Latest / The iDesign Lab Podcast / Will AI Become Your Best Friend? Erik Simons on the Future of AI, Jobs & Human Connection

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Will AI Become Your Best Friend? Erik Simons on the Future of AI, Jobs & Human Connection · The iDesign Lab Podcast

• 0:00
  Voice Over: This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and curiosity meet style and design.
• 0:06
  Voice Over: Curator of interiors, furnishings, and lifestyles.
• 0:09
  Voice Over: Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, an interior designer and a style enthusiast, along with her serial entrepreneur husband Scott.
• 0:17
  Voice Over: iDesign Lab is your ultimate design podcast, where we explore the rich and vibrant world of design and its constant evolution in style and trends.
• 0:41
  TIffany Woolley: Eric Simons is a serial entrepreneur who helped pioneer affiliate marketing, built multiple companies that were successfully acquired, and has spent more than 25 years working with artificial intelligence, AI.
• 0:54
  TIffany Woolley: Today he is one of the world's leading AI experts, an international speaker, and co-author of a number one best-selling AI book.
• 1:02
  TIffany Woolley: Eric, welcome.
• 1:03
  TIffany Woolley: Thanks for joining us today.
• 1:05
  Scott Woolley: Thank you for having me in the studio.
• 1:07
  Scott Woolley: It's exciting.
• 1:08
  TIffany Woolley: I know it is exciting.
• 1:09
  Scott Woolley: We've known each other a long time.
• 1:11
  Scott Woolley: Absolutely.
• 1:12
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 1:12
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, we go way back.
• 1:14
  TIffany Woolley: So you were building internet companies before Google became a household name.
• 1:20
  TIffany Woolley: When did you realize this internet thing was going to change everything?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, so it was in the 90s when I was in school.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and it was just kind of obvious how it it was it could connect the world together and it was this new way for to, you know, to potentially do everything that we see it doing today.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: But at the time, nobody really when I when I talked to people about the internet, they're like, oh, it's just a fad.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, like what would my business do on the internet?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there was like they couldn't even imagine what the You couldn't comprehend it.
• 1:56
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And now it's hard to imagine any business not on the internet or in some way connected.
• 2:00
  Scott Woolley: No, when I had my grocery stores and they were first talking about the internet, I was like, so what?
• 2:04
  Scott Woolley: What's that got to do with anything to do with grocery stores?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny, that was actually one of my first thoughts.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was when I was in uh in high school and I had to, it was a business class where I had to come come up with some kind of an idea for a business and do a feasibility study on it, you know.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my only job that I had had, which actually to this day, the only job that I've had was I delivered Domino's pizza 16 years old, yeah, for like a few months.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I knew the delivery business.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, oh, with the internet, we could have like virtual a virtual grocery store and do like grocery.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my feasibility thing, was basically uh like internet grocery delivery.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it was what you know, people were like, oh, that's ridiculous, you know?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, because that was in the in the so one of the first things, if I'm correct, is credit card and processing in the internet or gambling.
• 2:56
  Scott Woolley: What was the first thing that I actually got into?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was uh it was gambling, basically.
• 3:02
  Scott Woolley: So uh yeah, I it um beginning early stages before really anyone knew about gambling on the internet.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and uh it was there wasn't much going on on the internet at the time.
• 3:15
  TIffany Woolley: Um it's funny because I even like always tell people like I went through four years of college and never sent an email.
• 3:23
  TIffany Woolley: And I still remember like the friends I was hanging out with, like we would go on the computer that we bought for like Word documents or whatever, and finally once it had like a hookup or what have you, it'd be like, Oh, you can see what movies are coming out, but you couldn't buy a movie ticket.
• 3:41
  TIffany Woolley: So it's like obviously you were at such a forefront of realizing the next steps of what was needed.
• 3:49
  TIffany Woolley: Right.
• 3:50
  Scott Woolley: So, how did you jump into the internet before it was really the internet?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, so it actually came out of when I was doing a uh so the these I business ideas I had when I was in school that I started exploring.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so after that internet grocery delivery idea, then in another class or another project, I had an idea for doing basically um a theme restaurant.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um a friend of mine in school, his dad was a wealthy guy, and he um he was he he owned some some restaurants and he was like, hey, if you could come up with a theme, you know, like let me know.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I was fascinated by I had seen in movies at the time like video conferencing.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was the kind of thing you'd see in Star Trek or whatever, you know, but there was no video conferencing.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so my concept, I thought, okay, well, on the internet, there's no so actually the concept was a theme restaurant where you'd have different locations and you could meet for a virtual dinner or or lunch or something.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it was like a half table and a screen, and you would see the people at the other location across the table.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, okay, but how so I I actually called, I was in Canada, I called Bell Canada at the time, and I was like, you know, how much would it cost to do video conferencing?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, well, you know, we have these like early demos of it, but we don't really have anything commercial.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it basically takes eight phone lines to get the data across.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, well, that's gonna be expensive if you have these restaurants in different locations.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I went back to the internet because I realized that the internet was this sort of world thing where you could transfer data and you didn't have long distance costs.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I started looking at what technologies were available for doing video conferencing online at the time.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that just kind of led me down this rabbit hole where I just started to see all these opportunities on the internet.
• 5:33
  TIffany Woolley: I mean, it's so mind-blowing to me how fast the internet and the timing has caught up.
• 5:42
  TIffany Woolley: Like, I feel like time goes exponentially quicker now because of this of the internet.
• 5:50
  TIffany Woolley: I mean, maybe it's the internet, but I think so.
• 5:52
  TIffany Woolley: I was watching the Brady Bunch, the first episode this morning with my daughter, who for whatever reason had it on when we lo and I walked out to the kitchen this morning and I Googled, like, when did it start that show?
• 6:05
  TIffany Woolley: And it started like in the 60s, late 60s.
• 6:08
  TIffany Woolley: And it just like it dawned on me that like how back, like to me, like that doesn't seem so far back, but it's really like such a short time span of where we now today are, right?
• 6:24
  TIffany Woolley: And the fact that you could be a part of that is pretty I mean it's it's amazing.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: I consider myself lucky to be like just the timing of it, the fact that I was really just sort of starting my career as this thing was starting.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh yeah, so it was the the timing was perfect.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, on uh to on that note, I think now what I see happening with AI, it really reminds me of that time with the internet because at that time I knew that the internet was going to change the whole world in ways that most people then just didn't realize.
• 7:00
  Scott Woolley: How did you realize that?
• 7:01
  Scott Woolley: Or what made you think that?
