RealmIQ: SESSIONS with SANDU BACIU

  In this episode of Realm IQ Sessions, host Curt Doty interviews Sandu Baciu, an engineer and AI creator specializing in advanced technology integration, 3D and 4D schedules, 3D printing, augmented reality, and AI visual applications. They discuss Sandu’s background in civil engineering and 3D modeling, the potential and current limitations of AI in creating 3D models from 2D images, and the evolving role of AI in various industries, including architecture, gaming, and entertainment. The conversation also touches on the implications of AI for intellectual property, creativity, and the future of digital art and metaverse applications.

Topics:

1. Introduction of Sandu Baciu: Background in civil engineering and 3D modeling, current work in AI visual applications.
2. AI in 3D Modeling: Discussion on tools like SketchUp, MidJourney, Common Sense Machine, and VSCOM, and their capabilities and limitations.
3. Trends and Future of AI in Creative Industries: Potential applications in gaming, architecture, and entertainment, and the current state of AI in these fields.
4. Intellectual Property and AI: Issues surrounding the ownership and copyright of AI-generated content.
5. Blockchain and Digital Art: Potential solutions for tracking and compensating creators using blockchain technology.
6. Sandu's Creative Projects: Books and artistic endeavors, including collaborations on AI-generated children's books.
7. Optimism for AI's Future: The potential for AI to enhance human creativity and efficiency.

Transcript

Welcome to Realm IQ Sessions, where we talk about everything with AI leaders from around the world. Please give us a follow or subscribe. I'm Curt Doty, and some people say I don't need an introduction, but sometimes I do need an introduction, so I'm going to explain who I am. I'm a Hollywood veteran in branding and marketing, and now a podcast host.

I started my AI consultancy last year called RealmIQ, focused on education and AI adoption, giving workshops, universities and businesses, and also advising AI startups with our AI accelerator program.  So that's me, but today's guest is Sandu Baciu.  He's an engineer doing advanced technology integration and civil construction involving 3D and 4D schedules, 3D printing, augmented reality, integration, and AI visual applications.

He's one of the leading AI creators. If you haven't seen his work on LinkedIn, it's fabulous. And he's an expert in sketch to 3D. So welcome Sandu. So glad to have you on the show.  Did I miss anything in that intro and please elaborate?  No, thanks. Uh, thank you Kurt. As you said, my name is Sandu Baciu. That's a Romanian name.

You know, it's a lot of people ask me how I should pronounce the last name. So, you, you did it very well. It's the right pronunciation. Okay, good. Well, I'm Croatian. I'm Croatian back in the day. So maybe I have some command of language. AI obviously when pop up become a very fast one of my passions. My, my background, obviously it's in civil engineering, but when we do civil engineering, we do a lot of 3d modeling.

You know, I started long, long time ago. We talked about the nineties and, you know, I start building in 3d. I was playing with 3ds Max at that time. We'll talk about them lately, but yeah, the background is quite strong on the 3d side. But in the last few years, when applications like mid journey pop up, I was trying to see how we can apply the visuals and maybe convert that in 3d because the first thing which people notice all those renders in mid journey and even at the lower versions, you know, when it was like version three or four, they were outstanding, you know, like, like you, you made the, a prompt and you ask something like a house to be in architectural view from front or axonometry.

It's a trick for the prompt is actually to put some architectural terms on it, you know, like axonometry or isometric, which are the terms for remodeling basically. So, when you do that, the results, they were actually looking very, Very, very well. You could say, well, is this done with 3D Studio Max? What software those guys did?

And I was kind of thrown off because I realized it's actually an image software. They did not have anything 3D on it. You know, they use image references. And, you know, the, whatever algorithm they have, you know, I'm not an expert on the IT stuff, but I can figure out that they use a database of some sort, and they combine the images, but the results looks like 3D, and I say, how they did it, you know, it's like, it's obviously not done with 3D, so  that, that was the first thing which, you know, threw me a little bit, you know, like challenged me, and I say, well, Is a way to kind of reproduce that and I start putting on LinkedIn images where I said, okay I do not know how they did it, but I can reproduce them with the software I mean, I made several samples showing how you can do that in SketchUp.

SketchUp is a 3d model You can use the free version right now It's with Dribbble, but people know SketchUp because at one time it was with Google, but historically speaking, it was not actually a Google product. Somebody else created that software. At last, I think it was the name of the software. And what they, they have very interesting from 3D modeling point of view with SketchUp, they, they invent that push, pull button.

