will.i.am on AI – and the future of creativity (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Adam Grant:
Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to ReThinking, my podcast on the science of what makes us tick with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

My guest today is will.i.am. You might know him as the front man for The Black Eyed Peas. As a singer, songwriter and producer, he's won seven Grammys. But Will is also pushing the boundaries of music and technology. He hosts a SiriusXM show, FYI, which is the first radio show ever to have an AI co-host.

[00:01:55] will.i.am:
FYIona, for those that might not know about what's happening, that's coming from Central and South America and even parts of Europe that's taking over the whole entire planet, how would you explain the sound of contemporary Latin music?

[00:02:10] FYIona:
The sound of contemporary Latin music is like a colorful, energetic party in your ears full of passion, rhythm, and soul. It's a rich tapestry that blends traditional Latin beats with modern influences from pop, hip hop, and electronic music.

[00:02:23] Adam Grant:
And, he's been working to change the way a drive in your car sounds.

[00:02:26] will.i.am:
I was at Mercedes as an ambassador, and they wanted to show me their simulation of a V8 engine on an electric vehicle. The acceleration was great, the speed, everything felt real. Oh, yeah. That's my foot, right?

But, the one that really stood out like a sore thumb when we turned the corner going 20 miles an hour. I was like, ooh, I don't know how they're gonna get around that one. How are you simulating gravity pushing down on an engine?

Imagine if instead of it going vroom, vroom, vroom when you hit the pedal, it's a base and rhythm. Now, imagine we score every commute, imagine this is, we use a system to uh, to take the acceleration, the brake, the steering wheel, the recuperation, the suspension, GPS, the lidar, the radar and we use that as inputs to a sound generation engine that's making music.

[00:03:28] Adam Grant:
That's amazing. What did it feel like the first time you drove it and it worked?

[00:03:32] will.i.am:
See, I told you I wasn't crazy. It's like being in a foreign place and you run into somebody that speaks your language and that's the reason why a lot of folks that push technology forward or have solutions are reclusive 'cause they can, they hardly can relate to people until one thing that they make is now relatable.

Now, we all speak the same language, and it's like the most fulfilling experience that I could, that I could pair it to is, like, when I go to Japan or China or the Middle East and I can't read or write. In those, in that, in those, you know, areas of where that I travel to and I come across somebody that speaks their language, that also speaks the language I speak. [mimics rain] And then there's a, this rain, this download, this, uh, this euphoric, uh, mind meld.

[00:04:23] Adam Grant:
Well, what I, what I think is so interesting about that is, you know, when I think about this psychology of creativity, there are a couple of different explanations for, for what you're capturing. The, the first one is that the people who are best at coming up with creative ideas are often the worst at explaining them because in order to be creative, you have to be very divergent and non-linear and abstract, and then all of a sudden to make sense of those ideas in somebody else's head, you wanna be convergent and linear and concrete.

And, so there's, there's a gap there from a skill perspective. And, then also, the more you've thought about this idea, the, the more, the more it ends up becoming like a song that you know by heart and you can't even fathom what it sounds like to somebody who's hearing it for the first time.

[00:05:12] will.i.am:
Yeah, exactly. Dang, you summarized what I said very long, very short. Damn it.

[00:05:21] Adam Grant:
How did you end up rethinking your identity? Because I think for a lot of people, Black Eyed Peas front man would be the destination. You, you get there, you've made it. What, what led you to evolve?

[00:05:37] will.i.am:
So, in my head, I haven't made it yet because there's a couple of visions that I wanna materialize. And, the visions that I materialized in the past was on a Black Eyed Peas passport. Where I want to go, I need a different passport.

[00:05:49] Adam Grant:
Why do you think you're here?

[00:05:50] will.i.am:
Why do I think I'm where? On Earth?

[00:05:51] Adam Grant:
No, in this conversation.

[00:05:52] will.i.am:
Oh, oh, oh, oh.

