The AI Readiness Project producate with CJ Fletcher

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keep up with AI it's moving too fast it's time to think differently about it

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welcome to the AI readiness project hosted by Kyle Shamim and Anne Murphy they're here to help you build the

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mindset to thrive in an AIdriven world and prepare for what's next

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[Music] all right makes me every time i'm doing

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good how are you it's such a bop it's such a bop it's such a bop now a bop i don't Is

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that like millennial Gen Z is that Gen X what is a bop i think it's I think I I

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think it's a cool kids word but I think we're allowed to say it it's not like chewy it's not like It's not like rz you

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up we can't say that we're not allowed to say rz and we're not really supposed to say chey but I do think it's okay to

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say Bob okay i do i like that i also think that like once the word becomes

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out of fashion and it's just like left on the cutting room floor by the cool kids I think we can use it at that point

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don't you i I like it i like it yeah like when Riz becomes you know when they

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drop it we'll pick it up yeah we pick it up we just take the little meager leftovers of their cool language and we

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just use it and misuse it and embarrass our children exactly uh I'm I'm doing

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really well how have you been how's your How's your past week been well I do think that I'm like being

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pulled in two directions in my AI life right now one is where I'm like digging

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in and like going deeper into places that I haven't wanted to really hang out

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in like about the parade of horribles of the horrible things that really are

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horrible about AI meanwhile of course you know launching thank you just

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getting my little podcast diet Coke it's Diet Coke o'clock everybody it's important wait who what's the name on

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Bro bro bro we got a real What's our song a pop a It's a bop a bop we got a

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bop hey bro we got a bop hey bro we got a bop um meanwhile I'm also doing all you know

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stuff like this stuff like the community building and inspiring people to get off

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of the sidelines meanwhile I'm like kind of wishing I could find a hole on the

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other side of that sideline just like crawl in it for a while you know yeah I know i know i know it's It's

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overwhelming and exciting so we might as well jump in how ready are we for AI this week how ready are you let me share

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something that I've come to i I think this is we're going to make an

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announcement here on the AI readiness project i think I know the secret to

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AI i think I've cracked Yeah I think I've cracked the code and I

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don't want to brag but I actually I actually do think this

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is it and it actually I've been you know me I I tend to meander around a concept

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for a while and then I get a little closer and a little closer um this is one of those where I've kind of been

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feeling some version of this for I don't know five or six months and and been meandering around it and last night on

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the AI salon we had Danny um Kravitz on he's a a screenwriting teacher and

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screenwriter he's a produced you know filmmaker and things like that and he was on talking about creativity and he

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said something that that just coalesed everything for me because he was talking about the relationship between you in

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the creative process and you using tools in the creative process and he he made a real clear distinction about being in

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flow creatively has nothing to do with the tools and there was this real distinction and so what came into focus for me was

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this i think people that get frustrated with AI

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are often asking the wrong question they're asking the question how can I get the most out of AI right how can I

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make money with chat GPT how can I make the most out of AI and what what just sort of flashed in my head as Danny was

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talking was that's not the right question it's not how can I get the most out of AI the question is how can I make

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the most of myself using AI and I think that's it when when when AI

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is at its most magical is when you have some sort of idea or you've got a

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challenge or you've got right there's something that means something to you personally and and you've got this

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prompt box and it's hungry right it's hungry for you to feed it well what what do you feed it well you can feed it

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prompt engineering and you can feed it structured prompts and you can feed it or you can feed it you right you can

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feed it what are my intentions what am I trying to do what what problem I am I trying to solve when it's at its most

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magical is when is when you you make it about you

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and this can happen on a business level so you could be a VP trying to solve some I don't know revenue gap closing

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problem or you could be an individual trying to I don't know plan a birthday

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party whatever it is but it's when it's that personal thing that's when I think it becomes most powerful so that's my

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big epiphany it it coalesed last night but I've been thinking around this for such a long that the minute it came I'm

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like that's it okay so this is why I love the AI salon

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so much is that I think that your this community are perfect examples

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of people who have figured that out organically look organically yeah

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organically like we had the advantage slashdisadvantage at the time of when we

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all started using you know Ched GPT in 22 there was no documentation no one

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knew and everyone was like "Where's the documentation?" And I was like "I don't even know what what does that word mean

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i are are you what documentation about what do we need to know how they build it it's a magic machine that's all I

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know." And we had to figure out how to use it and we learned over time the best thing to do was to give it context right

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it was like context context and now look at what people in the salon have been able to do like in the different clubs

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the clubs are based on the club leaders and like the people who go who are in

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that club like their unique passion and the the way that they're using AI to do

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more of the things that they like to do like the life hacks club like that's them pouring their life into it and

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getting AI to help them do more of what they want to do they don't go come to it and go I want to use AI and wait for a

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use case to arrive on a silver platter yeah yeah yeah and it's like one of the things I think about is AI as an

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amplifier like AI will amplify whatever you give it right yeah you give it crappy stuff it'll make bigger crappier

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stuff right you give it crappy prompt you give it unthoughtout stuff it'll just amplify that but if you give it

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yourself it'll amplify you right it'll amplify who you are what you want to do

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so the thing you're most passionate about is the thing that gets most amplified yes and and then that gets

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there's like this virtuous cycle of of oh that that gets me more excited