Basically, you have a cube, and you take any face and whatever. With push pull, you move it where you want. So SketchUp, it was really easy as a software to use. So, when I have those images with mid journey, I thought, well, maybe I can use that as a reference on the back. And with SketchUp, I can use it as a, they call it match photo, the principle, how to do it.

Uh, put, put it on the background and build it in 3D. And that's what I did. And I show some examples with the people in us that, you know, use the texture. Basically, you do a texture projection on the. volumes, which you do it in 3D in SketchUp and you'll be surprised, you know, you realize, oh my God, this cuts my work in 3D in half because half of the work is done by me in Journey.

So, you know, that, that was the first thing when we realized AI, it's very versatile and obviously you can be very productive with AI. And I explained that only from my 2D or 3D. Obviously it's far more powerful only on the 2D side, where at this moment with, uh, mid Journey and any other software, there are plenty, plenty others too.

Very strong and very powerful. You can create almost realistic images. I, I'm not sure even if with works to build it in 3D because in the future probably we'll be in 3D directly with that software. That looks to be the trend.  Right, so let's speak about trends because you talk about 3D, 3D software, SketchUp, and is it true?

Please confirm for me. Like, okay, so now you have an image that you made that looks very dimensional and gorgeous and all that. You still can't translate that into a CAD drawing that is 3D that. A game designer or an architect could then use to build what you have previsualized. Is that, is that still true today?

It is like a journey. It's, it's in the mid part. We are not there at the end of the tunnel, but we are somewhere in the middle and we see the light. In the sense that, at this moment, there are several options. One is CSM, Common Sense Machine. This is an application, it's like an AI tool, which is taken to the image and by their algorithm, which it looks like it's based on a free software, which is 0123, they call it, for people which are using GIFs. 

Probably they are familiar with it. But it is a process where actually the software is probabilistically trying to determine how is the back. For instance, if I have a house, I will see the front of the house, maybe the sides of the house, but I do not see the back of the house. So, what this software is trying to do is to probabilistically determine how that is back may look like based on references with that image, which they actually show the back, right?

So, it's giving you a probabilistic option and it's in 3d now a from quality of the 3d. Now we go a little bit on the details here, but the quality to me is not there in the sense that the quality is more like a Low mesh, as we call it in the 3D world. And it was basically a blob. It's like, uh, you try to make a cube out of a sphere, and you take the sphere, and you mash it.

And, you know, but still there are some parts which are round, which for, let's say, architectural and engineering and hard surfaces, not so great. You know, you, you want the line to be line straight, an angle between the faces of two planes to be perfectly sharp.  The current technology, it doesn't give you that.

But what is giving you is give you more on organic option and also is throwing the texture on it and they play with the association between the textures with that 3D mesh, which is not perfect is blobby, but You have the good textures on it. It looks very well. So, in that sense, you can use some of those conversions from 2D to 3D, mostly for, let's say, characters, you know, small characters, which you can animate.

And I think CSM, Common Sense Machine, they already noticed that as an opportunity. And actually, they went a step beyond. At this moment, you can put a character, you can convert it in 3D, and you can assign a rigging. It's basically that skeleton where you can animate that particular character. So, and on top of that, also they give you various predefined options.

So, in CSM, basically, if you put a character, And the trick is actually that image of that character to be like a rigging character. That means the, the hands to be on the side, front view, the legs spread. So, so when he's doing the mesh, he's doing a mesh without combining or merging a hand into the body, or instead of having both legs, you have only a leg and still they are connected between.

So, it's not good for the 3D model. But when you do it in, let's say, the rigging position and get that image, The results are very good, and on top of that, you can rig it, and they give you also the pre movements, like jump, left, right, squat, and it's very good for gaming, that's for sure. Now, it doesn't need to be super detailed, you know, if you have a game with small characters, like Diablo, oh, it goes perfectly, it saves a lot of time.

But, again, that's ECSM.  If you want to do, let's say vehicle or industrial design, there is another product, the name is VSCAM. And they did a lot of progress with that, especially also on the 3D side. VSCAM, it's very good for industrial design and concepts designs. That is from, from visual point of view.

And I really like it. I do sketch a lot by hand. I did that from many, many years ago, and they give me a good result because they maintain. The lines, the design of that sketch. Mid journey also gives you that, but many times it's very wild. It's, you know, you, you sketch a car in a, with certain lines and when you go mid journey, it gives you something else kind of.

