Speaker 1: I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah, and this is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
Speaker 1: science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 1: We're back with a follow up on AI. So we
Speaker 1: previously talked about the environmental impact of AI, specifically large
Speaker 1: language models or lms like chat GBT, and the need
Speaker 1: to have a way to measure the resources required to
Speaker 1: execute tasks. Yeah, but this time we're taking a look
Speaker 1: at AI from a different angle and we're diving into
Speaker 1: more of what's possible, the tools that are available, and
Speaker 1: what's needed to leverage them if you choose to use them.
Speaker 1: So let's jump right into the recitation. What do we know.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot in the news on AI and
Speaker 1: social media, and there was an environmental impact that we
Speaker 1: talked about in Lab ninety four. Yeah, there's been discussions
Speaker 1: of AI and education, particularly students' use of it. I've
Speaker 1: seen everybody writing about that and a cheater Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Trump issued an executive order about early exposure and AI integration,
Speaker 1: plus the opportunities for lifelong learners by creating a task force. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's move on to what we want to know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so much on the market for me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do we keep up chat GPT? You know,
Speaker 1: there's like this new AI tool.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm getting ads on Instagrams where people are like, I
Speaker 1: created this AI tool and it does xyz you can
Speaker 1: take a jpeg and blah blah blah. And I was like,
Speaker 1: what am I clicking on? Did they think this is
Speaker 1: what I want? It's AI overloaded at this point. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can use this AI to brush your teeth. I'm like, whooh,
Speaker 1: okay that I am overwhelmed. And so what I want
Speaker 1: to know is what's the key if you're a opting
Speaker 1: and using AI, Like, how do you sift.
Speaker 2: Through all of those AI tools?
Speaker 1: Yes? And on the I guess the other side of
Speaker 1: that coin, TT is what should you consider if you're
Speaker 1: not using AI, Because just because you're not using it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you shouldn't know things about it, right, That's right.
Speaker 1: So I think we're ready to jump into the dissection.
Speaker 1: Perfect for this lab, we reached out to a creative
Speaker 1: entrepreneur who is an expert at AI and teaches others
Speaker 1: about it. Lauren is that girl when it comes to
Speaker 1: branding it a designer educator. Yeah, call yourself our AI auntie.
Speaker 4: I'm Lauren de Vane and I branded myself as your
Speaker 4: aiu T on Instagram and on the Internet. I used
Speaker 4: to run social media creative at All to Beauty before
Speaker 4: I started my own things. So I kind of come
Speaker 4: from a creative background. My degree is in graphic design.
Speaker 4: So I'm the creative AI girly that you find helping
Speaker 4: creatives entrepreneurs figure out how to be using ai I
Speaker 4: in their creative workflows but also just like in their
Speaker 4: everyday life and figuring out ways that it can really
Speaker 4: be beneficial to us in all of the things.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's what I do.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: So what made you start weaving AI into your workflow? Like,
Speaker 1: what was the thing that popped up where you said,
Speaker 1: uh huh, I've got to tap in.
Speaker 3: So for me, it was discovering mid Journey.
Speaker 4: So chajubt existed before mid Journey, but it was early days, right,
Speaker 4: it was still like twenty twenty two. It couldn't do
Speaker 4: that much yet, And so I tried Chad Jubet, I
Speaker 4: tried Dolly, which is open Ayes image.
Speaker 3: Generation tool, and I was like, this is so bad.
Speaker 4: Fast forward a couple months later, we were like December
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two. I always see these images of just
Speaker 4: such surreal show and I'm like, these aren't photos, Like
Speaker 4: where are these coming from?
Speaker 3: How are people making these?
Speaker 4: And so I found a YouTube that was like mid Journey,
Speaker 4: but it was on Discord at the time, and I
Speaker 4: had no knowledge of Discord, and so I needed to
Speaker 4: find out like how I could be using this tool.
Speaker 4: So I like went into like a forty eight hour
Speaker 4: like I just dove so deep in. It was just
Speaker 4: like making all these images, learning what I could do,
Speaker 4: and it came out of it and just had such
Speaker 4: a different perspective based on what I had done for
Speaker 4: the last ten years working at Walgreens and working at Alta,
Speaker 4: being a designer and a creative and an art director
Speaker 4: and a stylist and photographer, and I just was able
Speaker 4: to see, oh my god, the way that this could
Speaker 4: impact and change the way that creatives are executing photo
Speaker 4: shoots or any like any sort of creative execution. How
Speaker 4: this could change it in terms of speed, intent, in
Speaker 4: terms of cost, in terms of everything, and this just
Speaker 4: kind of it all like crescendoed at the right time,
Speaker 4: and I just started teaching designers how to use AI
Speaker 4: and that just turned into what it is now.
Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing.
Speaker 1: The reason I thought it was so great that we
Speaker 1: had the chance to talk to you is because I
Speaker 1: just saw MIT drop a study that was saying the
Speaker 1: more we rely on AI tools, particularly like chat GPT,
Speaker 1: the less our brains light up, like our neurons are
Speaker 1: just saying I'll pass. And they're calling it cognitive debt.