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because now that idea I had that that I thought was small just got bigger and now I'm like oh now I'm really excited

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about it and you give it more and then it amplifies it more and it just keeps you know doing this the more you put

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into it the more it kind of shines up who you are right it reses you up it

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reses you up um well so this feeds into it one of the

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interesting things about doing it when we when we're here weekly week in and week out is that I get to reflect on oh

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if that was my thing last week this week my thing is and so this week what I'm

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fired up about is exactly that the amplification of our humanity but in a what can happen if you're not thought

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thoughtful and skilled in some ways skilled about how you use the tools is

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my beef this week about the way that women in particular are using AI to

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produce images of women so here we all are do I have a minute for a little I

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think this is important i think this is an important ramp and especially with CJ coming up i'm I'm so excited to have CJ

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up here because he's so intentional about his art his his art and what he puts in the world and what his voice is

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so I I think it's actually a really good setup for what we'll talk about with CJ okay so you bring you bring your own

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lived experience to the table right when you're working with AI and

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sometimes you're very aware of what those are and you can articulate those

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things like you say like bring yourself to it sometimes you can and sometimes there's stuff that's just going to like slip in between the cracks you're not

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even aware it's like our unconscious bias right right cuz because the tool doesn't care tool doesn't care the tool

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will take a lazy prompt and and blow that up just as much as a wellthoughtout one exactly so most women you know have

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internalized misogyny and sometimes what that can lead to is some really destructive thinking and behavior and so

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what I've been and I don't know that that's actually what's the what is happening but I've been really taking a

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look at the images of women the AI generated images of women that hit my

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LinkedIn feed because there's so many I whatever the algorithm has done every

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day I get you know three you put yourself out there as she leads AI so you're going to get all I'm getting all

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of these yeah you know all of these women and so I started to think Um I

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think we talked about it maybe on here before i was like man I don't know what to do like I've got we've got all these

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AI generated head shot of people for our events and I love that because I love the artistry but also I do know that our

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participants want to know who's actually teaching the workshop right right and then I started thinking about the

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difference between airbrushed photography which of course all of our head shots are airbrushed within an inch

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of their lives and how different is that from an AI generated image right so it's all a continuum but now I started so I

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pulled I did a Manis project this weekend any excuse to do something silly on Manis and um I analyzed a bunch of

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the AI images that come into my LinkedIn feed against the proportions of Barbie and the the proportions of a average

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North American woman and you know of course what we found is that the AI

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generated images of women are way closer to Barbie than they are to the North American woman like Right

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very Barbie-esque impossibly impossible proportions probably couldn't stand up

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you know things like that barbie has a size three shoe she's 5'9 and weighs 110

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pounds she can't stand up i don't know what size shoe the AI girls wear but

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it's it would need to be very big if in order for them to stand upright and so

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my beef here is that unless we do accept that there that we have a responsibility

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and that no one's going to come down from above and tell us you must use the

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following words while you're prompting it takes some real critical self-reflection if you're going to

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generate images that might have XYZ impact on people right and this isn't

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stuff that's going to get flagged by the human reinforcement learning people this

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is just imagery that's going to go into our brains be consumed and do what

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unrealistic images of beauty have always done for you know for everyone they're

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harmful right and so what I've been saying this week is you know if you

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don't know how to do it learn if you're doing it without understanding the

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consequences stop because that's great that's great because what's g the one

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the one last thing I wanted to say is that I I I haven't spent a lot of time worrying about like model collapse but I

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do think about the volume of synthetic images of of women

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that back into it yeah exactly well I I think I think CJ will have a lot to say

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on this which I'm excited about but I think there's also you know there was a lot of talk early on about the bias in

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the model there's bias in the models and they were trained on you know stuff that's not necessarily right the right thing and what you're talking about is a

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kind of lazy bias which is if you're not conscious about what you're

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prompting and there is bias in the model then you're going to get the you're going to reinforce that bias in the

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model right so so it's like if if you're just going in there saying "Oh I just want something pretty and then out comes

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the kind of stuff that you're talking about." Well that's kind of lazy right so there's there's an intentionality yes

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that that I think and again this goes back to I do think this goes back to like what are you trying to accomplish

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what are you trying to do in the world right and so just being conscious about that

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learn how you can you know alter the bias of the model in a direction that's more positive right yes yes because I

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remember way way way way back this was like 23 sometime you on your show on the

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show you were talking about bias and you said um it's you know everyone is always

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beefing because the models are biased but the the situ the humans are biased the models are trained on the show

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why do you think the models are biased because it's trained on human data yeah it has studied us it has learned us and

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so now you know it's the FAFO right like we faed by putting a bunch of into

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the internet and now we're foed because we're trying to get because we've built this model that has has condensed the

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internet into this magic ball that basically reflects us back to us

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right which is which I blame you for the internet so it is pretty much your fault thank you yeah I'll take that i uh yeah

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I don't I don't like to brag but you know right behind Al Gore was me tell us

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more about what you're thinking along these lines kyle well it's I mean it's a it's a relatively new thought i mean I

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like I just articulated it today but I but I you know I I've been talking a lot about Rick Rubin and you know be you

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know find your inner Rick Rubin and and if you don't know him he's a music producer and his basic claim to fame is

