Where are we now with AI and where are we heading?

[00:00:00] Helen Todd: We're leaving the information Age and entering the Imagination Age where creativity and ideas are valued more than productivity. And we're co-creating this chapter all together. It's important for all of us to make sure that AI amplifies the best of human. Potential and not replace us.

[00:00:22] Amel Derragui: Welcome to the Time Is now the podcast show designed to take action and stay on top of your game to make a bigger impact with your business or creating more freedom and purpose in your life. This is your host Amel Derragui. I'm here to help you get the clarity and the action plan You need to position yourself as the go-to expert in your field and growing business that is aligned with your needs.

[00:00:45] This is your time to create more growth, alignment, and impact with your business. Has it ever happened to you that you had to think, oh my God, I wish I had a clone, [00:01:00] or, oh my God, I just can't find myself the courage to put myself out there on a video, or, oh my God, every time I have to do a video, I need to put on makeup and all of this thing.

[00:01:10] I have no time for this crap. Well, now, today you can literally have your own clone and. Today in this podcast, we have a special guest who not only created her own clone, her digital clone, who is doing all the work for her. Let's see if that's really true. We'll say that, but sort of, but she's also an amazing expert related to digital marketing and ai and creativity in parallel.

[00:01:35] So I'm so excited to have you here. Welcome, Helen. Are you ready for this ride? Thank you for such a wonderful

[00:01:42] Helen Todd: introduction. I'm so excited to be here at Mel.

[00:01:45] Amel Derragui: I am very happy to have you here. I'm still wondering if I'm looking at you now at Zoom, if it's really the Helen Todd that I know, or is it your digital clone talking to me?

[00:01:54] Helen Todd: This is the real Helen.

[00:01:55] Amel Derragui: The real Helen is here. Uh, so my dear listeners, I'm just gonna introduce [00:02:00] you to, to Helen real quick so that you know a little bit more about her in, in, in fact. So she's the co-founder of. Sociality

Squared, a social media agency established in 2010 in New York City, the time where social media was emerging, and she basically helps brands grow their businesses through their digital marketing strategies.

[00:02:20] She was at the forefront of a disruptive technology then with social media, and now she is doing the same with Creativity Square with. All related topics, all related to AI with her free waking newsletter, her podcast, her YouTube, and she's basically helping us explore how creatives and collaborating with artificial intelligence can help us, um, create more value.

[00:02:44] So we'll see that with, with Helen and her new platform of fosters criti critical discussions around ai, like the future of ethical synthetic media. Exemplified by her digital avatar and she calls her digital avatar Helen. Two point [00:03:00] odd because it's important for her to support artists. 10% of all the revenue she makes through creativity squared.

[00:03:05] She uses it to support art waves and black and brown artist program that has as a goal to elevate underrepresented voices and bridging cultural divides through art, which is a beautiful mission. This was a quick. Like in like summary of who you are, what you do, is there anything that you think would help us get to know what led you to this journey where you are now?

[00:03:29] What was the pivotal moment that got you to go from digital media to doing what you do today and diving into artificial intelligence and art? And you've been doing it before it started becoming your thing, actually. So what led you to this?

[00:03:44] Helen Todd: Yeah, well my mom, my mom is a artist. I love art. I have a mini art collection myself.

[00:03:50] Uh, and one of our clients through Sociality Squared was like a camera. And one of the most fun projects I gotta do was interview a video interview [00:04:00] series with all these photographers, and I really just loved it. So the podcast combines interviewing artists with this, you know, new technology that's hitting us.

[00:04:09] And it was in October of 2022. A friend of mine who works at Open AI actually gave me a demo and I, I always have creative projects on the side and, uh, one of them is a miniseries and we took the first scene of the miniseries and put it into chat GBT, and within seconds it had like the dialogue and you know, the.

[00:04:29] Setting and it like captured my imagination. And as we all know, the next month when it was released, it captured the world's imagination and grew like wildfire to be the, the fastest growing, uh, app ever. Um, and it felt like the, the early days of social media all over again like this. New disruptive technology that's gonna change everything for better or for worse.