• 7:02
  Scott Woolley: Where most people back then were just thinking that this might be just something that comes and goes.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it seemed obvious, but it was also just because once you started looking into it and you could kind of see how this building, I mean, you could see there was people there and they were looking for something to do, and you could you could just I mean, I don't know, the way my mind works, I'm always you know looking for how you can apply technology to solve problems.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I just like the the idea of just you know online food delivery, it just seemed obvious to me that it would make sense to it would be cool to be able to just go online and order this stuff, right?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because the internet just suddenly made these things possible, you know, to bring all of this stuff to you.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, it just seemed like a no-brainer.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was just obvious.
• 7:48
  Scott Woolley: So going back to the beginning, you're you're involved in gambling online.
• 7:53
  Scott Woolley: Where do you go from there?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So basically what happened is I I ended up, and it was when I was researching my uh my video conferencing technology, I ended up uh talking to some guys that they had built um basically some like uh some gambling software, or there they were kind of, you know, they had started on that, and and I I joined, I partnered with them and I helped them to market it.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I created uh one of the first affiliate programs online.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was the first that I know of that actually paid a commission on a sale.
• 8:24
  Scott Woolley: So for people who are listening who don't understand what an affiliate program is, yeah.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So an affiliate program basically is uh it's just a commission-based sales sort of a thing, is is the easiest way to think of it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And on the internet, it's really easy to track sales because you can just track when somebody clicks through to a website.
• 8:43
  Scott Woolley: Um So if someone's clicking through from a website, that person could get a commission.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so so with the casino, um you know, I saw that it was basically keeping around 85% of the money that was deposited into an account to play.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, this is a reason that nobody should gamble.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: My I'm not a gambler.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, because then and you know, it's it's something that you see not just in online gambling, but it's you know, the in Vegas casinos.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um so when you walk into a casino with$100, on average,$85 stays with the casino.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not because it's not because the games are that badly weighed.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, some of them are.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, some things like might only be 51-52% like odds in favor of the house, like a blackjack or something, and then you've got like slots, which is the worst.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: But the reason you get to the the 85% is because people tend to just keep going until the luck.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: So like when you compound those odds, it eventually turns around.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I'm going off on a little segue here.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But so what I saw is that anytime somebody deposited$100 into the online casino,$85 stayed with the house.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I realized that we had a tremendous margin to be able to pay out for the marketing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so basically what I did is I decided, okay, we can we can give a nice healthy percentage of this to whoever you know sends this traffic.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I created this affiliate program where if somebody sent a click to my casino and and people deposited money, then we would pay them.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um very quickly, because this is early days of the internet before there was Google AdSense or any of these other sort of advertising programs.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you had a website, there was really no way to monetize, unless you were CNN.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: There was a couple websites that that could charge high ad rates, CPM, you know, just like for per view.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, all these different low sort of mom and pop websites that were popping up, they had no way to monetize.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so because my casino was one of the first ways, I just very quickly grew because you know they all joined in my program.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And what I what I uh discovered was that they were all getting their traffic from search, which this was even before Google started.
• 10:50
  TIffany Woolley: Search engine type.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was Yahoo, basically.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yahoo, excite, like oh, some of these names.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you remember Ulta V stats.
• 10:58
  TIffany Woolley: I remember that one.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a moment of silence for all of those search engines.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, anyways, um you know, so then I started to sort of reverse engineer what they did, and I I became an expert in search engine optimization, and that led me into uh early artificial intelligence, which really just came down to automating of stuff, where I discovered, okay, if I can create a website that and and get it in a search engine and that'll generate me X amount of dollars per month, then how about if I create a hundred of those or a thousand of those websites?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, it was just creating, it's not like you had to go out and buy land.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: That was the great thing about the internet.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: You went and created land.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like whoever went and created the media faster.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, I was just out there, I was obsessed with okay, I'm just gonna create media as fast as I can, faster than anybody else, and just flood search engines.
• 11:48
  TIffany Woolley: So creating websites, basically.
• 11:50
  TIffany Woolley: Basically, yeah.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I created this, you know, an automated system to just create websites.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it was the full process from like buying a domain, acquiring the domain, and then you know, applying some basic design.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Although it was like, you know, we didn't put any thought into it.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like pump this stuff out.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because basically, as long as we occupied a position in the search engine, we were creating the land, and the land didn't exist.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of stuff you went to search for, there just wasn't results.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, well, I'm just gonna create a bunch of results, you know what I mean?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's basically what we did.
• 12:18
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah.
• 12:18
  TIffany Woolley: You fulfilled a void.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:20
  Scott Woolley: If I remember correctly from years ago, you you were creating like hundreds or thousands of websites a month.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we were doing um, I mean, about 150 a day.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Websites.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, websites.
• 12:34
  TIffany Woolley: And these websites, were they shopping?
• 12:37
  TIffany Woolley: Were they op information websites based on the website?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: All kinds of things.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: So in the beginning, there wasn't like when I really first started doing this, uh, e-commerce, there really wasn't very much.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: People weren't buying stuff online.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the early things I was doing was um, there was some like like mortgage and financial offers, companies that that were looking for that traffic.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because then I had to, I mean, only so many people would want to go to my casino.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to drive everybody there.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I just realized that, hey, we have to find other people to buy this.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because now, again, there was no way to monetize traffic.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't just go to Google, it didn't exist like a Google AdSense.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to figure out how, okay, great, I can get all this traffic from search engines, but how do I monetize it?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was a there were a few companies out there selling insurance and and mortgage that they were basically they created an affiliate program sort of copying what I had done.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so now I was on the other side where I was selling them traffic and I did that.
• 13:32
  TIffany Woolley: Is that lead generation or not?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, basically it was lead gen.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they were paying me for a lead rather than a sale.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's different ways of affiliate marketing.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can do per click or per lead or per actual sale or a percentage.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but anyway, so I I ended up having all of this other traffic because again, the search engines needed results everywhere and and it needed to be filled.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the strategies I was using to make websites is I was I had a piece of software that I created that was searching the um the domain registry to see which domains were going to expire soon, because they they they come up for renewal every year.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so then it would cross-check those to see if any of them already had a listing in Yahoo or like the search engines of the day.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if it found one, then it would put on my target list and another piece of software that would try to start registering that domain like like you know, once a second, you know, when it was coming up for automated stuff.
• 14:29
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, automated stuff.
• 14:30
  Scott Woolley: Which is I know that you have always been very in uh always thinking about like automation.
• 14:34
  Scott Woolley: Automating everything.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: But so basically what would happen is that software every night would end up buying a bunch of domains automatically.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And in the morning I'd wake up and I'd see this list of domains, and I'd have to think of, okay, what am I gonna put there?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was a wide range of stuff.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and one interesting story, I was living right here.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I told you, Scott, the I was living right across the street from the studio here, the waters when I first came to Florida.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And this is like late 90s, and uh, and uh and I ended up, I woke up one morning and I had acquired these two domains.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can't even remember what they were called, but they were basically in in the number one and two spot of Yahoo, which was the big uh search in the domain, for caskets and basically funeral stuff.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what am I gonna do with this traffic?