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I don't write songs i don't work recording consoles i basically just have taste and I create songs that I like and

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I don't think about the audience at all yeah i I you know art art you know

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creation is that moment where you you have some intention you generate it however you generate it with paints with

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AI tools with a guitar however you generate it and at some point you go ah

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this is something I want to put in the world right there's this conscious choice to do it and so I just just for

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me AI tools are so seductive they are that what they do is they kind

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of seduce you into thinking that they are the most important thing and what that does the destructive thing that

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that does is it makes us all the victim of AI

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so true if I just say the AI tools important the AI tool is going to take

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my job the AI tools just generating shitty art that that means I've defined

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my relationship with it that the AI is happening to Yeah rather than me saying "Hey I'm you

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know I'm a being with things I want to say and things I want to do." And so if we flip that on what do I want this tool

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to do now we're using the tool as a partner as a collaborator as an amplifier of our humanity that's where I

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think it's powerful that's where I think it's magical and you said it before i think a lot of people in the AI salon

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have organically gotten to that place i'm just now two and a half years in i' I'm I've finally kind of articulated for

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me that if you fall into the trap of of believing the hype of AI and give it the

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power then you're at the mercy of it and I think that's a bad place to be so that's that's kind of where I am with it

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so okay good i think I think that that that is incredibly important to like

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crystallize that and to help people understand that that's the way that it is not the other way around so because

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the people who are coming like like organizations who are like I don't know I just know we need to do AI stuff yep

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um it's not working right so you know we're going to have a panic I I learned

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the term panic learning there's gonna be panic learning soon because they will

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have their use case and their use case is going to be like you know stay alive

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in Yeah gotta get a job gota gota start gota I I heard someone made money on

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Etsy how do I make Etsy art right and you put you put it all out there right

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you're right yeah panic panic education and panic entrepreneurship panic oh god

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panic like the poor panic entrepreneurs oh my god i I just Wow it's It's rough

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it's rough start with like opening an Etsy shop and then like see if you like that if you like selling stickers on

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Etsy then you're allowed to try to continue being an entrepreneur other other than that just apply for jobs yeah

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yeah exactly exactly um well so so let me kind of tied tied to to what you just

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asked let let me let me sort of shore up a thing I think is is worth paying attention to this week so I think I

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think last week I talked about this that the the the VO3 tool the video tool from

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Google is a is a really big deal and and so what I've noticed in the week

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since it's come out and since people are putting things out there is that there are two kinds of there are two kinds of

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work being put in the world and and I think like now that I'm noticing it with

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VO I think this exists for all work and again this is very tied to to what CJ's gonna talk

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about um pay attention to those people who post "Look

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what VO did." Oh and it's a little clip it's a little clip it's a little clip versus those

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people that say "I had a story to tell and now I can tell it." Yeah and they

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put together a story and sometimes they're short sometimes they're longer but there's a there's just a fundamental

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difference between the people that are saying "Here's the tool." Yes and people that are saying "Here's my story that I

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want to tell and now I have this remarkable tool to tell it with."

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So for me that's a thing to pay attention to is and and like I think it even goes to and and you know to your

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LinkedIn feed i think it even goes to this probably within all those you know AI generated women coming in your feed

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there are probably some that are right that you're like oh those those feel right to me follow those women right

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maybe I follow the other women like like you can start to curate start to pay attention to who are the storytellers

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who are the people that are engaged as storytellers humans right that are that

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are you know putting themselves in the world and start paying attention to that so I don't know if you remember this but

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um at AI Festivist CJ had us he said we weren't this was you know pre- demo he

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said I want you to close your eyes and tell me what you see that's the beginning of the story yeah yeah okay

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and what you see is an it's an it's implied what happened before and what

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happened next it's really And then he h and then he showed us you know how he

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used his his Yeah this is good and it was a great reminder to

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actually first touch base with yourself

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quieter deeper kind of reflection moment before you even put your hands on the

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keyboard or turn on your microphone to talk to it what are what is the story that you're trying to tell let's get in

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the ballpark right yeah so you have your own point of view i realized the other day you know we always talk about taste

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and curation and having a point of view and how those are the things that are

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going to stand the test of time and I realized how for some people how

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unfamiliar it might feel to develop a point of view because no one has ever

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asked them what their freaking point of view is and now Yeah

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and and and the challenge with AI is that because it is so capable those

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people who've never really looked there about their point of view are going to generate stuff that

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for them looks like it's great stuff but when you compare it to all the other crap out there it's just going to be the

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noise at the bottom and and the work that's going to rise up and it's this is not just about creative work this is

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about people who vibecoded applications this is about people that have put together business plans and marketing

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plans those people that do it from a considered place a place of intention a

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place of right of of clarity of self-reflection that work is going to

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elevate above the the the noise and the noise is just going to fall to the mean like you said if you just put in a lazy

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prompt about women you're going to get all this same sort of schllocky destructive crap right right but if you

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know what you're trying to accomplish if you know that what you want to be able to share oh Roger Scott by the way his I

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just his artwork is in CJ's magazine is beautiful oh yeah roger Roger's amazing

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here's the thing I did with the tool yeah exactly here's the thing I did with

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the tool is more likely to show the person behind it yeah it's like it's like it's cool in a way that sometimes

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you can make something out of almost nothing right but you but