[00:04:50] Mm-Hmm. Um, and I just wanted to dive in, uh, head first. So I launched, uh, my podcast, creativity Squared, uh, and then of course integrating AI into our social [00:05:00] media services as well. Uh, but it's been a fun ride. And actually in four days from the. The recording of this interview, the podcast, it has, its one year anniversary.

[00:05:10] Wow. And oh my goodness. Anyone who's been following the news of ai, it has been a rollercoaster ride, uh, since uh, all of the ai, uh, chat bots have been released.

[00:05:19] Amel Derragui: So much has happened since you launched this podcast. It's fascinating. So it's not so much a new thing anymore. ai. Right. And some people would even debate that AI started before even AI is just a chat.

[00:05:30] GBT made it more accessible. It's a lot of people that's, would you agree with that?

[00:05:35] Helen Todd: Absolutely. I mean, AI has been around for goodness since the the fifties, and what a lot of people don't realize is it's already artificial intelligence. It's embedded in all facets of our lives from how, uh, light stops work to, if you use Siri or Google Maps, the difference is.

[00:05:54] It's been super technical and now comes these large language models that use [00:06:00] conversational language where you can just talk to it or type at it as if it was a person. Um, and that's just made it accessible. So generative AI has really been the game changer of accessibility and putting the power of AI into everyone's hands.

[00:06:16] Um, and it's only just gonna get crazier and wilder as, uh, the tech continues to improve too. Yeah.

[00:06:22] Amel Derragui: To set the scene about AI is that what AI is doing is, I dunno if that's the right technical word, aggregating content that's. Out there available online on the machines and creating new content based on that.

[00:06:36] So for instance, if I created a poetry and they're gonna get inspired from many other PO trees to actually create a new poetry. And that's where the whole question of intellectual property, uh, comes in. But we'll definitely talk about it. But before we get there, um, I do want to start with more maybe practical aspects.

[00:06:55] 'cause you do have an, a marketing agency, you work with your clients. [00:07:00] What are the most transformative things you've seen AI do for businesses in terms of marketing?

[00:07:06] Helen Todd: I guess I'll start saying everyone's still like figuring this out. Like I've jumped into the deep end, but it's still somewhat the wild, wild west in terms of, you know, what workflows, what prompts and best practices that everyone's building.

[00:07:23] So if you're hearing this and you're like, are feeling like, oh man, I'm so behind, we're, we're all figuring this out at, at the same time, we actually were using a lot of AI tools. Before the chat GBT explosion, like one of my favorite ones is Otter. It transcribes text or audio in real time, so it's really great.

[00:07:43] Uh, when I was at South by Southwest, a major conference here in, uh, in Austin, Texas, like I was recording all of the sessions. So I immediately had the notes transcribed and can turn it into a blog post right afterwards. So there's already been AI tools like [00:08:00] that prior to to Gen ai. I think the biggest transformation is, um.

[00:08:05] You know, streamlining your workflows and figuring out where the most value, uh, can be had using these models. And they each have different strengths. Like for instance, Claude, which is Anthropics, LLM, you can upload larger files and documents to it for it to read. Whereas the open AI chat, GBT one, I haven't had much luck, like uploading files and having it read the files.

[00:08:33] So just finding like. You know, your work processes that you're already doing and where, you know, what are pain points that can be automated? Or if you, you know, think of chat GBT or these, uh, LLMs as, you know, a junior assistant. What can you assign a junior assistant or your, you know, assistant, uh, and, and start playing with them.

[00:08:55] That way We build out personas for our clients. One of the aspects of [00:09:00] these two. The more that you give them information, you can train them and build out, or they learn your brand really well. You can do this with custom GPTs and open ai or even just kind of train the same thread. But you can give it style guides.

[00:09:15] You can have it help you with style guides or voice guides. Give it more information. Build out the customer personas. Uh, here's the setting. Pull this persona with this tone of voice and this marketing message. And it's already been trained on everything related to the brand, so it will generate some ideas, but I would also start.