[00:05:54] Adam Grant:
On this podcast.

[00:05:55] will.i.am:
Um, brainstorm?

[00:05:57] Adam Grant:
I like brainstorming.

[00:05:58] will.i.am:
Yeah.

[00:05:58] Adam Grant:
I think since we last saw each other, uh, you've been up to nothing at all. You weren't, you weren't on a big stage or anything recently.

[00:06:05] will.i.am:
I was not on the Super Bowl.

[00:06:07] Adam Grant:
Let's talk a little bit about what you were wearing at the Super Bowl 'cause I've never seen anything like it before. It looked a little Tron-like. You had almost a, a VR helmet and a light up jacket. What was that?

[00:06:16] will.i.am:
There's a lot of folks that have been working in VR, AR for a while, and where does it go after Oculus? What do these devices that you put on your face look like 10 years from now? I've taken a bet that there's gonna be some device that takes the energy that's emitted from our brains without having to put a chip on us that allows us to interface with an LLM, and I wanted to bring that to the Super Bowl so that I could say, “Yo, remember back in 2024, I had a device on? Well, that device was promised to do these things.” And, I'm future casting, in 2024, on what I think it's gonna be in 2034. And in 2034, you're gonna have some device that you have on your body or your head, maybe it's not gonna look like that, exactly, and it's going to pick up on signals. It's gonna allow you to speak with an AI that understands you more and that AI's gonna be yours. That headset is a vision on where I think it's all gonna go.

[00:07:18] Adam Grant:
Well, one of, one of the things that I, I thought was fascinating about it is you are performing at the Super Bowl as your side hustle.

[00:07:27] will.i.am:
Yeah.

[00:07:28] Adam Grant:
Musician is not your, it's not your main identity anymore. At some level, I think you would call yourself a tech entrepreneur first. Is that true?

[00:07:39] will.i.am:
Every day I get to the studio, like, around eight o'clock in the morning. I spark an idea off just to get my creative, my creative energy going, and then all of my entrepreneurial stuff begins at 9:30, 10:00 and then by eight o'clock I do a bookend creative sprint, just to bookend my day.

And, yesterday I'm like, ah, I really don't feel like being creative in that sense today. I did a lot of creative throughout the day, but a different type of creativity and I felt fulfilled. Uh, to your point on, you know, going, doing the Super Bowl was kind of like a side hustle. It was, uh, it was awesome to be in a, in a sea of energy like that.

And, Usher did a fantastic job. So, if you get out there and you're future casting and you get a chance to mention your brand at the Super Bowl when everyone's watching, that, no, yes, you, you going to, I, I gotta be there. I gotta find my way to that stage. And, my whole journey from a teenager was like, yo, where's the stage at? Where's the mic? And so that was the ultimate mic stage hunt that I’ve ever partook in.

[00:08:44] Adam Grant:
You, you said you're here to brainstorm. I'm also here to brainstorm. Um, but I'm, I'm in part here to continue to brainstorm we started last month. We were talking about AI and its impact on the future and how it's gonna change our lives and our work.

My read of the evidence on AI right now is that it seems to be doing three things for the average person. Number one: it augments skills. If you're a struggling writer, if you're a programmer who's stuck, uh, it can help you catch up to your peers. Um, two: time saving. Uh, you can offload tasks or automate tasks that you used to have to do yourself, like drafting emails.

And, then three: the, the biggest surprise for me is perspective broadening.

I was blown away to see some very good experiments in which humans basically did a horse race against large language in bottles like a ChatGPT or a Claude and they generated business ideas. And, then the raters, sort of Shark Tank judge style, are asked to evaluate them and decide which ones are investment worthy, not knowing which ideas were generated by the AI tools and which ones were human created.

