Adam Torres and Sander Saar discuss the AI Vibes Summit.
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Listen to coverage of the AI Vibes Summit in Santa Monica, California. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Sander Saar, Innovation & Strategy at Red Bull, explore media and AI.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and today I’m at the AI Vibes Summit in Santa Monica, California. And I just got done watching and listening to a panel and I got the moderator with me today. So Sander, Hey, first off, thanks for coming on the show.
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. I’m glad you made it. All right. So you’re a good moderator, man. I wouldn’t say that. Say it if I didn’t mean it. Do you do stuff like that a lot? Thank you. It’s somehow turned out to be, yes. I love to unpack technologies and like make it easily digestible and, and as creating content myself, it also, you know, I hope to then do that for others through the moderation on the panel.
So it’s somehow, yeah, it turned out that way. Is AI one of those things that you’ve always been interested in? Or did it just kind of like, did you get the bug recently? Like, tell me about your journey with AI. My journey started probably around two and a half, three years ago before chat GPT and little before, you know, GPT two time when I was playing around with it in the open AI playground, where you had actually very similar interface that you have today in chat GPT.
And I was showing it to people. I was like typing in the process, like this is what it generates back. And then I do this and then it categorizes everything. And for me, it was such a mind blowing moment. But I still have, you know, some of those presentations that I use with companies that I work with and showed it to them.
And I, I dug them up and actually they dug them up. They’re like, Dude, you were showing us the videos and the demos like literally a year before like chat GPT, because chat GPT was using a model that was a year old when it came out, GPT three at the time. And then it captured everybody’s imagination.
There was other things that came together. Of course, the familiar interface with, you know, messaging back and forth, which we already do with iMessage, WhatsApp, whatever. And that’s, that’s what made it happen. But yeah, I did get the bug a lot earlier and I’d always been looking for ways myself to like, Automate myself out of the jobs and get as much help and see machines as a collaborator And so you’re very much involved in media content creation.
Like where does AI, like, how does it work into your world in media? Like, it’s very easy to go on those hype cycles in general. You know, when two years ago it was all about blockchain and crypto for the last, you know, a year and a half, it’s been all about just generative AI. I think that is an easy to be carried away by that wave.
And fundamentally, like whether you’re. Creating content or you’re building products is to challenge yourself and I challenge every all of you to like explain your ideas and explain your whether it’s content ideas or product is we did without using the word AI. And that challenges you to focus on that, the core value of what you’re trying to accomplish.
And then AI just becomes an enabling technology helping you get it done. Maybe today it’s, AI, maybe in the future, we are not going to use that word anymore. The same way, as you know, the internet and calling it the information highway in the beginning, which is It’s the way we interact. That’s true. Or even before like technology or like digital media, you don’t even say like, Oh, you’re involved in digital media.
It’s just said you’re involved in media, right? Because all of those changes will become norms. And when they become norms, we don’t even think about the technology. We think about the value that it provides to us. And that’s the same way I try to think about whether they’re the tools that I use or, or content or products that I build the same way, just focusing the value.
And. Then use all of the available enabling technologies. And therefore it doesn’t really matter what, what hype cycle we’re in or wave you’re writing. Yeah. What excites you right now about, about just AI, the technology, the landscape, what excites you right now? Most excitement comes from how empowered all of the independent creators are.
The creators is a large term for me, whether you’re an engineer, you’re a developer, whether you’re Einstein is like a musician here. Like seeing power cheese, you know, performing with an orchestra that for her was a barrier before, like, how do you hire an orchestra, hire a space like write the scores for the orchestra.
Now she’s empowered to do that. Yeah. And whether you take a filmmaker, independent filmmaker, and there’s several friends here are filmmakers and they’re like, I had this idea, but there was never budget to make it happen and like, and all of those ideas that have been in the, like, you know, hidden drawers are now coming out and becoming reality.
And those are becoming reality for, you know, the creative arts, which is where we’re seeing the biggest moment, you know, the music that she was not able to create before that she is able to now co create and bring to life. Or a filmmaker who had an idea that couldn’t make it happen because VFX teams were so expensive and it took so much time and couldn’t raise the money for it, or somebody who’s got an idea for a digital product, like build a mobile app.
Never been able to do it because in finding an engineering partner or having this learning the skills yourself has been time consuming and costly. Now they’re able to do that. So I love this blossoming of human creativity and the same applies to myself. Like I’m just like playing so much at the moment and having a lot of fun doing it.