[00:09:36] Always take them as just ideas. I think one thing that is really important is one, these things hallucinate and make up information. Even it's less when you train it only on your own, uh, data and information, but they still can hallucinate. So it's really important to, yeah, just fact check and double check everything.

[00:09:55] Um, but also, you know, there. Even when you train them, they do [00:10:00] a really good job, but they still use words like, uh, I don't know, riveting or there's a, uh, there's words that pop up. It's like, oh geez, this is definitely from a LLM. Um, so you always wanna take it as a first draft and have that human editor function like oversight to make sure that it's in the brand voice.

[00:10:19] And we don't wanna ever replace humans, but we wanna make their jobs easier so that, you know, that blank page problem or blank canvas problem. Of like, how do I start? AI is a really good place for ideation, first drafts, and then letting the human take over to curate, edit, and take it from there too.

[00:10:38] Amel Derragui: That was my experience as well.

[00:10:40] I love that you say that. And can you just make sure, just to make sure, for those who don't know about this, what is LLM? I've heard you mention that a couple times. Oh yeah.

[00:10:48] Helen Todd: That, that's a large language model. And that's the, the chat GBTs. Those are large language models. Yeah.

[00:10:55] Amel Derragui: I love that you mention how important to, first of all, be careful and not take [00:11:00] everything that is generated for granted.

[00:11:02] That's the first thing. Fact checking the way I use ai, especially chat, GBT is more like a brainstorming. Barring partner. I actually did not have very good experiences with AI when it was about, for example, I've tested a few AR tools for podcasting, for instance, where you put in the audio and then they generate the whole content around it.

[00:11:22] It was never my voice, and in order for that to come out, I realized I need to spend the time to train the tool, which is as. Maybe a, a good investment at the beginning, but we need to be willing to put that investment. Would you agree with that? Like you actually need at the beginning to take the time to train the machine to do what you want it to do, and therefore we still need humans at the end.

[00:11:43] Helen Todd: And one, I I do agree and one of the things that's exciting and some of the tech is already there, but we'll see more of it rolling out, so the, we'll just use open AI's chat, GBT mm-Hmm. So that large language model. And chat bot is trained [00:12:00] on the internet. So when you're asking it or prompting it with questions, it's scraping the internet.

[00:12:05] You can build a custom GPT, um, and you're, we're gonna see more of these tools outside of OpenAI where you build a model only trained on your own data. So if you think about the idea of. Um, almost like I kind of think about the internet already as like a second, a second brain, like extended, uh, memory of, you know, I don't know it, but I know Wikipedia does, so I know where to get it.

[00:12:31] Your entire life's work of IP that you can train a model with, and humans have such recency. It's like the last book I read, the last article that stood out. But if you have access to all of your own data in IP to then work with and play with, um. Collaborate and spar with that opens up a whole new, uh, possibilities.

[00:12:53] And even from a business standpoint, which I know your audience is a lot of, you know, amazing solopreneurs. Um, [00:13:00] instead, like chat bots can then go on websites and ask, you know, instead of am mel the human, the question first ask a ail the chat bot. Based on her data and ip, and then if it still doesn't get the answer, then route it to a human or whatnot.

[00:13:14] Um, so I, I find that really exciting to start building models only on your own IP and data. And yeah, the possibilities of what you can do, both using your, your life's work at your fingertips that's accessible, and also from the business opportunities of turning that into a product or a customer service tool too, is pretty exciting.

[00:13:36] But I, the other thing that excites me about it too, is it also just reinforces the importance of your own branding, your own ip, and building your own community. And this is a place where you can add a lot of value, uh, on with your own IP to your community and, and to your businesses as well. And you wanna make sure.

[00:13:57] And not have the machine scrape it too, because it's [00:14:00] like your ip, like what I mentioned in the opening. Yeah, like ideas. And your ideas are so important right now, and you do wanna protect them. You wanna use them and leverage them, but you wanna protect them as well.

