Arthur Machado: You Can't Direct What You Don't Know

In this episode, I speak with Arthur Machado who is an AI director and AI artist based in Christchurch, New Zealand, originally from São Paulo, Brazil. With over two decades in advertising and film production, he made a deliberate pivot to work full-time at the intersection of AI and filmmaking. In this conversation, Arthur walks us through how he went from advertising producer to AI director, why he believes deep domain knowledge is the irreducible edge in an AI-powered world, and what it really means to develop taste as a creative.

What starts as a conversation about tools quickly becomes something much deeper a meditation on identity, style, the tension between preserving what you love and embracing what's coming, and why the people most afraid of AI disruption may be the ones who never fully invested in their craft. Arthur also shares a candid moment about why AI gave him the courage to finally become a director, something he'd always wanted but never trusted himself enough to pursue.

Key Themes

• Foundational knowledge as the non-negotiable edge in AI-assisted creative work
• The gap between fascination with outputs and the ability to assess and direct them
• Identity, style, and what it means to communicate through lived experience
• AI as a tool for lowering the barrier to experimentation and failure
• The disruption of advertising vs. entertainment — and why they're different problems
• What it feels like to want to protect an industry while being at the frontier of changing it

Key Takeaways

• "You can't direct what you don't know"  having the vocabulary of your industry is what separates someone who uses AI from someone who directs it
• Technical knowledge gets solved by AI over time; foundational knowledge stays valuable forever
• AI didn't change Arthur's identity — it added to it. The tension he managed was between wanting to evolve and not wanting to lose what he'd built
• If a job can be replaced by someone with no real craft knowledge using AI, that's a signal about the depth of value being delivered — not just a statement about AI
• Start small: don't ask AI for a whole film or a whole idea. Ask it to help with one small step you already take. That's where trust gets built
• The blank chat window problem — most people aren't afraid of AI, they're afraid of being judged by it. Once they have one real experience, it changes everything

🔗 Connect with Arthur Machado on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthurmachado1/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome Arthur, welcome to Jude's list. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Jude, thanks for having me. I'm doing great. You know, it's early in the morning here in New Zealand, in the other side of the world. And it's so good to be here with you, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Yeah, I'm glad we have such a medium and that we can make this work. Grateful for connecting and this exciting conversation we're about to have. So um tell us a little bit about where you're speaking from and what you do.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

So I'm I'm speaking from the South Islands of New Zealand. I'm based in Christchurch, um, in a actually in a small township called Lincoln. I've been living, I've been living in New Zealand for 11 years now. I'm originally from Brazil where where I was born and raised and always worked in the film and advertising industry there. Uh, and the same here after since we moved. What I do, I am a full-time AI director and AI artist. I've been doing this full-time, running my own company through some representations for around a year now as a full-time occupation. But in the space since say I came out to let's say the non-technical people, you know, around three years ago or so, when kind of my my breakthrough was mid journey victu. When when I heard the name, I'm like, what is this? And like, oh, I can transform a text into an image. Oh wow, this is unbelievable. It was obviously very early in the day, it was so it wasn't uh production ready as we would call. It was just a for me, it was just an area for exploring and curiosity. I've always been an advertising film producer, that's that's my background and my whole career. After film school, I got into the advertising industry in Sao Paulo, Brazil, working in big agencies and then some big production companies, and that carried on here for for a few years, and inevitably as as AI evolved, it was a bit too too interesting, too too big for me to stay out of it. And and now, yeah, that's my full-time occupation. And I can tell more than full-time is my 24-7 occupation, pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah. So, what do you mean it was too big for you to stay out of it?

SPEAKER_03 2:04

It was just amazing, it was just fascinating what it can do, right? Like I've always been on Photoshop or Adobe Premiere, like playing with my own images, and you're always dealing with pixels, and then always dreaming about uh one day, but also thinking would it be possible, but one day could it understand that I'm actually working with an object or a person or a sky or something instead of just the the pixels or maybe the colors? And then it did, and and then I guess it just did just does that exactly now. But the fact that for me, really, like when I saw a text text transform into an image, it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable, and I got absolutely obsessed and fascinated at the time. Curious thing, like it wasn't ready yet, right? So I couldn't really put into work, and then that kind of novelty kind of quickly goes away if you don't have really a purpose for for for engaging with it.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

And I was so curious and I wanted to keep working on it, so I started a little side project called Unreal Puzzles, which was doing jigsaw puzzles with with images, and that came from That's amazing. It was the birthday of my two-year daughter, her old daughter, was her birthday coming up, and I generated a super cute image that had everything to do with her, was painterly style, was a little girl like in a dress like the one that she was obsessed at the time wearing. And I love the image, and I wanted to give it to her for her birthday, but I wanted to give in a way that it wasn't just like something on the wall, that was more like a gift to me, let's say. I wanted something the way that she could interact, and then I thought about transforming into a puzzle. That way she would be playing with it and it would become more of a toy, really, and something she would remember. That straight me gave me the idea, like, okay, so maybe that's a good way of keeping engaging with it's a good reason to create images. Like I have a goal. No, they have to be good for puzzles, they have to be colorful, they have to be a have need to have a certain level of detail, they don't need to be photorealistic, they don't need to be perfect, they can be dreamy or painterly. Um, and and that was the platform that kept me engaged with AI until it became more suitable for the types of productions I was working on. So I used, you know, the very early versions of Midjourney and uh was before ChatGPT, it was GPT 3 at the time. Also to create all kinds of brain assets, the brain story, the the stories behind the images. Um was just amazingly interesting to see an image coming from a certain idea that I had, and then trying to quiz AI to like, okay, so this is I had to describe the image, right? So at the time we wouldn't be able to still read the contents of an image file, but then just me describing the image and it creating a story behind it. So that's that's really like it kept me on engaged with AI for at least a couple of years before things shifted to actual production.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

At the early stages of getting involved in the AI space till now, to obviously when 2026, what are the major changes that you've seen? Things have been changing every day.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

So the changes that I've been seeing in the space since since I joined it. Each time, more freedom to tell the stories, each time we have less constraints, uh, and and we don't need to adapt our ideas to what the platforms or the models can do. That has been uh the the the biggest change that has impacted my my day-to-day. Early in the day, I was solely focused on on my own stories as a hobby, as a as a thing I would do after work, as a thing to let go of stress, you know, to be in my kind of good space doing the things that I wanted. And there was always a lot of how can I say it's of give and take, you know, always something that you pushed too much, that you really wanted to communicate in a way that expressed your vision and wasn't possible. And it would, in a way, maybe settle for less, or maybe just have to find an alternative. Um and and that was it it it's not a bad thing, because I find that creativity kind of relies on constraints as well, to really exist, like full open blank page, it's not a great place to be, you know. Yeah, you always want some some sort of but tell me, you know, what what are we talking about? There's always a bit of direction or a great restraints, really. I think it's the word constraints. So I I think that those, this is what I've been living the most, is not not necessarily what it can do, because we've seen that AI can do and will be able to do each time more. But it can do potentially what I really wanted it to do. That has been the most where where I've been taking the most pleasure out of it is being able to before typing anything or before looking at an image, before engaging with it, feeling each time more confident that where what I actually have in my mind will most likely translate to the final product instead of a very long round of iterations that I will certainly get somewhere that I'm happy, but it's probably not what I initially had in mind.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

How do you identify when you're happy?