Oh, it wants to be creative, right? Right. Yeah, no, no, which, which is okay. Depends on what you want to do. But you know, any designer, they want to maintain their lines. That's the reason why designers, you know, they design, and they want to maintain it. And that's the challenge. Which I'm seeing with a right now.

Yeah. When, when you have all those variations, it becomes to be more cumbersome because at one time you don't want too many changes. You Right. Yeah. At the beginning, in the incipient phase, you know, brainstorm or, you know, get inspired. Yeah. You, you are okay. You know, you, you can have wild stuff. But after that.

When you decide, okay, I want this curve lines. I want it in this way. I want this proportions, which is extremely important for design. The proportions, you want to maintain it. And MidJourney is, it doesn't quite do that. Right. And, and VSCOM is doing that. And also, it's another software, which actually is good with that as well.

The name, it's Newark, but VSCOM is good for the visuals for vehicles, you know, 

Exactly. And they embrace the 3d. So, you know, they started, and I like it because they, they are actually a design tool to, to me, basically AI. It's enhancing your idea, and you can color it. You can present it, but also you can use it for design, you know, adjusting a little bit, but not crazy. Just to maintain the proportions and that's that you can have the 3D side.

So, it's looked like they obtained several good results. My gut feeling is still looking a little bit blabby, but again, it's pioneering mode. I do think in time when somebody is going to have a CAD like computer aid design, Or, you know, something which is built like in Blender. I want a mesh where, you know, I don't want to clean up the mesh because that's the biggest challenge.

You know, you can have a 3D model, that's not the problem, but you're going to spend probably more time cleaning up rather than just building it from scratch. Like, for example, with SketchUp, if you have an architectural house, let's say, something which is Bauhaus, which are actually cubical, you know, so, so something rectangular, not the organic shape like Zaha Hadid, you know, like, you can use that.

But for something which is classic, you know, like 1920s Bauhaus style, which are basically cubes,  you can eat very fast because you have a cube, you know, just drag the faces up and down, you put a rectangular window A door it's fast you build it relatively very fast now if you try to do that with AI and you have a good image a nice image and you convert that with CSM or VSCOM or any other I didn't talk about Confio AI but you can convert also with Confio AI based on same technology  Uh, and there are other ones too, triple, they can give you that, but it's give you the blobby result.

So, when you get that blobby result and you try to fix it, it takes way too much time to fix it. So therefore, I do see that right now, depends on what you want to do. to do and depends on the complexity of the model which you want to create. Sometimes it's actually faster to still do it in traditional way, especially if it's like cubes, like Bauhaus, even vehicles as well.

If, if it's like military kind of vehicles, which are actually, or, or Cybertrucks, you know, like the Cybertruck from Elon Musk. That's easy to model it because they are faces, you know, like you have a place, you cut it, you have a plane, you do a boolean, done. All right. You'll be surprised how fast you can get, for instance, the shape of a cybertruck.

And I've seen them.  They're amazing. I just want to summarize my take that you just explained, because, you know, the idea of You knows, production design in games and movies, this is, could be a valuable tool, but it's not quite there yet, but I, I think it excels in the previsualization world. Like, just imagine worlds, right?

And build worlds. And, and, you know, those worlds back in the day used to be done by map painters that, you know, it would be a scene that would Be a background even in movies and they were just paintings, you know going back to Disney and Disney animation They just had series of painters. They paint the paintings They'd be the backgrounds and then they do the animation over but in character design you're saying that you can actually and what is kind of optimized for, for game design in terms of characters and games, it can work well, but it won't build the architectural structures that you're moving through, let's say, in a gaming world.

But you can develop characters that could then be integrated into games and,  And so is that part, is that adding to a lot of the strife and layoffs that are happening in the gaming world that you read about every day where studios are closing, they're shutting down, they're laying off people, or they're, they're, you know, supposedly going to use AI now instead of actual  designers and artists.

Right. You know, is, is that where we are in terms of previsualization and, and this kind of impasse to, uh, 3d CAD execution that could lead to, you know, revolutionizing architecture, let alone Hollywood production design and, and gaming production design.  Well, for the brainstorm initialization, yes, AI has got a lot of, uh, strife over there.

Definitely people start embracing. Now, I'm not talking about the legal side, you know, the ethical side and, you know, there are a lot of pushbacks and, and, uh, many times the reason why that happens is probably because of this, you know, like a lot of studios, they stay away because They don't want to have a lawsuit or something like that, you know, so that's one aspect.