[00:14:11] Amel Derragui: Custom gpt. Okay. That's something I think we should keep watching closely 'cause it's still in development and everything.

[00:14:16] The big question is how much we can trust that tool to actually not get that IP out. I think that's what you're trying to say, right?

[00:14:22] Helen Todd: Yes. And through, through open ai, when you to to make a custom GPT, you have to pay. Um, I actually recommend that for the teams account, um, it's a minimum of two people, but it, uh, by using that theoretically, according to the terms of service, anything that you input into the teams account, even if you use it solo, doesn't train the model.

[00:14:46] So you can use the benefits of building out your own custom language or chatbot, um, without training. Uh. The next version of chat, GBT that rolls out. Uh, so it's the best of both worlds. So [00:15:00] I, and it's important to understand the terms of service with all of these tools. But yeah, you don't want to use your IP to train a model to then, you know, have it accessible whenever the next version rolls out.

[00:15:12] Amel Derragui: Very good. We can see that you know a lot. You've experienced it a lot, and you actually went as far as using AI to duplicate yourself. You created your digital avatar, and I freaked out when I saw your videos. It literally looked like you, obviously I know you so much that I could see the difference, but it was just.

[00:15:33] Insane. So tell us a little bit how this works. How do you, how did you get to create your own digital clone and what was your purpose to that? I'm, I'm glad that

[00:15:42] Helen Todd: it looks, uh, so real, uh, or she looks so real, quote unquote. She, yeah. So I launched my podcast, uh, last year and a friend of mine's like, oh my God, your podcast is on ai.

[00:15:53] You need to meet John Toda. He creates, uh, these. Hyperrealistic avatars using ai, you [00:16:00] guys should meet. So we hopped on the phone and we just hit it off so well, like, he came on as a guest, he's like, we need to get you cloned. And, and really the purpose was just to kind of play with it and show use cases since my podcast is all about AI and creativity of AI at work.

[00:16:17] Um, so we cloned myself to show, uh, the use cases of having a hyperrealistic avatar. And everyone already has avatars. Like if you're on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, you know, we all have these like cartoony little versions. Uh, and then anyone who plays games, you know, you always have different avatars with different, you know, cyberpunk, maybe more realistic looking features.

[00:16:45] So this is just really a natural extension of these. Existing avatars that they're going more and more hyperrealistic. And last time I looked, um, the, the type that I have, there's like less than a thousand known [00:17:00] hyperrealistic avatars. Um, 'cause it's not cartoony. It really takes video footage of me in front of a green screen and clones my video presence and then takes.

[00:17:11] An audio file of me speaking and clones my voice. I, I think of it as like my digital puppet. You feed it scripts, um, and then it performs, uh, based on the scripts that I give it. But yeah, it's, it, it was just to play with and show how AI can go to work. But I've had a lot of fun finding different use cases, both for events that I do like.

[00:17:31] I hate actually introducing myself, who likes like sharing their own bio. So I'll have my clone before I do a. Speaking presentation, like introduce me and then hand over the mic to me so I don't have to say my own bio as like one funny use case.

[00:17:46] Amel Derragui: That's super cool and it's pretty cool that you also were willing to try it out and test it out.

[00:17:51] Like you said, you were one of the first thousand digital clone existing and at the time you, it was necessary to go to a studio. I think at this point. [00:18:00] They're not as good as yours, but there are still some tools that allow people to, to create their own digital avatar.

[00:18:06] Helen Todd: Yeah. Well, and I guess one other point I wanted to make too, about the natural extension.

[00:18:11] Mm-Hmm. Of our identities, especially from a work sense. When you and your brand and your face, you know, is your brand. Like on LinkedIn, you don't want a cartoony avatar if you're gonna have another tool in, you're communicating. Toolbox. You want it to look like you, you want it to sound like you. And the more realistic, the better.