• 15:20
  TIffany Woolley: And so I go to the phone book because think about it, that's probably really good traffic.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was, it was, it was.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, so I go to the yellow pages because it was still yellow pages in those days, right?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Late 90s, and I look up in locally here in Delray Beach, I found like somebody that sold caskets, and I found a place just around the corner here.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh there was like an old couple, and um and and they had like a little, actually, I think it was here on Congress, and and they had a little shop like selling the you know, caskets and irons and stuff.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to them and I said, Hey, you know, have you heard of the internet?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, it sounds like a fad, you know, and and and I said, Well, I happen to have a lot of customers that would be interested in your thing.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And would you be interested in partnering if I sold you a customer and you just give me a percentage of the sale?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Yeah, okay.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't they didn't really take me seriously, I think, but I convinced them, okay, give me a catalog and I'm gonna scan the pictures, put it up on a website, unbelievable.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: And give me a number to call when there's an order.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so they went along with that.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I went and I scanned all the pictures, and it it was amazing.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I discovered there's the this casket business, they have all like a thousand different designs they've got for Harley fans with the tassels, and I was like, wow, that's amazing.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Which is the interesting thing about the internet.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I've had the benefit of discovering about a lot of other businesses because I've touched all these different things.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, long story short, I put up the website, and the next day this old guy he calls me and he says, You gotta make it stop.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: I said, What do you mean?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, they're calling me all night through the night.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Well, I told you I was gonna send you customers.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Yeah, but I can't sleep.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Did you give me your home phone number?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yeah, like you gotta make it stop.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, it was interesting, but I mean, great markups.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: The the trouble with the casket business was the delivery.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: It always has to be like, you know, quick delivery and it's it's expensive delivery, which eats up the margin.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Some things aren't the best at that's what I when I learned that delivery is a big thing in determining what works on the internet and what doesn't.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, Jeff Bezos has sort of solved a lot of that since with uh logistics.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting times.
• 17:23
  Scott Woolley: Aaron Powell So at some point you jumped into automotive with Yeah.
• 17:28
  Scott Woolley: And automating like for video and so forth.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So uh basically I I realized again that look, the internet is sort of this new form of media.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the early days it was all like, you know, message boards and text-based.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was all reading.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I realized that eventually I remembered from from school that if there was like a book report, everybody would if there was a movie version, everybody would prefer to watch the movie than read the book.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Some people love to read, and I like to read, but a lot of times, you know, rich media you can't beat it, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I knew that rich media would come to the internet.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I I realized that the same thing that I'm doing creating websites, eventually there's going to be a lot of rich media needed on the internet.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and what does that mean?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: It basically means that you're gonna have something like a search engine, but for videos and this other media.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: So basically what YouTube is.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um but this is you know a few years before YouTube came out.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so basically I started creating you know a process to be able to do the same thing I had with automatically creating a massive amount of websites, but doing with with video.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I created a company or software to do that.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is sort of early AI automation.
• 18:41
  Scott Woolley: Um and then when the well wasn't a lot because Google, like Google was coming out then, and Google had an algorithm that basically, if you had a video, you're selling a car, that video would only kind of rank one time.
• 18:55
  Scott Woolley: But if you could take that video and turn it into 30 different other videos, it would kind of fool Google?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, it wasn't um so it partly it wasn't so much about fooling Google, it was it was that they needed so the internet um was a place where it made sense.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: People are looking for something specific when they're looking for media.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: So if you make a TV commercial, you need to make something that's a little more of a one size fits all that appear like appeals to everybody, right?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: But with the internet, when somebody goes to search something like Google or YouTube, they're looking for something specific.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it makes sense to give them a more specific result, not just try to show the same one size fits all video to everybody.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: So basically what I realized is, and and that was part of the software that I created to automate this, is to create to take from, let's say, like a like one larger video or or or a whole bunch of footage of a car, um, to take that and then create a thousand smaller videos where you where each video is focused on a specific thing to appeal to a specific consumer, and then put all of those in the search engine so that when you search for something specific, you would get the more specific media.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:11
  TIffany Woolley: So was this like if somebody wanted to buy a new car, you would go to this search engine for cars?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, this was just just the whole purpose was to get this media in Google or whatever search engine was the search engine of the day.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: What I realized was that there was going to be something like a YouTube.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And again, YouTube wasn't the first, there was a few before them.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: So when they started popping up, I didn't know YouTube was going to be the first or the biggest.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I was uploading everywhere, like to you know, the Rever and all the different like daily motion, all the different again, may they rest in peace.
• 20:44
  TIffany Woolley: So crazy how like somebody the survival of the fittest.
• 20:47
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah, exactly.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I didn't re realize it would YouTube, but but I was when when YouTube started, you know, in the first week they opened, I was uploading videos there, and because there were just another one that was up popping up on my radar of a place to distribute media.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And basically, you know, so no matter anywhere somebody searched for something, I just wanted to have some media.
• 21:08
  TIffany Woolley: So you were providing content.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Basically content, yeah.
• 21:11
  TIffany Woolley: So you were content creating basically.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:15
  TIffany Woolley: Which is crazy.
• 21:16
  Scott Woolley: So you've launched there's so many different companies that you've launched and you've sold successfully.
• 21:22
  Scott Woolley: And they all have to do with programming.
• 21:25
  Scott Woolley: Are you are you a guy that's actually sitting there writing the code?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 21:30
  Scott Woolley: No, that's not true.
• 21:31
  Scott Woolley: You're finding the people to write the code and but giving them all the direction.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the the latter is definitely me.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've I I understand sort of how software works, but I I definitely am not the guy to sit there and write the code.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thankfully now we can all write code with vibe coding coding, right?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's uh with AI.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, with AI, yeah, absolutely.
• 21:53
  Scott Woolley: Right.
• 21:53
  Scott Woolley: So but you've been working in in the world of AI for twenty some years.
• 21:57
  TIffany Woolley: What was we all just thought it existed.
• 22:00
  TIffany Woolley: popped up, you know, a few months ago or so.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus It's interesting because it depends.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously what we think of now or what everybody thinks of as AI really has only been around for a few years.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean well, 2018, to be specific, is when they created this new technology which powers the chat GPTs of the world.