SPEAKER_03 7:19

No, there's a a common theme in in discussions I've been hearing and participating recently, which is around decision making, curation, and taste. And I think that that relates to how how happy you are because it's it's very easy to be fascinated by what comes out of it. So what I'm saying is I've been happy with many of the outputs, let's say, when I'm doing an exploration stage of an image. Um, and then there is a bit more to it instead of just me. I usually work on projects with other other people, either collaborating on the same production or clients' projects. And happy can have different meanings depending on the project you're in. Um if I'm telling my own story, if I'm still concerned with how I'm communicating that to my audience. And it shouldn't be a story that it only makes sense to me. Either that's a single visual of that's a of that's a narrative film. So I think that happiness in this world that I'm thinking about in now is also related to the success of the piece or the storytelling side of it. Is it telling the story? So I have a first moment where I'm very happy with what I see because it's fascinating, it's surprising. But I think that the actual final decision of what makes that image shot in a film be what makes me happy is is this what's gonna communicate what I really want? Is this gonna generate the emotion that I'm after? Is has this been stitched together or generated or even prompted in a way that reaches the audience, whoever that is, from real audience to clients, to collaborators on a project, um, in a way that compels them.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

So if that if that happens, how are you able to know that is what I'm asking.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

I don't I don't think I ever am fully sure. Yeah, uncertainty when you hit publish or when you send to your clients is always there as much confidence as you can be, and as much as you can stand behind, and you can really be as confident you're saying if if they someone doesn't like they didn't understand I did the right thing. It's there's always that element of uncertainty, but I guess it comes with working in a space you're comfortable with. So I am after being in the industry for 20-25 years, that's also something that helped me succeed. It's like I understand, I have a reasonable level of understanding of what my clients are after, and I have a very reasonable good level of success, maybe not on the first call, but in projects as a whole, that builds up the confidence and makes you think that okay, I'm on the right path. I asked the right questions at the beginning, and those can be questions that you ask yourself if you're doing a self-directed project. But if you have goals that you have to to reach, you or you have emotions that you want to convey. When you have goals, when you have those restraints, those constraints, then you probably can assess things in a in a more objective way. Final results. A lot of times, especially with AI, things can drift and you can go on a tangent without noticing. So it's good to always have the kind of source of truth in the beginning. Is this final work that I got so excited with that I put together after hours of days? Let me come back to what my original goals were. Is this really hitting it? Or did I go unattangent by what was presented to me?

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah. Do you feel like working with AI, you have to develop the language to understand what you want to make?

SPEAKER_03 10:54

There is definitely a language that you have to develop and to work with AI. Um, I find that that actually relates quite a lot to recent insights that I had. It's really hard to step into AI, can AI is through all the industries, right? So I am talking here from a film perspective, but it is in all of them, you know, in codes, in automation, and in everything. It's really hard to step out of the industry that you have experience and that you that you have the knowledge, that you have the vocabulary. It's really hard to direct something you don't know. So I I've been fascinated by other sides of AI on the app building, on the agents, and as I quickly started to explore and take a single step further, the basic exploration, just testing something and wanted to actually build something, then maybe could even be useful for my workflows for filmmaking. I quickly found the need of learning more about coding, for example. I actually found myself on a Python course the other day, and I'm like, oh, isn't that what AI is getting? Like programmers? Why am I here learning Python like from scratch, like the Pure coding language?

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

Well, because I kind of need the to be in that world to direct AI if that's what I want to be doing, if I want to be coding, and I'm not from that world, so I definitely felt the lack of vocabulary and being able to give directions and also to assess the outputs. If if you want something to be put out into the world more than just a piece that lives just for you, if it's just a little image that you look and you find beautiful, or if it's just a little app that does that one thing that is useful for you only, and if you want that to be useful for other people, you have to assess that from from from many perspectives, and you have to have the knowledge of the industry. So that that let me to think or to conclude that the people who are experienced in the industry or have the foundations, did the studies or did the research uh or really dove into the fundamentals of each vertical they're working on, each industry that they're engaging with AI, that that's a need. Those are the ones that succeed. Those are the ones who will be able to do what they want. And you have to have that foundation in that area, regardless of AI. It's not because AI does it for you, it will do everything in any area. You will have to you have to have that basic, not basic, actually quite profound, understanding of the area you're talking about. I think, yeah, what really came down to me is like you can't direct something you don't understand. And that applies to to all the other types of industries that AI may disrupt.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

How how do you start to develop that understanding?

SPEAKER_03 13:34

I I think it requires a lot of coming back to basics and being humble enough to understand that. It's very easy with AI to just want to reach the end goal. And and if you are if you're not in the space that you that you have experience, that you are comfortable, that you have, that you feel that you dominate, and you can both brief, direct, and assess results, you have to go back to basics. So my basics are so I went to film school at university, and and it wasn't actually film school, it was called Image and Sounds. And at the time, it was the papers that I had were a mix of theory of like history of art, history of cinema, history of cinematography, color theory, those kind of overarching concepts or fundamental concepts that are valid through today, no questions, right? Like absolutely, I remember things that I learned about, things that I reflected on, essays that I wrote that are applicable to films or images I'm producing. And I also had at the time the tech was DVD authoring, macromedia flash.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Technology that are not here anymore. So the tech goes away or changes, but the fundamentals are valid forever. And probably I was young at the time, and I really like the technical side of things, or like let's build something, let's do a DVD, let's do an animation, was you know, history of arts, like, oh yeah, very interesting, but you know, after a few lessons and look a bit like I want to go back, you know, I can't wait to get home and build something. And it's it's kind of humbling to look back and see that that's what's left, that actually the the technical side of things has changed, and I had had to learn things from scratch, but the fundamentals have stayed. So today, giving the the example of this kind of new industry that I was thinking about engaging with, like the app building side of things, the coding side of things, it's getting better and the results are coming out probably from a single prompt. But I still feel that I need to know basics of what that world is, basics of programming, basics of computer architecture. If I want to make something that it's more than just for me that lives in in the corner of my computer, just a little widget that some do something smart. If I want that to be useful for other people, if I want other people to engage, to see value in it, it must have been built from a place of broader understanding of that industry. And for me that means uh taking a step back and taking the time to really study and understand the underlying fundamentals of that, which it's not always easy, and I think it's each time harder as the tools become so responsive and so immediate. Oh, of course, here it is, here's for you on the plates, here's the app that he has that he was for, here's the image that he was for. But does that really touch us on other points that you know you would be touching if you knew the foundations of that media, let's say?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Okay, so what what you're saying is to outputs that we create, they are key basic, let's not call them basic, they are key indicators that indicate quality of outcomes. And you must be aware of these indicators as a creator or as an artist to really understand the output and evaluate what you're getting back, correct?