[00:18:30] So from a business use case, that's really great for the tool. So the, the clone that I have is made from render, and it's a AI integrating solution. So

the backend has a lot of the different AI providers. Mine is a synesthesia clone, and then the voice comes from 11 labs. Uh, but they kind of think of themselves as kind of your avatar wallet.

[00:18:50] So if you want a collegian co clone or a Hagen, like, they all kind of live in one place. It is, you know, an investment upfront, but I will [00:19:00] say it's pays for itself. 'cause once you go into the greens or go into the studio, pay a licensing fee, you get 15 videos a month that roll over, but they're like $15 a pop.

[00:19:13] So it makes the cost of video production super affordable and within reach as well. And kind of all the benefits of what you mentioned, like. The clone is cheery and happy and ready. 24 7 has makeup ready to go. It just needs a script. Um, and I can make video within, you know, five minutes. So there's, there's a lot of benefits in that regard.

[00:19:34] But for those who maybe just wanna dip their toes and don't wanna do the full investment upfront, one tool called Hagen, which is H-E-Y-G-E-N, is one that you can use your cell phone to capture the footage. And for a cell phone like. The, I, I think it's got really high fidelity, so that would be a good one to, to test and play with.

[00:19:55] And the price point is, you know, super doable for, you know, dipping your toes [00:20:00] in the water and seeing what you can do, uh, with a, with an avatar clone.

[00:20:04] Amel Derragui: Yeah, that's pretty amazing. What can be possible. Now, actually, what we'll do dear listeners, is that we are gonna put the video of Helen, her, her digital clone.

[00:20:12] We're gonna put the video in the show notes of this episode so you can actually get to see it and it's really high quality. I do see that there's a difference between those apps and the whole. Like setup that you've done by being in a studio, getting recorded in a studio. It's a big difference, I think, than using an app.

[00:20:28] So I will put that video. It's super cool. But obviously one of the first things you said, and I'm sure those who are listening are thinking the same, that how is that different from Deep Fake, which we know was the big topic in the Times of Obama. I think Obama was the first, uh. A person to actually go viral, but being used for deep fake where his face and his voice was used to be told something completely different than what he ever said.

[00:20:53] How is that different from deep fake.

[00:20:56] Helen Todd: It is a great question and I, I think I heard Obama say in [00:21:00] a speech that he's actually the most deep faked person on the planet. Um, uh, uh, but the, the difference between deep fakes and. Uh, my avatar really comes down to the intent, like deep fakes are maliciously done and or done as jokes and don't understand that they create online harms.

[00:21:22] And despite Obama being the most deep, fake, um, person, they really disproportionately target, uh, women, uh, online. And as the Taylor Swift episode, uh, during our, what was it last year, before the Super Bowl kind of highlights that it's real harms, online harms. Um, so it's not done with consent, control, or compensation or credit and off.

[00:21:50] Um, so we are very against deep fakes. Uh, you should not participate in any deep fake, um, porn or AI porn. Just assume that it's deep [00:22:00] fakes. Um, and the technology is a little bit different than the one that, uh. Created mine. 'cause often deep fakes, and you see this in like, actually, uh, one, one episode on my podcast.

[00:22:11] Um, I interviewed the recreation of Salvador Dali and the chatbot form, and it was done with, um, the Dali Museum and their advertising agency and an exhibit that they did. They took an actor who had, um, Dolly's figure and then. Mapped over the face over the actor, and that's more or less a deep fake where you take a body and can a face map over someone else's face.

[00:22:37] Um, so that was done in an artistic creative consent with the museum and the estate and whatnot on that role. So there, there can be like, uh, some, uh, creative, ethical ways to do it. What we saw with the sag, um, afta and the actors last year in the United States is you still need all of the Cs, uh, consent, [00:23:00] compensation, credit.

[00:23:00] You can't just scan someone to clone them and not compensate them or not, or credit and then like take their scan and then like use it however you want, as many times as you want in a film. So it really comes, comes down to the intentionality, like my clone. I own all of the IP related to it, all of the video content, I can license it out.

