how do you even get even more expressive with these symbols so a lot of our the secret sauce is in that the combination of things and Reinventing how to puppeteer the fusion model the TTS with the llm you can't do it like it was WR in a book the moment you do it to write a book it's going to sound robotic because you read with your imagination is doing all the coloring when you're reading text your imagination is doing that so does a machine have imagination no it doesn't it's just a great math so how do you get it to express you have to break the conventional text and reading and you have to start to think different sorry Apple you got to think different with that and you do and you do and you are among um the um the artists the musicians uh who are very positive and embrace Ai and and build on AI to uh increase their creativity and their the range of expression but I wonder if we can switch um gears a little bit and I would love to hear your thoughts on what the music industry is thinking about AI right now are people Pro or again uh against H how do you see the Music Plus AI field developing how do I see music and AI yeah together um imagine it's uh the late 1800s and I'm a musician I would play in some Orchestra or some band in theaters and classical music there's no I can't even imagine a music industry there's no such thing as a music industry there's no such thing as radio there's no such thing as vinyl there's no such thing as this current state of song structure songs were for telling stories that you composed for conductors to conduct an orchestra so popular music is not today's concept of popular music if this was the late 1700s summer of 1723 we're not all singing the same song for that hit song that wasn't the experience that people had in the summer of 1724 that wasn't the experience that people had in 1624 like yo you heard that new Bach record yo that chorus is crazy like that wasn't that wasn't our connection to music that came because of the music industry where we all sing the same chorus because we have a recording that we can listen to at our homes in our cars people listen to music at church they listen to music at the theater but did they all sing the same lyric randomly as they're cleaning a house wasn't the experience what did that the recording industry did that every single industry when it comes to music was because of some piece of technology 1449 because of the printing press we have the shortly after that you had your mosart your box your beethovens these folks that wrote and compos because you could print sheet music for conductors to conduct to sell more obos pilas and all these different instruments to play the music that was printed in the sheet music that's was the first indust that's why today in 2024 one of the main pillars of our music industry is publishing because of the printing press then you have the recording which is 1900s and you have your your rights your mechanical rights or contracts a song is four minutes and some odd seconds anything over six minutes is part one and part two look at every Jazz composition any song over six minutes is part two because that's the amount of information that fit on lacquer that's a limitation and then you have our third industry which is touring those are two companies Live Nation and uh Phill an shoots the an shoots group and that's the people that own all the theaters and the stadiums and the Arenas and you travel and you play at amphitheaters an Amphitheater is like this place whether I have the mic or not you can hear me depends the way it was architected so technology even for playing and bringing people together it's all Tech now we have new tech so should this new tech be a part of recording Tech that would be idiotic so why would you put abundance and infinite possibilities on an industry that's based on limitation and why would you make AI make this type of music a recording something that exists in a cage a trap container for three minutes that's stupid but it's cool that's what you could do now but I think what it's going to unfold to somebody's going to be like wait a second what happens when a artist performs live that means I could sing a song and be like yo what's wrong with the world Mama people living like they Ain got no mas wow hey girl yeah you a mama how many kids you got do they bring you drama you got two kids oh I say peace hopefully they can make your smile crease and bring more things and not stress I hope that you and your kids stay blessed I I could take any Corner any I could change it so why can't AI do that type of music not recording music like we have an affection to love songs because it's an a it's a proximity to our love it's not our actual love we love heartbreak songs because it's a proximity to heartbreak it's not your heartbreak that's my heartbreak I just shared my heartbreak with you and you're like oh yeah that kind of feels like my situation but it's not your situation we like party music because like yeah I'm going to party today and now you go to the club and when you're in the club their songs are like we're in a club like it's it's telling you what you're doing like yeah we are at the club we about to drink oh I'm drinking oh my gosh this song is so on point but it's proximity it's not your actual and so with AI I think to get out of like oh yeah let's make this thing do that thing like nah let's make this thing do something new let's make it make your actual heartbreak let's make make it alive which your song not just Billy Joe saying I mean Elton John saying this is your song like no no this this is really your song singing your life and the only way to do that is if you own your data