Wilfred Lee: The Courage to Call Yourself An Artist

In this episode of Judeslist, I speak with Wilfred Lee about something deceptively simple but deeply psychological: Why is it so hard to call yourself an artist?

Wilfred shares the internal conflict he’s wrestled with actively creating, exploring ideas, building work yet hesitating to publicly claim the identity of “artist.”

Wilfred speaks candidly about the subtle fear of sounding arrogant, the discomfort of claiming something that feels “earned” rather than inhabited, and how comparison quietly distorts creative self-perception.

We examine:

• Why “artist” often feels like a title reserved for the exceptional
 • The tension between humility and ownership
 • How public declaration changes private practice
 • The cultural narratives that make creative identity feel risky
 • The internal cost of withholding authorship

One of the deeper threads in this episode is this:

When you refuse to name yourself, you delay your growth. Calling yourself an artist isn’t a reward for mastery. It’s a commitment to the path.

Key Takeaways

• “Artist” is not a hierarchy  it’s a commitment to creation
 • Cultural narratives can suppress creative self-definition
 • Publicly claiming identity can accelerate creative growth
 • Withholding authorship often comes from fear of judgment
 • You don’t wait to become an artist you become one by deciding

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome Wilfred, welcome to Jude's List, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Doing great, Jude. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Can you tell us where you're speaking from and a bit about what you do as well?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I am currently in Toronto, Canada. Winter. And uh I am a Toronto-based creative working as an actor. So I've worked for shows and and commercials for like Netflix and Apple TV and Prime and also art artists. You know, I've I've I've done things behind the scenes more recently with generative AI, working with companies like Vice and Annie and History Channel. And um yeah, just working as an educator just to kind of get people helping them to un unlock their creative potential.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

And how did you get started into that?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I went to school for animation back in 2006. So I I studied 2D and 3D, and I was always, you know, an individual like a lot of creatives out there who who was always drawing or doing something creatively for a long, a long time growing up. And that's just been part of my my process. And I've just been kind of going along with the evolutions of of how creativity has been shifting based on the times of of the eras that we that we live through, whether it's like in the 80s or the 90s or 2000s. And for education, you know, I I did I actually just uh lived in Korea for like a decade. So I actually started to teach English there, ESL. English is the second language, which is great. I I had the amazing opportunity to teach from the ages of like three years old to 70 years old. So it was a really great opportunity to form relationships and understand a great broad viewpoint of people and really get to know a culture once you go to a situation like that. And now I think that's kind of just translated now into providing information and opportunities for people who are interested again in how to unlock their own inner potential with creativity. And it it comes in many ways, it comes in a lot of different mediums. So I I don't try to stick to one particular one. And I love to learn a lot and and really figure out, no matter how varied or different they may be, they always have some type of influence to a greater view or way of how you're like channeling or going through life.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Wilfred, you've worked across film, music, comedy, and AI. At your core, who would you say you are?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

It would be storytelling. Storytelling is probably the most fundamental things for us for for humans, you know, thinking back to, you know, the cave, the cave paintings, you know, of our like primitive era and to what we've done now. It's it's just about sustaining and passing along word of mouth to drawings, to written form, and for music is a form of storytelling, or writing, obviously, or or dance, you know, animation. All of these things, the best pieces of art have a very rich and deep sense of story that's very committed, and that's what gets people connected. Like that's why, you know, Hollywood or just films is like one of the most popular things in the world is because we're so fascinated as a species with with story and and how that kind of helps push ideas and motivations and things forward.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

And when f when did you first feel like a storyteller?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