But I do not want to touch on that side. I will take the creative side because that's what I think, what I think is actually important because people, they are still creative, you know, to, to me, still like the job of director, you know, like to have the idea. combining all this, I think that is still human.

I don't think we get to the point where, oh, we'll do this automatically. I will do, no, it's not going to happen. You know, like, even there were people which they tried that before. It didn't work. It's a very low-quality product.  You know, people will smell it right away. They don't like it, right? You're not going to sell it.

It's not, you know, it's like a cheap product, if you want to call it in that way. But when, for instance, when we talk about getting LTB more complex and I don't think that we are there. That means you're not going to have a quality using AI.  You have a good start, but still a lot of Human, even manual input, I will say it's still needed.

For example, there were people which they make games with characters build with AI, and there are some examples, you know, they, they actually, they build, they have a. An imaging journey, they convert it blender. They fix it, they clean it up and you know, added few more things, improve the meshes and they create a, uh, you know, like a small game or a, or an intro for a game. 

But when, when you compare that with the classical way of doing, they are kind of in the balance, you know, be because at the end you still want the quality. And most of the time, even if you have.  A good saving in the front using some AI, still the bulk of the work I think it's in the middle to try to do it as a real good quality product.

And that is purely based on human input, you know, it's not like you let automatically AI to, to do stuff. Can you, do it? Yes. I think in time. You can find the workflow, and if it's repetitive, this is where the advantage of AI is, you know, when you do repetitive, and it's not maybe AI is, let's say, smart software is if you want, or, you know, like, but it is software is robots.

I haven't seen a robot. You know, a lot of people, you know, they, they get upset when AI, it's used it as a term, but I think it's also overused and maybe it's not in the true sense, but it's a tool it's software. And I like that, but I also like what you're talking about that creatives are still in the driver's seat.

And because one, they had the years of experience and well, you know, I talk about this a lot. They have the estate. The aesthetic, right? That I, to discern that it's working, certainly in an environment, or that aesthetically it, it, it matches a director's vision, a designer's vision, whatever. But the opportunity is that these tools in the hands of true creatives are, are very powerful.

And. It's not about replacement. It's about, um, efficiencies and speed to realization of an idea. You know, I have an idea for a vehicle in this game. I have an idea of what a dystopian future looks like in New York City or any city in the world. And what does that look like? And you can immediately get results.

And. You know, what used to be, you know, on the creative side, what used to be kind of mood boards or research, right? You collect, well, I have all these images and, and, uh, you present this board, whether it's to a director, you know, client, and you say, we're kind of feeling it's like this, you know, a combination of this, and now you have a tool that has done all the research for you.

It's a stack of image research, right? And then it compiles an expression of what that traditional mood board used to be. It's like, well, now here's an image that I've made pretty quickly on mid journey, let's say, and it saved me a lot of work and research and I like it. I'm presenting it to me. That's, that's a, it's an empowering moment and a great tool. 

Yes, it is. And just, just to highlight, you know, as we said in the instruction, when somebody's got a good foundation, you see it right away. You know, there is a, and that's, that's when we talk about creative. You see a person who's got a really good background foundation stuff, which, you know, they have the experience.

They did that before. They know what they're doing. looks okay and what it is. Yeah, you got lucky you got that image, right? And another interesting aspect. You know, a lot of people think AI it's a shortcut, gets fast results, right?  The good results with AI actually have a lot of time behind the good results by creative.

Maybe he created like hundreds of them, and you see only one and you think, oh, he got it from the first time, right? No. Reality is actually, it takes time, even with AI, it takes time to find what you are looking for. Because again, you play with a lot of wild stuff, you know, image journey. You do not have the controls as you want it in the classical way.

Of course, you can use the prompt, and you learn the tricks, you know. Use those words and focus on this. Image journey, when you do a prompt, at least three things you need to specify if you want to have a good result. First, you need to say exactly what you want, the subject. I want a cosmonaut, for example, right?

And after that, you need to explain on what environment I'm putting that. So, you need to put that in a context. I'm calling the environment and the lighting and the mood and, you know, So you say, I want to cosmonaut in space or on Mars with canyons around and, and that's the third part, which is probably the most important one and a lot of people miss, is to add your artistic side to it, you know, how you want the render to look like, how you want the lighting to be over there, you know, add terms for from a different industry.