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Correct, totally correct. And and there it applies, I think that those it applies to every industry. You know, you could be in fashion, you could be in costume design, and an AI model is gonna turn out a great fashion design for you. What what does it talk about? What can you talk about it? How can you assess it more than just a pretty image? How can you assess just like that's a smart widget? Is it does it stand true in the face of the wider industry and experienced professionals of that industry or the actual users? That that fundamental knowledge I think will always be needed, and each time more. And the technical knowledge is probably what's each time more solved by AI.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Okay. Still on the technical knowledge, can you give an example that you've had to develop and understand through your work?

SPEAKER_03 17:28

Yes, yes, yes. On the technical side of things, so when you're building a film, the process true today, maybe it's changing in a couple of days, but you're still going through your creative process as you would on any film, not an AI film. You have your scripts, you're developing scripts or your saving scripts, it has a storytelling flow, it has a storytelling structure, and then you're developing your short list and storyboarding, and as a director, shots are there not just so that they cut well from a white or close-up, but they have a meaning and they have an evolution in the story, and there are moments that you should use one and moments maybe you shouldn't. Not necessarily related to technical editing, just because it's a sequence that that works, that doesn't jump out as like jarring, but because is this the right place to get the right time to get close to your subject? Is this the right time? What are you communicating with that framing? That question is not really easy to answer, and it's not one you just should just answer by by by overthinking it if if if it's not something that you know. It's something that you have to look back at theory of filmmaking, of what that type of frame communicates. Why are you making that framing choice? Why are you making that lens choice? Because that evokes more than just a technical result, that evokes an emotion in people. And that's not obvious, and that's something that it that it's gonna be communicated as a whole, as as part of that sequence of that film when you watch, and it's and it's many times subjective, I guess it's not subjective the words, but it's you generated a feeling or emotion in people without them actually re realizing. You came out of it feeling different or feeling transformed, and you actually don't know why. You're not gonna look back and point because that take was really smart and it put me close to the Yeah, like I don't know, it's the way that story was told. And I guess by being in the advertising space, I've seen how a single story can be told by different directors, not as a final result, but when an advertising script is sent to directors, is often sent to many of them and they receive back a director's treatment, which is a very comprehensive, creative pitch for that same film. And I've been on that position working on an agency where you receive many treatments from different directors, and they're talking about the exact same film. And that exact same film can have so many different results just by the type of person that is reading it and proposing how to execute and the vision. And that that it's not even necessarily about the original idea. The script was there, the script was already written. It's just how they chose to interpret and to communicate that. And it's absolutely amazing the how a script can be executed in different ways and have absolutely different results. Absolutely different results. Now, from a commercial perspective, from an agency perspective, you can assess that in right or wrong, suitable or not, but ultimately you're you're speaking from a brand perspective. None of them are wrong in a way that they're telling stories, they're just being very unique. They're just speaking to their experiences, to their knowledge, to their studies, to how they do things, how they see the world. And it's very, very different, very, very particular.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

So what what do you think makes that different? Is it taste and judgment?

SPEAKER_03 20:49

I think what makes what what distinct, what gets directors different to each other, it it's definitely the combination of who they are today, what have they lived, what have they watched, what what gets what what interests them, what intrigues them, what are the areas that they focus? And this is all lots of it, it's all personal circumstances, choices. It's not necessarily if you studied a certain topic, it's what have you lived? What compels to in this world that we are now we are here and the other side of the world talking to each other, people have lived everything very differently. They have had all the most contrasting experiences you could you could imagine, right? Countries are amazingly different, cities are amazingly different, individuals within that same neighborhood are amazingly different and look at things different in every way and consume other things, different things that have a result on them. I was talking today about reading books and how I have young kids and remembering my own experience at reading at that age, where we're absolutely obsessed, you just learn about reading, how some books really fundamentally change you or direct you. You to a different path to what you were just before that reading that book. So I think that those experiences you gather through life really influence who you are as a director and the and the lens or the interpretation you put to a film. Either regardless if you're writing it or if you're producing a film for someone else. You're really speaking to who you are as as a human, who what have you lived, and that will always be unique. And that will always be different a bit between all of them. So ultimately it's your style. What is your style? Yeah, it's it is a bit about decisions that I make, but it's also about the human being that I am and what I have lived all the way up to today.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Okay. So style is what shapes creative outputs. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Style not as wanting to have an edge, but as communicating as as your identity, pretty much. When you are assessing something, you're assessing according to your own tastes, lived experiences, your beliefs, your values. Those are the ways that you can assess things, right? Those are the things that consciously, unconsciously, the filters that your mind puts when you are looking at something or reading something and saying, is this gonna bad? Does it resonate with me? Is this what I want to put out to the world or not? Is this speaking to my identity, to my values? I think the style almost becomes a word that doesn't translate at all, that we're very attached to, you know, visual styles, writing style, they become a bit of a genre almost. But I think that ultimately you're talking about your identity, what you have lived.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

And um, what do you believe shapes identity?

SPEAKER_03 23:32

What shapes identity? Yeah, what a question to answer.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yeah, that's a that's a difficult question.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

I think that as much as we would want to have control and to be able to say what our identity, what my identity is, uh was that you asked the question. I don't think it's a question that I can that I can answer. And probably I'll be influenced by this conversation after this.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Not to say that it's an ever-evolving, every five minutes state, but I think it's something that builds up. Uh by I was going to say that probably by the the the big happenings in life, those are the ones that stay with you. But I think your identity is actually influenced by by what you see, by by by every little thing. And also the the things you want to ignore, that you feel really comfortable and grounded with what you believe in your values, and you're like that this is not good or this is something I want to engage, or I don't believe in that. That's speaking to who you are and the and the things that that that that that builds up that builds your identity up to today. I'm also very conscious of the personality side of things, and that's in a way we all wear masks, and that's a paper that I studied once that I absolutely loved, which was just really humbling to say, regardless of how you how you may want you to say that you are very I'm always like this, I'm always like very XYZ, you're always wearing a mask, and that kind of who are you engaged with, what you're talking, from what perspective, and being humble enough to acknowledge to see that that change when you are you know talking to your parents and then you are in a professional situation and then you're talking to your friends, and then you're being a dad, and then you're working on something, you're changing your way of being a little bit. You're adapting to to that to that situation to get the good outcome, to be a good conversation, to to communicate your so I think you know your identity, it's with you, but it's always under influence. I would like to like to comp I would like to say that everything it builds either a big block or a small little pixel in your identity, but it has played a role in your life, even the things we ignore.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Okay, so with where we are in the world right now, with the possibilities of creating with AI, with how you're shaping your work and how you're defining what you do, how has that influenced your identity?