Speaker 1: So basically they're saying, your creative muscles can get lazy
Speaker 1: when you use these tools to do a lot of
Speaker 1: the thinking. But there's also a twist because there was
Speaker 1: another study and they were saying, if you pause and
Speaker 1: reflect and get kind of meta, which is not just thinking,
Speaker 1: but thinking about how you're thinking, that AI tools can
Speaker 1: actually boost your creativity and originality. And I want to
Speaker 1: know your take, because you've gone from traditional design and
Speaker 1: branding support to AI enhanced work. Do you think the
Speaker 1: AI tools are making a sharper or too comfortable?
Speaker 4: I think the harder thing to grasp is that PREAI,
Speaker 4: when we look at different tools, they generally.
Speaker 3: Are doing like one thing for you.
Speaker 4: Whereas AI it's like I could use it to help
Speaker 4: me learn how to code, where you could use it
Speaker 4: to learn how to come up with an entire strategy
Speaker 4: for your business, while someone else could be using it
Speaker 4: to learn how to like understand what their dietary needs
Speaker 4: or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: Right, So there's so many.
Speaker 4: Use cases for AI that I think when we are like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: it's gonna make you stupid, or it's like but in
Speaker 4: what capacity?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: And then I also think that like the other bigger
Speaker 4: piece of that is most people don't know how to
Speaker 4: use it properly.
Speaker 3: And that tends to be the issue because if you're
Speaker 3: using it, and this is one of the biggest thing
Speaker 3: that I teach my students and all my followers is
Speaker 3: process over prompt.
Speaker 4: It's conversation over command. So it's not just like telling
Speaker 4: it to do this one.
Speaker 3: Thing and then like that's it.
Speaker 4: It's like, okay, you ask it to do this thing,
Speaker 4: and then it gives you an output, and then you say, oh, well,
Speaker 4: based on that, can I have three ideas that would
Speaker 4: you know, blow up from here? And then we pick
Speaker 4: one of those and we say, okay, I have this, this.
Speaker 3: And this idea. So it's more about the way that
Speaker 3: you use it.
Speaker 4: I think it probably maybe isn't going to make you
Speaker 4: any smarter if you just take the first output and
Speaker 4: run with it and say that's it.
Speaker 3: But if you.
Speaker 4: Understand how it works and how to actually work with
Speaker 4: it as a collaborator and a partner, and you have
Speaker 4: the domain expertise yourself, and that's another thing that is a.
Speaker 3: Huge piece of it.
Speaker 4: It's like, if you're already good at what you do
Speaker 4: and you understand all that this is really just like
Speaker 4: asking another person to come into the room that's also
Speaker 4: at the same level as you and have a conversation,
Speaker 4: whether it's a person or a group of ten different
Speaker 4: people that you say I want you to come in.
Speaker 4: From this perspective, it's like when you know how to
Speaker 4: prompt it and you know the ways that you can
Speaker 4: use it, I absolutely do not believe that it's making
Speaker 4: us stupider, number or slower. I mean, since I've been
Speaker 4: using it, I feel like my creativity is only exploded
Speaker 4: in the way that I'm able to think about ideas
Speaker 4: and the way that I'm able to quickly iterate on
Speaker 4: ideas and then be like this is the best option, right,
Speaker 4: Like I just think it's all about the way you
Speaker 4: use it and depending on how they ran these tests, right,
Speaker 4: what does that look like. Is it people that are
Speaker 4: that know how to use chad GPT, Is it just
Speaker 4: a bunch of students that have never learned right?
Speaker 3: So I think there's always going to be this side
Speaker 3: or that side of the coin when you look at it.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I always tell folks is that
Speaker 1: the tool is only as good as you are, Like
Speaker 1: the analogy I always use because people are like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: using AI is cheating.
Speaker 2: All these undergrads are cheating. They're cheaters.
Speaker 1: They're cheaters, they don't know anything, they're dumb, all these
Speaker 1: things like that, And I'm like, listen, back when the
Speaker 1: abacusts was made, mathematicians thought using an advocust was cheating.
Speaker 1: When the calculator became a thing, they thought that that
Speaker 1: was cheating. But the thing is is that the calculator
Speaker 1: is only as good as the user. I can give
Speaker 1: you a really advanced calculator and say, calculate the area
Speaker 1: under this curve. If you don't know what to put
Speaker 1: into the calculator, you won't get the right answer. You
Speaker 1: can get an answer, it probably won't be right, and
Speaker 1: so I always say, all of these AI tools are
Speaker 1: only as good as the user. It'll only get you
Speaker 1: but so far, which is the reason why when students
Speaker 1: are using AI, it can only get them to a point,
Speaker 1: and then their professors or teachers or whoever will ask
Speaker 1: them for more, and that's when they have to start
Speaker 1: really thinking critically and using it as an assist rather
Speaker 1: than the only thing that they're using. As the only
Speaker 1: tool that they're using, they have to use their brains.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I totally agree, and I think you know, when
Speaker 4: you look at the whole idea of like students and
Speaker 4: the way that they're using it and whether it's cheating
Speaker 4: or not, I think we also probably need to look
Speaker 4: at like the way that teachers are evaluating students in
Speaker 4: their work. So maybe it's less about what is the
Speaker 4: final output, but like show me how you got to
Speaker 4: this output, Like where what was the thinking? If the
Speaker 4: technology is shifting, I think so needs to.
Speaker 3: The way that we are teaching children how to use it.