Add terms from photography. Hey, I want some bokeh. I want some lighting, rim lighting and so on. Right? So, when you add those specifics, but for that particular industry and take the industry on the visual side, you know, like photography, cinematics, you know, arts, like movies and stuff like that. And when you put that, you, you'll see the difference, you know, and also the, the whole artistic way, you know. 

Color, what watercolor or, you know, painting, what kind of painting, what periods and, you know, like, just try not to mention artists, especially if they're alive, right? Well, no, with the artist. Here is what happened with the artist. You know, I, I, I do not put artists because I don't have to. I, I think unfortunately it is already embedded in the algorithm.

Like, for instance, I, I made the examples before, each time when I'm making a prompt and. I'm adding the word, for instance, comics. You're going to have something looking like Möbius, which is Giroux, or something in that kind of area. You add sci fi, okay, Sid Meier is going to pop up, Blade Runner kind of stuff is going to pop up.

Why? Because pretty much it's already in there. Yeah. Yeah. It's already there. I don't think you need to add the artist. And that is where the challenge comes, because again, I'm not using artist name, but people say, there you see. You use that guy work.  No, not really. Actually, it's quite opposite. I use mine and I'm using the described version.

You need to be using a genre description, right? And it's giving other people's names and it's actually my picture, right? Which at this point can't be copyrighted, right? They're not a copyright. It's not accepting AI generated art as being created by a human. So, there's some work there to do because, you know. 

There has to be this shift where, let's just say, there’s a character designer, even in a video company, and they do all their previsualization with AI, and can get, you know, a 3D model out of it, character turnarounds. They've developed that character in an AI environment, but the copyright office is saying, well, that's Not ownable or trademarkable or copyrightable.

You cannot use it, basically. Right, but, but then the video game company wants to own their IP.  So there, therein lies this conflict, this friction between, well, how, how can I develop IP if it can't be owned and I'm working for a gaming company?  And, you know, it's a conundrum. Right. Yeah. But you, you know, what's the interesting part.

So, we are talking kind of on the visual side to this now, now imagine in, let's say five years when the booming on the Metaverse is going to pop up, you know, Mark, I saw Marzucco is trying to push it as much as he can, which, yeah, that's fine on this side, but that's fine. Everyone's got their own opinion, but, but when we jump to 3d, the things get interesting because.

Okay, we understand it looks like that person or that person, but we're going to reach to a point when metaverses will be created automatically or from a prompt or from something, right? You know, a data input, which could be the user itself. So, in five years, somebody's going to say, you know what, I'm going that platform doesn't matter the name and I'm writing a prompt and with AR glasses, I'm going, you know, inside of that.

In fact, and so here are the challenges. One from 2D visual. I don't think that matters too much. Yeah, you can have it, but think about the 3D side, you know, like how are we going to control that? You know, like if it's the same, the same principle, if somebody have a model, how are you going to Trace that model, you know, like, like you have a car or whatever, a wheel of the car or the seat of the car, you know, like, how are you going to have that traceable?

Because any vertex you move, it's a different thing, right? It's, it's, imagine an image, you move a vertex and oh, it's not that person's drawing because I moved that vertex. Well, it's. It's far more interesting. And on top of that, you do have the visual effects. You go you, it is not only another dimension in the Z scale, it's, it's also the texture side, the way of doing the 3D modeling itself, it's point clouds or if it's a mesh or you know, so this there is where I'm seeing actually.

Where AI is going to scratch their head and they'll say, how are we going to trace this back? And maybe they will go something similar to what they have was the blockchain because it's easy technologically speaking, we can easily trace back everything, right? Even with all those challenges, you know, lawsuits, and everybody can go back and see who posted the first time on internet that particular image is no different from Bitcoin at the end, right?

But the, the sad part is, if we want that, who's going to control that? Again, it goes to the big tech, big industries. Yeah, big tech has a history of not compensating anybody for their work. You know, they hide behind that, okay, it's fair use. Well, yeah, it's fair use, I agree with you, but at one time we need to draw the line. 

You know, the blockchain equation is interesting, and I've talked to other people about this, is that, yeah, the altruism of what blockchain was supposed to be, it was trying to empower individuals to control their creative as it moves through the internet or the digital world. And, ideally, with that altruism, everybody can and should be compensated along that chain.