I don't even think like how far back are we going here. I mean, when I was a baby, I don't have no idea. But yeah, I think I used to draw comics. I I'd write short stories. Even in high school, I remember taking English class and then had a writing class with Mr. Mackenzie. He was a great teacher, and that really got me into writing short stories or ideas, visualizing things with a written word. And through drawing, I I would draw all the time, but I I think at that time I never really connected it to storytelling. To me, that I felt like that was something that I kind of more deeply understood more recently in my life rather than earlier before. I was just doing for the sake of getting away or or you know, daydreaming uh with my eyes open, so to speak. But I guess that is a bit of escapism. And I don't you don't tend to really realize it when you're so young that that's essentially what you're doing when you're daydreaming, or you're you're just drawing or making characters. You're just doing for the sake of doing it. But I mean to to to say when it started, I think it's just when I just kept drawing, you know, for for so long. And once once I started to really be conscious of the fact that I I had these ideas that were like very specific and concrete that I wanted to express out, like a you know, short story about I think one of the first ones I ever did was in college that to me felt like legitimate. It was in a in a writing group, and it was called it was called the The Birth and Death of a Day. That's so emo, I think, at the time I was coming out with that. But the whole idea it was about um woman, she's driving down a very rainy street, and there is a box in the middle of the road, and then cars are avoiding it, and for some reason she feels compelled to just stop and and get the box and there's a baby inside. And then the story takes place about like three times of that particular child's birthday. Later on, it's like this this specific child, you know, and this this woman, they have this relationship, and that uh this this child, you know, grows up to have like this very, you know, personal secret that they can't tell nobody and ends up writing it down on a piece of paper and then ripping up old it into very, very tiny pieces and then putting it into a balloon and then letting it fly away. Yeah, I I sometimes, you know, like I just would kind of lean into that sense of not having any experience with what I do now with like Joseph Campbell, like the hero's journey or anything like that, but just going off with an idea and just you know being hypnotized by some by some type of an idea or a concept that kind of hits you subconsciously. And I think that's why I really resonated with like David Lynch, for example. He's like really deep on the subconscious element of of garnering a story, because sometimes just innately you'll you'll figure out where to go next just by feeling it out. And sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes you know you'll wait on an idea and it'll take you like a month to five years, ten years, you know, until until it feels right. So that's kind of what it is in a nutshell for me.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah. And as a storyteller, you you mentioned using that practice as a form of escapism. What were you trying to escape from?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I think just boredom, isolation, family trauma, those those type of things. At the time, my parents, all my life, we had a convenience store. I would probably be like the youngest employee of all time, be like seven years old, taking care of a convenience store by myself, asking older people for ID when they want to get cigarettes or something, you know, like getting them lottery tickets and doing the shopping stocking things. It was just because my parents had no choice. They had to, my mom had to cook, they had to go somewhere else. So I'd I'd end up for a large majority of my young life working at a convenience store. And my parents had several as I grew up, and then we moved from Toronto to Aurelia, which is from like Aurelia, for example, is like at the time it was like 25,000 people. It's like I was probably like the only Asian kid there, you know, kind of a thing. And we had this big convenience store kind of by the highway in the main road. But at least in this one, we had a lot of magazines, which I didn't have in the other ones before. So it was great that I would be able to read anything. Like it would be like an archie comic to all the newspapers, to sports and fishing, and then video game stuff. And just I read everything out of pure boredom. And then I would I would just do ridiculous things. I would some things I thought were they were cool pictures, I would take an Xacto knife and I would like cut it out and put it into a folder and I just put it back there. Just do silly things like that. But I'd end up having to work like immediately right after school for like five hours, six hours or something, you know, just like all day until my mom had her time to take a break, or my dad did. And during that time, I was like working in a convenience store and by myself, like there was no internet, there was no cell phones, nothing. So I you know, I obsess over music or draw. Just draw and draw and draw because at least I'm I felt like I'm actually doing something rather than just like looking at the the clock and just waiting for minutes to go by. So it did maybe again that emo thing of myself, even though I don't like emo music, but the sense of like, oh my god, I'm in a jail, I gotta get out of here. Like this this whole thing about can be a story, it's about capitalism, man. It's about like selling all the seven cents of people, like sloth and envy and all these different things that people don't need. And what am I doing? But you know, I would bring my guitar, I would try to play music while customers came in, or I would and again just draw and draw and draw constantly. And it wouldn't be matter what it was, I would just draw anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Looking back now, do you think that childhood experience has a correlation with what you do now?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah, I mean, I I you have to be careful, like when you go back too far, and then you you have that little moment in your mind, like, what if I branched out and it'd be so far, it'd be so dangerous. Like, oh my gosh, like it's just too far right now. Like at the time when you have like crossroads in your life, like, should I go to this college, go to that college? You can kind of like like uh like to Barry or to try. That's a huge thing, but it's too far now. I I can't even like fancy doing that unless it's like like a movie like looper or something. But yeah, I I think it's it's just been an an again an interesting journey, like accepting everything that's been happening, you know. It's it's about like character defining where you know personality is what you kind of go through throughout the day, but the character is what this decisions you make in your life, and that kind of like sets the character for who you are and what you've been doing. So it that it's because you know, sometimes trauma or or issues that you you have growing up, they really help shape, you know, the stuff that you do later in the future. Like comedians, they usually come from a very traumatic or or you know hard shit background, and they use comedy as a as a form of escapism of healing or to kind of revert that, and then they're able to take the most you know messed up things and make it funny somehow, which is like was that your experience? Eventually it was. I don't think no one really considered me funny, I don't think. But it was like once I got into Korea, I got into stand up. That that was great to go out there and just like give an opportunity just to be honest and hang out with the rest of the degenerates that I love so much, over just like all expats in Korea, you know, like leaving our home country, trying to find a better life, and just go to these dingy bars like Tony's like an Australian owner who fled Australia to make a bar, and we're all just in this dive bar just trying to just say like the worst jokes, just like, oh my god, it makes my eyes roll back. But we we're trying to again every form is like you're trying to muster up all these negative things most of the time. It doesn't, it's always negative, but you're trying to put shape it that it doesn't overtake you, you know, otherwise it will consume you. Like growing up in a small town, like Aurelia, there's it can be very easy to get stuck there like a vortex, so to speak, and never be able to escape, you know. Like I've I've seen friends like get deep into like alcoholism or to drugs, never really into that, luckily. But you know, I'd I really turn into music instead. Like go to the only music shop and just trying to find the most obscure things, or go to Blockbuster, and it was like a window to something bigger out there, so to speak. I think, oh yeah, all those things definitely kind of shaped who I was now, especially. Yeah, especially like that Blockbuster era, because people were so I'm not sure if for your listeners that they if they know what or remember what Blockbuster was, but you know, this is obviously this is just a meme now, but uh that was a huge thing. I I really wanted to work. I was so jealous of people working at Blockbuster while I work at the convenience store. I'm like, baby guts, just like this is amazing. I would just go there and then I spend the money. I only made five dollars an hour, but I use all any money I got to buy a DVD. I had like hundreds of my mom freaking, why are you wasting your money on this? But I I would just be obsessed with with films and uh I I hated the the mainstream VHS or the DVDs on the front. So I would just go to the only independent mile, and then I got into like obscure films just because I I just get something and then I'd find something ultra or different, and that like really helped shape my my sensibilities or a deep cinophilic cinematic passion for for stories that are like not so familiar or not so you know standard, maybe for you too as well, right? Because you're a filmmaker as well. So I'm sure you might have a really great deep connection of wanting to go to the criterion closet, right? And these are my top five films that I want to check out, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

So what do you what made you seek those type of films and avoid like main mainstream films?

SPEAKER_01 13:16

I mean, I would I would watch them too. Like I love like Terminator 2 or Aliens, like like those are those are still classic, like they they hold up, but sometimes the formula was too obvious, you know, especially for a young age for me. I I could just see like it's kind of predictable, and I just want something that was just so different and and random that you know that's something that you can only get from a foreign film because the sensibilities and culture and the way of you know, like an author filmmaker would do that's so opposite, you know, from what you would see on in the mainstream. And now we've seen it where it's just so systematic. It's like this is like the method you gotta do, the metrics. Yeah. You know, I I would love to like go to any of the local um video stores and I talk to the owners, and they would be like, Have you heard of this guy? He made a movie called Following. I'm like, no, I haven't yet. And I and I check it out, and it's like Christopher Nolan. Okay, this looks interesting. And then I I watched his first film, and I'm like, and I was obsessed from from him from that first one. And then from there I could just from where what he's doing now, I could, I could see. If you've not seen Following, that's a great film because it's all in black and white. He's he's experimenting with his you know story editing structure that he's more famous for, and then and then you could just see that everywhere. You could just see that in Inception and Memento, which is a great one. Or I watched like messed up movies like um Requiem Forgery, like Darren Aronofsky. His earlier films, he had Pi. I'm not sure if you've seen Pie, but that's another fantastic one. Both black and white, but I didn't really care. All my friends, you know, there were they're two Canadian, like northern, like lacrosse hockey playing friends. I'm not sure how we were friends, but we all kind of liked each other. I never played hockey or lacrosse, but we were kind of grouped together. There was just one situation. It was in uh high school, you know. I was working at the store, I went to Blockbuster afterwards, and I just went to the independent aisle, and I was like, I'm just gonna choose one. And there was this movie called Suicide Club. You ever heard of this movie? No. Suicide Club. Okay, I think it's by Takishi Mike. He's a very auteur Japanese filmmaker. I'm watching this at home, and then my buddy Jeff calls me on the phone and he's like, Hey, what are you doing? Um, just you know, watching this movie at home, just hanging out. He's like, Coming up, my my girlfriend, she invited her friends over to her to their place and just bring the movie when we watch it. I'm like, okay, sure. So I bring this movie out there, and it's you know, kind of like double dating in a sense, and then you know, I pop in the movie, and the the first sequence is like 30 Japanese high school student girls that are like talking, going down the subway system, uh, and there is the intercut of the subway train coming, and they're all just talking, and then they're all lining up to the edge of it, and it's getting closer and they're holding hands, it's getting closer, and they're like each uh and they all jump at the same time, and it's just a crazy, it's just so gory. And then immediately my my friend he just gets up, he just hits stop and eject, and he just puts it back in the cover, and he just gives to me, and he's like, You gotta watch this on your own, you gotta go. I was like, I had no idea it was gonna be like that, but that was the price you paid to to watch crazy films. But but later I I grew to really like that director, and he had some amazing, amazing films that I didn't realize, you know. But I just remember my friends be soaring upset, like, why are you watching films with subtitles, bro? Like, what are you what are you doing, you know? It's just so crazy at the time, which is so funny.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Yeah, I guess what watching films with subtitles back then what wasn't a thing. I mean, it's not even DVD, it was not like 720 piece, you're just like strained to watch it.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