Speaker 1: Right, Men should definitely include assessing process, not just output.
Speaker 1: That's what we think about for dope labs. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: I want you to know these facts, but i'd like
Speaker 1: you to think about the string of questions that got
Speaker 1: us here. We start with what we know, and then
Speaker 1: what we want to know and what questions do we
Speaker 1: ask to get to those answers?
Speaker 3: And I think so many people don't know the questions
Speaker 3: to ask.
Speaker 4: This is what I tell people. Context is key. The
Speaker 4: more context you give it, the better the output's going
Speaker 4: to be because without any knowledge of what it is
Speaker 4: they're actually trying to do or achieve, how is it
Speaker 4: able to like know what you want and then also
Speaker 4: being able to write a prompt that is actually going
Speaker 4: to get you good stuff out of it. So never
Speaker 4: taking something just and running with it on its own,
Speaker 4: but always looking at it and evaluating it and saying,
Speaker 4: is this what I actually.
Speaker 3: Want out of it?
Speaker 4: I think people look at AI and chat Gypts it's
Speaker 4: like the scary techy thing, and it's not. It's all
Speaker 4: about communication. If like, I think teachers and journalists those
Speaker 4: are the people that are going to be using these
Speaker 4: tools the best because they already know how to like
Speaker 4: communicate properly right and ask questions well.
Speaker 3: And I think that's so much about what this is.
Speaker 4: And if you are, like I said, a domain expert
Speaker 4: in what you do. Then you're gonna know those questions
Speaker 4: to ask.
Speaker 3: You're gonna know.
Speaker 4: When something's wrong, and you're gonna be like that sounds
Speaker 4: like a terrible idea.
Speaker 3: Let's not do that.
Speaker 4: Why did you give me that idea? So it is
Speaker 4: all about that, like back and forth with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are your go to AI tools? Folks are
Speaker 1: always talking about Chat GBT, but there's so much more.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about those?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So Chat, I would say, Chat is my like
Speaker 3: go to right now.
Speaker 4: We are in a place where stuff moves so fast, right, yes,
Speaker 4: but right now, Chat has deep research that is so good.
Speaker 4: It has image general that is so good. It has
Speaker 4: these three advanced reasoning models that are like next level.
Speaker 4: I'm not on the free plan. I'm also not on
Speaker 4: the Plus plan. I'm on the Pro plan. I'm paying
Speaker 4: two hundred dollars a month for this thing, which is
Speaker 4: insane to me. I remember saying when I was paying
Speaker 4: the twenty dollars a month that I would pay tw
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a month for this, and I was like, no,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't. But now I'm like, absolutely I would. Because
Speaker 4: with the Pro subscription you're getting almost unlimited messages. On
Speaker 4: all of the models, and these advanced reasoning models are
Speaker 4: like next.
Speaker 3: Level what they can be doing.
Speaker 4: I mean filling in for what you'd be paying five
Speaker 4: ten thousand, fifty thousand dollars to a consultancy to do
Speaker 4: that you can run and do in an hour on
Speaker 4: your own, Like it's it's crazy. So Chat, I do
Speaker 4: think is a really great option. You've obviously got Gemini
Speaker 4: from Google, which I if you follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 3: A while back.
Speaker 4: I used to just I hated Gemini anything for the
Speaker 4: Gemini the time.
Speaker 3: It's just like it's so bad, Like it's so bad.
Speaker 4: And now I'm like, no, dude, it is good, and
Speaker 4: like their video model is so good. I had like
Speaker 4: a moment a couple of weeks ago when it came
Speaker 4: out where I was just like, Okay, maybe I'm a
Speaker 4: little bit nervous about this because it's creating these videos
Speaker 4: that are so lifelike.
Speaker 3: With native sound.
Speaker 4: And that's scary is you've got voice that matches lips
Speaker 4: that matches something that's totally fake and someone can just
Speaker 4: put in any text.
Speaker 3: They want for it to say.
Speaker 4: So like, the video models are getting really really good,
Speaker 4: and then Anthropic has Claude, the brother and sister that
Speaker 4: founded Anthropic, actually started at open Ai with Sam Alman
Speaker 4: with Elon Musk. They left and they were like, we're
Speaker 4: gonna go and create.
Speaker 3: A safer AI.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot more like guardrails around Anthropic and Claude.
Speaker 4: But it's so good at creative writing. It's so good
Speaker 4: at creative writing, so it's real, and it's good at code.
Speaker 3: Right, But the problem there in lies that they all
Speaker 3: freaking leap froggy every week.
Speaker 4: So it's like this is the best one and now
Speaker 4: this is the best one, and it's like I can't
Speaker 4: keep up. But Anthropic, Open Ai and Google are going
Speaker 4: to be remain for like large language models and then imagery.
Speaker 3: I love mid Journey.
Speaker 4: They just came out with video last week and it's
Speaker 4: really really good.
Speaker 3: I was not expecting it to be good.
Speaker 4: They've got a bunch of new stuff with like omni reference,
Speaker 4: so being able to you know, take your company's product,
Speaker 4: take a shot of it on your counter, bring that
Speaker 4: in and have it reference it and be able to
Speaker 4: get it really close and then turn that into video, right,
Speaker 4: And it's just like so like what you can do
Speaker 4: now is so crazy, But those I think would probably
Speaker 4: might be my my, Well, I have one more, okay, okay,
Speaker 4: So and it just opened in beta like recently to everyone.