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Yeah, how the AI possibilities have influenced my identity. I guess AI, when I started engaging with AI in a more professional way, putting it into my work, I always took the I always put the producer hats as well, and I was always wanting to use AI in a way that I could justify in the face of the industry that I always worked with. I was as a producer, I was always the one scoping out productions and hiring crews and putting up sets and looking after people. And my approach to using AI in making films was always to try to do the impossible as a way of preserving my stance or maybe my identity as a film producer, where I was concerned, and I still am, um, with with the people in that industry that are my friends that that that I that I worked with and loved. I guess I I always engaged with AI wanting to do the impossible. So trying to say or trying to tell that industry that I'm still a part of that I'm plus one, I'm not minus ten or minus a hundred. So I think that really it's an interesting space to be. Uh it it's it's we're always a bit on the fence with wanting to be in the future, seeing that the future of production is dead, that's where things are heading, and trying to bring people to that same mindset in in like see how it can be applicable to what you do, so rather than the Hollywood's dead side of things that that I don't fully identify with. But I guess my how it influenced my identities was conflicting because I didn't want to for it to change. And that's and you're making me reflect about that now here live. I didn't want it to change just because it was possible. I wanted it to add but not to to change. So I guess I was really attached to what I saw as my identity as a film producer as protecting our industry and enhancing the industry, other than absolutely changing and disrupting. That that that wasn't a I that that's probably coming and then that's maybe inevitable, but that wasn't what excited me. What excited me was to be able to look back at all the crews and still work with them and say, and look what we can still do. So I felt that that was more complementary to my identity than transformative and a way of like going too much the other sides. So you know we often compare oh the AI revolution and the industrial revolution and and other previous uh the birth of the internet and AI is like the internet and it's gonna disrupt everything. But I I always wanted it to be something that that enables everyone to stay just still play their game and stay on their uh chosen paths and the paths that they have experienced and they are comfortable, but enhanced, but superpowered. So I I guess what I'm saying is AI is a bit more disruptive than the other technologies we compared with. We compare it with other previous disruptions that we've had. I think that most of those came and added and and changed things, but evolved, and AI makes me less certain about it, at least from certain industries very specifically. So it's a it's one that's probably it's having a different influence in my identity than what I wanted, or a deeper influence than what I was open to.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Yeah. So what is the core attention that you're having to deal with right now?

SPEAKER_03 29:48

The core attention right now is for me stays in the it's more in the advertising space. Um and and how those productions are potentially, how AI productions are potentially disrupting that space. I think there are many variables that may or uh accelerate or may slow it. But when you think in a in a next generation point of view, not what I will be doing in five years, but what potentially people know my kids, what what is the industry is gonna look like for them, the advertising industry film production, I think it's subject to a lot of change, a lot of disruption. And there are there are good ways of looking at it. So I've been I've saw been exposed to other people's thoughts. They were like, okay, it's not doom and gloom. There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. There's a whole shift in how things are made, but they will still be made, and they will still be made by people, and and the number of things will be bigger, and the number of productions will be bigger, they'll be smaller, they will be made by smaller groups of people, but there will be more production, so it's not a zero-sum game. But definitely the tension right now is is living that disruption. For every like paradigm shift, but the after the shift, before the shifts actually happens, there's a time of chaos, of disruption that it's not necessarily pleasant to live. Not everyone comes out of it that the way that it that pleases them or the way that it works for them. It's definitely disruption in a way that that it can be that you need to really pivot and adapt more than you wanted instead of just evolving in your craft. So for me that's exactly where the tension is right now, is when AI is adding to the industry and it's superpowering productions, and I have a lot of pleasure in working in in productions that in hybrid productions and collaborating with teams, from both feeling that great, we are getting that production and we're making it even better, and we're still a team collaborating, and uh, and also from from that perspective of like just the collaboration, but also keeping it in the people that are that have been contributing to that to the industry for so many years and making a living out of that, not disrupting their lives. For me, that's the biggest tension now. And I s and I put that in the box of advertising because I see entertainment quite differently. Although technically it will probably be possible, or it's already possible to to have the same level of disruption and and do everything with AI. But I think that the entertainment industry lives on different pillars, right? The audience is feedback or pushback has a much bigger say than in advertising, where it's mostly led by clients and budgets and timelines and effectiveness and sales and numbers. Entertainment is entertainment. Yes, you do have to turn a profit and things, films need to be successful in a commercial sense, but that means the audience engaging with it emotionally and emotionally only. They're not gonna necessarily end up buying something because they res they engage emotionally as they do in advertising, but they just need to be happy about it and to tell your friends and to watch it and get more views, and that's what's going to take the boxes off of entertainment pieces. So I think it's in it's I feel it's a much more it's an industry more protected in that way. Not just say that there won't be the 4 AI productions, yeah there will, but they will be a part uh a genre, a slice or smaller size of the existing pie. Whilst advertising is probably posed for more disruption, also because advertising uses all techniques, right? You can do advertising with 2D animation, 3D animation, full live action, with just a steel, it's it's not a genre, it's an industry that uses all the genres of of the media. So it's very posed to disruption, to heavy disruption. I it's yeah, the advertising space and how AI is disruption is definitely a a point of tension for me.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Okay, how are you preparing for this disruption?

SPEAKER_03 33:42

I guess individually I've made the move of of embracing and trying to use it in a way that that I'm still working with the people that I know. I'm just not working in isolation and competing with them. But I also when I talk to other more specialized roles in the advertising industry or in the film industry that are more related to advertising people their own sets, I always foster them to to explore how the tech can still supercharge what they still do, what they are doing, instead of necessarily have to have to pivot. So I think that's you know personally I I probably took the the step most out of the box possible, and I fully embraced and I have, you know, like I introduced myself as an AI director and AI artist, that that's what I do instead of like what I used to say a few years before. I'm a producer, probably assisted or supercharged by AI.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

So I personally went totally on the other end, and like, okay, I'm gonna be on the extreme of debts. But the producer supercharged by AI and the equivalence of debts, any role supercharged by AI, I truly believe in that. I truly believe in that. I think that's and I'm seeing that now as the tech evolves, as it becomes inevitable to ignore, everyone's doing that in their own ways.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

It's very interesting. It's very interesting you you say that because in doing my work, I also identify as a producer. So in doing my work and in sharing stories and how people use AI and how people think about AI. One of the things I'm able to do is that I'm able to download the conversations after I'm done, feed it into AI, and sort of like stress test and analyze the conversations I'm having. So, what I realize is that now with AI, I can engineer moments, so I can engineer how you reflect whilst we're having a live conversation. And that was that was an idea I only had with AI. I was like, wow, that is so interesting. So, you know, like like 10 minutes ago, you're like, wow, okay, I'm reflecting. That possibility was because I have gone through my past episodes and I realized I wasn't doing that. AI showed me, pointed it out that this is the moment that you can make this happen.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