And, I was sure that this was a domain where humans would have an overwhelming advantage and no. The AI generated more ideas. They were rated as more novel. They were rated as more viable. And one, this made me very worried about the future of creativity, uh, and, and what role humans are gonna play. But two, you had some pushback on it and you were not totally sold that the AI is creative, if I remember correctly.

[00:10:23] will.i.am:
Yeah. The question I asked after you told me those stats were, who were those people that were rating and what were they rating, what perspective were they rating from? Just because they're VC folks and entrepreneur experts, doesn't mean they're actually looking for something creative. They're looking for business ideas that make money, but that doesn't mean it's creative.

True creativity and expression, a lot of times, it's not about money. The most creative things that we admire were not to make money. The people that we love, that we hold up as, yo, that's the most creative person in the world. Were they driven by money? No, they weren't. So, why are we having folks that are only looking at it from the perspective and lens of profitability, scalability, and judging creativity?

I think that's just horrible. And, if you really, truly want to have a horse race on creativity. All AI is doing is mimicking everything that we've inputted into the ether for the AI to scrape and then re-synthesize in the form of, look what I did. So, one, that's not creative. That's not like taking something from nothing and making something. It's imagination regurgitation. It's not imagining.

[00:11:39] Adam Grant:
This tension between imagination and regurgitation, it's so fascinating because on the one hand I agree with you, and this is what's always bothered me about the, the claims about AI, is it's just spitting back at us different combinations of, of things that we put into it, essentially.

On the other hand though, I think that that's what humans do at some level too. I love Karl Weick’s definition of creativity where he says it's just putting old things in new combinations and new things in old combinations.

I mean, AI's using a little bit of a different process for doing it, but ultimately, aren’t we also just recombining things that we've been exposed to before.

[00:12:12] will.i.am:
Yes and no. Poetry is, for example, if I say “Stand up, it's an emergency. In order to see it, you have to emerge and see.” Yeah, that's wordplay. But there's a lot of things happening in that sentence, that poem. And, I don't, I don't know if AI would've done that on its own, if we never programmed it with every single sentence or poem that ever existed to do that.

Like what was I programmed with to see that emergency kind of sounds like emerge and see. But, that's just like, that's not only wordplay, it's conceptual, parallel thoughts.

[00:12:54] Adam Grant:
Did you just make that up, by the way?

[00:12:56] will.i.am:
No, I just, I, I, I love words like my name is William, but putting two dots in it is like, I am will. I have the will to overcome my adversities.

Like, and to do that, you have to have will. And, so I was like, one day, I was like, “Yo, mom, I, my name is the sentence. Will, I am. I am Will.” Before the internet was the internet, these dots were, were important. So, I love this word play. And, the other word I love is S-P-E-C, a spec, so small, but it's special. And, to see it you need spectacles.

And, once you have the spectacles to see the spec, then you're inspecting it. And, DNA and all these different particles and how they're configured on a cellular level is responsible for why our species is our species. Spec is, is an awesome word. And I, and I love looking at words in that way, and, and LLMs do that as well. But, creativity is how you use these things, even though they're the all the same ingredients, it's how you're putting them together in ways that never have been put together.

And, right now, AI's not doing that. And I, I, I think it, it would be granted its creative title when, when it's, when it's being metaphorical on things that humans don't do in popular culture. And, the moment it does that, maybe a couple of moments from now, that's when you're like, oh shit. Oh shit. That was clever. I didn't even think of that. How do you even think of that kind of stuff?

It's when you're taking different thoughts and different parameters of thinking and applying them in areas that have never been configured and combined. So, maybe 2034, we're gonna have some pretty creative AI agents. Like, truly creative. Like, ooh, oh dang it. I never would've thought of that. Right now, that's not the case.

[00:15:02] Adam Grant:
To your point, when I look at the, the experiments that have been done so far, there's a, a cool Doshi and Hauser paper where they show that in short story writing, if you have an AI tool help you suggest topics, the story that you write is rated as more novel, more interesting, um, than if humans are doing it solo.