And you know, it’s generally speaking, like what we also talked about in the panel, it’s easy to get into the fear mindset in the beginning where it’s like, Oh my God, it’s taken away. Like I’m losing stuff. And On the other hand, like the other side of it, the light side of it is, it’s such a enabler that opens up all the opportunities for us that we couldn’t imagine before.
So bringing all of the kind of dreams and imaginations to life and allowing us to dream bigger is what excites me. Yeah. So we, we both had a shared experience with AI. When we are watching right after the panel, there was, there were the musicians playing, playing and creating AI right in front of me, what this reminded me of.
And I think about like friends when I’m in like a jam session or something, I’m not a musician, but I have friends that are, and I hang out and I like to see it and I see them co create with each other and just do new things and to see like Scott page on stage. And like, even when something didn’t go right, that’s being filmed.
So if you think about it, even his reaction to the AI, not Producing something good was like creating new content and a new experience for the audience and myself and included and everybody else. And then to see, they brought a finished piece for everybody that’s watching and listening. There was a finished piece afterwards that they had obviously spent some time on in a video and some other things that had AI components of it.
And talk about what that experience was like for you. Cause for me, mind was blown. I felt like I was in a jam session with AI, Scott Page, and then musicians. Yeah. Yeah, it’s incredible. Like that, I think like that element of live, like you literally saw history in the making. Like we had computers jamming with humans on stage, like the same dynamics were happening where we’re like, we’re generating something with the audience that represents our emotions and our feelings.
You know preferences that we put in the prompt that generated the jam got an IH Denise where we’re going with. And I think that that energy, that dynamic is not going anywhere, especially if we see it in, in the way of, you know, co creation with AI and she’s using in the most wonderful ways, you know, she’s writing music with AI and then.
Playing herself, performing herself. She’s also, you know, writing some of the stuff herself and then letting AI perform other instruments within that. So, and she’s performing with like robotic orchestras or AI orchestras. That’s incredible because it’s truly enabling and like that energy on stage, like between the man and the machine, that dynamic, that light and dark side in a way, if you, if you will, is wonderful to witness, yeah.
And to see the, also then what I was thinking about too, and I was actually on the AI side on this one, and I’ll tell you why they weren’t necessarily satisfied with the results, but I’m like, look at the prompts you gave them. It was like Ethiopian jazz. Let’s mix it with this. Let’s say, okay, take the AI out and you go do that.
That’s right. Like you’re telling, okay, you create something out of scratch or whatever, iterative, whatever we want to say. Say Ethiopian Jazz, and it was just like, they were, they were trying to trick the a I was like, give it something to give the AI something it could work with. Come on. I was fighting for the AI on that one.
I, I actually, I’m with you as well. Like, that’s generally a tip, like the more human, like you imagine if they were in front of a real musician and saying, all right, well we’re gonna try you out for this band. You gave that to band Scott, and you’re like, Hey, let, let’s test you out. Yeah. Give it to, yeah, give it to Scott.
He’s like, what? Like, yeah, let’s test, let’s test your skills for a minute. Oh, by the way, let’s throw some EDM in there too. He’s sitting there with this axt like. Dude, where’s the idiom sound? Yeah, you’re so right But I actually had i’m not joking. I had a little bit of an emotional connection to the ai from this standpoint I’m gonna fight for you.
Give me a break. I was an ai advocate there like our ai has rights. Yeah And you’re gonna embarrass the ai in front of an audience, come on, yeah, exactly Some empathy, please. Right. Yeah. But this is, yeah, you’re so right. We’re in this phase at the moment. We’re testing the, testing the borders, you know, on how far can we push it.
And sometimes it’s wonderfully kind of amazes us what’s able to create. And sometimes it just goes miserably wrong. And we’re like, we’re like, How does it not work? Wrong prompts. Garbage in, garbage out. Well, we need to bring that one back, no? Absolutely, yeah. Well, Sandra, I just want to say, hey, it’s been a lot of fun having you on the show.
If if somebody wants to continue to follow your journey, you mentioned you’re a creator, you’re social media or otherwise, I want you to look in the camera, tell people how they can connect with you. Very easy on every single platform. It’s Sander Sarr, which is S A N D E R S A A R, all one word. You’ll find the videos and some of the, some of the creations that I’m doing both with AI and some without AI.
Awesome. Fantastic. I really did. Thank you. I appreciate you for coming on and for everybody watching, just so you know, we’re going to put the website, all the other good stuff in the, in the show notes so that in the social media, I should say in the show notes so that you can just connect with Sandra as you choose.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit the subscribe button. That subscribe or that follow button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new interviews, new content, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey.
So hit that subscribe or follow button. And Sandra, I won’t keep you anymore. I know you got a long conference, man. Thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it. All right. Take care.