[00:23:22] If someone wants to pay for me to speak and have my clone, the actors in Hollywood could do the same thing where they could be at multiple jobs at one time and have their clones fill in with for them and still do you know, the in-person, human jobs. But it all comes down to the contracts and. You know the use case of it's one-time license for that film.

able to leverage and negotiate those. So the technology in and of itself isn't. Bad. It's neutral, but it's how it's used and the intentionality behind it. So the, I, I think a lot of, and [00:24:00] you know, deservingly, so a lot of actors are very skeptical of the cloning because they're worried about their jobs being replaced.

[00:24:08] But I think it. If the industry actually came together, that it could be another revenue opportunity for them to have second revenue streams in addition to their in-person one. And there's other clauses, you know, CGI, you know, has been replacing people in films a lot. You know, think of Game of Thrones and all the war scenes, you know, those aren't all humans.

[00:24:28] Those are, you know, computer filled in. Um, to also have, um, a certain amount of like background actors have to be human or something, which I know. That was part of the negotiations too. So when I talk about like a human-centered future, or AI amplifying the best of humans, we always have to start with, you know, um, the, the human component and the intentionality of what we want and how AI can amplify that.

[00:24:53] And it really comes down to intentionality and you know how we're gonna use these tools.

[00:24:59] Amel Derragui: I love that. [00:25:00] And just as a background for those who might not know, the Hollywood Union, the Actor's Union of Hollywood, which is called sag, um, SAG something, I'm not too sure. Sag afta, I think after, yes. They have been through a huge strike that last year.

[00:25:14] I mean, as. One year from this recording and that did get what they needed, which was strict regulations and rules about how to use their images, et cetera, uh, from the industry. But there's still a lot to do in terms of regulations in every country around the world in terms of protect people's IEP. Who are you reused in Artificial intelligence?

[00:25:34] There's a lot to do as we speak, as we are recording this. A month ago, the EU has also just agreed on a legislation that's called, um, the AI Act. That's also gonna be interesting how they're rule it out. It's still, it's been agreed but not yet enforced. I think we'll have to have few episodes about that part, the regulation part.

[00:25:52] But I think what's most important is to know where we draw our line as individuals and entrepreneurs to make sure to be ethical in our [00:26:00] practices. So on top of the regulations, my question more is like I am thinking

about my audience, how to make sure that they don't feel tricked with a fake version of me.

[00:26:10] Or a digital version of me. So did, did you ask yourself that? Like, what if I'm actually deceiving my audience?

[00:26:16] Helen Todd: I think transparency is so important just in general when it comes to the establishing trust online. Mm-Hmm. As a total side note, um, Adobe is part of the content authenticity initiative, which is working to encrypt, uh, metadata that shows if AI has been touched to for an image or not, which gets super important, especially 'cause this is such a massive election year worldwide, uh, for journalism.

[00:26:42] You know, the K Duchess or what is her name? Princess Kate, um, you know, her photoshopped issue, like kind of highlights how important that is from a journalistic, uh, standpoint. Uh, so transparency. What, and I've seen some journalists or content creators like not announce that it's the [00:27:00] clone right up front and.

[00:27:01] Kind of do a gotcha as kind of a story hook for their thing. I'm for always saying super upfront that it's a clone. 'cause I never want people to be confused. Like even if my sister-in-Law is like texting me through my brother's phone, like, I wanna know that it's my sister-in-Law and not my brother that I'm texting, you know?

[00:27:19] Uh, but one thing that I like to think, uh, about my clone as like, it's another tool in the communication toolbox, right? And. When I'm building trust with my audience, like one of the best ways to build trust is in person. 'cause you have that in-person presence that you really can't be, no matter what technology exists.

[00:27:40] Second to that is, you know, a Zoom call similar to what a Mel and I is on where it's real time. I'm talking a Mel is like reacting and nodding, uh, in real time. So we have that, uh, two-way conversation going. Third to that is probably a video of yourself that you record. Think of like a happy [00:28:00] birthday video that, you know, a niece or nephew might send you or your friends, like.

