RealmIQ: SESSIONS with Futurist Mike Johns

RealmIQ: Sessions where we talk with MIKE JOHNS, (Hip Hop) Futurist, Digital Mind State. PART ONE. As a “Futurist”, he sits at the intersection of technology and pop culture. Johns serves as Founder of Digital Mind State a strategic marketing company, he founded in 2010 that anchors brands and talents. Johns works with entertainers, athletes and models to develop brands, forge partnerships, and cultivate successful careers.

Topics Discussed

1. Discussion on AI and Future Vision
   • Mike Johns' vision of a smarter world with AI
   • Addressing common fears about AI and job displacement
   • Comparison of technological advancements with historical weapon upgrades
2. AI and Workforce Evolution
   • Curt and Mike discuss the rapid technological acceleration
   • The need for an extraordinary workforce
   • Impact of AI on the evolution of work and society
3. Hollywood and AI Narrative
   • Hollywood’s role in shaping the dystopian narrative around AI
   • Mike's perspective on the multiplicity of futures and the importance of creating positive narratives
4. Algorithmic Media and Attention Economy
   • The rise of algorithmic media and its implications
   • Issues with synthetic media and its impact on human interaction
   • The concept of the "people formerly known as the customer"
5. Authenticity in the Age of AI
   • Pendulum swing from AI-generated art to a search for authenticity
   • The value of handmade and human-created content
6. AI in Pop Culture
   • Examples from hip hop and music industry using AI
   • Discussion on the implications of deep fakes and synthetic content
7. Ethics and Governance in AI
   • The need for ethical considerations and governance in AI
   • The role of government versus the role of the people in regulating AI
8. Empowerment and Creativity through AI
   • AI democratizing skills and empowering new creative opportunities
   • The importance of critical thinking and human-centered approaches in using AI
9. Future Prospects and Call to Action
   • The potential for AI to create new spaces for creativity and problem-solving
   • Importance of leveraging AI for positive outcomes
   • Call to action for listeners to engage with AI thoughtfully and ethically

Quotes from the Speakers

1. Mike Johns: "AI gives you the ability to go from ordinary to extraordinary. And the new workforce must be extraordinary."
2. Curt Doty: "It's almost like saying, Hey, we, we over here got bows and arrows. Them guys over there got machine guns. Well, I'm winning this battle, right?"
3. Mike Johns: "With AI, you can design and create a future."
4. Curt Doty: "We're in this inflection point, talking about the acceleration of technology, but it's also about the evolution of humans and the future of work."
5. Mike Johns: "The pendulum swings from AI-generated art to ok

Transcript

Hi, I'm Curt Doty, the Realm IQ. This is our podcast, Realm IQ Sessions, where we talk about everything AI with international AI leaders. Please give us a follow or subscribe. And today's guest, I'm really excited about, is Mike Johns. And as a futurist, He sits at the intersection of technology and pop culture.

He also serves as the founder of Digital Mindstate, a strategic marketing company he founded in 2010 that anchors brands and talents. John's worked with entertainers, athletes, and models to develop brands for its partnerships and cultivate successful careers. So welcome, Mike. So glad to have you here. We go back a couple of years in the Web3 world and I've always been impressed with your passion and presence.

But today let's talk about AI and let's talk about your vision. Actually, you write build a smarter world where people in technology work in greater harmony to generate mutual prosperity. Can you see that happening in AI? This has been so disruptive and crazy. What are your thoughts?  Well, I'd like to say this, you know, when we look at AI and robots I get this all the time. 

Will robots take my job? AI is the death of the workforce. And really what I like to say, one, for robots will not take your job. They're only ushering in new jobs. AI gives you the ability to go from ordinary to extraordinary. And the new workforce must be extraordinary.  It's almost like saying, Hey, we, we over here got bows and arrow.

Them guys over there got machine guns. Well, I'm winning this battle, right? That's kind of how I look at the succession of things. You got to upgrade from the bow and arrow to the gun. And then the gun to the machine gun, machine gun to laser.  So that's, that's where we're at. And I think we're in an interesting time because it's all brand new. 

Yeah, it's so rapid and you know, we're in this inflection point, you know, talking about the acceleration of technology,  but it's also about the evolution of humans and the future of work. It's all.  Combining to this nexus, and we're in the middle of it. We're just in trying to sort through it from a humanistic point of view, from a future work point of view, from a societal point of view, government, government, they're coming up. 