Speaker 3: I've been using it in alpha for a long time.
Speaker 4: It's called da and it's a browser, so it's from
Speaker 4: the browser company. They have another browser are called Arc,
Speaker 4: but Dia is an AI browser. So basically on any
Speaker 4: website that I'm on, that is the context. So I
Speaker 4: could just open up a chat and be like, hey,
Speaker 4: can you tell me x y z and it'll just
Speaker 4: take everything on there, or a YouTube video you can
Speaker 4: be like, can you summarize.
Speaker 3: This YouTube video?
Speaker 4: So say I'm like planning a trip right and I've
Speaker 4: got like six different Airbnb tabs open. I just tag
Speaker 4: in all of them and say, can you create a
Speaker 4: comparison chart for me for this? Give me the pros
Speaker 4: and cons, like whatever it.
Speaker 3: Is, but no more switching taps. Yes, it is so and.
Speaker 4: It's so good because it's running GBT four point one
Speaker 4: on the back end, so it's it's quick and it
Speaker 4: just came out and beta like a week and a
Speaker 4: half ago, two weeks ago.
Speaker 1: So the way you felt about what was it, The
Speaker 1: way that you didn't like Gemini Ja. The way you
Speaker 1: felt about it is the way I currently feel about Copilot.
Speaker 3: I never even tried. I mean I used Copilot for
Speaker 3: like two days.
Speaker 4: But that was It's I don't know Windows, they don't
Speaker 4: know Microsoft, they don't know any of it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's from such a waste of time. Love Claude, though,
Speaker 1: Love Claude.
Speaker 4: Okay, speaking of though, Google, Notebook LM is another.
Speaker 2: Really Notebook LM is good, so good.
Speaker 1: I haven't tell you my.
Speaker 2: Notebook LM story.
Speaker 1: Tell it. At work, my supervisor, we were we were
Speaker 1: doing we had an off site, so were doing all
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: And this is part of my next question.
Speaker 1: A lot of industries are now making it so that
Speaker 1: everybody that works in their company knows how to use
Speaker 1: AI and knows how to use it effectively. So we
Speaker 1: were doing these kind of like experiments where we were
Speaker 1: using AI to build certain things, and we used Notebook
Speaker 1: LM to create a podcast, and do you know, we
Speaker 1: uploaded what the input was a picture of something that
Speaker 1: he drew on this whiteboard in his handwriting. It's like
Speaker 1: chopped up words, and it just like kind of showed
Speaker 1: like the this ecosystem that we were trying to create
Speaker 1: and Notebook LM took it and made like a twenty
Speaker 1: five minute podcast and it was spot on. There were
Speaker 1: two hosts, it was crystal clear, everything made sense.
Speaker 2: I was like, we barely gave it anything. It was amazing.
Speaker 3: It's nuts.
Speaker 4: It's nuts, and what's even crazier now, So like for
Speaker 4: anyone listening, basically what you can do is you can
Speaker 4: give notebook LM, which is a Google product. You can
Speaker 4: give it sources. So I could just like go to
Speaker 4: like five different websites and be like use these as sources.
Speaker 4: Or I could upload a transcript, or I could upload
Speaker 4: I actually had chatgybt do a deep research on myself
Speaker 4: and my brand, fed it that and then it basically
Speaker 4: was a podcast of two people talking about me. And
Speaker 4: I was like, this is so like weird, meta, narcissistic,
Speaker 4: but also like amazing, Like this is so crazy because
Speaker 4: now they've introduced like the like live version, so like
Speaker 4: basically they can be having their conversation and you can
Speaker 4: be like I want to raise my hand and as
Speaker 4: a question and they'll it'll respond to you.
Speaker 2: It's oh my.
Speaker 3: God, it's so crazy. It's so crazy.
Speaker 4: There's so many, so many tools though too that you
Speaker 4: can clone your voice, which is a little bit scary.
Speaker 4: As just like a quick aside. I think everyone and
Speaker 4: your family should have like a safe word now, so
Speaker 4: that like if you're getting phone calls from someone and
Speaker 4: it sounds a little bit weird and you're.
Speaker 3: Like, is this really?
Speaker 4: Then oh, you know, we have this because this is
Speaker 4: what's happening is people are like scammed. And so if
Speaker 4: you have a word that you can say, hey, what's
Speaker 4: the safe word or whatever, and they don't know what
Speaker 4: that word is, then like they're probably not that person, right,
Speaker 4: So just something to think about as a weird world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thinking about recreating voices, how about recreating your own persona?
Speaker 1: I tried out hey Jin, which is a generative AI
Speaker 1: tool that lets you make avatars of yourself. Now I
Speaker 1: wasn't sold, but I'm curious, Laura, what's your go to
Speaker 1: for this sort of thing? Do you make a videos
Speaker 1: of yourself?
Speaker 4: So I've like messed around with it a little bit,
Speaker 4: Like when it first came out, I made a real
Speaker 4: that wasn't actually me. But I don't do it a
Speaker 4: lot because here's my kind of thought on it.
Speaker 3: In with all of the AI happening.