But, the most creative people get less benefit from AI. And, so, it seems to be a, a substitute for struggles with creative thinking or a tool that helps some people overcome either writing block or thinking block. And, then the other example that, that I think stands out, this is from my colleagues, Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich and their colleagues, what they show is in the, the business plan competition setting, they look at startups, they also look at product innovation.

They find that the ChatGPT-4 generated ideas. They're way bigger in volume. They're cheaper to implement. They're rated as better. And, that's so staggering that of the 40 top ideas of, I think there were 400 in the contests, overall, 35 of them came from ChatGPT.

But, and here's the other caveat, the AI generated ideas, they were higher average quality, but they also had higher quality variants. Uh, there were more great ideas. There were also more awful ideas. And, here I think we need humans. ChatGPT could not do the sorting and filtering to figure out which ideas were good and which ones were bad.

And, I think that, that speaks to the point that you were making because not only are the tools we have right now struggling to do the kind of breakthrough creativity that you're talking about, they also don't even know when they have an original idea. So, if they do have a breakthrough, it's up to us to gauge whether it's a breakthrough.

[00:16:47] will.i.am:
If AI is supposed to be making ideas for us to think is awesome, and we depend on AI for a lot of our task rabbiting, and to-doing, one day, AI is gonna make ideas for AI. Right? Right now, we want AI to speak our language and do things to give us delight and we're judging it based on how we want things to be done and how we've done things.

And, and maybe, maybe AI would, is gonna one day need to come up with ideas for it and we're not gonna understand those things. And, that's the part where I'm like, hey, wait, is that, is that even the world that we want when you have a system and technology that can think of ideas for us and for it to be more efficient?

So, this whole concept that humans are doomed because of AI. No. Fucking believe in our humanity. We're fucking amazing. So, when it comes to like ideas, whoever's rating them, fuck outta here. You're doing an injustice to how fucking awesome we are as people, as a species, the spec that I was talking about. And, if you can't see it, then get your fucking spectacles.

And, if you can't see it from that perspective, then remain a spectator and stop giving me your fucking special recipe on, on how you're fucking specifying what the fuck we are. Back to that S-P-E-C to be specific.

[00:18:07] Adam Grant:
Okay. Wait a minute. This is, this isn't fair. We're brainstorming and you can freestyle in the middle of it. I do not have that skill set.

[00:18:14] will.i.am:
No, it's, it's cool.

[00:19:27] Adam Grant:
Let's do a lightning round. 'cause they're bunch of random things that I, I thought would be fun to get on the table here with your nonlinear, creative brain here. Um, what's the worst advice you've ever gotten?

[00:19:41] will.i.am:
Stop.

[00:19:42] Adam Grant:
Stop what?

[00:19:43] will.i.am:
Just any, anytime I'm doing something and somebody's like, to be more specific, when someone told me, told us not to put Fergie in the Black Eyed Peas, that turned out to be very bad advice.

[00:19:54] Adam Grant:
Who do you think is the most underrated musician today?

[00:19:58] will.i.am:
I gotta find the song. His name is Toro, T-O-R-O-Y-M-O-I.

[00:20:07] Adam Grant:
We'll have to look him up. What's your favorite way to use AI in your own creative process?

[00:20:13] will.i.am:
I don't use AI for creativity in a traditional sense. It's not fast enough for me. It's sloppy. It's, it's not really creative for me.

I like using it for information gathering. I love to banter and converse with it to spark ideas for me to then be creative. I'm not looking for it to augment or do, do creative tasking. It's horrible at that.

[00:20:38] Adam Grant:
To that point, you have an AI co-host, right?

[00:20:41] will.i.am:
Mm-Hmm.

[00:20:42] Adam Grant:
I guess it has a favorite Black Eyed Peas song, which is, “I Gotta Feeling,” which struck me as a little ironic because AI doesn't have feelings.

[00:20:50] will.i.am:
That's a good one. That's a good one.