[00:28:04] That's, uh, the next level below that, I think it's actually your clone. It looks like you, it sounds like you, it's the digital embodiment of you, and it's the script that you're feeding it. So it's the holiday card that's coming to life. Um, so it's your physical embodiment with your scripts. Um, that's, you know, speaking on your behalf.

[00:28:24] And then below that you have images and text, um, and you know, all the other tools. So it's just, and then you figure out if you're really good on camera for having a podcast. I prefer not to be on camera, like do that if, um. Uh, if you don't like being on camera, your clone is really great, or if you just don't have time to be in the studio, a clone is great.

[00:28:47] So it's just a, it's just another tool in your communication toolbox. Um, and that's how I think about it in terms of building trust with my audience. I.

[00:28:55] Amel Derragui: Such a great way to frame it. So smart. I love it. And for a little small detail [00:29:00] that I've seen you do is that your digital clone introduces itself as your digital clone.

[00:29:05] Yeah. You're saying, uh, can you say that sentence again? What is the, the key sentence of your intro, if you remember? Yeah, there's,

[00:29:11] Helen Todd: so, there's so much language. It's like digital likeness, digital avatar, hyper real. Um, there's like a bazillion different words, but yeah, it's, I'm Helen, two point odd, the digital clone of Helen Todd.

[00:29:22] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:23] Amel Derragui: So that makes it very simple, right? It's straightforward and you always, I I always still give ideas being introduced that way, so it makes it much easier. Yeah. Right. There's no, it's all

[00:29:31] Helen Todd: about transparency. When you're building trust, you know, with your brand and your audience. In my book, the more transparent you are, the better.

[00:29:39] I would

[00:29:39] Amel Derragui: be worried people would prefer my digital clone than me.

[00:29:45] Helen Todd: Well, my brother jokes that sometimes it pronounces words better than I can

[00:29:50] Amel Derragui: and,

[00:29:51] Helen Todd: and she

[00:29:51] Amel Derragui: speaks more

[00:29:52] Helen Todd: languages than

[00:29:52] Amel Derragui: you

[00:29:52] Helen Todd: do. Yep. I speak one and my digital clone speaks 28 right now, which is another benefit too. [00:30:00] Mm-Hmm. If, uh, if you definitely have a audience, you know, that has a lot of different languages, clones, it almost gives you like a language superpower of being able to speak languages that you don't actually speak yourself.

[00:30:12] Amel Derragui: Yeah. So let's. Just watch that closely. I do want to do more episodes around AI to follow very closely what we can do. I feel like we crushed the surface right now with our conversation. I would have liked to go deeper, but we'll keep talking and have you maybe back because I think a lot of things are evolving.

[00:30:29] I did not want to make this episode a very basic episode of Top Five Tools you could use because that's easy to Google, uh, but rather have, that conversation was really cool with you. But is there anything else that you feel like that you really want to come across about this topic at the stage where we are, we are now while we're recording this episode?

[00:30:46] 2024?

[00:30:49] Helen Todd: Yeah. I think, um, on the tool side, um, because you did ask me about marketing and stuff, I. It's really important to understand the terms of service, uh, [00:31:00] for the different tools you use. But if you're, if you wanna feel good about using some of these and not ones, I've just scraped the internet, which is being litigated right now on the fair use versus copyright case.

[00:31:13] Um, Adobe Firefly and Shutterstock. Um. Follows the CS of consent, compensation credit. And why can't I always list all four? I'll list those actually, and yeah, I'll list them. Yes. I should know these, like off the top of my head, that's early morning for me. Um, and so like if you, any image generated from Adobe Firefly on the back backend, there's an algorithm that determines the images that have been trained from their stock photography.

[00:31:43] And then the artists have, uh. Consented into it through the agreement and then they actually do get compensation for. So for commercially safe shutter, uh, uh, Shutterstock and Adobe Firefly is great in general, um,

especially if you have work with bigger [00:32:00] brands. I would only use AI in more the concepting and not any final products.