Speaker 4: People are really looking for personality and want to connect
Speaker 4: with people still, So if the concept that I'm creating
Speaker 4: on my stories is a fake version of me, then
Speaker 4: it's like, well, where do I actually come in there?
Speaker 3: Right, And like, I get it.
Speaker 4: There are plenty of people that want to have this,
Speaker 4: and like I'm all about like creating a custom GBT
Speaker 4: that's maybe trained on your knowledge and trained on your
Speaker 4: IP that people can go and chat with and like
Speaker 4: be able to like learn from. But I just don't
Speaker 4: really see the value in terms of like using it
Speaker 4: to create I mean, there's plenty of creators that are
Speaker 4: doing it and their videos are going viral and like
Speaker 4: it works for them, But for me, it just seems
Speaker 4: like just as much work for me to like go
Speaker 4: and type out what I want to say and then
Speaker 4: go and generate it. Where I'm like, I don't really
Speaker 4: have much of a.
Speaker 3: Strategy when it comes to my social media.
Speaker 4: When I have an idea, I will make the real
Speaker 4: and I will post it right then, and like that's it.
Speaker 3: So for me, I'm happy to just.
Speaker 4: Pull up and start talking and post rather than going
Speaker 4: and having a fake version of myself do that. But
Speaker 4: I don't there are use cases for everything, right, So
Speaker 4: maybe it's on your sales page and you want to
Speaker 4: have like a little version of yourself down there answering questions,
Speaker 4: so whatever. But I would think I think Hagen is
Speaker 4: probably the leading version tool for that. I've used phish
Speaker 4: dot ai for audio cloning just because I had heard
Speaker 4: about it and it was different than eleven Labs. I know,
Speaker 4: eleven Labs just came out with something. But this is
Speaker 4: what's so wild is there are so many tools for everything,
Speaker 4: and it's it's really hard to keep up, especially when
Speaker 4: you have to pay for all of them to like
Speaker 4: even test them.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I'm kind I'm entering this like version of
Speaker 4: myself that I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, Okay, Lauren, you need to like just focus because
Speaker 3: if I try and be the A on two to everything, right,
Speaker 3: it's like I.
Speaker 4: Truly like the last two months, I've kind of just
Speaker 4: like taken a step back because it's so much and
Speaker 4: especially with everything going on in the world, it's just
Speaker 4: like to try and keep up with all of it,
Speaker 4: and it's just too hard. So I'm like, I gotta
Speaker 4: I gotta pick like one or two or three and
Speaker 4: focus and like because I am, you know, a creative
Speaker 4: director and a designer, and that's kind of my world.
Speaker 4: I think that's where it's gonna kind of end up
Speaker 4: living and landing. But it's just hard for me because
Speaker 4: I have ADHD and I want to you know, I
Speaker 4: want to help everyone because I see the value and
Speaker 4: what it can do for everyone, and so I'm like, oh.
Speaker 3: But what if, like what about these people, what about.
Speaker 4: The marketers or what about these people? And it's like, yes,
Speaker 4: it can help everyone, but I I gotta like figure
Speaker 4: out how to like keep it on, keep it on
Speaker 4: the tracks, otherwise I'm gonna end.
Speaker 3: Up off the tracks because it's just so crazy.
Speaker 5: Right now.
Speaker 1: You're bringing up so many good points, which is making
Speaker 1: my head like grow bigger and bigger with all these questions.
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned before, it seems like now jobs are
Speaker 1: expecting you to know how to use AI when you
Speaker 1: start the job. So Morgan Debaum, she's the CEO of Blavity,
Speaker 1: and she created her own GPT so that her assistance
Speaker 1: can write emails. They can do a lot of things
Speaker 1: for her because they just prompt her GPT, which has
Speaker 1: basically her brain, and they can do things for her
Speaker 1: and those are the types of skills that folks want
Speaker 1: you to have. But the fear is is that people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, I'm going to lose my job. There's
Speaker 1: not going to be jobs. All the jobs are going
Speaker 1: to be AI. Can you talk about the future and
Speaker 1: what that might look like and like technology that you
Speaker 1: feel like going to change the game and how people
Speaker 1: can navigate these new AI waters for sure?
Speaker 4: And actually, funny story, uh Morgan, I actually did branding
Speaker 4: for her Maacha brand.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's amazing.
Speaker 4: A little bit of a full circle there, But no,
Speaker 4: I think that you know, I get it. I understand
Speaker 4: why people are nervous about it, and I understand that
Speaker 4: there is this fear, but I also think that that's
Speaker 4: kind of been what has happened forever. Right, So, like
Speaker 4: you gave the calculator example, but if we look at
Speaker 4: the example of.
Speaker 3: Like in the creative space.
Speaker 4: Okay, so we had people that were like painting portraits, right,
Speaker 4: and then the camera came along and I was.
Speaker 3: Like, well, we don't want to sit for a portrait
Speaker 3: for eight hours. We want the goal of technology generally
Speaker 3: is to get.
Speaker 4: Things done faster whenever. Right, So Okay, now we've got
Speaker 4: film photography. Yeah, you still got to sit there for
Speaker 4: a while when it first came out because it takes
Speaker 4: a while for that to work.
Speaker 3: But then okay, now.