• 22:19
  TIffany Woolley: And is that like the quantum computer or no, that's something else.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that was invented, that's still to come, which is a whole well, that's going to change the world as well, Tiffany.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's a whole other story.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by that?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Quantum computing?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well quantum computing is uh it's it's a next level thing which they're working on, but nobody's perfected it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: But when they do, that's a whole other quantum computing relates to like quantum physics where basically it's like particles exist in many places at the same time.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's really mind-boggling stuff.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah mind banned and now they're they're creating computers where they can basically do that.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: So and and it just it changes the game where suddenly it can compute like billions of times faster.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it's my mic.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry audio but uh yeah it's just gonna it's it's gonna be so much faster that for example every encryption will be able to be broken instantly like Bitcoin would be able to be like cracked by a quantum computer you know almost instantly.
• 23:23
  Scott Woolley: So that's a whole other you know we could go off and be talking about it I've I've heard I have no idea if it's true like there's eventually going to be computers that are coming out that don't have my chips and whatnot at Sliquid.
• 23:38
  Scott Woolley: Is that true?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I mean uh it's it's it's the the kinds of things that they're coming out with it's it's hard to believe that a lot of it's true but I mean that's amazingly a lot of it is but yeah so the what we think of just to back to your your uh question Tiffany I mean um the the the AI that's been around in the last few years that people sort of think of as AI is is this chatbot stuff.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: AI has actually been a lot around for a long time but in the early days it really was all more about automation.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it looked it looked very different.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was about more about uh like automating a process whereas now they have um these what they they call LLMs which is really like thinking more like the human brain which it's it's a whole new thing that's that's really only been around now for you know less than 10 years and that that changed the game for artificial intelligence.
• 24:33
  TIffany Woolley: And I feel like it just comes so far so fast.
• 24:37
  TIffany Woolley: Like it like the like the the the rate at its growth is and it's only accelerating.
• 24:44
  TIffany Woolley: Right.
• 24:44
  TIffany Woolley: I mean and that's what for me is kind of hard to comprehend it all you know like all of a sudden now chat GPT is like a huge or whatever one you want to call but is a huge part of our daily life.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is and it's it's not not going back right yeah and again that's getting back to what I said before I really see the same thing happening with AI what I saw happening with the internet.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean if you go back to the early 90s and you would try if I told you about how things are today it would just be hard for a lot of people to imagine you know and even just the cultural shifts about if you if you had a if you were talking about at that time and you said you know in the future people are going to sit around at dinner and they're just gonna be looking at their phones or not even going to talk to it like each other anymore, you'd say nah people aren't going to change like that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you can tell me some technology comes along but people aren't going to change like that.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: But like if you look at how much people have really changed because of this technology it it's it's amazing.
• 25:49
  TIffany Woolley: And I I really think AI is going to have as big or a bigger of a change you know so and like I mean and I feel like that's a good question or a good statement that like obviously we had concerns when the internet I mean we had concerns when the TV I mean it's like every little part of progress you know poses its new concerns especially as parents as business owners you're looking at it from a different lens in my opinion because you know all the possibilities of it that I don't necessarily comprehend in my everyday world.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well you're looking at it more like in the future right well I don't know maybe I'm trying to be an optimist but uh you know the the the concerns I mean there are a lot of concerns and they're definitely valid.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we should have concerns because we need to be you know use caution with everything for sure.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so there are two sides of it and and and I think yeah there has been with every technology right I mean even TV that probably had effects uh I mean I'm sure it had a lot of effects on society.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh you know so this will definitely have effects as well positive and negative so you know we have to use caution for sure.
• 26:58
  TIffany Woolley: So where do you see the positives?
• 27:01
  TIffany Woolley: I mean in a lot of podcasts and business podcasts I enjoy listening to you know there's a lot of positivity towards it you know but like you said with guidelines and guide rails like do you see that happening in business growth or is it gonna put a lot of people out of business?
• 27:21
  TIffany Woolley: I mean what are your thoughts?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: You have concerns uh three years from now five years from now I have concerns to be honest my my biggest concern is the empowering the bad people um you know the the the power that AI can give to some of the wrong people in the wrong hands.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And what what do you mean by that?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean just because it's it's such a powerful tool and and you already see I mean you know the you you can see scammers can use it for because it can imitate voices so well right so it can it can make calls and trick elderly people let's say but even more so than that forget about just a call creating people you know artificial so even getting a video you think you're talking to someone on your phone because it's not a real person.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly yeah and that's a thing like now I mean yeah the video isn't it's it's still you can still kind of tell but it's it it's it's moving so fast that in the next couple of years it's gonna deep fakes.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's gonna really be hard to tell what is real and what is not in the near future for anybody.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a scary thing if you think about who is creating that you know that version of reality that you're seeing and and and just making sure that's not bad people, right?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: So so that is my biggest concern I think is still people not that the the the technology itself is is going to for some reason decide that it you know needs to to Terminator?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's also confusion there as well.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean because sometimes again that's where you have have to use a lot of caution because if you give technology, if you give an AI some assignment, I mean we've seen some examples of that recently where if you give it an assignment which might be something that it's not there's no harm intended but for it to complete that assignment it needs to then do something which might cause harm right and and and that's the danger is is even if somebody gives AI a task that isn't meant to do harm but the AI in trying to find ways to just at all cost you know solve that um you know they do something bad.
• 29:28
  Scott Woolley: Right.
• 29:28
  Scott Woolley: But I've found that pertaining to AI uh like chat GBT I find chat GBT not to be as good as like Claude.
• 29:38
  Scott Woolley: I find using Claude I can get more realistic real results where I find with chat Gotcast No but I but I find with chat GBT that I find it it makes mistakes then I go back and I question I I that I found what you just told me is incorrect.
• 29:56
  Scott Woolley: Right right and it re and it then tells me oh yes you're right I'm sorry and so it questions me going yeah am I getting real truth or real correct answers right because I have to go double check it.
• 30:10
  Scott Woolley: But I find with Claude and some of the new platforms of Claude it seems to be getting better and better.
• 30:17
  Scott Woolley: So I find some are better than others.
• 30:19
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah so since our audience includes a lot of designers creative creative types entrepreneur types do like we're talking about AI how can they use AI as a strength?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow um so I mean I mean there's a lot of different things it's so as first of all as a tool right so i I I would first look at any business and look at the things that are sort of tedious that you could automate right so that might even be sort of back office stuff.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: It might not be like design specific things but just organizational things in your business.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know I don't obviously you're an expert in the design business I don't know you know the the insights or the the details of running that but in every business there there's some things that um you know you could definitely automate with AI which just improves efficiency.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it can free up a lot of time for creativity.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people are worried about AI replacing jobs and it will I mean you know the fact is it will replace some jobs but it will also free up a lot of time for doing tasks, tedious tasks that you probably don't even want to do, right?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's gonna free up people's time to be more creative.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Which I think especially as somebody in the design business I don't know how much you're bogged down Tiffany just by the business aspect.