That's black and white and and subtitles, like, oh my gosh, you're that's you know, you're you're not gonna be hanging out with the cool kids for that kind of stuff. But I you know, I I I just loved stories, and then I would make my own stories afterwards. I think that was kind of like building blocks of doing world building, which I'm really into now with storytelling, you know? Yeah so kind of going to like where we're at now for the independent creator. Having a story is important, you know, and the more rich texture and details you can get out of it is through how well of world building you can do, how much detail and nuance you can get out of everything. Coming with my drawing background with animation. Uh I realized I did not want to be an animator. I was like terrible at it, but there was storyboarding, there was character design, there was concept design, there was like so many different things. And I really loved concept designing. I just love that whole idea of being in pre-production and building out the world. This is what the room looks like, this is the function of everything. And that's kind of been something that I still kind of hold on, been super helpful to me now in terms of building the world and then eventually building your own IP, which I think is really important these days for people who are creators. Why is that? If you think about some of the most amazing franchises that exist now, how many of them um are owned by the original creators?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Like that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, you know, aliens. I don't know, anything really is like very, very little. Like it's it's such a scary thing. People wanted to get into Hollywood because they want to make something big and huge. It's like a big idea, you need more money, you need more people to invest. We're gonna invest millions of dollars into it, but you have to sell the IP, and then we can do whatever you want. And then it just eventually it it we it subverts, it changes, it becomes something completely different. And then people are like, How did this movie get made? You know, it just changes everything. But there's not that much people creating original ideas and and owning it anymore, but I think that's slowly changing now because of the technology and and how stories are being shipped created now. That I I'm so deeply involved and invested with, like creating my stories, really diving into the characters and all that stuff. And with the YouTube era of content creator, the influencer, there's less middlemen and much more of a shorter, easier connection between audience and creator, you know, where the traditional legacy entertainment media, you know, you have to go through a bycenteen, like a maze structure in order to get something made. Same thing for acting. You know, for acting, you want to do, I want to be in a horror film, or I want to do these really engaging roles, but you have to go through the process of finding an agent, getting Hodge, get you know, doing hundreds for every 100 auditions, you might get, you know, a callback or two, or you know, maybe get a role. But it's like baseball, like you don't get a home run every time. You have to do a lot of innings and and and and swings and misses. So, but the most important thing with IP, by the way, is just intellectual property. That's something that you make yourself, is that you know so much about it, you have a lot of control. And I've seen a lot of amazing creators in the AI space, generative AI space. For people who are not familiar with like Gossip Goblin, he's probably one of my favorites out there. He's amazing. We should check him out. Neural Viz, Kavan the Kid, he's doing cool stuff. I mean, these people were not familiar or or heard of before this time, but now you know they're they're creating these amazing worlds and stories. And um, you know, these these bigger investors or our conglomerates or these companies are taking notice and they're they're seeing the shift and they're trying to think, how can we own these things now? You know, or like what can we do to make these these connections better so we can make more money investments? But this is a really important time, I think, for for the creator and the and the storyteller to really start building up the world because it's gonna get more immersive as as time goes by. It's gonna be so easy to like really deeply dive into worlds and stories more than before.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

So if it's gonna be easy, what's going to matter more? What's going to be your importance moving forward? Just just the story, the quality.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Like with every even with when things get oversaturated, when something is just so undeniably good, it just gets passed and people will be attracted to it and the algorithm will work in some mysterious ways. Even in Instagram, there's some people I have never heard of. They have millions of followers. I'm like, who is this guy? And then you watch, I'm like, oh okay, they they have some really cool things. And I mean, and also it's it's like you what's important to you? Like, what do you want to say? And and there's still that kind of punk rock thing of doing it not for other people, especially in the beginning. Don't don't think about my metrics or like engagement or anything like that. You just need to focus on like what is your story, like something that's so personal and so distinctly unique from everyone else that you're not trying to compare it to the most common denominator that that will make it stand out. And then it you know, like music only has like how many like six notes, and but we have like millions of songs and that are like being done. There's still so many variations to be done with with that. So there's a lot of amazing.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

stories have like yet to be created and and more more uh uh dynamic uh high risk stories because they don't have to meet a standard or a a certain way that Hollywood expects you to again that met that method in order to like hit these beats do these things to just work on on what feels good for you to to create that idea come to fruition yeah so what's your story you you want to share what's your message and in addition to that can you speak more on um how to create IP in this generative era because some of sometimes using these tools do you truly own the IP that you create?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