Ethics, deep fakes. I mean, it is loaded with controversy. I try to not dwell on the controversy because it feeds into the dystopian narrative.  Yes.  You know, Hollywood doesn't help with that, and they've been the slowest to embrace. But meanwhile, in the rest of the country, in the world, everyone's embracing it and transforming their business.

So you're right. There's nothing more profound than being a day late and a dollar short if you didn't embrace AI. So that's where we're at. Yeah. Let me make a comment to something you said about Hollywood. They are kind of controlling the narrative of the future. And for your guests, I'd love to say, you know, as a futurist, there are as many futures as there are stars in the sky. 

Good point. I love that. We tend to look at we tend to look at the future as in Terminator, you know, most of the movies that you see, there's always a bad ending to the future.  , right? Yeah. And that's bull crap. Or a bad or a bad ending. That started a dystopian narrative. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, past the destruction

Exactly, exactly. So you can, we have to,  here, here's one. I just thought of this. With ai, you can design and create a future.  Yeah,  yeah, no, there's all kinds of movements around what the future looks like and I, you know, there's there's optimists out there that, you know,  you know, if you look back historically,  mankind has gone through these cycles  and the, you know, the future of democracy is something very fragile.

Not that I want to get into politics, but you know, there's, there's endings to things, you know, the Roman empire only lasted so long and how long are we going to last? So what does the world look like after that? And how does technology  affect that? Or how is it affecting it right now that determines the future and how, how can AI, how can this intelligence  guide us to a better future? 

Well, you know, it's, it's interesting you say that because I look at, you know, We're now starting to enter a new era where  for so many, in so many ways, I could say everything is fake. We have Algorithmic media and that's scary, right? So I noticed now you're on YouTube and the first thing that it now directs you to, especially on your mobile is the YouTube shorts.

Yeah. Originally it was whatever. Now all of a sudden it becomes this addictive thing. Like TikTok, right? They're learning from TikTok.  Right. You find yourself on there from one dumb episode to the next and it captures your time. And that's where we're at, this whole attention economy and distractions.

But on top of that, it's the fact that where was I going?  Algorithmic media,  you have  algorithms that can get you your next date. That's where we're at.  It's Tinder. That's all those apps the next your next sexual encounter could be done via A. I. And the algorithm. So I look at this world almost like synthetic media, synthetic government, synthetic friends, synthetic. 

Synthetic dialogue. Yeah. Synthetic dialogue. Am I talking to, you know, we're now starting to see emails that are hitting your inbox and was that created by a person or is that person now leveraging chat GPT to solicit you for something? Remember when I talked about algorithmic media? Well, you have now people use leveraging AI and saying, well, I don't have to put the human touch.

I'll just let a chat GPT. And then I send out emails to people to. Look for my new sales lead. You're seeing it on LinkedIn. You're seeing it on, it's too much. A lot of spam. It's bots talking to bots. And we were in that space before. Even on Twitter,  you know who, who's following you? . It's like, what?

Right? Who? These aren't real people. So I, you know, I think with these technology advances, you know, there's been backlash with ai. From a lot of the artwork that's generated is looking the same because you have a bunch of acts who say, look, my campaign. Now it's like, yeah,  what do you do in real life?

Or what is your experience right in the real life that makes you an expert at anything? So there's, there's a backlash. So the pendulum swings from, hey, this AI stuff looks cool. Oh, it's starting to look the same. Now I'm looking for what's authentic.  And what does authentic meaning? Does that mean that, you know, I'm not erasing my ums and ahs and you knows from, from an edit, does that make me more real?

I think things like that. So yeah, that's, that's a real person speaking, not  an AI generated script, which wouldn't have. You know, like, you know, I grew up in California. So, I mean, I, I have that surfer language. But, you know, so that, so then as the pendulum swings from AI gender at art to, okay, what's the opposite?

Well, it's handmade art, right? So, so handmade animations, illustration, you know, there's just so many Things that you can do to prove your art is authentic. Your video is authentic. Your voice is authentic. And I think people want to search  for authenticity and  it's not going to be from a software that labels. 