That's what I'm saying. Right. Can you say that? And it's like, wow. I mean, that would be fantastic. That would not only assign copyrights, but it would also assign trademarks, it would assign compensation for the use and recognize contributors along the way. Because the history of creativity is we've all been influenced by the great master painters, the great directors, and, and then you synthesize that into your personal expression, whether it's a movie or it's a painting and illustration and graphic design.

And yeah, we we've all built our careers on the shoulders of others. With, with much respect and, and even recognition and homage, but, you know, recognizing that as not necessarily fair use, it's like, that's the way creative has always been done throughout, you know, the, the, the centuries. And so.  You know, here we are in this new world of blockchain and digital art and AI art, and we're in a technology world where the technology I’m hoping can solve this age-old problem and provide some type of compensation and trackability and accountability in the process.

And that's assuming everyone can play nice in this world and not be, uh, not be abusive. Just like what I call the original sin of big tech is, you know, originally scraping the internet, but she can't go back that original sin, but how you move forward. And this is starting to happen with small language models where it's being ethically sourced.

And I think that will be a new wave and hitting alt tech against big tech to come up with these solutions, which will, I believe will increase AI adoption because we're just, they are addressing this original sin and using technology. To provide new solutions, not abandoning AI altogether. We're just saying, no, it's a great thing.

It's just how you build your data set is has been the problem. And now certain companies are saying, we've figured it out, and we're doing it this way. And so, I'm optimistic.  in terms of people thinking out of the box and new founders finding those new solutions. Do you carry that same optimism?  Yes. Yes.

I'm on that side. I'm very optimistic. The only thing is I'm a little bit more pragmatic because I'm trying to, to see also the, the other side, basically in the sense that for instance, let's take the blockchain. The value is actually based on scarcity. That means it's not available. It's something which is unique.

And it's a limited number and that, that might create some stuff, which I do not agree. You know, I do not think you should force through not make it available, the value going up. I'm quite the opposite. I'm in the sense that spread it out, make it open, let him plainly off, right? It's like air or water. 

Don't create a desert environment. And after that you have the water and you have million dollar or something like that, right? That that is where I'm seeing the challenge with. Let's say the blockchain in slash, even if we implement this kind of process for tracking back the artists, because at the end, you know, let's say this goes to Supreme Court, Supreme Court is going to find the solution and say, hey guys, you figure out you're going to pay the artists.

But my concern is the pay for the artists is going to be like two cents or three cents.  Right. Yeah. Right. So, so at the end, they will say, okay, you got paid. Yeah. But it's not the value.  And in time, if we, if we apply the same logic. Let's say we, we have something, an image, which tracing back and you need to pay that to hundred peoples because each of them, they add some value, or they add something to it.

You know, at one time you spread it out, you, you kind of dilute the value and somebody's going to hold it up. You know, it's like, again, like, like Bitcoin. Somebody was holding up to rise the value and after that they release it time by time, you know, small by small. Actually, the real people which are actually taking the benefits are only the first ones, you know, those which come later, you have only a tiny fraction.

It's like a big thing at the beginning and after that, the tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny toward the end.  And that is where is the problem. You know, the, the back side, you know, the dark side if you want, but I don't think it's dark. It's, it's just people to understand it, you know, to understand the principles. It's difficult to understand.

It seems like there could be a marketplace for like-minded, you know, people. Creatives that want to participate and agree in principle to how something can increase in value and track value in a way that is ethical and pro artist and don't, don't create these roadblocks, right, but create this freeway to a new economy.

And I think that's what's really interesting. And I’m just looking for a founder to imagine.  Imagine that world and that business model and apply these technologies. I, you know, if I'm speaking about it now, someone already has the idea and they're implementing something like it. That's called simultaneity.

And I think that does exist. So, depends on the infrastructure, because again, we are back to the tech industry, whatever is done. I know it's under the tech umbrella, you know, like, yeah, you didn't get out. Well, yeah, I guess, you know, we'll find something, you know, we do something with the conscience and, you know, we, we, we may think the brain is a computer, but not in the sense as a computer.

And we, we go toward other alternatives, but the fact is we are in a tech world and you're not going to escape it. You know, it's like it is there, right? That's, that's the progress of humanity so far. I do think there will be other stuff too, in time, we're going to discover with.  AI actually, we're going to have breakthroughs, we, we already see it, you know, we discover new materials, we, we discover of elongating life, you know, in medical field, we have nanorobots and we can do a ton of other stuff with AI, we can determine cancer, we can predetermine, you know, strokes and stuff like that, There's a ton of advantage of using AI, but as a principle, with all this, it's also, we are missing the, the, let's say, the environment or the, the mechanism of being fair from financial point of view.