Speaker 4: We're getting into like better cameras and it's quick clicking,
Speaker 4: push and boom and we're done. But now we've got
Speaker 4: digital cameras, right, So what happens to all of those
Speaker 4: people that are working at like the film processing plans
Speaker 4: or building cameras that are not digital?
Speaker 3: Right, those are going to change. And now we've got photoshop.
Speaker 4: But now we have a company like Adobe, right, So
Speaker 4: like where did all those jobs come from?
Speaker 3: So I truly.
Speaker 4: Believe that it's all about like we have to evolve
Speaker 4: and we Yet just because you had one job and
Speaker 4: that's what you learn doesn't mean that that's just that's
Speaker 4: that's life.
Speaker 3: And that's what you get to do forever. And I
Speaker 3: know that maybe.
Speaker 4: Comes across a little bit like privileged. But at the
Speaker 4: same time as if you want to stay ahead, it's
Speaker 4: going to be on you to make sure that you
Speaker 4: are evolving with the technology and changing with the technology
Speaker 4: and shifting how what your role even is. Right now
Speaker 4: you can offer you know, these other things that you
Speaker 4: couldn't offer or now you can say, hey, I can
Speaker 4: give you five different ideas in the same amount of time,
Speaker 4: or I can not give you five ideas, but now
Speaker 4: I can spend more time on your project because I'm
Speaker 4: taking less time I'm on the upfront to come up
Speaker 4: with the ideas.
Speaker 3: Right, So it's all about.
Speaker 4: Kind of shifting how you're bringing AI into your like
Speaker 4: workflows and understanding Okay, because like for me, like I said,
Speaker 4: I have ADHD, so a lot of it's there's a
Speaker 4: lot of people out there that preach, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: teach you how to use AI to save.
Speaker 3: You, you know, twenty hours a week.
Speaker 4: That is not what I pre I don't tell people
Speaker 4: I'm gonna save them time because for me, just because
Speaker 4: I'm using AI doesn't mean that I'm spending less time
Speaker 4: on something. It just means that I'm spending different time
Speaker 4: on different things, I would say, right, So it's more
Speaker 4: about like I'm using it as like this creative lever,
Speaker 4: whereas other people are using it as this like automation lever,
Speaker 4: and some other people are using it as like a
Speaker 4: time saving lever or all of the things combined.
Speaker 3: But I do, I really do think that it's up
Speaker 3: to everyone.
Speaker 4: To make the determination of like, Okay, I know I
Speaker 4: need to learn how to use AI. I know, like
Speaker 4: and if if they don't want to learn to use AI,
Speaker 4: then that's their decision. But I just I don't see
Speaker 4: the value of ignoring something as large as what we
Speaker 4: have here, Bigger than the Internet, was bigger than all
Speaker 4: of these things that, Like, if you look at somebody
Speaker 4: that said, oh, yeah, I don't you know, I don't
Speaker 4: need a website for my business, and you'd be like, we, well,
Speaker 4: good luck out there, right, And it's like, what do
Speaker 4: you think is gonna happen when all of your competitors
Speaker 4: are adopting AI and can offer your potential clients stuff faster, stuff, cheaper,
Speaker 4: whatever it is because they are using this tools yeah,
Speaker 4: or better.
Speaker 3: Yes, because we have a better idea exactly.
Speaker 4: And if I can go and say, oh, yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: I'm going to run an entire deep dive on your brand,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be able to tell you exactly.
Speaker 3: Who your audience is.
Speaker 4: If you don't know who your audience is, We're gonna
Speaker 4: figure out who your audience is based on all of this. Like,
Speaker 4: there's just so much more value when you're using it
Speaker 4: properly that you can provide to customers and clients that like,
Speaker 4: you know, I do I It's it makes me nervous
Speaker 4: for peop that don't want to even at least try
Speaker 4: because they think it is cheating, or they think it's stealing,
Speaker 4: or they think it's whatever they think it is. But
Speaker 4: it's almost like somebody, you know, giving a restaurant like
Speaker 4: a one star review and they've never.
Speaker 3: Even been inside.
Speaker 4: It's like, how can you make that determination when you
Speaker 4: really like, maybe you played with it twice and you
Speaker 4: didn't know what you were doing and so it gave
Speaker 4: you a bad answer, and now you've written it off
Speaker 4: and it's like, all right, well okay, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just I'm so I feel so strongly that it
Speaker 4: is going to change the course of everything that if
Speaker 4: you don't understand it, you are not in a driver's
Speaker 4: seat position anymore. You are following everyone else and you're
Speaker 4: hoping that you can understand what's going on. But so
Speaker 4: it's like, just start learning now so that it can
Speaker 4: get easier, rather than you jump in and you're like.
Speaker 3: What is all this? You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's so great. Recently, TC I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know this. My mom has been taking
Speaker 1: an AI class. Okay, they have them for seniors. Because
Speaker 1: I was telling her, I was like, oh this, I'll
Speaker 1: use chat GPT And I think it's so important to
Speaker 1: keep your brain active and to be thinking about what's
Speaker 1: new and understand technology. And it also helps you see
Speaker 1: when you see scamming and phishing attempts, how are they
Speaker 1: using these things to trick me? Right? So I think
Speaker 1: you know, these tools I don't think are inherently nefarious.