Content as oh, this was a I generated, right? That's already failing. It's and we should actually identify where all content comes from. So, you know, in the chain of  a new economy, original content creators can get compensated. So,  so I think there's going to be a new search for authenticity,  uh, with like vinyl records.

Well, yeah. Hello. It's like, how authentic is that? That tactile. But let me say something to that because I've, I've I've, I've debated with some people on this and I'll use the analogy of  DJing. Mm hmm. And growing up, I remember Once upon a time, to be a DJ, you had to spin with vital records, that was the making of a DJ.

Two turntables and a mic, the records, that's what you had.  Then came the invention of MP3.  Now the DJ doesn't need to have all the crates of records to bring to the club to be the DJ. In fact, he can have it all stored, oh, on his phone. Songs, 5, 000 songs right there on his phone, but then those who are from the past don't recognize him as the DJ.

And there's this clash between what's a real DJ versus this new version of the DJ. But you know something that they both missed out because that was a  period of calling out names. Paris Hilton was one of those. Is she really a DJ or is it just already pre programmed? Right. Right.  Celebrity playlist. 

Right. Celebrity playlist just in front of the audience acting like she's DJing. All those things. But the one thing that they left out and this applies Very much to today's world. Thanks to AI. I call it the people formerly known as the customer,  the people formerly known as the customer, the old school DJs versus the new school DJs were battling on what is DJ and the requirements, but they failed to take the  party goers into consideration. 

You know, Kurt just got through work in his 40 hour work week, 50 hour work week, and now he wants to unwind, go to the club, turn up a little bit, and he's not concerned about vinyl records or mp3. He just wants to hear music, socialize, and have a good time. We have to factor that in because here's the analogy.

Abundance versus scarcity scarcity.  Abundance in today's new AI with, with  The injection of A. I. We are now entering into abundance, right?  And that's okay. Yeah, your city model is to say that, you know what? I'll have a good old fashioned beer made by a human and then you'll pay for that as a premium, much like going to a bar and mark my words in the nearest future.

It's already happ  which is therapy, right? your shrink there, your u  they're talking with you at the end of the day, I  And if you want the human experience, you'll pay for that premium because actually, I know when you're sitting at a bar you just don't want to sit at a bar drinking by yourself or you know, if it's you and your friend from the old days and 30s, 40s, 50s, you've seen in the movies where the guys at the bar and him and the bartender are talking that dialogue, that's a part of a premium content offering.

So when you talked about the art I look at that. What will happen is that a play off the scarcity. Why I've been mentioned vinyl records and scarcity will be what you're paying for where you know, I want that human  design as compared to the abundance that AI can do. I like some of the AI art. I like a lot of it.

It's the people formerly known as the customer, and this is best buy is going through right now in how, why it's lost its value proposition, because look at the name best buy,  but people are going into best buy with their smartphones, comparing the prices that Amazon has. Did they make the adaption?  Are they aware of the people, the, the, the people formerly known as the customer, right?

And that's what they're going through right now.  If you ball, you get the call. That's why the phone rings, Mike. We need a solution to this. We need some guidance here. Where are we? Where's this going? And something else you said, I look at AI and you know, this AI really, one of the benefits, it's not really backlash.

It actually can democratize skills.  Yeah, no, that it's empowering a new workforce and certainly empowering those kids in school. I've lectured at film schools and art schools  and they're using it and their professors are encouraging it. Yeah, they just had to explain how they're using it and it is another tool and these professors recognize it's another tool just like the internet.

Going back to even the calculator was just a tool, but it caused a lot of disruption concern.  Oh God. We needed to do, you know, calculations longhand. It's like, really? Oh my God. Again, the people formerly known as the customer, the people formerly known as the student in education if you rewind the clock, it was all about memorization. 

Why do I need to memorize memorization? Yeah. Just go to Google and get the answer. Or now chat GPT four and five to get the answer. Why do I need to memorize? What does that do? Right? So it's a new learning curve. It's new. Again, the people formerly known as you fill in the blank.  Yeah, no, I love that. That phraseology the, the, the, the downside  is, is it making us lazy?

And that's the thing to be aware of, because if you use it as a crutch too much, you're actually not stimulating your brain Certainly is a younger person in a way that it needs to be stimulated in order to learn.  And, and so, you know, I, I, I'm a little older,  I don't know that my brain is growing as much right now, but I think in the younger younger kids I think this is important that in a teaching environment, they still need to be able to learn critical thinking and how to disseminate information and sort through it.