So there's obviously a lot of controversy with AI in terms of like the training data and like what you make is it actually copyrightable so there there is that challenge already. I I I would say at least the the story idea is is still essentially yours even if you use a different character or something you know designing through a model or you or you draw yourself but the most important thing is is that vessel that you're shaping the story out of. And in terms of like creating an IP I mean there's so many things it gets big and complicated fast especially if you're really building up a world you obviously want to find like the core of it whether it's the core character the core theme people work sometimes some people I know they work they focus on the theme first which is crazy or the character or the sometimes for me it's the first image like I'm generating and I just have one image and it might not even be the the beginning image of the story. It could be the last or somewhere in the beginning but it's something that I can just see everything shaping towards that and it's like a vacuum or like a black hole it just starts to swallow all the ideas and things that you need to shape it out. But I mean if you want in terms of technicalities like I I really like to use LLMs large language models like Claude is is a great one. ChatGPT is like the most mainstream one but I I really like to instead of like working on the story right away I just work on developing what is the metaphor or like what are the concepts I'm I'm really trying to think about and and really really keep diving at that more and more and more I mean I've been I've been developing like a few IPs for myself like they might take some time but the it's like a marathon I I'm in no rush for a race. You know the technology will get easier and and while that's happening I really want to just really understand this world so well that anybody can ask me a question. I'm like I know I know one that's about like a a a haunted you know cursed apartment complex in Asia like I I know what happened to it you know all the different oddities or types of creatures create an encyclopedia about that about all the lists of potential creatures or why it was infested what type of people would go there and creating a timeline history or sometimes even creating uh soundtrack for it I really love to make soundtracks for my own stories. You know like some of my favorite readers like Quentin Tarantino like I always used to hear that before he starts a film he goes to his vinyl collection and he chooses what songs to make a story or writers like Haruki Murakami you know where his stories are so ingrained with music as he was like a jazz enthusiast and and then there were passages in his stories that I would read as like you know this music starts to play oh I I'd find I listen to it I'm like oh this is great and for some creatives it can really help with obviously visualizing things that are much more but I think it depends on certain people. Some people they don't have that ability to actually see things in their mind compared to some people who do I forget what it's called like antaphasia or something. But doing everything you can to really build out every layer of that world through the music through the world through you know the items in a room to the characters you know character traits all those different things is super helpful and then having an LLM to help organize is super helpful as as it grows. So it has a better sense of the context of what you're building for something bigger. And when you know an IP very well then it can be it can be melded into any medium and then then it's really then about you figuring out what is the best medium to serve this particular story. Like Star Wars there's like so many there's there's games there's comics there's you know audiobooks there's movies obviously but not all of them are comics not all of them are movies right so you're choosing out of this entire huge universe and the universe is so big now that we'll never run out of Star Wars stories because it's just so big. So that's that's one of and then and and again it's but you want to hopefully you you have control over that as a creator. And I think in the future with generative AI there's this opportunity to build it and let the audience interact with it as well that they're able to help build and shape it as well. I think that's going to be a really important thing down the line.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Sounds good. Sounds good so throughout this whole process as you as you got introduced to AI what really changed for you what did AI really unlock for you?

SPEAKER_01 27:04

I got involved with AI around late 2020 early 2021 so just right at the cusp of COVID which literally reset it and affected the entire world was like one of the the strangest times that we don't even talk about anymore. It was like every it was like an alternate dimension I felt like at that time and I got into I got into AI uh during that time just by doing this thing called Clubhouse it was like an app where you can do like voice chat groups you did I remember that yeah yeah what kind of groups would you go into when you did Clubhouse I mean there were just ones you know world news what was happening current affairs there was just ones like you know like dating you know uh relationships I was going through a breakup so I I was in a relationship once yeah world news and dating those is a good combo there I feel yeah yeah so like I mean that it was but it was interesting because it was so varied topics and even as an actor I'm going on tangent but like as an actor it was so interesting is that they would be lasting directors having chats and usually you have to pay 100 to 500 just to have a one-day session with the casting director and get their insights it's a whole system that they do for actors you have you have to pay a lot of money just to to to perform in front of them but in Clubhouse they would do it like glee and they'd be hanging out for hours and it was an opportunity just to be in a group with a bunch of other actors talking to them they'd give some tips and it was like totally a changing thing and then I got one of the the groups I got into was then was was sharing um turn it up AI which at the time was super naive super lo-fi but essentially the whole concept of text to image which is so common now but at the time only six years ago but it was such a mind-blowing concept that you're not drawing an image you're typing words and the words get translated as a combination of weights into an image and this is before mid-journey this is before stability you know it was so hard to find a system to get it to work and much more complicated than it is now through through my experiences in and in using it at that time the the model and its training data probably had about over a hundred million images that it's trained on which is a lot but compared to now it's it's it's over six billion so we can see like the the the in the beginning was like dude how did you get that almost looks like a face to like oh my god that's like you almost have five fingers to oh like oh it's kind of you know kind of looks like a full body or like oh man like you can make a video out of this too and then it you can make a 3D thing and then the the the big ethos of the line of in the community is like people always say this is the worst it will ever be in terms of the capabilities and the quality and stuff. But the most important thing or the thing that really stuck to me as on a more metaphysical level is this idea that every single image that's being generated or trained on it it does this process called diffusion meaning you get one image it's like the girl with the pearl earring or the Mona Lisa and then the model will start to analyze that entire thing in terms of there is a woman that's sitting there it's uh it's an oil painting it's from this century it's from this artist it's uh using these color tones this composition this aspect ratio and then all of those different concepts are like defined into tags into words and they have different weights woman painting all that stuff and then that's how it's being trained and then it starts to get very blurry and static almost like a TV static and that's the diffusion state put into that diffusion state and then it does reverse diffusion meaning once it's completely static it tries to reimagine that concept and it's never a one-to-one uh replica of the original one it's it's based on all the training data and all of its connections on the word weight of the word of mother weight of the word of oil painting of all these different things transform that image and it does that a billion fold of everything that it's trained on. And all this is obviously scoured from the internet meaning that this is trained on everything that we know about ourselves from this point this very point now to the beginning of everything that we know about ourselves about time about space about history and it creates this concept of the latent space. So kind of like how our brain works is when we're consuming films, you know there's when you think about a a film is there a specific spot in your brain where you're like oh it's right here and you just get it out it's it's just it just kind of pops out and that's kind of what the latent space is it's not like all of these things are stored in the the concepts of the area are there but it's a neural network and that neural network is what the latent space is where you can pick things by putting those words and then understanding the weight of the words. So the biggest interesting metaphysical insight I got out of that was the power of the words and it's not like drawing this is not like drawing this is more for me like like a camera and like the words are the coordinates to this map in the light in space and it's and it's just so vast and huge and infinitely explorable that you can just go out there and just type anything you want and then you're you're gonna find this one dimension that people may have never found only because of your sensibilities and your style and your world building and how that builds up and stuff. So that to me is like one of the most underrated things I feel that people who are not so deep in generative AI are missing out on this idea of exploring this literally new dimension because the question is like are we living in a simulation the bigger question is like are we building this simulation? We're building it out right now and is it going to close on the door behind us because people are getting more confused of what's real, what's not real but this whole thing that we're literally building this new dimension which is like a different interaction with the internet. It's not supposed to be exactly like the internet but it understands everything that we've ever put into it and it keeps growing and now AI agents are coming into the play and they're getting involved and they multiply they can make their own subagents and everything so we're we're witnessing this whole shift of this reality that's growing and growing on its own and then you know getting into consciousness all that stuff what what is what is consciousness what makes achievement this is like the huge biggest existential threat for anybody because it makes you question about yourself and what it means to be human, what it means to to be creative what is art all those different things right but you know for me I just think like create creativity is like an energy that can can never be destroyed you can't literally destroy creativity it's it's nothing that you work with through anything you know creativity through music it's just you are the vessel it's like an invisible Wi-Fi that you like connect to we'll give you that idea. It was like 2018 17 uh I was still in Korea and then I had lost my job and I had a severance and then I was I had really studied about um ayahuasca for people who don't know it's like this this psychedelic drink that actually can be concocted and made in the Amazon and it's like a very kind of like a sacred method now where like shamans from generations they learn to find this particular tree to to take off the bark and shave it off and then they they like prime it with with water and everything they boil it for like days and stuff and then it's very powerful and the psychedelic component of that is called DMT otherwise known as dimethyltryptamine and it's considered to be one of the most psychoactive elements ever and also considered to be one of the most uh illegal substances but ironically it exists everywhere it exists in your brain it exists on frogs or trees and stuff and it says like you experience this DMT experience like in like three points in your life. It's like when you're born when you sleep and when you die taking the the ayahuasca or people can smoke it or whatever I'm not saying I'm just I'm not a lawyer I'm just saying that's just one of the things that's possible that you can have a a psychedelic introspective moment and stuff. But all that to say I I ended up going to the to the Amazon somehow my mom came with me we did it together which was like not planned but that was crazy. And then that really helped me kind of change my approach to drawing I was already drawing before but in terms of like having no ego to everything ego like really helps really stops progress most of the time and it's intimidating. So like for example at the time when you have like a blank piece of paper it's so intimidating to like what am I going to draw about you just think about too many things but if you just put a line and you just make scribbles and stuff that actually could be helpful because you're not thinking about it and then you can trust your judge your subconscious self to dive deep into your inner role dex of observations and yourself to find meaning into those things that that on surface does not feel like it has any meaning to it and stuff. So you know that that whole process really helped me in terms of understanding you know creativity can is it's like that invisible Wi-Fi that I don't feel always creativity is something I have in me. It's like it's coming through me. It's very kind of like a like a religious or divine element of it is like a muse you have to connect to the metaphor could be like the Wi-Fi that you have to connect to it's like the the the basketball player that has to get into the flow state before you really get into the zone of things. It's like you can't just start immediately doing something amazing. You have to slowly rev up and that that muse may not necessarily have any hands and the only way you can connect it is like you have to be the vessel for it. And then you have to sit down and you have to like do the time do the effort and then it will work through you in that process. So that that to me is like something that's beyond technology and the tools they would use and that's the thing that again that can't be destroyed and it's just the process of regardless of whatever your tool you're using that's that's what you're trying to do always is like connecting with that other higher like um feeling or self or or whatever that is.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