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when you Oh there's Rachel um the pause in AI yeah exactly yeah it is it is

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because AI is so fast take a moment right take a breath what am I trying to

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accomplish right that's great love that oh the nice people let's just say hi to

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the people for a second brian Whitney Vicki Roger the other

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Vicki Marisol's here Pamela authentically Joe Rachel Zipsy

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Roger Scott it's so good to see everyone y

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hi Gareth we have such a nice little community here thank you all for showing up for us

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you're so wonderful it's so good i'm not leaving my office landro good to see you

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um so so anyway so so yeah so so you know this is you know back in the early

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days of the web you know a lot of a lot of the people we'd talk to be like I need a website and like one of the

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questions we would ask is well why do you need a website what are you trying to accomplish and it's like th this week

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this coming into clarity for me this week is just a reminder that like nothing changes right that when new

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technology comes along it's really easy to get seduced into it i need AI i need

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to do AI i need I gota prompt engineer it's so easy to because it's

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moving fast and it's exciting and all that and and it's very easy to fall into that into that machine yep yep and it's

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also this tool that we get to use to express ourselves in all sorts of ways

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and that's I think it's remarkably powerful but but you need to take that

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pause yes i think it's interesting that we can say with impunity that it's a

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good thing that it amplifies our humanity right because we're coming to it with the good of the order in mind

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most days right most most days and certainly the other side of the coin

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is nearly five days a week most days we're coming to in into our

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conversation with AI with the good of the order in mind but also there are people who are coming to the

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conversation with AI without with the good of the order exactly that's who they do not have in mind and they too

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will be able to amplify their humanity right their humanity is just darker yeah

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than ours our angelic humanity the the one the the the group though that I

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think is ultimately the most destructive is not the ones that come into it with bad intent i think it's the ones that

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come into it with no intent that inadvertently caused the

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destruction right that inadvertently just put crap out there that inadvertently create more noise that

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create more things so um so yeah but I but I listen I think this is why we

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started the communities we've started this is why we want you know as many people in them as possible and we want

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these why we're having this conversation quite frankly right what is AI readiness

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right can yeah what is AI readiness can we tell can we do two things one is can

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we revisit a what AI readiness is and then can you tell us about the AI salon

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mastermind yeah absolutely Absolutely so um so AI

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readiness is um a concept we we we sort of co-created it i

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was all excited about AI literacy for for a good long while and I said why

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don't we do an AI literacy podcast and you were like I think AI literacy

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sucks some version of that um but you said it just doesn't feel like the right word and and as I thought about it I'm

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like you're exactly right because it's impossible to be literate when the ch the the tools are changing on a weekly

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basis but what you can be is AI ready and what that looks like is a mindset

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and it's a mindset of curiosity and adventure and willingness to learn and

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adaptability and and and things like that right and so that that that is what it is and and so when we did AI Festivus

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um we brought in 34 different speakers that spoke over 24 hours and including

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CJ who we're going to talk to in a minute here um and to a person none of them talked about tools they all talked

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about here's how I'm thinking about it here's how I'm dealing with it and it was all about the mindset and that if

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you compare it to a year before when we did GPT for good it was like let's let's make custom GPTs we we were talking

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about the tools and AI festivist was talking about the process and that I found very very exciting um the AI salon

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let me let me pop up the I've got it here in my name but uh uh uh where did I

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lose here um the AI salon is is a community I started with Leah Fasten the

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week after chatgbt came out and uh if you go to the the aisalon.mn.co co

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that's the uh that's the community site and we just launched uh AI mastermind

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and the AI mastermind is a subscriptionbased kind of think of it as a hyperfocused community that are ready

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to kind of step up to the next level and because what we've what we've got and you've got this within she leads as well

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is we've got you know two and a half years of people in this community and you know a lot of new people are coming

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in all the time but there's sort of a core group of people that really step up to the plate really support one another

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and we wanted to create kind of a path for those people to step into like a deeper level of commitment a deeper

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level of you know engagement with one another um which I think becomes increasingly important as we move on so

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if you go to the AI salon um you can join the salon for free the community is for free the mastermind uh for the

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balance of: 2025

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badge that's a founding mastermind member um and that price is good for for all of eternity so um so we just

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launched it i'm really excited about it and yeah that's what it is so why don't you tell the good folks about

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I um have been as you know stalking the website to get to I wanted to be the

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very first member but then I like got then I got like you know buried so now I'm going to do it after this i can't

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wait to join the mastermind i think like I there's something about the I'll just

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be like when I put money on something it is more important to me like people just

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show up in a different way yeah show up in a different way it's like you know at least once a month I'm going to get

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although I think we're going to do an annual but because by the way everybody it's only $20 a month from now until the

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end of the year so you should sign up now and go if you sign up if you sign up

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anytime in: 2025

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so if you're in a community that's like $20 like wow that is huge huge huge

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value it's the new like $1 or something so um the economy

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the economy of of communities the thing about communities and this is how I'll how I'll share about she leads is that

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I'm convinced that this is where the real learning takes place because we're

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not doing it you know for the world we're not doing it for money we're not

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doing it for connections and jobs and accolades and likes and followers we're

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pouring into each other because we care about each other because we have hard

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one you know findings and learnings that it feels good to help somebody else