And be learned and intelligence about what they're creating with these new tools and be able to, you know, be the conductor in the center of all this opportunity and still have a human centered approach to learning through project based learning.  But. It's a, it's a word of caution to creatives everywhere.

And actually any type of workforce using these tools is like, don't use it as a crutch. Don't turn off your brain,  use your brain, put the human back in AI  and figure out how and where to do that all the time. Because,  because at the end of the day, it's,  It's not really thinking it is opaque. It's learning,  but you're the one that has to be learning as well  You you can't just sit back.

I'm just gonna enter a prompt and I'm doing all my reports and mm hmm And I'm you know, George Costanza under the desk working Yankees. All right  That's not what we want in the workforce.  Yeah, there's definitely you know, when we look at education which also needs to make over, we have to get back to two key words in Einstein knew it best.

What was it to imagine and play?  Yeah, that leads way to creation. Now, what you said about critical thinking is that's also a part of this. The agenda where we're where we have to be right the next 10 years more important than the last 100. And so  we're into this discovery, right, chartering,  using data, and would have you to. 

Navigate the unknown, and that's kind of where, you know, that's something that's happened since as a result of COVID, the pandemic, we've had to go into this unknown, and it's accelerated and AI having tools like AI and  other things of such help us to go further.  That's my take on that. I was loving, you know, you, the Hollywood aspect.

I had some stuff, you know, you know,  As we look at you know, the content creation and you talk about you know, one of the human factor versus here's what AI is doing.  Again, I go back to the people formerly known as the club goers, the customers that you fill in the blank. And recently we had in the news with, rap artist Drake. Yeah You know the the the beef that's going on with  In hip hop, which is interesting. But what I thought was  Clever was you know  Drake raising the bar and saying fuck it. I'm gonna inject some AI Into the mix. I thought it was probably ill advised to use Tupac  Yeah. Tupac is from a whole different era, but you brought Tupac, but the Snoop Dogg was interesting and leveraging that.

And I thought that that was cool. I thought that that was like, it showcases, it further highlights and showcases the disruption that's happening. Prior to that, you saw Taylor Swift and the deep fake that was out there, but now these, it's pop culture. It's, it's. Low hanging fruit such as hip hop that really helps you to see Houston we got a problem  Yeah, and you know, hip  hop's, you know, has always borrowed tracks and, you know, very sorry as a borrowed tracks later to get sued by the original people who, you know, wrote those tracks or, you know, little licks.

And  so that, that happened even without AI now it, it's allowing again it, it's a, it's democratizing access to whatever to make whatever  And, and it's only going to be us as humans that are going to put up the guardrails. The government and ethics or legislation isn't going to keep a creator from just doing whatever they want to do.

Whether it's creating music or imagery, we have to reinforce ethics from within a a groundswell of a, of a human movement  to raise awareness, right? That's part of the reason why I wanted to create this podcast was to have these conversations because what is, what's happening is there's just so much.

Demoing of the software and commenting and reposting of demos of software, and it's like no one's talking about  the human implication, the copyright implications. What are we supposed to do to govern ourselves? And do we have the capacity to do it? Is there a consciousness? Is there a human consciousness to be able to take us into this future, which is an abyss?

You know, a lot of uncertainty.  But I don't think the government's going to lead the way. It needs to be the people.  You agree? I think that you're absolutely right because we've seen you know, the U. S. has been slow to respond to AI. First you had the EU Asia put out their policies and, you know, we, I'd like to say we had kind of like a Band Aid solution. 

Sadly, and  to really raise the bar, I think SAG, you know, the Actors Guild and the, the, the  protest that they had,  we're going to need more of that in other sectors.  And again, this is the value of entertainment. Always the early adapters, especially the hip hop culture is always early adapters. So it takes, you know, galvanizing this to then  then bringing it to the darn government, right?

Yeah. The government tried to come up with a Band Aid solution, so to probably make it really, you know, Stick is your to your point, Kurt, we, the people are going to have to kind of really rally behind governance and then bring that to our. legislative body to then put some things in place, right?