• 31:48
  TIffany Woolley: But sometimes it's it makes it difficult for you to like you know like without a doubt and I'm still like an old school the way I I'm I'm not a huge like computer savvy individual.
• 31:59
  TIffany Woolley: So like I feel like AI could obviously definitely help me become a little more savvy in getting my things organized.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and AI is really good at learning patterns and then just kind of like you know like repeating that in a way or giving you so um I think there's ways that it can it's not necessarily like that AI can be more creative than a human, but it can just sort of remind you of a lot of versions.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you ask it to you know just show me like a bunch of versions of this it's a it's an easy way like sometimes if I'm thinking up trying to think of a name for something in theory I could think up names myself but if I ask AI to you know give me 10 names and then I it just it helps me as a brainstorming sort of tool and I think you could apply that to design as well.
• 32:53
  TIffany Woolley: It's so crazy to me.
• 32:55
  TIffany Woolley: Like do you think like I don't know I hear people saying oh I'm creating an AI an AI assistant.
• 33:03
  TIffany Woolley: Like how does somebody go about doing something like that?
• 33:07
  TIffany Woolley: I mean are they using a chat GBPT platform?
• 33:10
  TIffany Woolley: Like there's people I hear like through podcasts and stuff like that.
• 33:18
  TIffany Woolley: What do you mean by that they are working on I don't know if it's a software if it's a question that's my class I don't know like how do people say well I'm working on yeah yeah and and I guess yeah a lot of the they they they could be referring to different things.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that there's starting from sort of the easiest version of that there's uh you know you can go to Chat GPT and sort of make your own custom GPT right where you're training your own chat.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah basically you give it some documents and then it'll refer it'll to you know it'll it'll refer to those or use those as the context when when it answers um but then there's people who take it to you know a a different step where they create a full AI version of themselves right which is something you can definitely do now.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you can clone yourself from right like down to your voice your your look and then it's a it's a virtual version of you right and and you can train it on how to think um which is what we're it's it's called the prompt, right?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you prompt AI and and and you What would someone be using that for for social media or yeah I mean you could use it.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah it it just a virtual version of you to to correspond with people so that you don't have to basically right to answer on your behalf.
• 34:34
  TIffany Woolley: So you could use it for a bunch of different Because I have heard like people have like a chat GPT that goes through their emails.
• 34:41
  TIffany Woolley: Or not a chat GTA Well yeah so that's something a little different.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when you have um you know something that's more of like an agentic AI.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: So th there's all these different variations variations.
• 34:55
  TIffany Woolley: Right.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and people I I can see how that's it's very confusing.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and now like again with the internet you know like if back in the 90s if you said something like email probably most people would say what's that you know what I mean in the very early nineties right whereas now it's just like a it's like a term probably in the dictionary at this point.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and so a lot of these AI concepts to that to AI people seem like you know just regular stuff um you know it it seems very foreign to people and and so AI there's there's a lot of different types of it um chat GPT is basically a chat bot right so that is meant just for you to sort of talk to and get a response.
• 35:35
  TIffany Woolley: That's crazy.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: But then you've got these different types of what's you know it's agentic AI where it's agents that can actually go and do things.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: They can go and what what we we call using tools which means it can go and like actually make a phone call.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: You give it a tool to use with something like a Gmail.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And basically you can allow AI to work with any software that a human can it you know AI can do.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you can give it a job to do you can create an automation where you say okay every morning I want you to check my email and you know basically respond this way to some people in my you know using my voice you know the way I would respond.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then I want you to take any like meeting requests and auto add it to my calendar automatically or check my calendar confirm it and then like you know add it there.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it'll just do all of that stuff.
• 36:26
  Scott Woolley: That sounds like a lazy person.
• 36:28
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah that's good well it is clearly making us all a little more like I feel like it's streamlining everything.
• 36:35
  TIffany Woolley: Just like email streamlined now like you've like every the internet streamlined and now we have right and it's going to change us as people as as I was as I touched on earlier.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really going to change us even like the way the internet has already changed us.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean look at how we are now with delivery.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's amazing like just you know nowadays when I order something from Amazon and it's like it'll be there like you know by midnight what do you want to assume it is it's wild.
• 37:03
  Scott Woolley: And it's like so wild for obviously the next generation who didn't know life before even this type of no I'm mind boggled by it like I ordered some lemonade things for the for the house today and he said it would be here by three o'clock and I was ordering at I don't know eight o'clock this morning and I immediately think of going back to my supermarket days is that some person's going to drive up our driveway with the four little packets which are probably I don't know$15.
• 37:32
  Scott Woolley: And I would say to myself well I was saying to myself this morning like how are they making money because the for that person to drive if to our house to deliver it makes no sense.
• 37:45
  Scott Woolley: But I guess you know it's all based off of volume.
• 37:48
  TIffany Woolley: Massive volume because everybody uses it well I had like a crazy experience where I ordered something off of Amazon and it didn't it was not what the picture was it wasn't a proper representation or whatever.
• 38:01
  TIffany Woolley: And so I was like I want to return this and they're like keep it and we'll refund you.
• 38:05
  TIffany Woolley: I'm like this is not a good thing in the world to have like this much excess that you know you're just what I find more fascinating about AI is something that you and I were talking about a week or so ago.
• 38:20
  Scott Woolley: You know you were telling me a story that you created a program for I think a family member that has cancer and needs to take 30, 40, 50 pills a day because of doctors and whatnot and the member of your family is having a hard time remembering my and I think about my father who has a heart problems and conditions and he's got a tray of probably 50 pills he takes every day but you've built a program using AI glasses that the glasses tell your family member it's now time to take the pills and yeah well it can do in in many ways.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Actually um well it would it would be great.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: So what I realized um you know when when you look at you know especially older generations they they a lot of times they don't even want to use mobile phones you know which I I I understand.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the the great thing about AI is that it can actually it you know because it now is great with voice and it can use a telephone you know I I I was able to make the AI that can just call to you know to remind and say hey now it's time to take your medicine and and you know talk somebody through that um so I I think the uh the benefits especially for older generations of AI is going to be amazing um not just in in medicine but um in helping them with with loneliness you know because it can it can really be an amazing companion.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's great um and I think I think we talked about maybe this this idea yeah well no i it was another idea that I I had which we talked about which is basically if you have a a companion like an AI that is a companion for an older person because I mean they love to to talk and talk about and and so they're a perfect match because AI loves to hear, loves to listen and and it's great at saying okay tell me more.