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level up like you take all that you know all that whatever that you went through to learn the thing and then you can

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rapidly transfer it from your brain to somebody else is like it's just worth it to have these intentional spaces that's

31:27

what the that's what the salon is like it's obviously what the mastermind is going to be and um at Cheads AI we're

31:33

able to share all of our secret sauce we actually made we now have sessions

31:39

called secret sauce sessions that's great because we have we've booked everybody out we have member jams we

31:46

booked them all out till like September October so we had to create another kind of event for all the people who have

31:52

things to share with one another and and that in addition to eventually we will

32:00

need groups of people to be able to say about us that we are real we are

32:05

enjoyable we're cool to do projects with you know and now you're going to have this core community who's all going to

32:12

be able to say "Yeah I know Ann she's a real person she's pretty dope to hang out with." So yeah and and and quite

32:18

frankly if we do our jobs right in both communities if we do our jobs right with that subscription tier that's something

32:25

that people can put on their LinkedIn profile that that it means something right if we do our jobs right with it and that's you know that's on us but I

32:32

think that's that's an important part of it awesome okay so let's let's bring up

32:37

our special guest before we bring him up I I um CJ's been a part of the salon

32:43

since very very early on um he's one of my favorite people in the salon he's incredibly passionate about what he does

32:49

i can't wait for him to tell what he does um but before we bring him up what one of the things that CJ said to me

32:56

that just sort of smashed me in the face in a great way was I you know I was he

33:01

he was showing me his art and he was showing me how he did it and he was using stable diffusion and this dedicated laptop and he was and the way

33:07

he prompts is absolutely mad like I just my ADD brain can't even process how he does it it's absolutely insane

33:15

but what he said to me that just blew me away is is I'm like you know you know what are you doing here what are you doing with this and he said he said

33:21

"Kyle I set a goal for myself that in five years my art is going to be in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." And I just

33:29

that clarity of of vision and passion and before we came on I confirmed with

33:35

him that he's still on that path but I just wanted to say that because I love that and and like just knowing how he

33:42

prompts like I know like I just have high confidence that he's going to get there so with that let's bring him up

33:49

cj's just the best so CJ welcome welcome to the party hey everybody hello hello

33:56

hello so So great to see you thanks for joining us on our on our humble little

34:02

humble little podcast oh no thank you guys for having me honestly

34:08

we CJ had a really nice time this afternoon um Kate Rivera who works with

34:15

us in our company and she leads AI and I we went back and watched the YouTube

34:20

recording of your session at AI Festivus and went through the transcript to pull

34:26

out some of the nuggets because I remembered that you said something that

34:32

struck me about how we are all artists and what you said the quote that like

34:39

just I don't know like really hit home for me was you're you're at that we are all artists and we should sign our work

34:47

and I was like I mean I get chills thinking about it you know I dismiss

34:52

myself in all representations of myself so easily but you're saying no no no this is real you should you should sign

34:59

your work i was like that that's CJ he's a good one cj he's a good one so

35:07

that's awesome i I mean so so tell us you know I mean talk talk to that but also just you know tell us who you are

35:13

and what you're up to all right uh I I'll give you kind of the little TLDDR from me uh I'm a Gen Xer born in the

35:22

Southwest in Mesa Arizona um always had a penchant for performing and telling

35:27

stories and uh that's where my first my first career started was starting uh in

35:34

on stage in front of a camera telling stories and uh I you know was into

35:40

movies television all the type it basically if I could be on stage somewhere trying to tell a story or a

35:45

joke that's where I was for the longest time uh I switched careers when I had a

35:50

really great mentor uh tell me that the challenge for me is now to tell a story

35:56

on one single sheet of paper so tell a five minute story a 20-minute story on a

36:01

single sheet of paper uh so I enrolled in Tim uh reenrolled back into college

36:06

got my degree in graphic design um and with the emphasis on storytelling and

36:13

photography and um it just became kind of my love and then when the uh

36:20

artificial intelligence community kind of blew up and this whole thing called chat GPT and stable diffusion and all

36:27

that started I realized that there was a way for me to take technology and take

36:33

all of the stories that were always been that have been brewing in my head for decades and actually get them out uh

36:39

onto a screen or a piece of paper better than I could do just solely on my own um

36:46

so I used the technology to enhance the artistic stuff that I had that was there

36:53

already and so I just became a storyteller u through a different medium

37:00

very nice very nice and and um talk about talk about the goal you said i

37:06

mean I I probably butchered it but No no but but talk to me like like I like I'm

37:13

I'm even fascinated by what led you to make that declaration like like

37:18

that's it yeah it it was you know uh I I have the the highest regard for all of

37:25

the art forms no matter what they are um I have members of my family that are that are artists in a different vein

37:32

than I'm an artist and I said when looking at some of the the things the people who I really admired the people

37:38

who inspired me um Glenn Freriedman Aaron Draplin Bosot looking at their avantgard work and what they put

37:45

together I said this is what I want to do i want to somehow be able to tell my

37:50

story it's one of the particular ones that I have and have that for other people to see and have people to realize

37:57

that it's not about the tool it's about the narrative it's about what you're trying to put out there and and not the

38:04

basically what did I use to do it um but what what is the story and that's that's

