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Your “AI Is Evil” Take Would Have Hated the Printing Press Too · Your Mic

• 0:00
  Let's talk about wax pens, razor blades, and real-to-real machines.
• 0:05
  My name is Freddie Cruz and this is another episode of Your Mic.
• 0:09
  Now back to all that old school gear.
• 0:12
  Once upon a time, I was a baby radio DJ.
• 0:15
  I know I don't look a day over 50, which by the way is my age.
• 0:19
  But back in 1996, I was working my first full-time radio job
• 0:24
  at a radio station called KRTX Pudote Hano,
• 0:27
  or as it was a Pudote Hano, 100.7.
• 0:29
  We edited phone calls with real-to-real machines.
• 0:33
  You know, like when you watched WKRP and Cincinnati,
• 0:36
  that TV show, remember that one?
• 0:38
  Yeah, that was how we edited our phone calls.
• 0:41
  Using razor blades and a wax pen to mark the beginning and end of the spot
• 0:46
  where you wanted to splice out a phone call.
• 0:49
  And imagine a rookie DJ doing one of those corny,
• 0:54
  cliche nighttime radio countdowns at the top five in eight,
• 0:58
  top five in nine, or whatever the heck it was back at that radio station
• 1:02
  where I used to work.
• 1:03
  And oh, man, it was hard.
• 1:05
  It was fun.
• 1:06
  Also, super stressful because think about the ever-song being
• 1:11
  between like 245 and four minutes.
• 1:15
  All right, two minutes, 45 seconds, and four minutes.
• 1:18
  And you have that amount of time to edit a phone call.
• 1:21
  Hey, where are you calling from?
• 1:23
  I'm calling from the north side.
• 1:24
  Give me the radio station.
• 1:26
  Car ticks or whatever, whatever what was said.
• 1:30
  That would do a number on one's blood pressure.
• 1:33
  I can imagine what the old guys, you know,
• 1:35
  the guys that are my age now, can't imagine what their life was like.
• 1:38
  I imagine my blood pressure at 19, 20, and 21 was definitely
• 1:46
  at least a little bit elevated, maybe 140 over 75 or eight?
• 1:52
  I don't know.
• 1:53
  I have no idea.
• 1:54
  But I've got a point, and I'm going to make it.
• 1:57
  Fast forward a little bit.
• 1:58
  I'm at my first full-time top 40 radio gig,
• 2:03
  and we get this magical machine called the Vox Pro.
• 2:06
  Oh, the Vox Pro is like a computerized reel to reel.
• 2:10
  So everything was on this little, like, little board.
• 2:16
  If you are in the podcast world, imagine a roadcaster board,
• 2:20
  but you have a little toggle wheel, and you can kind of scrub back and forth.
• 2:24
  And it was cool because everything was digital.
• 2:27
  And imagine this, an undo button,
• 2:31
  where in my old world with razor blades, wax pens, and tape,
• 2:36
  there is no undo.
• 2:37
  You edit the wrong part of a phone call between two, three-minute-long
• 2:41
  songs, and you are screwed, especially if it's a slow phone night.
• 2:46
  And at that particular radio station, the phones sucked so bad.
• 2:51
  But I digress.
• 2:52
  So imagine getting this upgrade to Vox Pro.
• 2:56
  Oh, my goodness.
• 2:57
  It makes life so much easier.
• 2:59
  We're so much more efficient at editing phone calls.
• 3:02
  And we can undo it.
• 3:03
  We deleted something that we'd never meant to delete, right?
• 3:07
  And then there are upgrades.
• 3:09
  Oh, man, the upgrades were amazing.
• 3:11
  We could insert record.
• 3:13
  We can take actual movie clips or whatever.
• 3:16
  And if you worked on the radio back in the day,
• 3:18
  you know all about having the best movie clips
• 3:20
  and how hard it was to get, because back then,
• 3:23
  when the internet first came out, there wasn't
• 3:24
  something called YouTube where we can just kind of lift something
• 3:27
  from YouTube and pour it into the Vox Pro.
• 3:29
  And I'm getting hives just thinking about how stressful it was
• 3:31
  to get these really cool movie clips.
• 3:33
  But anyways, you could insert sound effects and movie clips
• 3:36
  in whatever your mom's voice.
• 3:43
  I'm not even kidding.