So even as AI allows you to express what does it also make hard for you?

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yeah what does it make hard I guess I mean it's I I had the problem before where I've well there's a few actually having too many ideas and trying to stick to one but I think that's like an ADHD thing. But you know I guess the one part too is like people not seeing it as a legitimate art form. That's like that's like a that's a huge thing like people tell me like this is my favorite phrase that people call me is you are an and you're not an artist, you're an arentist, which is great. So I think that's that's a good one. Take you guys can take that out there if if you want to use that that's a funny one. Through the power of constant rejection in acting that's such a a normal part of being an actor like rejected hundreds of times that it's not bother me. Like it's like ding ding ding like it just like ricochet it does not affect me at all. Which I get interested I get motivated I'm like let's go all right sure like when people say they don't like it and and it depends on the response to then I know like like how differently we're thinking about it like how much they've actually tried it to more of this the surface level of what they see or how much they I get participated. But I'm sure as we're discussing you kind of at least get a sense of like how I'm really how deeply I'm trying to think about these concepts you know and sometimes it's just like an introduction to talk about these things but sometimes people are just so obviously against it because again the existential threat about even my peers in in the animation industry how that's affecting them you know contact I've I've contacted my my past colleges or or schools and try to reach out to them to say like hey I I know this is like a a huge issue at the moment but I think it's worth having um curriculum or something to show these students of what's capable and give them exposure to the tools and then teaching about intent and let them formulate at what capacity they actually want to use these tools. You know I I don't want to force anyone because I think there's some people that I don't think would ever want to and I think that's great like like James Jean he's an amazing artist. I don't think he'll ever use AI or or Guilma de Toro. I love his work you know I don't think he'll ever use it but I I respect that thing. People have that path and it just works for them. Yeah there again there's there's like still like a lot of constant vitro from people about the fact of using it. But I I find it very motivating to then really work on stories and concepts that that really challenges me to elevate what what craft or how I'm making it that it's just again just undeniably good which is a huge challenge and it connects with people on a subconscious level. You know when we think about artwork that's survived centuries Mona Lisa or like the Renaissance era we don't tell it like what is it about these pieces of work that still hits people differently it's obviously different with music because it's easier because it's like a literal physical reaction with the vibrations of the sounds and the music like you you get like a visceral feeling the the image film is different too because then you can kind of combine those elements images this whole idea of like really thinking deeply about these things that you're making. And the deeper you go the the easier it'll be able to penetrate someone's you know layer of just superficiality of an idea and like really connected them on a level because that's the amazing thing about movies or music is that you'll be beside people who are like completely different race different ideologies or something but for whatever you both love Terminator 2. You know like you're like oh hell yeah like let's just go on a on a tangent on that stuff. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Yeah so bringing it back to your artistic journey Wilford what does your what does true self actually mean to you? How do you know when you're expressing it?