38:10

what got me interested in MoMA and I put that declaration out there and then I

38:15

went to the digital tools just to kind of craft up the uh the timeline and I

38:20

realized it would take me about five years to really understand what it meant

38:25

to be in MoMA and understand how to tell my story effectively and you know I'm

38:32

into year two and a half right now and uh and it's go it's going well my plan

38:38

is going well i'm learning a lot it's a it's a self-reflective journey that I've been taking and a very humbling one too

38:45

to see some of the people what they do um there are some people online that uh

38:50

that I've struck up friends with they're absolutely incredible artists digital as well as generative um that absolutely

38:58

blow me away and every day they push me and challenge me to get a little bit further into what I try to do can you

39:05

talk to Can you I don't know if you were listening when Ann was talking about the you know the the women prompting women

39:12

prompting uh Barbie women um can can you talk about telling your story i know you

39:19

talk a lot about you know diversity bias things like that and and wanting to

39:24

express who you are how you are can you can you talk to some of that because I that feels like such an important

39:30

conversation you know really your work you know yeah it really really is uh

39:36

when these tools first started you know it's very male cis dominated as far as

39:42

what you could produce um and there was really nothing of diversity whatsoever

39:47

in the tools themselves so when people put the things together if you asked for a doctor you usually got a white male

39:54

doctor if you ask for um an athlete you got a white male athlete um and it took

40:00

a lot of of grassroot organizations to really have these conversations about

40:07

art needs to be very very representative and um not only does the art need to be

40:12

representative I think those of us um who are um not white and based in a

40:18

different culture and those of us who are not male not us but just those of us in general who aren't male need to

40:25

really jump into this to tell that story and tell that narrative and change what

40:30

art looks like when it comes to the technology and the digital aspect of it um growing up it I mean it computers if

40:38

you went to a a computer con it was just a bunch of men standing around uh smoking cigarettes talking about

40:45

computers and Cobalt this and uh Forran that and and um artists uh artists are

40:52

not always going to be like that and I think that um you know if you're out there and you don't look like the

41:00

majority of the population I can almost guarantee you there's a story that you have to tell

41:07

experience and this is a great tool for you to start ex exploring how to tell

41:12

that story yeah how's how's been your um And I'm

41:18

sorry I'll let I'll let you ask a question no no that's Go for it i but you you kind of you kind of set it up

41:24

but I I would love to understand from you how have the tools evolved you said when you started out it was hard to get

41:30

them to do anything sounds like it's gotten better but like what's the state of what's the state of your ability to

41:37

tell your story today versus where it was well it it's it's it is a give and

41:42

take it really was about intentionality in telling um what what my old professor

41:48

would call the stupid computer what to do um you know if I just said "Give me a

41:54

doctor," it would probably give me a white doctor so the intentionality is "Give me an African-American male in his

42:01

60s with a goatee and salt and pepper hair." It's really about intentionality

42:06

and the tools themselves are just what they are and people have been making the

42:13

tools stronger they've been making the software better and more intuitive um I

42:19

still see if I still right now were just to type in um give me a CEO I would more

42:26

than likely still get the the prototypical white male uh 45year-old in

42:32

a suit so when it comes to how I use the art I have to be very intentional in

42:38

what I'm putting out there beautiful um I I know that we share um a

42:46

friendship with Kim Offford um Kyle can you pin that my

42:53

comment that I just commented because I dropped her link i know this makes our episode somewhat less evergreen but I

42:59

wanted to point out that you know Kim has this obviously has this perspective as well of like if you ha if you don't

43:06

look like what is currently deemed to be the majority right um you have a story

43:13

to tell and she wants to hear it and tomorrow is the screening of her AI film

43:21

contest winners and that was the premise of it was tell your story from your

43:27

lived experience and I cannot wait to see what bubbled up that's all day

43:33

tomorrow you can RSVP there you get it says slash swag bag because she's giving

43:39

eally good um so it's at from: 12:00

43:48

central to 8:00 pm central tomorrow so beautiful

43:54

beautiful all right shall we shall we jump into our our questions for for CJ i

43:59

have been studying all night exactly for the questions you will be judged and

44:05

graded on these and there is some wagering oh awesome i'm I'm down insider

44:10

betting let's do this

44:16

um okay so CJ I it's interesting because like I've I've tried to learn a lot

44:22

about you are a little bit of a man of mystery you know that right you do it on purpose right yes okay you you you're

44:29

like this like clandestine kind of I don't know anyway

44:35

um when did you start using AI when did you know that you had to go allin and

44:41

what happened next um my first very first uh touching

44:49

nerative AI tools would be in: 2021

44:58

woo that's early it is early and that's what we call it we consider today's

45:03

modern tools yeah my first my first messing around though with computers

45:10

edictive would be way back in: 1984

45:21

uh working on computers with my father and working on robot robotics and

45:26

predictive robotics um but I started like I started with this journey in 21

45:33

and I realized about two hours in to my first um prompt that this was going to

45:42

be the way that I was going to tell my story effectively really 100% bought in

45:47

and I I jumped in and I watched every YouTube video I could possibly find and

45:52

I reached out to the to to the people who were doing YouTube at the time they were learning at the exact same time as

45:59

me so it was perfect it was this symbiotic relationship where they would teach a little bit of a thing i would

46:05

learn it i would go back with comments they would do another another broadcast on YouTube um and then uh there's a