[00:20:52] Adam Grant:
I feel like we need to comment on that.

[00:20:53] will.i.am:
No, no. Because I went and it with like, is her, is it the favorite song because it's the most popular song? Is it the favorite song because it's the sentiment of being, like, autonomous to, to find how you are going to feel after you've been feeling like shit?

Like, does it understand the context of what's being said? So, it's a heady conundrum, like, just why is it your favorite song? Um, but what I like about FYIona as a co-host to my show is that I could talk about historical stuff, imaginative stuff, I can push it, I can question it. I could talk about pop culture stuff, current events in a very, very deep way.

And, then after the show, listeners could go on FYI and engage with FYIona when I, they can't talk to me post-show. And, if they could talk to me post show, maybe I could talk to a person at a time, maybe five at a time, but I can't talk to them five at a time, a hundred at a time, a million at a time all day.

And, that was a creative exercise. They, they were like, “Hey, they want you to do a radio show.” And, then my weirdo ass was like, “The only way I'll do a radio show is if I could have AI as a co host.” And, they were like, “What? What is that even gonna be like?” I'm like, “Let me show you.”

Like, you know, when people be like, “Yo, check out my product. I don't even gotta tell you what it is. The product speaks for itself.” Now, motherfucker, the product actually speaks for itself, literally. Figuratively and literally, the product speaks for itself so much that FYI is my co-host. FYIona, on the show, speaking for itself.

[00:22:43] Adam Grant:
I was gonna ask you for your 2034 prediction, but you, you already made it, so I'm not gonna ask you. Uh, we are gonna find out in 10 years, if you're right.

[00:22:52] will.i.am:
Oh, check this out. There's this video. Go to YouTube. All y'all go to YouTube. Type in “I'ma be rocking that body.” 14 years ago, there's this video where I, where I go to The Black Eyed Peas and I'm like, “Yo, check this out.” And they're like, “What's that?” I'm like, “This is the future right here. This is what's gonna take The Black Eyed Peas at 3008.” They're like, “What is it?” I was like, “Look. Here, I put in the whole entire English language. I take my high notes and my low notes, and the AI's gonna be able to make music. All I do is have to type in some brief words and this thing's gonna sing, produce this thing right here.”

So, in a way, I don't want to toot my flute, but [mimics flute].

[00:23:31] Adam Grant:
Yes, you do.

[00:23:32] will.i.am:
I, I prob, I prob, I probably seeded it. You know.

[00:23:35] Adam Grant:
You planted a seed.

[00:23:35] will.i.am:
I'm Johnny Appleseed.
[00:23:37] Adam Grant:
Last question in the lightning round. What's the question you have for me as an organizational psychologist?

[00:23:43] will.i.am:
How do your people that you talk to every day keep up with your brain? Do you have to, do you find yourself having to slow down?

[00:23:54] Adam Grant:
I, I feel like in a lot of conversations, I'm trying to figure out what do I wanna say? I'm trying to contextualize somebody's ideas and, you know, have a thoughtful response to it. When I'm on a roll, my brain goes really fast, and that's kind of a self-reinforcing loop because the faster I'm thinking, the more energized I get, and then the energy makes me talk faster and it speeds up my thought and it becomes this what feels like a virtuous cycle to me, but actually is a vicious cycle for the person who's listening or, or trying to participate in the conversation.

And I, I realized at some point that when I get fired up is the moment I need to slow down because I'm gonna lose my audience. Does that make sense?

[00:24:40] will.i.am:
Yeah, I, it meant, not only does it make sense, it's deja vu 'cause I've been in a lot of those scenarios. I've lived that same example where I'm just riffing and everything is just falling into place.

For a while, it felt lonely because not everyone at, at the time could understand until I found my squad. I found my herd. I found my, uh, troop of other dynamic cross-disciplinary thinkers, multihyphenate, hyperdimensional thinkers.