And how much does that speak to the fact that you have to know what you're doing, you have to know your content, you have to know your goals, you're assessing or you're having ideas from that AI interaction and and as using as a sounding board or bouncing ideas, but you're not just getting the outputs there, and like, oh, that's it, this is the questions that I'm gonna ask. Like, okay, so maybe I could ask questions in a way or I could listen to what it's been saying with its other mindset, and it's always assisting you, but it's speaking to you as the storyteller, the interviewer, the producer, the Yeah. And you need you know, but speaking to your experience, it's just not giving you an output ready on a plate.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Yeah. But but the good thing is, you know, like you rightly said, you have to bring your lived experience into how you use the tools. Because previously to using AI for my interviews, I've already done 200 interviews by myself, right? And I have my style, my voice, the type of questions I ask, my framing, my cadence, and sort of like my story arc that I use to achieve the conversations. So now I can feed that data, which is a huge data set into AI and sort of like uh sort of like analyze my own thinking, and that's where it becomes powerful, that you can analyze how you're thinking.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

How powerful is that that you're able to feed a history of what you've done, and that speaks a lot about you as a person, and you have this third party ingesting it all and giving it back its conclusions or its things to to its thoughts or whatever the words we wanna use.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

When else could we share all the body of work that we've done? And when could I make you sit down and watch all the films that I've done and like tell me now, dudes, what do you think of all this?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, so we're we're such an incredible time. Arthur, I I think now I also wanna dive into this a bit. What do you see because of using AI that others don't see? Others who are in your field, in your space, but are on the fence of using AI.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

I think today, using AI in my fields, I've been able to see that it's it's a tool building up. It's definitely I think that for me the the big takes that I have today are are maybe not sexy, are maybe not groundbreaking or like this is where we're heading. We kind of know where we're heading. But like for me, really the thing that I'm seeing is we can go there together. People from the film worlds, whatever your special specialty is, whatever you can find ways of applying that and being either better or enter the adjective here in your crafts. And I don't think and I think that that's something that I don't think that a year ago people were seeing that, and I think that now people are either by external pressure or by just seeing by the tools becoming each time more amazing and more widespread and access easy to get, they are kind of slow slowly embracing it and seeing it. But I think what I see, what AI made me see in my industry is that there will still be a space for all. And and that will probably mean that they will evolve their crafts, they will be able to do more in the world that they specialized in rather than fully my job was taken and I have to do something else. I'm not needed anymore. When you really hone into your crafts, you're still delivering something unique. When you think, when you're afraid of your job being replaced, it's probably being replaced by someone that doesn't have that knowledge that you have, and then maybe that speaks that you weren't giving all that value or all that output, so your craft wasn't wasn't high enough that someone with not a good level of understanding was able to do it. So the low tiers of of of value delivering of of knowledge of how how much love and passion you put into your work and you have dedicated to honing your craft. So that I really think that if you're really passionate about what you do, embrace AI and see how that can be done and and and be done better. And again, I think that that's not that that might be interesting from an insight's point of view, but it's probably not the the sexist thing people want to hear. But it is true, is like don't it really makes me think that you shouldn't be afraid of it and you should really lean into it and you shouldn't wait for it to be ready. You should be engaging with it while it's developing and it maybe it's not ready for what you do, but it's probably you won't feel that it's ready or when it's ready it's too late. So lean into it. How can it how can it supercharge what it's doing? How can it give you more ideas to maybe you do better, to add other things to what you're already doing, like your deliverable, your final deliverable, it may be bolder, it may be bigger, it may be more number, or it may be more meaningful, but it will be something more than than what you can do today. And look at AI with deadlines. I saw that from from an early stage when I was still in a producer role, exclusively producer, film producer, working in a production company and just using AI very very early stages, on the stage of like GPC3 and mid-journey v2. Like what can it do? Um and and was still doing the day-to-day job, but maybe I wasn't supercharged then, but trying to be influenced by it. And it's been years now, right? It's been years, it's been three, four years, and and and now people are like maybe on that stage, depending on the level that they are. So that's my that that's how it really made me see things like regardless of your expertise, jump into it. How can it help you? I was I think that helped I saw that from from the day that I started engaging. It's not about being earlier than others or later, but the day you start engaging and with deadlines of like how can it help what I do, it will change the way you see the tech. What's your reason for using AI? That's my reason for using AI. That's that's great. I'll be very vulnerable here and I'll be very open. I've always wanted to, I always had a flair for directing, for producing, directing instead of producing. I always ended up as a producer because I'm responsible, I can see problems, I can orchestrate things, but it was never my absolute passion. I was always a producer sitting beside the director and wanted to see how they're drawing storyboards, whether taking their references from how they're directing on sets. I was always like beside the director and not this active producer. Looking at the creative side of things. And I never really took the leap of becoming a director before. I was always able to assess things. Do they look good? Are they good or not? Looking at a film, watching a film, and like, oh yeah, this is gonna go well, this is hitting the mark, this is not, but then put me to make that film, give me a camera on my hands and go out there. And I always felt very insecure about doing it. And I probably never had enough experience, like I didn't take the leap and then started doing bad films, medium films, became a good director. I was always in my comfortable zone there, okay, I'm a producer, I have a job, I'm doing well, I'm gonna stay here. And and I think that AI allowed me to step in their worlds and in a more experimental way feeling less the consequences of not succeeding. It was easier to first tell my own stories and maybe not good stories, or not maybe stories well told, but it was easier to try and fail and try again and fail again. The barrier to entry was much lower. I didn't need to either put up a set to tell to do a short film or to try and make a beautiful short film using my phone and then overcoming all the technical challenges of what I'm putting in front of the camera, how's the lights looking like, how's the sounds being recorded, and trying to make it good as well. So it really allowed me to to experiment and and to evolve quicker and to fail quicker, and that was really important to me to go, try, fail, try again, maybe improve, try again, fail, try again. I did something good.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

What were you looking for through that process?

SPEAKER_03 43:56

What I was looking for during the process, I think we all We all need to evolve, right? In in that. So I I was looking I was looking for great storytelling results, regardless if it's an image or a video. I was looking for great craft and really technical excellence. It looks beautiful, it looks professional, it sounds good. You're not I'm not asking you to oh ignore all the technical and just assess the story. No, assess this as a whole. Like it would be a great piece. Emotionally and technically flawless, or to the extent that I could. And and it's really hard to do that in a in a film scenario. It's either very expensive, or if you want to technically solve everything, or it's either very or you need to really try and develop a skill as a writer, as a director, um on and you have to fail. So I was looking for excellence throughout, and I wasn't able to achieve that independently on my own. Like, oh let me just test and do a little film here. We'll never be very good with shots and shooting with my phone. Or I may be able to put up a big set if someone gave me the resources, but then is this the right place to fail from a director's perspective and a storytelling or someone to experiment and see what works or what doesn't? There were always these disconnects, and I think that AI enabled me to to put them both together, to go try and fail as a human and having AI solving the technical side of it with can I make this look beautiful? Can I it for my eyes, of course, but but again, there wasn't uh a technical barrier there anymore. So it was really like okay, cool, now I can actually tell the story I want or do the text the tests or experiments that I want, and it will look as a professional thing. I was really looking for if I'm going to share something with others, I wanted it to feel finished completely. And I wasn't able to do that before, and and I am able to do that now.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

When did that change?