SPEAKER_01 41:27

I mean it's one of the the hardest things that we try to do in our entire lives I think that's one of the things why we we like some of the most famous comedians is because it's like to be generally funny is to be like authentic and like under just being yourself like you can't hide I mean there's some people who can't but like there's you know the sense of like just being raw and like brutally honest in yourself which is like one of the hardest things to do in your life where how often are we living with a persona mask every day you know like how um we talk to our family will be different to how we talk to our best friend to how we talk to our co-workers or to our boss like I have my son like he's like six years old like my my teachers his teacher says like he got the certificate of respect he's doing great he listens but at home he'll he'll like freak out sometimes maybe he'll watch this in five years it's like what but he'll be like dad like just mommy not listen and I don't get stressed out that I think that's kind of a good thing because he's being real he's being authentic he's not holding back for the sake of like getting you know in trouble like a public situation of school like if he's but if I can manage that and help him with that that's important but you know I've I think growing up I've I always really uh internalized and bottle up a lot of things maybe it's like the Asian part of me or whatever like but my mom is Spanish so she was like totally different she just let it just let me have it and I just like not say anything. But and but I think that's why I got involved into like acting improv comedy it was because it was a way to take those emotions and and again like transform it in a performance and and letting it out there and then it's like an exorcism or it's like a catharsis of pushing it out there for the sake of art and then people will really resonate it somehow. So I think that's that's the most powerful thing you can do is like taking any negative or like hard hardships you have and then transforming it into something positive. Yeah in that sense what do you feel most artists get wrong about themselves hard to say for uh other people but I think it again it just goes to being honest with yourself. It's hard to be honest with other people people you love sometimes and sometimes the worst things is just a subconscious element of yourself. You know that's that you're not being honest with yourself and and that's what subconscious leads you to Do decisions or actions that you may not be proud of, or you mess up in life, and it's just like I mean, and it can it's also a conditioning thing, you know, trying to break through a generational trauma, but not even realizing that you are going through that phase or something. It's it's it's such it's such a hard journey, but I I just feel like some it's just about being honest in general. There are some people who are just so shy to even say that they are creative. There's some people who are who are so intimidated just to say out loud that they are an artist. Why do you think that is? Because it's it's I don't know, there's there's a shame to it for some reason in terms of it's not a legitimate thing, or that you need to have a particular standard in order to be declared or yeah, certified as an artist, which is again one of those paradigms we really need to break, that everyone is capable and is an artist in some way, and you know, they have such a high expectation that they they think it has to be this before I'm considered that. But that was like one of the most important lessons I got when I was again at the convenience store, and a lot of people would come by. And my mom was like, My mom is like a very extroverted woman, and she'd make friends with anybody who came by, so they knew her, Mrs. Lee. And uh, she had made friends with this one. She passed away like many years ago, but she was a very she was an older woman, easily in her 70s or 80s. And uh my mom had talked with her because she found that she was an artist, and she's like, Oh, my son's an artist, like he wants to learn, he wants to do that. And then I was at the store, and then she's like, Oh, so you're an artist, you want to be? I'm like, No, I'm not an artist, and then very sincerely, that that lady who I did not know, she kind of just like touched my hand, and then she says, you know, I want you to say you're an artist, and then I was like, like for whatever reason that was super hard, but then I said, Yeah, I'm an artist, and then she says, There, that's the most, that's the hardest step to kind of get through. And honestly, if you try that with any person, that's like the A will take some time. Some people will do it, some people will won't. Like, there's always like an imposter syndrome that kind of goes with that. But uh, you know, all that to say, when I ask people like, what is your like your dream? Like, what is like your your thing that you really want to do in life? And they don't openly admit it all the time because they think it's like a sh like an embarrassing thing to say, like, you know, I want to, I wanna, I wanna work in Hollywood, I want to be in the movies, or I wanna I wanna be, you know, the uh, you know, a dancer for the ballet, or I want to be like a famous musician who works with radio hitter, whatever it is, but they don't allow themselves to to dream big, you know. Like it's like it's like an arrow that you shoot. You don't sh this this is the bull, like the the bullseye. You're not supposed to shoot like this. You have to shoot upwards. You have to shoot around it. Yeah, you have to go upwards have to get the trajectory, and then it slowly goes down a bit. So that's the most important thing is like trusting and giving faith to your giving your future self an opportunity, really. You know, like I I think the stuff that I've been doing now, and I would never imagine I would be doing stuff with Turnitive AI because it didn't exist, but I think it was something about my past self that was trying to invest and help my future self in any way possible by doing these drawings, watching these movies, all I said was just like a culmination of things that it was working on that trajectory. So when I talk about like the artist journey, like my my company that I do before that, it was just a group of artists meeting together and just drawing and stuff. But the then the the whole ethos is the same, which is helping to unlock the creative potential, but now for a billion people. And I I wanted to a really big goal for myself, no matter how crazy that is, because it's it's a trajectory and it's in the direction worth moving towards. Why is that important? Well, because metaphorically, again, it's like a huge your life is like this huge ship that you're moving towards. And then sometimes if you're not aligned with it, if it's just off just by a degree, gradually it will go away, and then you're gonna be veering off so far away from the original goal. And that's how people get stuck from doing things they don't necessarily want to do. Sometimes you have no choice, but the most important thing is that you still keep in the back of your mind like this is for now, this is just where I'm at. Blossom where you're planted and just focusing, but this is still towards the the ultimate goal that I'm trying to get towards, which is this, you know, like um in the beginning, it's like I want to be an agile, these things, but like trying to go for like bigger ambitions of like how you want to help, you know, inspire or change the world in some way, which is important.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Yeah. So based on that, how do you define your own path? What is the big goal for you with your work that you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Yeah, I mean, like it I I think one I've been curious, I'm curious for you too, but like I'm sure like you know, you might have like your own epic stories in your brain, in your mind, and it's just such a hard or sad thing when it just exists. You have something so big that you're thinking about, but no one else knows about it. It's just there, you know. That's it's just a crazy thing. Then I've I've lived with that for for many years, and I do now, but it's a little bit easier to get that out. And there's something very satisfying about it, and you know, for healing. And I think that's an important thing to get it out in any form, you know, and that's where you really play with the medium. It's like at least I'm gonna write about it, or at least I'm gonna draw a picture, or at least I'm gonna make a music about this. It exists in our plane of reality in some tangible way. That's the first step. Because it's because as long as it's it's if it's in there, but it's not out in the reality that no one else can identify it, then it dies with you. And there's so many, there's so many people who had dead dreams buried with them, you know, throughout their lives just because they they felt scared or they just, you know, they had doubts, they didn't give them enough trust in themselves. But you you really do have to kind of fight for your right to do something big and inspiring that can affect people because you're inspired by the things that you know that affected you and and millions of people in some way, in a in a good way, that that motivated you, and then that you're just like reciprocating that thing. Again, that's the creative energy that kind of flows. The creativity of these amazing directors or storytellers that we receive in and then we're cycling it through for the next generation, and hopefully it has enough creative momentum and energy that it can sustain for maybe a few months to a year to 50 years to 100 years. We don't know. But we want to be hopefully it's recognized in our lifetime that we know we made a difference. Sometimes for some people, it it never happens until they're dead or something, but like a famous one like Van Gogh, right? Van Gogh, like he never sold a painting in his entire life. And the the only biggest difference was when his brother's wife had found all the letters that he wrote to his brother and turned that into a book, and then put so much story behind the paintings. That's what elevated the value, right? Yeah, so again, it's it's the stories. There's another great documentary online, I think it's like Henry Darger. I'm not sure if you saw that. It's on YouTube, but it's about this recluse, I think schizophrenic janitor who never talked or spoke to anybody. And then when they passed, when he passed away, they went inside his apartment and they found like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of images and stories of this world he was building. And it didn't come to light until he he died, and then people made a documentary about it. It's interesting, right? Like there's something that for some reason it uh these stories and these universes they build inside you, and it's there for a reason that you need to kind of bring it out there for like it was it was appointed or chosen by you to get it shown through you, that no one else could do it.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

So that's what I'm asking. So what's your dream? What do you feel like it's behind your ethos of what you're trying to create?