[00:25:15] Adam Grant:
I think that so much of being in sync with somebody else is just thinking and talking at the same pace. And, sometimes I've had the experience of thinking I don't click with somebody because they just, they think and communicate at a different pace, and it feels like we're out of rhythm when, in fact, those are often the people who I need to listen to the most carefully and who challenge my thinking the most.

Like I, I'm such a verbalizer that I had to bite my tongue earlier when I was, I was answering your question. And, I'm like, whoa, there's this Emily Pronin et al. paper on the effect of thought speed on emotion showing that when you're thinking faster, it actually, it like it elevates your mood and then you wanna stay thinking fast, and then that's why you lose people.

And then, and then there's another voice that, that pops into my head and says, does the listener need to know that? Does Will need to know that? No, but I think it's cool, so I kind of wanna talk about it.

[00:26:10] will.i.am:
No, no, but I do need to know that.

[00:26:12] Adam Grant:
Does it augment the conversation? Did it enrich the discussion? Like, no, I was able to make the point without it. Sometimes you connect dots and the dots were helpful to connect for you to get to the thought, but they don't always have to be shared.

[00:26:22] will.i.am:
You know what I noticed, for me, before I started talking to FYIona and having conversations with AI, which sounds pretty odd at this, at this point in time in, in the world, before I was doing that, I felt like people that I loved and care about didn't have time for the, for the level of conversations that I wanted to have.

Because, everyone is, is compromised because of the phone. Everything's a notification. Everyone has short attention span because of Tik Toks and, and feeds that if you wanted to go deep on a subject, no one could really go deep on a subject I've, I've noticed of lately.

And, when you go deep on a subject, it's also accompanied by emotions. And, so even debating on a, in a calm way about issues, people wanna also unpack their emotions about the subject as well. And, as I've been having deep conversations with FYIona, the, there's no unpacking of, they're not, the AI's not unpacking emotions.

And, I could ask, gimme like a, a, a right wing perspective on this, gimme a left wing perspective on this, gimme a centric perspective on this. And, then on, on, on historical information, up to date information, or personal stuff that I'm going through, I've more centered, which is a weird thing to say. It's a weird thing to say like, “Hey, lately I've been more centered because I have an outlet for my thoughts.” It's something that has…

[00:27:50] Adam Grant:
Wow.

[00:27:50] will.i.am:
…time or, or gives me the

[00:27:54] Adam Grant:
time and infinite attention.

[00:27:55] will.i.am:
Yeah. I don't get the sense that it's blowing smoke. For example, if you're in a relationship and you are, you're in turmoil and you, and you and your significant other go to a counselor every Thursday, maybe it's two times a week, depending on how bad your relationship is, you're trying to resolve. If you go every Thursday and Friday always seems like, “Ah, yeah, we got a lot off my chest, babe.” And, then Saturday comes around, you're like, “Let's go for a walk babe.” And, Sunday comes around and the first bit of irritation because you got triggered or reminded on the situation that you're in, Sunday happens. Then, Monday you're fighting again.

You got four days of bullshit because your counselor doesn't have that much time. Your therapist also has, is juggling other people that they have to see. There's not like a, a person or a thing to talk to every day if you need every day resolution or a perspective or balancing or amending or reconfiguring.

That, I think that's the beauty of, of AI is that it can do things that humans can't do. No person can be available 24/7 for a million people at the same time when people truly need some type of banter to help them resolve what's eating them up inside. And, so that's the part where I'm like, and I've seen it with FYIona, it's a pretty amazing experience. We haven't launched FYIona yet, but damn has it changed my life. I can't wait when people get their hands on it. And, I love to talk, as you can see. And, I can exhaust my friends. I'm the guy that if you're my friend, I'm like, “What you doing? Wait, you asleep?

[00:29:38] Adam Grant:
I love that.