SPEAKER_03 45:49

That change happened, I think very specifically for me when I did my very first short film, and I thought, okay, this it had some caveats, it looked AI, but then I honed into the side of this doesn't need to look photorealistic, I'm gonna do something slightly stylized, something that leans on the surreal side of things. And I I think it was it was a technical breakthrough from AI, it wasn't a creative breakthrough from me because that was an evolving state. I needed to try and fail. But when it became good enough that I wasn't doing a puzzle anymore, a jigsaw puzzle, but I was actually doing a film or an image, and that's probably what if AI has been around for four years, for us normal people I've been doing this probably two years ago, where I felt that okay, cool, I can do something that I don't need to put caveats on, like before presenting. Like, yeah, it's gonna look and sound the way that I wanted, and we can look at my directing or my storytelling instead of being distracted by that. So I think it was really a technical evolution of AI of getting good enough so that it can could be put into the type of productions that I wanted, into film and image on in those industries. Rather than before, it was probably ready for puzzles, for jigsaw puzzles, and it was good enough, and and that was a good place to to experiment. It was good enough for that, you know. Could try and fail with the puzzles. Technically, they'll be good. I can now more be assessing if you know the image is engaging enough and that that's the equivalence of the storytelling, you know, as giving you a good puzzling experience. That that's the same assessment you do with the film, right? Is it giving you a good experience to you as a viewer? You're not distracted by the technical, it's just like like, oh, what is what is this image? What are all these big pixels like? It works, it works. The technical is out of the way. Are you having a good experience with the product?

SPEAKER_01 47:38

So, Ava, if you were starting today, based on your lived experience, you're new to the tools, you're starting fresh today in 2026, no understanding technicality of how AI works, no language yet. What would you do? What was the first thing you would do?

SPEAKER_03 47:58

That's great. So if if I was starting today, absolutely from scratch, always been in the film industry, never engaged with AI. I want to engage. What do I do? I would not, instead of being focused on oh, what can AI do and exploring AI, I would go back to basics to what am I doing every day? What do I want to do? And then break down into steps and into a very, very basic steps and try to do one small thing. Don't try to do the whole thing. Don't try to do a film. Don't try to write a script. Try to develop your little arguments for a script. Try to bounce ideas with. See what comes back, see if that inspires you to give you more ideas. Use use it as a sounding board. I would really break down into very small tasks or very small problems that you have, but very small and tackle them step by step. I was having this conversation with my brother the other day. He works in an absolute different industry to mine. Absolute different. And has been watching AI from a distance, not necessarily engaging with it too much, by many different factors, he now needs to engage. And his approach was like, Oh, so what have you been doing? And I'm looking at what Cloud can do and what this platform can do and this other one can do, and this open claw, and this, this, and that. And it was like exploring the worlds of of of what AI can do. And like, no, no, no, go back to what are you doing? What could potentially AI help you? Break down your tasks, break down, identify your problems, identify your very small problems. Then that is the reason that you're gonna engage with it and see if it can enhance or solve or help. And and I said, if you wanted to for today to say, I'm gonna learn about an issue. I haven't been online, I haven't accessed the internet. If you were in that situation, would the first step be let me learn all about the internet and what the internet can do? That's an overwhelming unachievable step. It's like, okay, what do I like to do? I like to. But watch watch film. Go find a film on the internet instead of finding it on TV. I like come back to what interests you, what is on your day to day. Break down to a very small achievable task. Because it's very frustrating when you when you take the wrong approach of like, write me a film idea. Yes, it won't write you a film idea. Don't ask for the end result. But of all this little steps that you take naturally when you're writing a film, when you're producing a film, engage in those little steps with AI. That's as my the way that I would engage with it today from scratch. Not try to get a whole understanding and can this do everything that I do today? It's like, can it do a little thing for me? Can it help me in a little step of what I do?

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Okay. And then what is it that now, based on your understanding and language of how the tools work, was it that that you would never delegate or outsource to AI?

SPEAKER_03 50:50

I would never delegate a final results, a final product. Never. I would never delegate a script writing task, a full script writing task, a filmmaking task. As much as we see the models now, put a prompt and it comes out of the whole sequence. Already edited. It comes with a sequence, begin to end. Well, I might be proving wrong in the near future, but still that sequence, if you assess it based on your knowledge, it won't be good enough. So don't change, I don't change the end result from zero. And I take a stepped approach, a stage approach, and and really build I really work on every single stage. I'm not asking it to do all the work for me at any stage. You can ask, and it will do. It won't be good. It will need you to assess, adjust, and then get to the conclusion that that stage or that product is done. So it's definitely, you know, don't treat it as your superior treats as your assistant. I could ask my superior to produce sustainability reports. Can you produce a film? Can you do a film? But you wouldn't ask your assistant. Or you you would ask, can you do this little task for this? It'll help me building up what I'm doing. So I still see it as an assistant, even but as good as it gets, is assisting me, is helping me, and I am always scrutinizing its results. I'm just not taking it as a source of truth.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

What do I say to my friends not using AI? Right. I think that's a that these are kind of everyday conversations I have. I'm I'm lucky to have friends that we met when we were three or five years old up to today, and groups of friends, and I have collected friends from all stages of life. So my friends are not only the ones who are in my industry, but they are in very different industries, they are in very different countries and very different stages of life, on both age stage and levels of engagement with AI. So I have these conversations every day, and because I sit on the very extreme, taking on an AI words role, they're like, Oh, so tell me about it. And I'm like, Oh, I'll tell you about it. And after we have this conversation, you're gonna see, you're gonna try it. You're not just gonna listen for me, you're gonna give it a little try. Oh, but I'm afraid I'm not really sure what not. We say that AI solves the blank page problem, and then I see that some people that have never engaged they have the blank chat window problem. Like, where do I type here? Well, you know, like, well, Philly, are you afraid of being judged by AI? Like, it's not gonna judge you. You you can type whatever, but you don't look from that perspective of like, oh, what am I gonna say to this person? What is this person gonna think of me? You're like, go back to what you're thinking. What were you doing before? Before this conversation, or what are you gonna do after? Are you gonna cook? Are you gonna draw? Are you gonna walk? Are you gonna engage with your family? Have you had a certain question about your today, what happened today on a personal professional level? Are you gonna Google something? Um, instead of Googling, maybe try to interact with AI to see how it goes. So I every day I talk with my close friends, and many of them, not all of them, many of them, just haven't touched it. And I'm like, I don't need it, or no, or what I do is so different, or it's not tech related, it's so manual. The really people working in the fields and things like that. And I'm like, still, still, you have knowledge about what you're doing. Uh, don't and you want to know more, and you are a curious person, and you have been, you know, like whatever you were doing, you have been trying to do that each time better. So here's a tool that can assist you to do that each time better, or even better than what you're doing now. Check it out. And it's once they do, there's no I don't need to come back and say they they don't give up. Or they come back like, oh yeah, it was a bit frustrating, actually it didn't really work. The way the tools are today, maybe a few years ago, that they wasn't it requires more of your inputs and to be really mindful about what you're asking about, what it's using, and the otherwise the results would be actually really not engaging or not see any value. But the way this the tools are now, they're like everyone's just mind blown. Everyone's just mind blown. So what I'm always saying is like don't think, don't be afraid of like AI is there, it's gonna judge your inputs, and you're overthinking your inputs. What are you really thinking about? What are you asking? What do you want to know? What's your dilemma you're living? Just share that there, see what comes out. Maybe it's useful, maybe it's not. 99% of the time, there is some use to it.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