46:12

couple guys I I'll mention them later on that also we all kind of all jumped in at the same time and uh that's what I

46:18

knew it was really early on like the first couple of hours that I did my first my first my first prompt and what

46:24

was it was it stable diffusion was that the first tool you used or was it Yes it was stable diffusion and is that still

46:31

what you're using today sure is i I have never I have never used MidJourney wow i

46:37

am a I am a local stable diffusion guy like you said i do have a I have a dedicated system i went from a l a

46:44

laptop to my own dedicated uh mega mega gaming computer that is now my dedicated

46:51

that's the only thing that it does is it just helps me so I I go back and forth between the laptop when I'm out on the

46:57

streets and roaming around and when I get home it's desktop time and time to to sit down and get serious that's

47:04

stunning that's so cool that's so cool what was it about the

47:09

um what was it that captivated you it was the idea that the the jumbled

47:19

mess in my head was actually being shown in front of me uh that was a real that

47:24

was a really big deal to me because I don't know how to physically draw i I

47:30

don't have those skills i don't My family has those skills i do not yep but so the idea that I I typed in you know

47:39

small boy alone in a corner of a room and I saw it and I went "Oh that's so

47:44

close to what I was thinking i wonder how I can make this look like what I'm actually thinking." Yeah

47:51

wow i felt mine mine was kind of like that too CJ where it was like I felt

47:57

like I I could see what I really thought finally

48:04

right there this is what I'm really thinking who knew because I couldn't put it all together right there's a there's

48:10

there is a kaleidoscope of dreams and visions and colors that are going in on

48:16

in my in my head and in in the back recesses of my subconscious at all times

48:21

yeah i'm always trying to get out i always want to push that out to the forefront if anything it's cathartic for

48:27

me to see what what am I thinking about and how it looks yeah self analyze oh my

48:32

gosh I have issues with my father you know by looking at images and things that's Yeah i like I sometimes think we

48:41

have a narrative about what what our throughine is and what I've learned is

48:46

that I actually think that my through line is something that I don't know what it is right now you know what I mean

48:54

known is wonderful yeah i don't know it and I'm and I'm and I'm discovering it as I can watch my own thoughts and watch

49:00

my own thinking kind of like watching a movie because it's coming through me and it is me but it's then going through a

49:07

process where I can now see it more manifest and

49:13

get to know myself more so than I did before yes I'm finding out things about

49:19

myself I didn't know over over especially over this past six months of deep diving into some of the the issues

49:26

um and the and the themes that I have finding out a lot that's coming out just in the art itself so cool that's

49:32

fascinating yeah i I find myself because I do it on my lives a lot where I'll just go I'll go into it with complete

49:39

unintentionality i'm just like here's a thing here right and then all of a sudden something will be generated that

49:44

that like speaks to me and I'm like "Oh that's like that's me right?" And it

49:49

that'll force me to run down a rabbit hole so sometimes I go in with intentions but a lot of times I'm just

49:54

sort of surfing the latent space and then something will emerge out of it that I'm like "Ah that's that's a something right?" And so yeah

50:01

fascinating um okay so So we've got three questions here so I'll I'll take question number two

50:08

so based on your area of expertise what what are what is a trend or some trends

50:15

that you're seeing that you're paying attention to ah beautiful question

50:20

um so in the circles that I run in the biggest trend that I'm finding is

50:27

surrealism we are coming back to this beautiful world of just weirdness

50:33

because at the beginning it was all about how do I make everything look real i want a person who is shining and not

50:40

textured and the light and now it's all about crazy weirdness um there are two

50:45

guys I'm going to put them out there real quick uh for anyone out there who wants Brian Alman A L O A L M O N and

50:53

Hari Ren H A R I Re Surrealist to the extreme when it

51:00

comes to to art and I find that's a trend that is running with a lot of us who started around the same time we're

51:07

really starting to explore spell those again i want to put them up on screen brian Alman brian with an I and then A L

51:15

M O N shout out to my Florida guy and Hari Ren h A R I R N two fantabulous

51:25

artists that are pushing the boundaries uh Hari Ren two words sorry oh but

51:31

that's that is that is correct like that right so So that with Hari Ren has two words yes great but they uh this is they

51:39

inspire things like this out of me and we and we go back and forth about surrealism and telling a story um kind

51:48

of like you know like Dolly would tell a story or uh not Dolly the the tool but

51:54

Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Sal Salvador Dolly and some of those conceptual artists uh Basats and just we're getting

52:01

crazy and so I I'm noticing that as a as a fringe trend but one in the circles

52:07

that I'm in right now and it's one that's sucking you in yeah oh yeah very much so yeah so talk to me about your

52:15

the the relationship i I find the way you prompt really fascinating because so

52:20

so if people don't know you're very methodical right you'll you'll sort of prompt something and then you

52:27

try to change this one specific thing that one spec and you'll do I don't I assume hundreds but like a lot right you

52:34

dig until it's generating what you do can you talk to me about the relationship between your left brain and

52:40

your right brain that like where like where are you like is it more logical is

52:46

it more like are are you surfing between those two like like just talk to me about how you prompt and how you think