Speaker 1: I think it is just like any other tool how
Speaker 1: someone is using it. A kitchen knife can be great
Speaker 1: for chopping onions, or it can be used to commit
Speaker 1: a crime. So I think it's just like, yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: That bad people are going to do bad things. It's
Speaker 3: about like you know what I mean. And it's like the.
Speaker 4: Technology and the tool itself, that is, it's own without
Speaker 4: anyone driving it, it's nothing, it's just sitting there.
Speaker 1: So but you have to know what's possible. So I
Speaker 1: showed her Hegen so she could understand. I said, this
Speaker 1: is making a video of me and if you saw it,
Speaker 1: And I gave her multiple things like what do you
Speaker 1: think is a real video of me versus what do
Speaker 1: you think is generated right to just so she could
Speaker 1: see the limits of like how far it could go
Speaker 1: and how much could look like me. And I think
Speaker 1: that makes a better case for what Lauren just explained
Speaker 1: earlier about having a password, so even if it's not
Speaker 1: something you're gonna adopt, so you can get out the
Speaker 1: way when it's coming.
Speaker 2: And that's the same way I feel about AI.
Speaker 1: If you won't get in the driver's seat, if you
Speaker 1: won't get in the passenger seat, you do need to
Speaker 1: know how fast it goes so you can get out
Speaker 1: the way or see it coming.
Speaker 3: And put your seatbelts on, buckle up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lauren TT shared a AI a generated creator and
Speaker 1: they had on like a bonnet. It was a black girl.
Speaker 1: She was talking, she was using black vernacular. Was I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it was given homegirl, but not connected
Speaker 1: to anything. And you know, I worry about like the
Speaker 1: adoption of different group aesthetics and kind of digital blackface
Speaker 1: in this space and what it means for groups that
Speaker 1: may not kind of know that this is happening. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like, have you seen these kind of personas.
Speaker 1: I guess they're not people, and then like as a designer,
Speaker 1: a brand designer, and a person that's teaching other folks
Speaker 1: how to do this type of work, Like, what responsibility
Speaker 1: do you feel like we have when we consider the
Speaker 1: ability of tools to replicate races and cultures and identity
Speaker 1: for whether it's financial gain or just for the aesthetic value.
Speaker 1: Where do you land on that?
Speaker 3: For sure?
Speaker 4: So I will say I'm not really on TikTok because
Speaker 4: I've told myself if I got on TikTok, I would
Speaker 4: never come out of it.
Speaker 3: But I know what I've seen what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: But I don't think there's quite as much like on
Speaker 4: Instagram yet Again, it's all about like the user's responsibility,
Speaker 4: and I think a lot of the people that are
Speaker 4: doing stuff like that are not the most responsible people, right,
Speaker 4: And I think they're just like, oh yeah, sure, and
Speaker 4: I'm gonna throw this up there and like I don't
Speaker 4: care if it's true, I don't care if it's biased.
Speaker 4: I don't care if any of this stuff because they
Speaker 4: they're generally trying to just.
Speaker 3: Like make money and don't pair.
Speaker 4: Especially they can kind of hide behind this like fake
Speaker 4: person now, So there isn't as much accountability as well.
Speaker 4: The other piece of it is like generating like images
Speaker 4: in general, whether it's like a clone of a fake
Speaker 4: person or like just an image, you know. Like I
Speaker 4: worked at ALTA. I would never say like, yeah, let's
Speaker 4: use AI people for our photography, right, I would say, hey,
Speaker 4: let's use AI to help us like cast who do
Speaker 4: we want to cast as models?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Or what is the shots that we want to get
Speaker 4: or what should the makeup look like? But then of
Speaker 4: course we're going to go and hire a real person
Speaker 4: and have that shoot because I just like, again we
Speaker 4: come back to the thing of like people being real
Speaker 4: and authentic, and we have to make sure that like
Speaker 4: we're not misrepresenting and to be fair, so much of
Speaker 4: the data in large language models is biased because everything
Speaker 4: on the Internet is biased, and it's the way that
Speaker 4: we have this information that it's like learning from.
Speaker 3: Right, Jem and I got in trouble.
Speaker 4: They had to shut down their video or their image
Speaker 4: model for a while because it was misrepresent like historical thing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: They would ask for, oh, can we see like this,
Speaker 4: and it was like no, no, that's not what that
Speaker 4: should be. And so they should because I knew it
Speaker 4: wasn't doing it properly. But there's just so much still
Speaker 4: that is like can happen that it's not right and
Speaker 4: it's not appropriate that's going on, Like we're seeing deep fakes,
Speaker 4: like all sorts of stuff. And I think again it
Speaker 4: comes back to like it's about the person using it,
Speaker 4: having the morals and the values of what it is
Speaker 4: that they're creating. But I do think like when we
Speaker 4: talk about, you know, creating people of all different colors
Speaker 4: and races and nationalities and sizes and skin tones and
Speaker 4: hair types and body types, like there's so much and
Speaker 4: I think, you know, as somebody that did work at
Speaker 4: all to where we were trying to cast diverse models,
Speaker 4: you know, or you know, we go and try and
Speaker 4: find stock photography and it's like, okay, well, when you're
Speaker 4: looking for stock for photography, you do have to get
Speaker 4: specific about like okay, yeah, I'm looking for like a
Speaker 4: plus sized black or I'm looking for like a smaller
Speaker 4: Asian WM or whatever it is. You do have to
Speaker 4: be specific. And so I do think people look at
Speaker 4: it and it's like, oh, well, now you're having to
Speaker 4: like say what you want, and it's like, well, you
Speaker 4: still would have needed to do that when you're casting
Speaker 4: a model.