• 3:44
  You can insert multiple voices or yours if you screwed up
• 3:49
  something and you wanted to reinsert yourself saying
• 3:51
  it a different way, you can do that.
• 3:54
  Or if your listener wasn't really exciting,
• 3:57
  you needed them to say something,
• 3:58
  you can stop and have them resay it,
• 4:01
  like say it again, right?
• 4:02
  And that upgrade was incredible.
• 4:05
  You could also believe you could make special effects.
• 4:07
  So if you wanted to sound like you were in a waterburger restroom,
• 4:09
  you can do that.
• 4:10
  I'm sure now that I'm out of radio and I really just do not care.
• 4:14
  I'm sure there are probably even more cooler upgrades
• 4:16
  to the Vox Pro.
• 4:17
  I have no idea.
• 4:19
  I don't live in that world.
• 4:20
  Haven't even listened to the radio in years.
• 4:22
  Anyways, the whole point of this rant,
• 4:25
  nobody in the radio world ever complained about the Vox Pro,
• 4:30
  like nobody.
• 4:32
  I don't know of anyone.
• 4:34
  I knew a lot of people back then,
• 4:36
  but I never knew anybody who would complain
• 4:39
  about life getting easier.
• 4:42
  I just didn't.
• 4:43
  And I'm sure there's probably somebody grumbling
• 4:44
  into their coffee about,
• 4:45
  oh, these technological companies and their Vox Pros
• 4:49
  and get off my lawn,
• 4:50
  I'm sure they're probably had to have been.
• 4:52
  But for the sake of this argument,
• 4:54
  let's just say that was like,
• 4:57
  few and far between, like hardly anybody.
• 4:59
  And Houston's a big town.
• 5:00
  There are a lot of radio people.
• 5:02
  I just seriously doubt there were really
• 5:04
  that many people complaining about the Vox Pro
• 5:06
  because and hear me out.
• 5:07
  I'm no sociologist.
• 5:09
  I'm just gonna guess that the acceptance of Vox Pro
• 5:12
  within this microcosm of community of radio DJs,
• 5:16
  think about how few there were and are way fewer in 2026
• 5:20
  than in 1996.
• 5:21
  But think about this for a second.
• 5:23
  How no hardly anybody complained
• 5:27
  because it augmented,
• 5:28
  it improved our productivity.
• 5:30
  It helped us be better so that if we were going
• 5:35
  from a four minute long song into a song
• 5:36
  that was two minutes and 45 seconds
• 5:39
  and we had to get a phone call on the air
• 5:40
  and like, you know, less than a minute
• 5:43
  after recording for 45 seconds or whatever,
• 5:45
  Vox Pro made things so much easier, so much easier.
• 5:50
  I mean, think about it.
• 5:51
  Razor blades, wax pens and tape.
• 5:53
  I'm surprised I never cut myself in blood to death.
• 5:56
  I'm bad with sharp objects.
• 5:58
  Vox Pro augmented this small community of humans.
• 6:02
  On the radio, making your morning drive,
• 6:05
  your afternoon drive, your evening shift at work,
• 6:07
  making it more fun because it was more fun for them
• 6:11
  because it was helping them with their workload,
• 6:15
  that workload manning the phones.
• 6:17
  What if we're looking at the AI revolution
• 6:21
  through the wrong lens?
• 6:22
  What if we're looking at it as something
• 6:27
  that is replacing us instead of augmenting us?
• 6:30
  What is it that you think it's going to replace you at?
• 6:34
  It's not going to replace you as you.
• 6:36
  It's going to make you better.
• 6:38
  Yes, it's about my previous radio life
• 6:41
  and a technology that really revolutionized the way
• 6:44
  we used to do work.
• 6:45
  And I'm sure it's made leaps and bounds
• 6:48
  since I left the corporate sphere in media.
• 6:52
  But there are so many parallels between Vox Pro
• 6:55
  and editing with a real to real and Razor blades and wax pens.
• 7:00
  And I never thought I'd be saying any of this
• 7:02
  on something called a podcast
• 7:03
  because podcasting didn't exist
• 7:05
  when I first started in radio, but here we are.
• 7:07
  And so I'm wondering what it'll take for you
• 7:11
  and even a small part of me who thinks that, wow,
• 7:14
  this is going to do some damage.
• 7:16
  It's going to be in that positive, sure.