I was in this conversation with my mom the other day. You know, she's in her 70s, and she engages with it eventually. Uh, she's not like fully out of it. But we're having conversations about, you know, dealing with personal relationships and and family dynamics and all this, and I says and we're never getting when when things get more nuanced and you're trying to help out people that are in a different situ in a hard situation, and it's it it becomes a psychology walk of like how you help someone get on the right path without just saying get on the right path, which is not gonna force them, and you play with those emotions, those dynamics, and say, maybe let's just I know it sounds silly, man, but let's just share what we're doing now. Let's just share with one of those kind of smart models, just see what comes out with. And and it was incredible, like it helped with essentially human human dynamics. There's nothing about work, there's nothing, it's just like how we deal with other people and that our choice of words, and if we want to then to really evoke a feeling in them or to really guide them through a certain path. It's a lot about the nuance and how it communicates, and that definitely helped. And and I was a bit like, oh, I'm sure it's gonna help because I do that actually all the time in my professional relations and how I'm gonna word things, but she didn't fully believe in that, right? She was like, Oh, come on, we're talking about how I'm gonna talk to someone else. I'm like, yeah, maybe just discuss how we're gonna approach this topic with this other person. It's like, oh yeah, it really helped me frame in a way that I wasn't being competitive or I was really making my points without feeling like making a point. So yeah, even for those for those moments where you think that you may not no, it's not the case. Like, I'm not gonna ask this through AI. Uh maybe if you don't want to tell anyone, don't tell anyone, but ask and keep it to yourself, and just have a better experience when you're doing that thing.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

Yeah. So so what does your mom think about about that experience and how she uses it?

SPEAKER_03 57:14

It's the same way as as other people that it haven't like she now does it. It takes one one time, one good experience that she has now to just see the value in and the value in a in a personal way, not a value in a commercial way, just to see the value in in using it and and and she just goes for it. She uses all the time. She uses much, much more. So does my dad. My dad was always a bit technical minded, but no, but no my mom. And she she's all out. She was assessing things the other day, and as I she shares things with me on WhatsApp, you know, she lives in Brazil, and I like ask my opinion and I give my opinion. And then after this, I'm like, what if we all the gets this also third party opinion? And then I say, hey, this came from AI. And I know that that leading line might be triggering or might be something that puts her off at first, but then when she reads the content, she's like, Yeah, okay, cool, great, thanks. And together with your thoughts and what's going on, yeah, that's that's good context. Those those are good things for me to consider. So she she's a she's every day, she's she's all the time on it.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

Yeah, yeah. So now Arthur and I I'm thinking of this and I'm thinking of how to frame it, that when it comes to all of this, what are some what are some of the things that you're afraid of? Like when it comes to like control, privacy, data, you know?

SPEAKER_03 58:26

Yeah, I'm I'm afraid of I'm afraid of the big picture outcomes of AI. Um I'm less afraid of AI independently and they're like robots taking over, AI taking over, yeah, rebelling against us. I am afraid of what AI can bring out in the worst sense from humans. We as a species building tools, we build tools, we are surrounded by tools that can do great good or great harm. And it the responsibility is on us. And we have tools today at everyone's reach that we fully rely on how they use should be good or they could be incredibly bad. And I'll give you soon. I'm gonna sit down at a table with my family and I'm gonna give a knife or gonna get a knife. Knives are out, they can do great good or great harm. They can maybe not they can good drink, they can sculpt something, but you can just use it to put spread butter, or I don't list no need to list what a knife is capable of. Or in a less weapon sense, I'm gonna drive my car from A to B today, and there is a ton of metal that can go at 200ks an hour, although nowhere in the world that's allowed, but still goes. All it needs is for me to press my foot a few inches more, and they rely on me to look at a red light and stop. Otherwise the consequence can be horrendous. So the responsibility placed on us with tools that are out there are not to be ignored. And as much as when it comes really to AI, we can be assessing things from the inputs and the training data and all those things which are right should be questioned and etc. But what are you asking it to do, what are you doing with it, is is incredibly important. And the responsibility for not only for creators, for all users of AI is probably what it's what scares me the most is what such a powerful tool will enable, might enable, hopefully not, bad actors should do. That that's what I'm really scared of. The bad users of AI. Not AI is as a sentient being taking over humanity, but what bad actors can do with that. That that terrifies me. That absolutely terrifies me. Why? The world is a is is in a fragile state right now, as as a globe and as as a bit. The vision and the gaps. Uh I hope I'm wrong, but I feel that they're widening. Social issues and sustainability issues, sustainability not only environments but social as well. They are challenges we're trying to tackle, and groups and organizations and certain groups that identify themselves are trying to tackle those things in those issues in in good ways, but I'm not not saying that we're losing, but I'm saying that it's a constant fight to fix the problems of society and of the world and how we engage with our natural old and how we engage with ourselves as a society. And power and greeds and the kind of incumbents of power, they it's hard to change their minds, right? They they they they often are more it's more likely that they need to be defeated than they were gonna turn to the rights, to the good side. So I I'm scared of those tools in the wrong hands. I'm definitely scared of those tools in the wrong hands because they they can have exponential bad effects. The good effects are hard it to be that exponential. They are solving problems we have now one by one. It's easier to build a nuclear bomb than to build a nuclear safe bomb, a nuclear, a bomb that solves all the problems. You can drop off a bomb that extinguishes humanity. I don't see a bomb that solves all social and natural issues being dropped. We're always fighting to solve the problems that we have, that there are there. But it's even in your own eyes, maybe I get off topic, but I was having this conversation with my daughter the other day. Like, you build up trust, and it's a very, very big mountain to climb as who you are, as in your profession or your personal sense. But it takes one big slip, one wrong choice, one misjudgment for someone to like lose trust in you. Something that you've been building for like days or years or decades. Yeah. It's really easy to go downhill, and it's really hard to achieve the the good goals, the the the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

Yeah, but what a time to be alive.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:44