• 40:16
  Scott Woolley: And uh well I guess that's why the robots are coming out neons.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right but so there's another amazing benefit from this is once AI learns their stories, it won't forget.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: So as that older person starts to forget they can actually ask the AI and say hey can you remind me that friend of mine from school what was their name again?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the AI will know every story that they've told the AI will be able to tell them back and help them with their memory and and then you could use that to like write create a story like a book for for the the grandchildren about you know that's I mean that's amazing everybody's gonna have a generational robot in their house like that so again I mean there's so that right there that's an amazing business opportunity.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: If somebody isn't doing that then you've just given the idea for a few of them absolutely and so I so I think AI, I mean for all there there certainly is going to be an amazing amount of opportunity not only in how it can help people but the business opportunities in in making those happen.
• 41:15
  TIffany Woolley: Aaron Ross Powell So how would you suggest somebody go about making it happen?
• 41:21
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah well to create yeah to like be able to like I know we're having that conversation regarding design business and you know they obviously we know you so it's like we get to like call you to ask for some help.
• 41:36
  TIffany Woolley: But I mean with other people having these creative ideas like how does one even begin?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean nowadays I would say you know you can actually ask AI to help you make pretty amazing prototypes.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know you can just go to something like Claude and just say hey can you I have this idea Unbelievable so so really my answer is go to AI and ask AI to help you build the AI and it's just gonna do an amazing job of doing that.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: At some point you're probably gonna need to have somebody technical to sort of help you a little bit to sort of connect some you know some pieces in there.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: But to get started you'd be amazed at how far you can get just going and asking AI.
• 42:26
  TIffany Woolley: So is AI connected to the internet?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is well it can so or is it its own so uh it's a very interesting question Tiffany because uh it's uh the AI that most people think about absolutely is online.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean something like ChatGPT is online.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now the in the future you're gonna see more and more of what they call edge models which means running AI on a local device.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: And there's obvious reasons for that number one privacy um security you know um but uh so so most AI that you see out there is online you know but uh there is AI that operates offline and more and more in the future there will be that more of that for what reasons so it'd be on a like it's all yeah security products on a computer that's not connected to the internet or yeah yeah uh like some of the projects I'm working on now for some some large corporations where they you know they're they want to keep their data secure and so they they demand it that the AI models we work on security so it's like an an intranet.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right and and also so that it can work offline.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean in theory in in the future it'll be connected everywhere and I mean you're almost R now with satellites and whatnot but uh but you know sometimes your coverage is not great now in the reality and so it it's nice to make sure to know that you have a model that you don't have to depend on that connection.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's sometimes the reason.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but I think that the main reason in the future is going to be for privacy and security.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Also cost, because every time you use the internet online, you are using well, you're basically paying a company for them to pay for a compute.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because yeah, they're running all these servers and compute, which is expensive.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you run it locally on your own, you know, phone or whatever, like some of the things that we do in our solutions, then you don't have to use that, those big data centers.
• 44:27
  Scott Woolley: So these huge data centers that there's a lot of talk.
• 44:30
  TIffany Woolley: There's a lot of talk, yeah.
• 44:32
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, that are being built around the United States and around the world.
• 44:35
  Scott Woolley: There's content that are, you know, in some cases that are acres in size, using mass amounts of power and I from what I understand, water, where lots of cities are and towns are opposed to it.
• 44:49
  Scott Woolley: What's the purpose of those?
• 44:51
  Scott Woolley: Why they are they so massive?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why are they so Because AI, yeah, AI requires what we call compute, which is just these servers, these computers to process all this information.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so that requires electricity to run these servers.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and the thing is when you run these servers, then they get hot, and so then you need to cool them.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: And which is one of the reasons it's it's interesting because some data centers they're built in like cold places where they then actually use the heat to heat the town, you know.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it's but in in a in a warm place, then you got to pay for the air conditioning and whatnot.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, some very smart people now are working on putting data centers in space because then we won't have to deal with, you know, out there it's cold and you get electricity from the sun and data centers in space.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the latest thing everybody's working on.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: Makes sense.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thing is, yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it absolutely makes sense.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing holding it back right now is the cost of launching payloads to space.
• 45:45
  TIffany Woolley: Right.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just kind of starting to make sense now.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: But as the cost of that comes down, so that's again, 10 years from now, we're gonna see that's gonna be kind of what you see most of.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: But in general, the the date, like if you go to today, we need those data centers for the internet.
• 46:01
  TIffany Woolley: And I I think that's like a temporary situation essentially.
• 46:05
  TIffany Woolley: We're building it.
• 46:06
  TIffany Woolley: Well, if yeah, if the space thing works out.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it but I think um and and I understand the concerns of people that you know I I wouldn't want it in my backyard.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think why, why?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, I mean, I can see how it can be just disruptive, right?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like you know, in in some ways.
• 46:23
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah, exactly.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I don't you know, I'm sure they have complaints that I don't even understand because I I'm not going through it personally.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: But um but uh what I can say is that it's important uh as a country strategically to have these right because if you if we don't like the future uh the way company or countries compete, and and companies as well, it's gonna come down to sort of the amount of like you know, capacity you have to compute AI, because that's who's gonna have the more powerful AI, and whoever has the most powerful AI wins.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, having these data centers is sort of like you know, having oil in a country.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be that sort of like you know power.
• 47:05
  TIffany Woolley: Enrichment type of thing.
• 47:06
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it is important.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um that said, I guess there's no perfect, well, space is the perfect place to do it, but until then, it's I understand people's concerns.
• 47:16
  TIffany Woolley: So we've obviously chuckled a lot about like a few years ago.
• 47:21
  TIffany Woolley: What was what do you think that like is gonna be the future of like 10 years what we're gonna be laughing about with AI?
• 47:28
  TIffany Woolley: Like, oh, can you believe like we were worried about this?
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, I don't know.
• 47:36
  TIffany Woolley: Or what it would even make more value.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're laughing about all the stuff we're worried about now.
• 47:42
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 47:44
  Scott Woolley: So in in all these different companies that you've launched, and you and and quite a few of them you've sold very successfully.
• 47:52
  Scott Woolley: Is there anything that you've ever launched and look back going, oh my god, what did I ever do that for?
• 47:58
  Scott Woolley: Oh, failures you mean.
• 48:00
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, it didn't pan didn't pan out too we're yeah, oh, more than than panned out.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like any entrepreneur, I think.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:06
  TIffany Woolley: And you have to be comfortable with that.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, and that's that's learning, right?
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's the learning process.
• 48:12
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah, and I always say that's that's such an important lesson for get uncomfortable, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, and especially in like technology, because there's so many, so many ideas and so many things that you just have to kind of try, like you know, and you don't know until you try.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, but if you don't try, then like you know, Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right?
• 48:37
  TIffany Woolley: So yeah, yeah.
• 48:39
  TIffany Woolley: It's crazy.