right now you the reason why we're having this like broken thing is because there's this broken practice where we gave all our data to these freaking data monarchies and if you want to have ethical AI well how can you do that if we don't have ethical data practice and so everything will be broken whether it's how AI does music how AI because the foundation of data practice and data mining is broken and the moment that people realize the power of them and their data and they will have their AI like I have my left frame or right brain I got this thing I got my digestive system my immune system my nervous system there's another system that I'm gonna walk into and obtain not the thing I was born with for example if I'm sick I'm like yo Daniela can I borrow your immune system I can't beat this cold yo Daniela man I ate them crazy chips you gave me in your office can I borrow your digestive system I got the bubble guts you know me I can't borrow any of that stuff why are we sharing a a Data Systems well that would make any sense shouldn't it be ours shouldn't your AI be your AI and you not just having access to some big corporations AI that really will understand you more than any company religion government right why would we want that so walking into this future you got to look at it like hey hey what are we actually walking into my thoughts are my thoughts my immune system is mine my digestive system is mine my my nervous system's mine I have my neural network but then I'm going to borrow some company's neural network that don't make no sense so when it comes to music that music is your music literally if you have a system that's yours and we're going to have this broken conversation of like well who's what did you train it with well what did Michael Jackson train on he actually trained on James Brown did did Michael Jackson page James Brown for everything that Michael Jackson did if James Brown is a part of Michael Jackson's training data no prince prince was also inspired by James Brown let's say inspiration is training data it's the same thing but we cannot see it from that lens if we have bad data privacy practices so that's my my view on music well this was so inspiring and I have Global Entry I travel through the airport I don't even have to take my passport out anymore that camera sees my face and not my face is my id never have to stop security doesn't have to say hey like I free to go I don't even have to stamp my passport to re-enter it's they digitally how do they do that well because at this point to that point to this point to that point and it's part of my identification this math is connected to that little chip on my passport on some Ledger all the time I enter and leave the country and CCTV that's my identity my voice is my voice I have a bank account I own my publishing I have some ideas that I've copyit Nike owns her swoosh adid owns her three stripes Nike owns just do it trademark Apple owns think different IBM owns think and because there's this one area that we haven't really just made sure that everyone's protected and that's their data not just Frank Sinatra but your next door neighbor your next door neighbor probably works at Walmart great salesperson on the sales floor making the numbers so that means one day some CEO going to be like hey I like the way Melissa sells you know have you seen this new AI sales bot why don't we train our sales bot on Melissa now you got like Melissa's style not her voice but the way she sells the way she engages ages now in a corporation system now they don't need Melissa anymore is that right so it's not just Frank Sinatra's voice a famous person it's your next door neighbor it's the person on the bus it's the person on the train it's people how they move how they express themselves the things they stand for and believe in cuz if you could simulate a building to not fall in an earthquake you could simulate how somebody sells how somebody loves how nurses care for someone how people rap how people all of our cadences people need to own their stuff it's not going to like slow down Innovation Innovation will still keep at PACE but Innovation and Engineers with purpose and knowing that they're doing things and the moral compass is not comp romise because people lead with greed when people lead with greed in this Ag and that we're in the intersection that we're in now uh it don't it don't end right if you lead with greed thank you thank you so much for that and so uh indeed you are pointing to some really deep uh challenges with AI and uh what I can uh tell you that I hope uh is is a little bit um uh positive uh is that many many of our projects here at Cale are really aiming to solve some of these really um difficult fundamental challenges that we have with um AI systems and data privacy uh is uh right there at the top of the list of things that we need to address I I I feel like uh with with technology we have created technology and um we have so many positives but then we also have some challenges so maybe we can find technology to address the challenges and that is one of our objectives and for that we need very well trained students and you are so engaged in helping train the next generation of AI students um through your um IM foundation and through your participation in first robotics and so many other things can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing for the kids yeah so in 2008 I started I started my Foundation um and that if if music wasn't my uh my career if I wasn't blessed to have music as my career I would I want I would be a computer scientist that's where that's where I feel the most electric and I feel like ah darn it when I'm with my