SPEAKER_01 52:02

I mean, I I I honestly it's I don't know exactly. Like I'm just going with that trajectory of like helping unlock the creative potential for a billion people. I do have a lot of big IP stories that I'm working on. You know, like I have one, like I mentioned before, like Goanu, which is like a cursed apartment complex in like somewhere in Asia, maybe China or somewhere, but it's inspired by like the Kowloon complex apartments. It was like considered to be one of the most densely populated apartments in the world. You know, I wanted to turn that into like a game somehow where using generative AI, like there's some there could be locked rooms, and then uh a player would be able to open it with some keywords and it would generate procedurally generate the next room. So you you would never know exactly what the next room would look like, but it's heavily influenced by the structure of the game lore, the the details, the whole history that it stays within that world and giving people to kind of build out this space, which which I love for um I'm I'm working on a big one called Miasma. It's always like horror-based sometimes, but like miasma is like one about you can check it out on my Instagram, I think. It's an acronym for minds interlinking to ancient spiritual machines and then awakening. So it's kind of based on like an alternate 1990s Japanese Y2K era, kind of in the vein of like Silent Hill, where like people's traumas or desires and everything gets physically manifested into the real world, and it starts to affect how people live with each other or live in the city, and then that just you know evolves so much. And that project in the beginning, I was I just made one image and then I end up making like 800, and then I was looking at all these images, and I realized like like they all look like they're in the same world, but it's a completely different era. These ones are era one, era two, era three, and four, and I'm like, oh, and then what happened in between, and like really, really breaking it down now. Now I have this huge thing, I'm just like working and building, and then keeping an eye on like what's possible with the technology. For example, I've had the amazing opportunity to work with uh World Labs, you know, founded by Dr. Faye Fei Lee, and that whole company is helps you in creating text to 360 environments, right? Or an image into a 360 environment. So if I'm making this world, you know, and it's like different eras, and then now I made the map of this location and key moments there that I can I want to eventually make a 360 environment for each of those. I want to connect them. I want the ability to get these characters as AI agents that they can independently travel in these places and they could learn from those places or they can discover a new place and then create a new location and just again just keep building these worlds, you know. So, and like when I was working on this, like the this technology was not there, but I was again working, thinking big and like how far, like what are the possibilities that could be done in the future.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

Yeah. So speaking on on that, what Wilfred, on possibilities, um, yeah, as AI becomes the new norm for creators, how how will it separate artists? Um, I mean, based on skill, based on what they're able to create, based on inputs, based on how far you got started with the tools.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

It's that's yeah, it's I think there is going to be uh a big gap for sure. And again, it's there there's still people who are doing things traditional way, and they've they still find their way. Like the world is still really big. Yeah, there is enough room for anyone to do anything. Like there are still painters, even though that's kind of not so relevant, you know, in respect to what's capable now compared to 500 years ago as a painter, right? That was like that was like the echelon of of artistry and stuff, or or knitting. There's like sub-niches to everything. People say like yeah, is obviously a threat to to artists or who draw and illustrate. But my my biggest example that I always go to is caricatures. I think characters are very safe because I used to be a caricature artist, and some of my favorite caricature artists, I always give them a shout-out, caricature party. Check them out on on Instagram. I've I've worked with them. There's Ninja Sketch, that's Kiko Yamata, she's amazing. That their full time gig is doing caricatures, and that whole process of doing a caricature is like you have to sit with someone in front of you, and then you draw their essence of who they are. And and it's more than just the drawing, it's like that whole experience. It's it's a bit of stand-up because you're making you're building the punchline, you show it to them, or you get to know a little bit about it. But their work is just again so unique and so specific, and and they really push themselves creatively that no two drawings that they do ever look the same. That I just feel like they are on they just really stuck with that because I've known them for a long time. They've been doing it for over 10, almost 20 years, and they've been doing amazing, amazing work with that. And but in terms of storytelling, it's really about what you can do to help you get your stories out better and quicker, and not having to rely on the traditional method of getting a story done. You know, again, as an actor or myself working on developing stories on my own traditional route, I've done many paid seminars I had to go to, a lot of engagements to Hollywood connectors and stuff, which is really good for networking. It's a very slow process. And then there's technicalities that people are saying, ah, well, in terms of like the Canadian prism of how things are made, I'm not sure we can do this type of content, or this is not the type of things that people are going to. You know, there's like so many caveats for for whatever reason that you don't you don't want to wait for permission. Like we're we're waiting constantly for this permission that's allows us to do these things. And again, like some people are like can be satisfied with just work doing one specific role, but they're again, there's artists who are gonna in the animation pipeline who are storyboard artists, which they're great at it, but like every creative has their own thing that they want to do, which I think is like they work so hard to make experience, so that will give them the opportunity to later give them the time or the opportunity to do what they want to do later. But you can do that now, you know. Learning learning these tools is really important because there's a lot of demand for people looking for people with skills in generative AI a lot, and they they pay well. There just needs to be more people the experience, and there's and then the people who have drawing experience or storyboard or any of things have a better advantage because they have more experience with these storytelling methods or they understand the industry in some way compared to the people who are just hobbyists and learning now through this new medium. So that's why some of the best generative AI people that you see today, if you just look at their bio, they've they have a long track record before they got into this. There's no accident at that at all.

SPEAKER_02 58:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

And now they're becoming the pioneers of this because they dove into the tools. Yeah. And I believe it's it's the artist's responsibility to dive into these disruptive tools. When there's a just something that's disruptive, the artist should be at the forefront with the astronauts, you know, going in there and exploring and then seeing what works and how to push things further. And that really helps dictate and helps other people really think about the potentials of the harms and the implications because they're the ones who are really not being afraid of really going out there, you know, in in the realm of the unknown or uncertainty or biasedness and hate and all that stuff to really test something out. So yeah, it's good to do that as an artist to really explore them.