Because right now, again, it's a certain people who's got like the Bitcoin, you got everything enough that nothing for the rest. And this is where I'm seeing the big revolution. And with AI, I think it's coming because at one time you, you create something and you're going to have a stream of revenue.

coming just, you know, you do it once because that's the secret actually, you know, that's a big secret which a lot of people do not understand. Why the tech industry is so, so advanced and it's so difficult to Pull them up. Mostly is because in the past when you did not have the tech, you did one product, you spend the time on it, you sell it, whatever you do, a car, a house, whatever, right?

Now with this tech, you do a product, and you sell it trillions of times, millions of times. You make a song, and you sell it, you know, like through this platform. So basically, the time which you spend for a product, it is exponentially multiplied. So, if you want to be successful, think about this principle, do it, spend your time, whatever, once and sell it multiple times and whatever we did that in the past with a specific product, particular construction, we build buildings, right?

You do it once.  You got the mind. That's it. You're not going to have anything. All right. So, and you know, a million pennies are as a livable income. So, when you talk about and the opportunity is millions of uses, not. Exactly. Well. So, whatever you do, do it once, and that's the reason I see the advantage of this kind of blockchain.

You do it once and even penny per day. If you have a penny per day, whatever you do it, five minutes for this, five minutes for that, that pays you back. And you know, as, as longer you leave, obviously as longer, you're going to have more revenues, which, which sounds utopic, but it's not. It is actually profitable.

mathematical fact. I can prove that. You know, I mean, it's logical. It's nothing as a flow over there, and we can see it. I mean, you know, we'll take music industries. I mean, the artists, they do it as long as they sell that millions of times. I'm telling you, it's not like in construction. I'm making something and, okay, done one time.

One building, right?  So anyway, we deviate them to be fair. I know, but it's a good discussion that comes out of the age that we're in. I want to get back to your work and, you know, I know you've written books, you've kind of animated some of these scenes from your books and they look fantastic. Tell me about that journey of being a book writer and illustrator creator using all these tools. 

Yeah, well, first of all, I write books before. So, I do have several.  free on Apple store books. I like photography a lot. Photography in the sense that I like cameras and mechanical part of it. You know, like I'm a civil engineer, but also, I do have industrial design background. I'm not really a mechanical engineer, but I know a lot of mechanics because when I was a kid, I was actually taking my toys apart most of the time.

Uh, my, my parents said, okay, you destroyed this one. I said, no, no, I made this one. So basically, I am combining things. I did that since I was a kid. So, I write several books about that. I really like sketching. Again, I do have some architectural background, actually. I do have a degree in architecture. I was kind of a rebel in the architecture, you know, being also an engineer.

Everybody looks at me, and I'm like, go to engineering, you don't belong here. You know, like, that pissed me off many times.  So I was drawing, and my style was more like organic, kind of like Zaha Hadid type of style, because it was, let's say, as a rebel, I would say, well, it will be a time when we're going to go away from all those flat surfaces, you know, everything is flat in the past, because it's driven pure by the manufacturing, the industrial, and at the end, it's pure economics, right?

It's easier to do something modular and prefabricated, it's low cost. But with 3D I, you know, uh, revenge of the Jedi. You came back and, with 3D, it's actually more economically to do round shapes, and I do see that shift, and I see also, right now it's not very in detail with the 3D model, especially for the housing.

There are examples, but you, you're not going to have square corners. Always you're going to have it round, because when you print it, that goes around, so it's interesting. However, the future with the 3D, I think it's going to take a while. We are not there yet. Not only that, even from materials point of view, we don't have the materials, but it will be something.

But back to the books, I was writing a book of architectural concepts. Again, it's free on Apple book. Basically, you see all my rounding, crazy shapes and, and putting the whole world of building houses upside down. So, I, I read that before. When AI came, I realized that some of my sketches, like this book, which I read, the, the concept architecture, which is actually crayon drawings, is not a colored drawing.

I intended to color it, and I did a bunch of them in Photoshop, you know, like kind of speed painting back in early 2000s, but I didn't, I didn't really like it. And I say, well, I will park it on the side. And recently with AI, I start coloring most of them, and I realize, oh, look, I can do really good results.