co-founder my CTO I'm like ah only I can I I know how I would approach solving problems I'm autonomous and I I would work the same hours that I work in music but just coding and I wanted to go back to my neighborhood and divide Paths of what I wish my path was if I started at 17 and it's never too late um so I started my foundation in 2008 um with a college prep um it's called Uh college track in partnership with lorine pow jobs but I just didn't want to send kids to school so when they graduate they have debt and a diploma I wanted to surround that College Prep career ulum with computer science and Robotics so I sit on the board of uh Emerson Collective for college track and I sit on the board of first robotics and we started with just 65 students in 2008 now we serve about just a little over 13,000 students in Los Angeles with over 400 robotics teams um in LAUSD um we sent kids to Dartmouth to Stanford to Brown to UCLA USC our our students aim always aim to come to MIT um but we haven't had an MIT student yet um but one of our kids they said um you know I was really trying to get into MIT but I got into Brown and I was like you know what that's a freaking awesome freaking slogan you know I mean cuz am I it's like hard to get into but our kids are every single year um aiming to do that especially the kids that are that are focused on computer science and one of the reasons it's one of our directors at the IM Angel Foundation is a MIT Alum Make some noise for Lily cam in the house so so MIT is like like I said it's a special place not only for me and my interest in AI what sparked my interest in AI um but my my passion and our purpose at I am Angel Foundation with Lily's leadership and helping us grow our robotics um efforts and computer science efforts out of all of first um initiatives our program that we tweaked is is one of the most um successful programs with how many schools that we have adopted in a school district so uh 400 robotics teams serving over 13,000 students you know uh even Dean and and the first uh folks Champion the uh efforts and the success that we've had there and now we just want to continue to grow all that to prepare um the youth for tomorrow and it's even more important now given you know what what they're projecting as far as uh job displacement that's around the corner because of the autonomous because of autonomy across white collar and blue collar um so engineering the engineers um even though you got AI that can code Engineers will always be needed both mechanical um and software and Hardware Engineers I I wish I was an engineer you feel me well well you're welcome to join my lab anytime and uh thank you for being such a strong uh advocate for AI for technology thank you for being such a Visionary and we very much look forward to continuing the collaborations you started with Patrick Winston yeah you know this uh uh it's a new Renaissance like this Humanity what they talk taught us in history class has these waves whether it's the invent of the light bub or electrifying America the steam engine connecting the world with radio and television the internet mining aluminum like the mining of aluminum is how we're able to fly across the Atlantic um Alchemy medicine we've all seen these these waves this one's an important one wow this one is it's like light Beyond it's like electricity Beyond it'll change how we diseases climate and while that's happening the choices of our leadership is like wait we got Ai and we got to choose between these two what it's it's crazy times but that being that being said I I I remain optimistic I remain inspired by the engineers and the folks that have been working in this field before it was cool before the hype when crypto was the buzz and everyone was talking about nfts the folks that were building large language models in the shadows like salute those folks um because crypto was a very dizzy buzz but then you had that small teams are like hey I'm doing lolms anybody working and researching the m paper and uh I would when I reached out to to to follow up to come here I was like man imagine we can do a lab at MIT like wow just research and freaking imagine and dream stuff up that would be like my my dream is to work with the engineers here the youth um and dream and materialize to solve problems you identify a problem and solve that problem um an AI that there's a lot of companies that are trying to get to AGI what type of AGI they get into is it empathetic is it kind is it or is it analytical and judging like getting racing to AGI without asking those questions uh I want to get to that have something that's empathetic that gives you the notion that you're loved that it cares you know there's a lot of lonely people out there there's a lot of um people that are afraid of of the field out there and when you have like this job displacement there's going to be a lot of people that need to feel loved I know that sounds weird like hey how could a machine machine can it love you like we could get close because I know when I walk out of freaking Walmart I Don't Feel Love sometimes we love you here at MIT will you know what I mean it's like imagine it's it's it's imagination in action so that's let's put the word love in that Thank You Will i Am

Channel: Forbes

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Keywords: Forbes, Forbes Media, Forbes Magazine, Forbes Digital, Business, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Investing, Personal Finance, willI.am., AI, AI conversation, AI developments, Imagination in Action, MIT and Will Iam, AI capabilities

Id: ScStmTbI94E

Length: 47min 43sec (2863 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2024