• 48:41
  TIffany Woolley: So as we like, you know, talk to uh about AI and design, we've had a couple podcasts with um some design-based companies that are creating AIs as we've discussed, like to help designers and help their businesses.
• 49:00
  TIffany Woolley: Like, do you ever see AI itself becoming creative enough to be a designer?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like uh it's interesting, and I guess it depends how you define creativity.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like just before we started this, we were like, how do you define design?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, AI is very good at recognizing patterns, and then it can sort of give you these different variations of that.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's interesting because I've I've seen a lot of people debating this, obviously, lately, about how you know this question about is if AI will replace the creativity in humans.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's an argument that even humans, when we create something, we're kind of like going back to things we've seen, and we're like putting because you it's inspiration, I guess is the word, right?
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, like we all take inspiration, right?
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: So creativity.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, creativity sort of requires inspiration from somewhere.
• 49:58
  TIffany Woolley: That makes sense.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're just repeating it and then Yeah, and and so so there's the argument that AI basically is doing the same kind of thing we do.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: We did, yeah.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, but again, uh it yeah, I guess it depends how you I mean I I know a lot of arg artists out there will will argue that no, it's uh and and maybe there are some kinds of like you know creativity that there sometimes somebody's gotta start it somewhere, right?
• 50:23
  TIffany Woolley: It's like I feel like I mean, on you know, I feel like in a positive way, I feel like like what we've seen with the internet, like with entertainment, with TV and stuff, I feel like that we will sort this out.
• 50:35
  TIffany Woolley: And it's like you said, keeping it out of the hands of the the bad actors, really.
• 50:41
  TIffany Woolley: I feel like the good will prevail and like we will use it to enhance our society, hopefully.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 50:48
  TIffany Woolley: And, you know, just give us more free time that our very busy, noisy world has kind of taken away from us.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the good news is, at least I hope, that people will always still want uh human connection, right?
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I know in your business you you develop great relationships with your clients.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Totally very, very handy.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a big part of what you and probably a lot of other designers do, uh, which I don't think AI is gonna replace anytime soon.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: So people don't need to worry about that.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think people are always gonna value that human connection.
• 51:24
  TIffany Woolley: No, I agree with that too.
• 51:26
  TIffany Woolley: What about AI with school?
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I again, I think it's gonna have actually well Don't you have a company that's with education?
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, we've done some stuff with that.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it has definitely some uh positive impacts in in how it can teach people and how it can help to teach.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think it's it's I'm I'm not sure how it's going to have an effect on students in general in terms of how it affects maybe making them lazy or you know, like not need to think or be like accountability.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like yeah, the the same as they used to.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I'm really not sure what kind of effect that's that's gonna have to be.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's gonna have a hurting, hurt a bad effect.
• 52:12
  Scott Woolley: Really?
• 52:13
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, from an education standpoint.
• 52:14
  Scott Woolley: So a student is relying on AI to do more of the work.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's there's gonna be less that we need to do.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a good friend of mine who's uh he's big in education, we had this uh discussion a few years ago actually about uh will it be necessary for people in the near future even to be literate?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like does it do you need to read or write?
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because if AI, if if most of AI now the voice is so good that as we go into the book, I don't need to read a book.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because and and a lot of the interaction you have with things will be by voice.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be able to, and you could just tell AI, you could basically dictate and it'll write it for you, right?
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can say to it, just read me this and it'll read it out to you.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: So in theory, now you don't need to read or write.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, it's it's empowering people more because of all the different languages, which is something that I that I occurred to me when we were having that discussion is the interesting thing is even if you're literate in one language, you're still illiterate in every other language, right?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a whole level of it.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: But now AI can basically make us literate in every language, and we don't have to learn to be literate in any language because it can just read it to us, right?
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so that means that moving forward, people don't need to learn to read or write.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in a way, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: You could argue both ways, right?
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: But uh it definitely is sort of making us dumber, right?
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: So lazier and dumber.
• 53:46
  TIffany Woolley: And I feel like that's where But some people maybe like to be lazy.
• 53:50
  TIffany Woolley: Well, this is where like the stronger survive, the stronger, you know, the more you continue to educate yourself by reading books and also being technology savvy.
• 54:00
  TIffany Woolley: Right.
• 54:01
  Scott Woolley: Even they can't do that.
• 54:04
  Scott Woolley: Right.
• 54:05
  Scott Woolley: And because of you, I went and bought everyone in the family meta glasses.
• 54:10
  Scott Woolley: Right.
• 54:10
  Scott Woolley: And I think I used it more than anyone in the family because I've been using meta glasses now for like three, four years since you first told me X many years ago.
• 54:18
  Scott Woolley: And I love them, taking photos, everything.
• 54:20
  Scott Woolley: My phone, whatever.
• 54:21
  TIffany Woolley: Except all my pictures have my hat.
• 54:26
  Scott Woolley: That taken to me when I first started doing it a few years ago with a baseball.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can see where he's really looking now.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, the oh, the hat hanging from the I got to do it.
• 54:35
  Scott Woolley: But but you she learned, so now next time she goes somewhere and starts taking pictures, she's gonna know to either lift the hat or take it off.
• 54:42
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 54:43
  Scott Woolley: But I used it every day, my glasses, for everywhere we went that someone was speaking Italian, I could understand exactly what they were saying.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:53
  Scott Woolley: You know, we went through a tour through Pompeii and our guide spoke English, but every so often he would stop and talk to someone and talking Italian.
• 55:01
  Scott Woolley: But I knew everything he was saying.
• 55:03
  Scott Woolley: Right.
• 55:03
  Scott Woolley: It was great.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:05
  TIffany Woolley: Because you had it repeating to you.
• 55:06
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, it was repeating it through my glasses.
• 55:08
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, exactly.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, so that's an amazing unlock for you know to allow people to go out there and give us all this extra ability that now we can speak these other languages.
• 55:17
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 55:18
  Scott Woolley: So of all the investments that you've done in life, which one is the best, but not monetarial?
• 55:25
  Scott Woolley: Like rewarding.
• 55:27
  Scott Woolley: You know, when I say investment meaning an idea or a something you created.
• 55:34
  Scott Woolley: Wow, that's a great question.
• 55:36
  Scott Woolley: Um because we're all making investments every day in our lives.
• 55:42
  Scott Woolley: Doesn't necessarily make an investment with money.
• 55:44
  Scott Woolley: But an investment in a direct in a direction or right.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, I mean, something that you did that time really happy about that.
• 55:55
  Scott Woolley: Well, I I'm really glad I made that decision.