The time to be alive, what a time to be alive. And you know, the the biggest challenges we have as as a species are each time more likely to be solved now. Speak from uh medicine side of things, from environment side of things, you know, from disease, climate change, right? It's a tool that might help us take the leap needed and solving those problems. So 100% what a time to be alive. I think that the same thing that scares me the most is what gives me the most hope. Is that the people, the well-intentioned people that are using the tools for goods have a super tool now. And I can't wait to see what these people will do. Really, I can't wait to see the amazing outcomes that will come that will help us as a species and this planet and how we live between ourselves, how we relate, societal issues and environmental issues, those are very much on my mind. So I yes. Imagine if those things are sold to me. Imagine if we are really heading into what people say is the age of abundance in a good way. Yes, yes, I want that. I want I want AI to create a better world for us. 100%. So it it is possible to achieve that. Must be. Must be. I don't think we are a self-destructive species. I think we've created some mechanism that probably rewards a little bit more the individual success than the collective success. But those are mechanisms that we created. I think we can evolve and and generations change. I think there's I also have to acknowledge that not everything should be solved within my lifetime and that there is more to come and there is an evolution of us as beings as well. Things that in the past were common sense, common sense, not common sense, they were normal or normalized in society today, they are appalling. Right? There are many things that, perspectives that as a child or before my time 100 years ago, ways that society was living and dealing with each other. We look back at many of those things and say, how could we ever think that that was the right thing to do? So this there is hope in in many years from now, looking back at the issues we're having today and just they just not being there, and people just looking back and saying, How were we ever able to think that some of the things that are happening now are correct? Or that even that group could even exist. And I say that group, not not talking about a specific issue, but just saying that, just trying to say that it's not the whole of mankind that was wrong at a certain point of time, just a group that dominated a certain point of view and was able to normalize it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:09

I think we're we're almost wrapping up with our conversation. Is there anything else you want to add?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

I think it's I wanted to share an interesting experience that I had just recently, which was I was invited to have a little to do a little session at my kids' school around AI for young young people in in the age of around 10 to 12 years old. And that made me stop and reflect about what am I really going to talk with them and what is what are the what's the stage they're living, what are the challenges they're living in and looking at AI and and it was a really inspirational experience because it made me sit back and and reflect how it at such a Crucial wage that you are today where you're like probably having to make your choices, and you're seeing the roads being kind of potentially changing and careers changing. How you're gonna make a choice now that we're gonna have long-term consequences. You're not young enough to just have to make that choice in 10 or 15 years from now. You're at the verge of making that choice of what you're gonna focus your studies on. And it was really um eye-opening to me to to reflect on that and to look back at something that we talked today already, but that you still need to be good at the basics of whatever you are passionate about and use AI to to supercharge that to to enhance that. And I think that the only difference to what we talked before that that I wanted to add now is looking that from a young mind perspective and and how that it can be overwhelming to be in that position today, and how much of uh how how helpful it is to have the perspective. It's very easy in that age, and I saw that in not necessarily the group that I was talking, but because I have kids in in roughly that age, that your mind's been shaped a lot in that age about the happenings and the things you exposed, and they are easily falling into the box of thinking, I don't need to do what you learn to do that because AI is gonna do it for me. And it it's I felt it was really important should deliver completely the opposite message. AI is not gonna do that for you. You can't direct what you don't want, what you don't know. And I think what I wanted to drive is just that we we need to be concerned with and looking after the coming generation, the the the entrance to the market. And we need to be creating the opportunities, both of inspiration and actual opportunities, for these people to flourish in there in this kind of new era. My experience was very rewarding for me as as sharing what I do and my points of view with people who are still to make a decision and and with the careers they're gonna choose. And but it really made me stop and think a little bit less about how it works for me and how it works for my work and how me from this point onwards and looking at others as well that are coming, not the others that are my stage and say, Hey, you should also do that in your job. And like, hey, you that are in a different stage from me and making decisions now, let me share whatever I can to help you, and and also let me try creating the opportunities that I can to help you. I think it's really important because the very next generation now that are in the early teens, they will be living, they will be forming themselves while this other disruption is happening. And maybe this is continue happening, and even like young kids being born today will still live in an ongoing disruption. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

But acknowledging that there is also this other stage of life right now that must be even more confusing to be than the ones we are in, people with our age and our end stage.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:59

Can you speak more about one why you decided to expose your child to AI and then how sort of they are using it?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:07

So my my kids are five and seven years old, and I haven't really exposed them to AI. I um I have they they know what I do, they see AI, they kind of see me interacting, and sometimes they are exposed that they are exposed in one way or another. I still take a bit of an approach of like let's kids be kids, I don't need to rush them into tech. They need to live the the things that that kids do, that that I did as a kid, not being on screens, not being on tech too much, being outside, playing games, playing being in nature, doing sports, engaging themselves, drawing with their hands, not generating images. So I I take uh uh that that approach with with my kids at very young age. But as they reach their early teens and I engage with them at schools, this is not necessarily their reality, you know. They they are much more active, they're studying the tech is much more present in their lives, and then that that's where I think that perspective on how to engage with tech um it's really important. But with my kids, I talk to them, I really talk to them about it, but I still prefer that they are out there in the wild and the real life wild than the virtual wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:21

Wow Arthur, we really this you really got me thinking a lot, you know. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:29

Thank you. You made me think much more than I was prepared to.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:32

But that is the goal. That is the goal that um this conversation, if you listen back, is gonna add to your thinking as well. So that for you, the guests, it's it's an addition to how you're already thinking. I just created the platform to ask questions to help you capture your thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:47

You have just changed my day directly. That's all my thoughts and my conversations and what I'm gonna be thinking and what I'm gonna be talking about, or and I'm just closing lost in my own thoughts. We have just reflected and talked about things that are gonna influence me deeply in everything, in today and in work and and everywhere. So that's really the power of those connections, isn't it? And in reflecting and and yeah, thank you for making me reflect about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:13

Thank you for making me do this. Yeah, I'm grateful after that. I'm grateful. So, lastly, in your own words, what's your definition of love?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:23

What's my definition of love? I think what summarizes love to me and when I was being able to acknowledge that I that love was present in my life was when I was taking actions unconditionally with no with absolute no expectation of a consequence to me, but just for the other parts, good and well-being. It's really when you are able to when you are unconsciously in a state that whatever do, say, action you take or action you don't take, it's solely to have a consequence for someone else and other than you. I think that really means you're in love with whatever that is, from person to profession to anything. Is it for the good of that or are you unconsciously waiting something back to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:12

Man, that was good. Ah, yeah. Finish with the rather questionnaire, that's great. And and that's a that's a good way to close the episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:22

Thank you, Judes. Amazing, amazing experience. Thank you for making me reflect about this. As I said, change my day at the minimum. I'm grateful. We should come next again, should talk about it, what changed in in all the ripple effects of this conversation in my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:39

Yeah, we should do it again in a yeah. Exactly. Alright, great, great. Alright. Stay in touch, bye bye. You as well, you as well. Bye bye. Bye.