SPEAKER_00 59:47

Yeah. So, Wilfrid, if you were starting today with no understanding of how to tell stories or you didn't have your unique background and you were exploring the tools today, where would you start and what would you what would you do?

SPEAKER_01 59:59

Yeah, I mean, there's I would say in terms of social media, like X is really good. X is probably like one of the best in terms just to constantly follow people in the AI community because everyone is always sharing workflows all the time. There's like so many people like doing amazing work constantly. And they're they're always showing examples of like how to use it, how to use it. There's a very small subset of people who are actually making like longer content, so you can always learn about what's what's out there. But I would say, you know, using a chat GBT or like a Cloud just to help organize your thoughts, and then you don't even need to type to it, you can actually talk to it, and that's an also another interesting way of vibe coding a story or understanding things because you can how we communicate through talking and writing is completely different too. Sometimes I feel like how I communicate in talking is different than how writing it's just or like speaking a different language that already is a different personality that brings out it to you so you can get a lot of like really using that to talk out everything that's going on in your life or in your mind because I know I've done I I'll I'll talk for like 30 minutes about everything that's happening, about what I want to do, and all these different things, and it's really helped breaking it down for me, and then I can decide where we want to go with this. There's another thing, too, that's a bit of a side, but on LinkedIn, there's this AI agent called Bordy. B-O-A-R-D-Y. Have you heard of Bordy before? Yeah, Bordy. Okay, so I'll explain. Like Bor so Bordy is an AI agent that you can talk to, you can you can call it on the phone, has an Australian accent. I don't know why, but that's what it is. And then it's connected to the LinkedIn database of its network. So then for me, I can be like, hey, I'm an artist, I'm I really want to work on a project, you know, I don't know where to start. I'd like to get some experience. Maybe I can look for a mentor or like find opportunities to connect with other like to men people, and you have a conversation with this AI boardy, and then it will recommend people to connect with, and then you can make an appointment with them. And I've used it throughout the years, and I've had like over 20 meetings with people I've I've never met before from the UK, from the States, from LA or whatever, for for many different reasons, and that's been super helpful in networking and just getting a direct connection to people that you that again, like instead of just waiting out and doing it the hard way. That man, like I think about I'm sure like all of us with our parents, like you try to teach them how to use the remote control, right? Or like how to you how to tap open your phone like that, that can be a huge thing. Like, I don't want to be like that when I get older, you know. It's like whatever the equivalent of that is 30, 40 years ago, that terrifies me like because I feel like so incapable of doing something, and then just to the barrier energy just to open my phone and find more pods. That's gonna be crazy in that sense. Like, there's like how much are you missing out on because you don't know how to open the phone? Yeah, you know what I mean, and then from there check out other things. So uh and yeah, really get into vibe coding. Coding is really important. What is vibe coding? So, vibe coding, the great question, is the ability to build programs or apps just through conversation or through typing through LLM. So the the two biggest things that that happened so far in in this history, as we know with technology, is you're able to create images through text, right? That that whole latent space thing. And so like people who had no artistic ability are able to create visual artistic outputs. And the other side is people who have no programming ability whatsoever are able to communicate with LLMs, large language models like Chat GPT, like Claude, Cursor, to build apps and programs. So I, you know, you can say, hey, build help me build um Netflix, like a movie decision app in the style of Tinder or something, and then it will build it for you. So that's that's another hugely underrated thing that people should really focus on for themselves. It's like building things for yourself. It's so important. It's like helps with the world building process. I I build my own programs now, and I have no programming experience. I don't consider myself I can't read code or anything, but I've built a lot of I built some games, I built programs, you know. I'm I'm learning, just try testing out things. I made an app for my son about like building tasks or something like that. But that's a a very, very underrated skill to learn as well, because you you'd be surprised and on what you'd be able to make. And then it's it's not hard. That's the thing. You just need to talk to it, you just need to literally have a conversation with this app, and then you can just say, Well, what do you want to build? And then you say, Well, I don't know. Well, and it's like, well, tell me about yourself, and then you just talk about it. And then, oh, well, if you like going to the gym, well, here's an app to give you your your own personal regimen or you know, your food or anything, and that's that's gonna be like a very underrated thing that that's already affecting the community right now, especially with things like uh with open claw, which is like this you know, AI agent that's kind of tempting over the internet these does.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

That's interesting. That's interesting. So, Wilford, we're almost wrapping up our conversation. Do you have any last words to add to this?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

I just say, you know, please stay open-minded and curious about these things. You know, the the creativity is something that can you have to meet that in order to work on it. You are creative. And I would say as a call to action, I I'd love to see people try to look in the mirror and say, I'm an artist. I dare you. So you'll be able to do something like that. That's that's scary. But yeah, it's um really, really important to just. Just be ambitious and believe in your world. And don't let the universe inside die die inside there.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:06

Bring it out to the world somehow. Awesome. And then in closing, in your own words, what's your definition of love? Dude, you're giving us the craziest questions, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:14

What is love? Baby. I don't want to get this uh flanked. Uh yeah, what is love? Love, I mean, it's I just think of when I hear the word love, I just think about this joy of of like having this opportunity to to have like a family and like being able to express like a love that I was, I think, always kind of yearning for that I never had gotten in some way, but then able to like reciprocate it and give it back to to someone I feel that I I want to give as much as possible. You know, like I think about like with with my with my son now, he's six. Like my my relationship with my father was like we never really had talked much at all, but um, you know, maybe through my my son now, like I'm just like tenfold over like satisfied. My cup has overflowed with with satisfaction that I've have a great relationship with him. I talk to him, we we spent a lot of great time. Not only that, it's like sometimes we'll I'll get the opportunity to for him to meet his grand grandpa or his granddad, give my dad to somehow real relive and a second chance to do that, and I think that's that's kind of an amazing thing. And then that's maybe it's a bit of that like second chances, you know, love giving opportunity for those different things, and yeah, it's like giving opportunity just to kind of something that it's something that's meant to be a given and never to be held, you know. It has to be like shared throughout.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

So yeah, that was good. Thank you so much for sharing. I hope I hope you enjoyed the conversation. And um, I look forward to staying connected and um looking forward to more of the wells that you build and share with us. Yeah, I'm looking forward to yours as well. I want to see some of your films on the big screen. Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. All right, awesome. You too. Take care. Bye bye, bye bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:06

Bye.