It's, it's a process.  You know, it's funny  if you want to build, Kurt, a nuclear plant,  you're going to go through a whole lot of processes, right? Right.  But little, there's a, there's a 21 year old in Keokuk, Iowa that could create AI  that could disrupt the whole world.  Right. So isn't that interesting? So yeah,  so to the point we do need governance. 

Definitely about for that. And it's to that point that, you know, I'm actually working with athletes, athletes are taking a stance,  um, in the music community. Here's their stance, especially as it relates to creation. You Brent, you mentioned that word trademark. There's another word called IP.  I'm biased because those things have been, they have IP and trademark didn't help black people way back when.

And I think the fear factor now is the fact that AI will soon make it that an IP is pointless.  Well, it's  yeah, that's, that's, that's a, that's a hard, hard future to consider. I mean, it certainly devalues it. It devalues it, right? That's what you're saying is that IP is devalued because of all this stuff.

And so how do you,  how do you put the value back in IP,  right? How do you, how do you protect people's rights as a,  certainly for their, you know, Their own image or their imagery or their, their body, you know, if there's something new to emerge,  I like, I like the idea of AI fighting AI,  right? Right. I innovate for good. 

Take use.  What AI has done, and this is a little lofty, but it's creating space where we're getting rid of the mundane tasks. Okay. Even our, even our youth, young kids, and it's creating a space that we haven't had before.  Where it used to be filled with stress and schedules and overwork and you just it doesn't free your mind for creativity Right. 

So in this space, can we unleash a new wave of creativity?  That comes up with ideas That imagines a future that solves these problems around IP, certainly, or solves the global warming, climate change, or solves geopolitical situations that, you know, we just haven't had the time to think before, and now  it's empowering us to think at a higher level. 

Can we, can we hopefully progress to a higher level  so that we can take on the bigger things? So this world has a lot of challenges, a lot of challenges. It always has.  So what do we do with this new space, this new space of, of I call it an inner fire that  AI is giving us because. We're empowered in different ways and can do things that we have never done before.

I mean, I wouldn't be doing this podcast unless I was using AI to like make it happen because all the editing and recording, you know, it's just too overwhelming before. And now there's tools. It's like, oh man, it's so easy. Why am I not? I'm using it, you know, otherwise I just wouldn't do it. So those obstacles are blocked and creators can create more.

And it is contributing to a lot of noise and maybe less quality content. But you know, I love it because it's empowering me in a, in a positive way. And  I don't think I'm contributing to noise. I'm trying to make statements, right. And lift up voices to be heard like yours and not you have a. You have a huge platform.

So I don't know how my little podcast is outshining yours. But but you know, it's a  altruistic effort to  evangelize and create advocacy for it going the right way versus the wrong way.  Absolutely. Something I would add is that  earthlings are so accustomed to routines.  Since the beginning of time, like once we get into a routine, you're used to that.

And so when you don't have a routine and you go outside of that, that's when things get a little funky, a little nervous, Oh shit, what do we do? What's going on? And that's what I look at when you're speaking in terms of AI and, you know, there's a sense of governance. What's the new territory after that?

That's that's that, you know, we were so comfortable being in the bubble of  Break that bubble and get rid of routines. Oh shit. What do I do?  Right. What are you doing with that free time? I can only imagine that those people that retire when they retire. It's like what I do at this free time, right? It's like you were used to you were programmed  Prior and now  here we are in this new era, this new stage in life.

And that's where we're at with AI, the AI for good. I mean, that's, you know, I definitely stand on that leveraging AI for good only because you can't use a nuclear bomb for evil. There's, there's no end game, right? We know what it is. Yeah, right.  If anything that we could do is leverage nuclear for peace, keeping peace, right?

So that it knows right because you don't ever want a nuclear bomb to drop, right? So that's our focus on nuclear fusion instead  Yeah, right, I mean it's a it's a mindset it's like no we need to go yeah  We to go this way, here's all the benefits , you know? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And move the conversation a away from war and strife to building and transforming energy, you know?

Yeah. What if there's hours freed up for the science community, , it's like, let it be towards that.  Yeah.  Okay. And thanks Mike. And thanks to all of you. For tuning in and catch more of our realm IQ sessions and your favorite podcast platforms, please follow and smash that subscribe button. You can also follow us on X, Tik TOK, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Thanks. 

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CurtDoty. co  Branding, Marketing and Product Development