• 7:18
  Just like the printing press, just like the automobile,
• 7:22
  just like every medical intervention
• 7:24
  or every medical invention,
• 7:26
  just like being able to take a credit card
• 7:29
  and enter your number onto a computer
• 7:31
  or putting a credit card into an ATM machine
• 7:34
  or tapping on a device to pay for a soda at the gas station.
• 7:39
  Just like all that, we're resistant to change
• 7:41
  because deep down we know something is getting replaced
• 7:45
  or taken away.
• 7:46
  In the case of a credit card, maybe privacy,
• 7:48
  that is a real threat.
• 7:49
  In the case of the Vox Pro, it's replacing something
• 7:53
  that made hosting a radio show really, really hard
• 7:58
  and augmented the hell out of radio hosts all over the world
• 8:03
  and made them better and more entertaining
• 8:05
  and more informative and more useful as public servants.
• 8:09
  And that was what we were trained to believe
• 8:12
  as radio hosts that were public servants.
• 8:15
  And I believe that to a certain extent, as a podcast host.
• 8:18
  My challenge to you is to think about
• 8:22
  what these technologies are doing for us
• 8:26
  instead of thinking about what they can do to us.
• 8:32
  Let's say that again, think about what these technologies
• 8:34
  are doing for us, how they're augmenting us,
• 8:38
  how they're helping us become more productive
• 8:41
  and spend more time on being us instead of being something
• 8:46
  that we don't really care to be.
• 8:48
  And I'll loop this back into podcasting.
• 8:51
  I don't think anybody really reads show notes.
• 8:53
  I know they're important.
• 8:54
  Yes, we link to episodes in the show notes.
• 8:57
  We talk about booking a call or a consult.
• 9:00
  We talk about specific episodes that we link to
• 9:03
  in the show notes and that's important.
• 9:06
  It is also I and a lot of other fellow podcasters
• 9:11
  people who are smarter at this than me
• 9:13
  and more successful at this than me
• 9:15
  also believe that nobody gives a damn about show notes.
• 9:18
  The vast majority of people don't,
• 9:19
  unless you have a specific reason to look at the show notes
• 9:22
  like for special links, like I'll link this in the show notes.
• 9:25
  AI helps to create show notes and write them in Freddie's voice.
• 9:33
  And that is pretty cool.
• 9:37
  I am trained in audio production, not video.
• 9:40
  I'm not a videographer.
• 9:41
  Everything I've learned about shooting video.
• 9:43
  I've learned on the go through much trial and error.
• 9:47
  I do not know how to edit.
• 9:48
  I have learned on the fly and Opus.Pro is another AI powered software tool
• 9:55
  that has increased my productivity.
• 9:57
  I can tell you on the day that I'm recording this.
• 9:59
  This is Saturday.
• 10:00
  I managed to produce four short form videos in less than two hours.
• 10:05
  And back in the 90s, when I first started in radio,
• 10:08
  I had no desire to get into, actually, that's a lie.
• 10:11
  I did want to get into TV,
• 10:13
  but I had no desire to get into video production.
• 10:16
  And to think that I now can edit and produce really sharp,
• 10:20
  looking branded short form videos for YouTube and Instagram.
• 10:25
  And I can do so.
• 10:26
  And just a span of maybe like two, three hours for clients
• 10:29
  and for myself, that is incredible.
• 10:32
  It really is.
• 10:33
  So let's, again, think about what AI can do for us instead of
• 10:37
  what it can do to us and the threats.
• 10:40
  Sure, there are threats.
• 10:42
  And I think that being a human in 2026 is a threat
• 10:46
  depending on where you live or who you are.
• 10:49
  What you're doing at this particular time of the day,
• 10:51
  are you out in the middle of the night?
• 10:53
  Do you like to cross the street without looking both ways?
• 10:56
  Do you like to walk in the parking lot while glued to your phone?
• 10:59
  It's dangerous to be a human depending on the context.
• 11:03
  So that's my challenge for you for this episode of your mic.
• 11:08
  I'll say it again, just to wrap it up.
• 11:10
  AI can do for us what we never imagined.
• 11:14
  So if we think about what it can do for us,
• 11:16
  for me, for you instead of what it can do to us, to me,
• 11:21
  and to you, then I think we'll be in a better place.
• 11:26
  And I appreciate you listening to this episode
• 11:28
  of your mic.
• 11:29
  If you got any use out of this episode,
• 11:31
  please consider subscribing and sharing
• 11:34
  with the anti-AI person in your life.