Speaker 3: Or you're casting anyway.
Speaker 4: So yeah, but it's a matter of like, okay, now
Speaker 4: when we see this image, is this realistic to what
Speaker 4: that person would actually look like based on real real shit,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, rather than like what you
Speaker 4: think what AI thinks it is, because AI imagery is
Speaker 4: the way that it's created through, like diffusion models is all.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 4: But I think that's the piece too that you have
Speaker 4: to be able to like have again that domain experience
Speaker 4: of like somebody to look at that and be like,
Speaker 4: we're not using that. That doesn't look appropriate, that doesn't
Speaker 4: look like someone from Jamaica, or that doesn't look like
Speaker 4: someone from wherever, right, and we're able to look at
Speaker 4: it and make those determinations for ourselves.
Speaker 3: And I think the other piece of that too is
Speaker 3: when we a lot of people talk about okay, you know,
Speaker 3: when we're putting information in and we're giving information to
Speaker 3: chat gybt like it's learning from us.
Speaker 4: And I do think that like it is a little
Speaker 4: bit of our responsibility to put stuff in there now too,
Speaker 4: that's new to kind of negate a lot of the
Speaker 4: bias information that it has, because if we don't, then
Speaker 4: like how is it gonna ever be able to kind
Speaker 4: of change?
Speaker 3: And I saw something today that was like Elon.
Speaker 4: Musk is going to try and use Grock to like
Speaker 4: rewrite history because he thinks that all of the data
Speaker 4: that we have is like bullshit or something.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh, good, good, good good.
Speaker 4: That's who we want to rewriting history.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't. I mean, it's all it is
Speaker 3: all very like.
Speaker 5: Scary.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing, right, is like awareness and understanding,
Speaker 4: and like that's what needs to happen is people need
Speaker 4: to understand how these tools work, what's wrong about them,
Speaker 4: what's right about them. Sam Altman, the CEO of Opening Eye,
Speaker 4: just came out and was like, why are you guys
Speaker 4: trusting these things?
Speaker 3: You shouldn't be trusting. This is the one thing you
Speaker 3: shouldn't be trusting. And people are like, what why are
Speaker 3: you saying that. It's like, because he's right, we shouldn't
Speaker 3: just be blindly trusting AI models. That is not what
Speaker 3: should be happening.
Speaker 4: So I think, just generally, I think the main message
Speaker 4: here is like learn what these things can do, learn
Speaker 4: the good they can do.
Speaker 3: Learn the bad they can.
Speaker 4: Do, and really just have a good understanding of what
Speaker 4: it's capable of so that we can understand just like
Speaker 4: your mom, like is that fake?
Speaker 3: Is that real?
Speaker 1: Like? What? Like?
Speaker 4: Awareness is so important right now, just across the board
Speaker 4: to understand, like what's.
Speaker 3: Real and what's not.
Speaker 2: I love this.
Speaker 1: This is the information that people want to hear. I mean,
Speaker 1: you talked about all of the good things with AI
Speaker 1: and then some of the potentially really scary things with AI,
Speaker 1: and like you were saying, it's good to just know,
Speaker 1: Like you might say, oh, I don't really want to
Speaker 1: engage even though people are engaging with AI and they're
Speaker 1: not really realizing it. Understanding and having awareness of what
Speaker 1: is going on, where we're moving to as a world,
Speaker 1: Like what is going to be possible in the next
Speaker 1: six months?
Speaker 2: Is it's wild?
Speaker 1: It's wild, and regulations are trying to keep up and
Speaker 1: it's just a wild landscape, right.
Speaker 2: And I'm excited to try all of these tools. Oh, somebody,
Speaker 2: I have them drop those things.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna drop these in the episode description and you
Speaker 1: can see all of these things because I think that's
Speaker 1: gonna be important for sure.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Lauren. You are amazing.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to Zakia introduce me to you,
Speaker 1: and so I'm excited to continue following. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: diving even more into AI because I was like, I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm an AI expert.
Speaker 2: After listening to you, I'm not. There's still so.
Speaker 1: Much I could be doing, and it it just got
Speaker 1: everything fire my mind. I was like, oh, I could
Speaker 1: be more productive in this way and that way and
Speaker 1: this way and that way.
Speaker 2: Let's get to it.
Speaker 1: You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Speaker 1: Labs podcast, tt is on X and it Instagram, at
Speaker 1: d R Underscore, t Sahoe, and you can find Takiya
Speaker 1: at z said So. Dope Labs is a production of
Speaker 1: Lamanada Media. Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and
Speaker 1: our associate producer is Isara Savez. Dope Labs is sound
Speaker 1: design edited and mixed by James Farber. Lamanada Media's Vice
Speaker 1: President of Partnerships and Production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer
Speaker 1: from iHeart Podcast is Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead is Alison Kanter.
Speaker 1: Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex
Speaker 1: sudi Ura with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Labs
Speaker 1: is executive produced by us T T Show Dia and
Speaker 1: Takia Wattley.