52:52

in in that relationship well they hate each other they can't stand each other

52:58

yeah exactly they're both obnoxious like oh we hate you be logical no pretty

53:05

pictures so as the uh the story teller background

53:11

of me is where is where the prompting comes in um the artistic side the thing

53:17

that's in the back of the head knows what it wants to see and so the storyteller side then starts trying to

53:23

write that out what does that look like and um and so the prompt can start out

53:29

anywhere you know it could be a 40-word prompt to begin with and it can give me gobblegook and not what I'm looking for

53:36

and then it's a matter of okay okay back of the brain you told me what you want

53:41

let's try and change the words now to get to that spot and so yeah I will go

53:47

through I'll go through several iterations of maybe changing one word here or one word there blue to like the

53:54

word blue to let's say the word aqua um if it's not giving me what it's what I

53:59

want and then I I'll just I'll fiddle around for a while until I get somewhere

54:04

and every once in a while um I've I've found um that minimalism helps in that

54:10

aspect too and so I've div I've given I've dove into the idea of minimalism um

54:18

as a maximalist prompt and it's it's an interesting concept yeah the like I said surrealists are are we're getting we're

54:25

getting funky with how we together yeah um but yeah I will still even if a prompt like the one you see behind me

54:31

the with the craziness here that started out as about 20 words as a prompt and

54:38

when it got down to the end it ended up being about seven and that was because

54:43

we're we're using utilizing this minimalism as maximism maximalist uh

54:48

idea frame right now but yeah I will do it over and over and over until I till I

54:54

get close enough to what I need and then of course there's always extra tools on the outside that have to be used in my

55:00

opinion to to finish up the art yeah yeah but you're kind of wait you're waiting for in your mind's eye to go

55:06

Yeah that's that's what was in here yep love it

55:12

so CJ I don't know if you could possibly weave in um some conversation about your

55:19

magazine into our third question but I invite you to do so because I do think that the nice people need to know about

55:25

your magazine and need to need to avail themselves of it because I think it's I

55:30

think it's an important it's an important artifact like for where we are right now with AI and art it also

55:37

brought forward some people who um one of one of the one of the artists that

55:42

you featured is a person who I've known for a really long time but who has never

55:48

ever come out of the shadows oh wow they do not put themselves in front of

55:54

anything ever under any circumstances and they were in your magazine it was

56:00

the first time that I've seen anything they've ever made i knew what they were capable of i knew what their skill set

56:05

was but ne they just never and they were in there and I was like "This is so glorious." So the people that you

56:12

highlighted their story the arc of where you're going with the magazine is

56:18

something I would love to hear about but our third question is what would you advise somebody who's just getting into

56:24

this um okay so I really you just said it almost to a tea putting yourself out

56:31

there is the number one thing you can do um all art is valid no matter what it is

56:36

whether it's a crayon drawing or it is the cysteine chapel um anything that you

56:42

do is a valid piece of art it's all about your exploration and what you want

56:47

to tell the story that you want to tell um generative gematic when I put it together was was about that it was about

56:55

letting everyone tell their own story if it was one images one image five images

57:02

um a series whatever it was um because it's all viable and it wasn't about is

57:07

the artwork good is it is it bad you know it was really about who are you as a person and what how vulnerable do you

57:14

feel like being today right um vulner artists when we put something onto a

57:20

piece of paper or a screen or a prompt we are becoming more vulnerable human

57:25

beings than we've ever been um because we're taking a piece of ourselves and then we're entrusting it to not only

57:31

other people to to look at but we're entrusting our own selves to look at the art itself and really delve into who we

57:38

are as a person so my big advice to all of you out there is just start doing it

57:45

honestly just find whatever program that you think is the easiest for you to use

57:52

type in something that's in the back of your head close your eyes and just imagine any sort of thing type it in and

58:00

see what you get and then from there just start moving forward yeah just keep playing when do here's here's one that

58:08

that you know people people are not doing regularly doing art when do you know it's art

58:16

um I think the minute that you go "Oh that looks nice." Or you go "Oh that

58:22

looks interesting." or you go "Oh that is ugly." Because art is all three of

58:28

those things um I have I have a a relative who is what I call a trash

58:34

artist and I think the art is just it's a bunch of trash but my god it's art someone put their thing out put their

58:41

thing out there and said "This is art." And I went "Yeah you're absolutely right it is art the minute that you see it and

58:47

go that is X Y or Z." That's so pure that's so beautiful like that it is it's

58:53

like when I'm doing the thing where I go in with no intentionality and one thing jumps out at me it's like that's the

58:58

moment right where it's like you know whether you intended it or not it's like sometimes you're just like "Oh there's

59:04

one." I think we we sometimes confuse art with commercial viability yes sure

59:11

someone may not buy your one line on a piece of a crayon but someone may buy

59:16

that all white canvas that's called bear in the polar bear in the snowstorm right

59:22

right yeah yeah yeah right and Yeah yeah that that you can't then it's out of your hands right that's very pure i love

59:29

it well this has been awesome CJ thank you for

59:35

Thank you for being here amazing well thank you all for hanging out i hope you had a good time adhd art yeah yeah yeah

59:43

do that too go all the directions why not we can now um awesome well I hope you hope you

59:51

come back soon and thanks for hanging out with us really appreciate it CJ thank you you're very welcome thank you CJ you're the best

59:59

thanks authentically Joe thanks everybody bye everyone