Take my sketch, put it in AI, write a prompt, and actually the results are very nice. So, in that way, I start writing more books. I do have the sci fi DOS, so all those are available on Amazon, you know, on Kindle as well.  because I'm also a big science fiction fan as well. So, and based on that, you know, considering all this, this year, talking with the friends on LinkedIn and people which are involved with AI, we thought maybe on 1st of June, maybe we can write a book.

And we came with that idea. I believe in March or April this year. And by first of June, we actually came with a book, call it Azimuth, which is an alphabet adventure. So, it's a book for kids between five and 10 years old with stories for each letter. So, we were like 10, around 10, 11 artists over there.  And each of us came and covered a few of the letters.

And we put a story over there with Dan with AI, basic elements.  in Gemini or, you know, like any other stuff.  So, you write the story in that way. We try to tie them together. And obviously the images, they were done with smith journey or other equivalents, like most of you, some of them, some of them, they were with Newark, very interesting book, compile it together.

Probably I'll put the link so people can see it. And right now, we're translating those books in different languages because all of us are from different countries.  We're going to translate it in so far, we have like seven or eight languages. The first one was actually yeah, and we're hopefully by the end of this month we'll have the second Azimuth book for kids as well with stories, so that will be the way of writing books.

Yeah. And that's for the next generation, right? Which hopefully will have less friction in, in learning and adopting AI than our, our generation. So, we're getting towards the end of our podcast, and I just wanted to allow you to plug anything you want. You just mention the book. Uh, there'll, there'll be links in the description, but any, anywhere else that people can find you.

I know you have a LinkedIn deal every week. I, I've been a guest a couple of times. Thank you.  Yes, so I usually try to keep on Thursday at noon Eastern time an event. It's a podcast. It's an audio event It's not a video event. Well, I'm talking about Innovation with AI, news about AI and 3d revolution because I think 3d revolution is happening right now I see it personally.

I see it. I don't think it's to the verge I think it's still in the pioneering mode, but we talk about that in a You Weekly basis, you know, feel free to find me on LinkedIn, Sandoval, and also regularly I'm posting various images done with or videos as well, because you can do from an image, you can do a video as well.

Yeah. Using my AI, for instance. Sora didn't come out yet, but we have other ones. We have Kling and, you know, many others. And I'm posting that regularly. Typically, on Friday, like today, I do a team, they call it Friday Robots. I like sci fi. I like cosmonauts and astronauts.  And, you know, I read a lot. They call them astronauts in this country.

But yeah, yeah, no, exactly. Cosmonauts, they were in the eastern side during the Eastern Bloc, and astronauts, they were on the western side.  You know, no, no difference. Both are actually in the decks, so I can use both terms correctly.  But yeah, no, it's all about discovering new universes, new places, basically be curious, find more, you know, like keep that spirit of discovering things.

It's awesome. You know, whatever you do, try to, to learn. Your work is very inspirational, and I'm a big fan of Sid Mead, and we talked about this before, but yeah, I mean, you're like the next Sid Mead. I just want to see your work in like movies and stuff. I don't, have you been contacted by Hollywood at all?

I did talk with a few people from Hollywood, but in the sense that we, we just chat in that sense. I give them some of suggestions and stuff like that. I invite them to my event. We talk about it, but the thing was the Hollywood, of course, we know there were strikes and stuff like that. But what I think it's, it's more on the creative part. 

Everybody's got that creative spark and the advantage of using AI, you can let people express themselves. Before, it was difficult to express, you know, like even George Lucas, he said it himself, you know, his first movie, The X Men. People do not understand it. It got rejected so many times. And even when in 70s, when he did the Star Wars, the first movie.

Nobody believed him. Nobody. Right. He, he created the genre. Exactly. He, he created, he, he believed it. And, and in time, you know, if you look to the whole thing, he, he switches also, you know, everything. At the time it was on the film, he switched it to digital. He was actually, if you want to blame somebody going Hollywood on digital playing him.

Yeah. George Lucas. Right. Because he did an awesome job. You know, he, he was curious. He, he was trying to find something new.  And again, people saw it and he created the Wild West in Space. That's the concept. Listen, thanks Sandu for being a guest. We'll probably have you on again because your work is so interesting.

You're so prolific. And for those of you listening and watching, thanks for tuning in and catch more of our Realm IQ sessions on your favorite podcast platforms. Like Spotify and YouTube, and please follow and smash that subscribe button. Thanks again, everybody. Thank you. All the best. Have a good one. 

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