[00:32:05] Mm-Hmm. Um, especially the images. Um. Uh, in that regard. So from a workflow standpoint, you know, upstream, concepting, and I would be hesitant, uh, especially in the images for final and anything, you know, that comes out of them. There should always be a final human editor, fact checker, all of that stuff, uh, before any type of publishing.

[00:32:28] Um, but, you know, I, I think it's. There's a lot of change happening. A lot of people, you know, we have conversations on my podcast all the time, is AI going to kill creativity? Um, one gentleman, uh, who has actually helped build the, um, the Dolly chat bot. You know, he's the director of AI at a major advertising firm, and he said on the show, like, inside the corporate walls, we don't know what to do.

[00:32:57] And that it's really up to him and his AI [00:33:00] role, me as a voice in AI and all of us to keep checking in and constantly be asking, um, is this human centered? Is this amplifying, uh, the best of humans? And if not. To not forget that we have agency and um, do decide where we spend our dollars and time and vote for legislation of how we want this chapter to be.

[00:33:24] 'cause it can be a beautiful, amazing, exciting, you know, transformative AI world, but it can also teeter. And we've seen the mistakes with, you know, social media that's. You know, not been the, uh, the best for the world in a lot of sense. To not make those mistakes and just keep remembering that we're co-creating this together and we all are, are literally part of this co-creation.

[00:33:48] And not to forget that I.

[00:33:49] Amel Derragui: I love that. Such an important message to remember. Thank you so much, Helen. And anything you wanna share about how to find you and where to get into your world? Yes.

[00:33:59] Helen Todd: [00:34:00] So, um, the two websites, creativity Squared is my podcast. Um, you said can subscribe to the newsletter, the YouTube channel.

[00:34:07] Were on all the major podcast platforms. Sociality Squared is the social media agency, uh, which. It's a mouthful. So, uh, we'll link to it, uh, in the show notes and a new product that we're launching so I can clone people if

you're interested in being cloned. Uh, more in the US right now. But we have partner studios all over the US and happy to do a demo if anyone's interested.

[00:34:29] And I'm also working with partners on, um, AI readiness reports, uh, that really do an audit of. Um, how AI ready your whole company is and then putting together an action plan on that. Uh, 'cause ai, even though we only talked about marketing, it's really going to impact every facet of our lives and businesses.

[00:34:50] Um, and we can help you do those assessments of where you're at and how you can utilize it. So feel free to reach out.

[00:34:57] Amel Derragui: That's fantastic. So to find all this [00:35:00] information, also the resources we mentioned during this whole conversation go to the time is now base slash three 14 and you find all the information.

[00:35:10] So last word from you Helen, please repeat the sentence and complete the blank. The time is now two, the time is now.

[00:35:19] Helen Todd: I think to, to imagine and like really think about. The future that we wanna live in. Like there's so much dystopian ideas around AI and so much fear that we really need a vision, like a positive vision of like, where do we wanna go?

[00:35:37] Like what's the best case scenario and how can we work towards that? And like shift, like be, you know. Aware of the concerns and work, uh, you know, to mitigate those and all that, but also open up our minds, um, to, you know, what does flourishing with AI look like? What is re-imagining the world with this transformative [00:36:00] technology?

[00:36:00] What, what's the best that could happen? I think that's something to, to think about.

[00:36:05] Amel Derragui: What a beautiful message to end on. Thank you so much. I loved being able to chat, uh, about this with you and you've been really at the forefront of this, so it's a real honor as well to have you here and share with us your insights.

[00:36:16] Thank you so much, Helen. Thank you. I happy to be a guest anytime at all. Anything for you. Wonderful. My thank you so much, my dear listeners. I hope you enjoyed it and found lots of inspiration for yourself. Yeah, let's keep this conversation. I'll keep bringing on. People around this topic, we have so much to learn about this, so I can't wait to continue this conversation

with you as well as anything related to, uh, turning all your challenges into great opportunities to create more growth, alignment, and impact with your business.