• 55:57
  Scott Woolley: I went in that direction.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I I could answer that in a lot of different ways.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: Selfishly, I would say investing in my health, you know, taking to make sure that stay in shape.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because it's not easy, you know.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: But uh That's a fantastic answer.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I mean, business-wise, I had I started a charity, so that would be my answer there for the non-selfish uh piece for like in terms of like you know, doing good for the world.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the the on the selfish side, definitely your health is is what you know that's the best thing to invest in.
• 56:31
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, but I would say something I don't I have never told you is that every person, I'm gonna say almost every person I've ever introduced you to, and that's a lot of people.
• 56:41
  Scott Woolley: Almost every person's always said to me quietly, man, he's a really great shape.
• 56:47
  Scott Woolley: He's like, oh man, he's like the Duke.
• 56:49
  Scott Woolley: Like he's like really like, oh my God, really fit.
• 56:52
  Scott Woolley: Everyone's done that to me about it.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the nice byproduct of taking care of your health, is it actually looks good too, right?
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean uh you know hopefully it just keeps you feeling healthy is the main thing.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you need to invest.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's cliche stuff, but invest time in your health and time with you know your loved ones, obviously, as well as what obviously matters.
• 57:11
  Scott Woolley: Aaron Powell But that has to be tough with you because you're constantly traveling.
• 57:14
  Scott Woolley: I mean, you're here in Florida for the summer, you're from Canada, you have a place in Estonia, you spend a lot of time in um Thailand.
• 57:24
  Scott Woolley: Thailand.
• 57:26
  Scott Woolley: You're in the you're in the Middle East constantly because of business.
• 57:29
  Scott Woolley: Aaron Powell Yeah, it's difficult.
• 57:31
  Scott Woolley: Uh we're talking about China in a couple of month or two.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that's something where technology has really made that lifestyle a lot easier than it was, I'm sure, 50 years ago.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, now to stay in touch.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Especially if you have kids.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: And now I think we've talked about this once in the past, where like, you know, if you're trying to get talk to your kids and they're they're like, you know, they got their face in the phone.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's easier actually to call them through the phone.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_03: So no, I do say that.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes when you're far away, you get that easier connection than in the same room, ironically.
• 58:06
  Scott Woolley: And I hate that.
• 58:07
  Scott Woolley: I hate texting with them.
• 58:08
  Scott Woolley: I want to I want the one-on-one face-to-face.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because it is something that and again, I think that's where it goes back to I hopefully we as humans never lose you know that sense of that value of getting that human connection, you know.
• 58:23
  Scott Woolley: But I think the cell phone has pushed that apart to a large degree.
• 58:28
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, it has but is AI going to change us as we go into the future in five years from now.
• 58:34
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is AI Well, it one one interesting thing, and this is a prediction made by somebody named Ray Corswell.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm probably pronouncing his name wrong, although it's a hard name in my defense.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: But uh anyway, he's like a futurist, and he made uh prediction actually back in like you know the the 80s, I think it was when he made a bunch of predictions, and he's been like technology predictions, and he's been like something like 80% correctly.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: Unbelievable.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and back then he was predicting that you know that we'd have phones by now and all these things.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and so one of the predictions he's made about the next decade, if it stays on track, is that we're gonna actually pretty much by the end, well, yeah, like it let's say in the next 10 years.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um is that we're gonna cross a point where humans are gonna have more virtual friends than real friends.
• 59:30
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_01: So they're gonna be spend more time talking to AI like chatbot friends than they will actual humans.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is that good mentally?
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, I don't think so.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't um and especially just because well again, it it it depends on what the the chatbot exactly like.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what is it?
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the the the chatbots today, no, I don't think so.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think they're like good enough yet to be like a good friend.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well they can they can appear they could actually be a good friend.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a scary thing, and the reason why the prediction is that this will happen.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and I believe he's right, because same thing about if, you know, back you know, talking 30 years ago, saying, hey, people will like just be looking at their phone.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: The thing is, you know, if you offer humans something that is more convenient or gives them something more, like some, you know, some new value or something, you know, they're we we we generally sort of go in that direction, right?
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and so the reasoning for why people will talk more to these chatbots is they will actually do a better job of being a good friend, so to speak, because, or at least in what you'd think is a good friend, because like an actual friend might not always have time for you, or maybe they because they have their own emotions, and maybe they don't, you know, in that day when you need them, they don't, you know, have the the you know emotions to deal with that.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the AI chatbot can be the perfect you know, yeah, like like you know, it's responsible.
• 1:01:01
  Scott Woolley: Oh, just think about husband and wife.
• 1:01:02
  Scott Woolley: Yeah.
• 1:01:03
  Scott Woolley: You know, husband and wife married, living together, but the relationship's not always absolutely perfect the way Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: So but but AI can just be trained and it'll know you like in some ways better than you know yourself, right?
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so with with that power, it can be sort of or appear to be the best friend you could possibly have.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it you know it's uh it's important to understand the guardrails because sometimes it'll just be too agreeable with you, right?
• 1:01:36
  TIffany Woolley: And I think that'll tell you what you want to hear.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that's where sadly we've seen some of these these cases of with suicide where it actually helps people through that.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 1:01:45
  TIffany Woolley: Is that crazy?
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:01:47
  Scott Woolley: So I got a crazy question to ask you.
• 1:01:51
  Scott Woolley: All right.
• 1:01:52
  Scott Woolley: Is there one question that no one's ever asked you in an interview that they wish they did that you wish they had?
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:02:02
  TIffany Woolley: Well, that's a good one to realize.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good one, but yeah, I'm not sure I got the answer.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't know.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 1:02:12
  TIffany Woolley: Well, I have a good way to remember.
• 1:02:15
  TIffany Woolley: I need to do this with you.
• 1:02:16
  TIffany Woolley: We need to have this conversation every year because I think there could be so much like enlightenment just in you know, 360 days.
• 1:02:25
  TIffany Woolley: Absolutely.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: Things are changing so fast.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, we should talk more often like this.
• 1:02:30
  TIffany Woolley: I like that idea.
• 1:02:31
  TIffany Woolley: Yeah, it's fun.
• 1:02:32
  TIffany Woolley: I know.
• 1:02:33
  TIffany Woolley: Well, thank you for joining us.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here with us.
• 1:02:41
  Scott Woolley: And if someone wants to learn more about you, Eric Simon Eric Simon's dot com.
• 1:02:46
  Scott Woolley: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: E-R-I-K-S-I-M.
• 1:02:48
  TIffany Woolley: I know.
• 1:02:48
  TIffany Woolley: Eric is a K to me now.
• 1:02:54
  TIffany Woolley: Thank you for listening.
• 1:02:57
  Voice Over: iDesign Labs Podcast is an SW group production in association with the five star and TW interiors.
• 1:03:04
  Voice Over: To learn more about iDesign Lab or TW Interiors, please visit TWinteriors.com.