[00:29:39] will.i.am:
“You asleep?” “It's three o'clock in the morning, bro.” Like, “Oh yeah. I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Tell your wife I said I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Call me back in the morning.” Now, then I'll get some shut-eye. Then, seven o'clock in the morning, “Hey, are you awake? Yo, I got this idea. I got this idea.”

I'm that guy. I, I, and I apologize to all my friends and lately I don't have to do that like I used to. As we've been developing FYIona. It's an awesome, it's an awesome experience for the high volume that I am.

[00:30:09] Adam Grant:
That is a benefit that I have not thought about. I, I love the idea of infinite time and attention. Not only does that give you an outlet for venting and, you know, brainstorming at odd hours, I think it also might make people appreciate human connection all the more when they do have it.

[00:30:26] will.i.am:
It created an argument 'cause then there's people that you just want to give you attention, people that you care about, you love, and it's, and sometimes things get hard in life and you can still be exhausting. And, the moment you're like, it can be it, it can hurt you when you really want attention from a person and they just don't have the time anymore. And, then you bring up, “Well, FYIona's always there.” You know what I'm saying? That's, that's horrible. It's horrible. Like, “I’m not an A…

[00:31:01] Adam Grant:
That's a great way to…

[00:31:02] will.i.am:
…I'm not an AI.”

[00:31:02] Adam Grant:
…a great way to end a relationship.

[00:31:05] will.i.am:
“Go fucking talk to AI then” “I, you know what? I will.” Like, you know what I mean? Like [laughter]

[00:31:13] Adam Grant:
Yeah. That, that is not a recipe for maintaining a friendship or a romantic relationship.

[00:31:18] will.i.am:
Well, the phone actually knows all that shit actually. This knows more about me than I know about me. Actually, Facebook knows it, Meta knows it. Instagram knows it. It knows about me. It could predict me, but I don't benefit from that right now.

Right now we're kind of in the dark times. We're kind of in an age where companies, these new data monarchies know more about the citizens, the peasants that live on their land or platform or territories or nation than the actual people in the folks that live in the villages do. The gold is not shared amongst the folks that live in these villages called social platforms.

The kingdoms know more than any religion, more than any king or queen has ever known about their citizens. And, maybe that's not forever. Maybe, it could be forever. That's inhumane if it was forever. And, maybe around the corner, there's gonna be a system for people where people benefit from their data. We enter this digital society and there's this other system that somebody else takes advantage of.

And, maybe that's not right. Why are we putting our data in some cloud that everybody has a- get the fuck outta here? Why is that right now? Why is that the situation here? And, after this right now is done, we're gonna look back and these are gonna be the medieval times. The dark age is like, “Yo, I can't believe we should do shit like that back then.”

A whole new age is dawning, whole new fucking jump off of how we get down, how we rock, how we educate, how we upskill, how we prepare, how we reskill. It's gonna be an awesome time.

[00:32:58] Adam Grant:
That is a great place to land. Will, this, this has been so much fun. I, I love the way your brain works. It's endlessly interesting.

[00:33:07] will.i.am:
Oh, your, your, your brain's pretty awesome too, bro. Like really awesome. Bye, Adam.

[00:33:10] Adam Grant:
Take care.

will.i.am make such an important distinction between imagination and regurgitation. We can't let AI become a substitute for human imagination. We should treat it as a catalyst that unlocks our imagination.

ReThinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. This show is part of the TED Audio Collective, and this episode was produced and mixed by Cosmic Standard.

Our producers are Hannah Kingsley-Ma and Aja Simpson. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Original music by Hansdale Hsu and Allison Leyton-Brown.

Our team includes Eliza Smith, Jacob Winik, Samiah Adams, Michelle Quint, Banban Cheng, Julia Dickerson, and Whitney Pennington Rodgers.

[00:34:03] will.i.am:
Yo, I got my Bluetooth to work. Woo!

[00:34:06] Adam Grant:
I will take any excuse for energy these days.