Stop Creating Content Until You Watch This ! AI Warning | Eric Galen DSH #1048

What is the value you're providing?

Can AI just duplicate?

You certainly still own your own likeness.

What I think really starts getting interesting, you're going to have digital twins.

We're doing deals with the talent, we're not doing it without talent.

What happens when AR starts creating things on their own?

Drake, for example, and that digital twin then goes and creates a song.

Does Drake own it?

Digital twin own it really makes you ponder: well, who deserves rights?

What does it take to be human?

We're at that point now.

Welcome back to the show, guys.

I'm your host, as always, Sean Kelly.

Got with me an entertainment and tech lawyer for you guys today, Eric Galen.

How's it going?

Great.

Happy to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Just literally arrived an hour ago and came down here and it's a beautiful studio.

Yeah, we made it happen.

Yeah.

So you're up to a lot of stuff.

I don't even know where to start, but I have been.

I know you're in the crypto space, Web3 space.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I got really into the kind of Web3 and crypto space.

So I started out as a corporate lawyer, then got into entertainment law in L.A.

and started doing a lot of work in social media, started managing some early social media influencers like Jack and Jack and Madison Beer and some others that kind of came up in the 2014, 2015 kind of range when it was the Wild West, for instance.

Right.

And saw that really progress and evolve.

And I think kind of that phase one, the technologies that came out, right?

So YouTube, Instagram, those kinds of things, really helped start to democratize the talent economy, right?

Which had traditionally always been very closed.

It was like a castle with a moat around it, right?

You had to live in Hollywood or you had to be in New York and you had to kind of know the right people and things like that.

So

the technologies around social media that came out around Web 2

really helped open up.

democratize, open up, you know, everything from YouTube revenue to brand deals with Instagram to what ended ended up being things like OnlyFans, where it's basically monetizing an audience through direct commerce.

And I think we're about to see that same shift again as we start moving to Web3.

When you start looking at the evolution of these platforms and the introduction of new platforms,

so one of the companies that I'm spending most of my time with is a Web3 company.

And

we're developing digital twins and they're powered by AI, so they can interact, they can can kind of live autonomously in games and in the metaverse.

And

then when you look at payment systems and blockchain and things like that, there's just a huge amount of promise around that, kind of where the new talent economy is going.

I'm excited about that.

Very exciting.

The digital twin stuff fascinates me because there's a lot of people that want to talk to celebrities or girls that think they're hot or whatever.

And with digital twins, it seems like it's going to be almost identical to the real person.

I think it's going to start out.

I mean, what's interesting is, you know,

when you start out, you want to make them identical, right?

So you spend time

doing motion capture.

You spend time perfecting the look and the sound and the voice and what they talk about and how they react.

And when you start looking at AI and AI going and saying, okay, look at everything this person has ever tweeted.

Look at what they post.

Look at what they talk about.

Look at current events, right?

You can start to really build out a personality model and a language model and everything else.

What I think is really going to be interesting for anyone that's seen, you know, something like the movie Free Guy,

when AI gets to the point, and it will, that digital twins, you know, you're going to have an, you're going to, you're going to reach a point where someone's digital twin is going to, for example, let's just say that the real life talent really hates Donald Trump and the digital twin says, I'm going to go vote for Donald Trump.

Like you're going to have a degree of autonomy at some point.

Then I think it starts getting really interesting.

And then you have to start thinking about, so when you look at, for example, when you look at where AI is with music, right?

So,

you know, we've seen AI write quote-unquote songs by The Weekend or by Drake or things like that, right?

And the lawyers and the industry is really grappling with this.

Because like, well, it's not actually Drake's voice.

It's not actually a recording of Drake.

It just sounds like Drake.

Right.

Right.

And they're original compositions.

They're not copying any of the music or lyrics.

And yet, you know, the industry is kind of grasping it, trying to find lever points to say, hey, you can't do this.

Now, you certainly can't release a song and associate Drake with it because Drake has his own name and likeness rights and he has

his right to privacy, things like that.

So you can't use that.

But simply putting out a song

that someone heard it and go, wow, that sounds like The Weekend, for example.

It's going to be interesting to see how the law kind of comes down on that.

We've seen like Mid Journey.

We've seen the Copyright Office start to say, well, if there's not enough human involvement,

you can't copyright it in certain pieces of art that someone used Mid-Journey for.

So I think we're really getting into a very...

a very new space here.

And I think it's going to affect the talent and the talent economy in huge ways.

We're seeing it with the strikes, right?

We're seeing with the strikes,

you know, the

that looks like hopefully there was some kind of settlement that's coming down now.

Um, but most a lot of that, that argument was around AI, right?

And how studios are going to use AI to, you know, the initial concern is they're going to use AI to write scripts or to start writing things.

But think about, think about the use of mid-journey and AI and the other things to start creating.

We've already seen them online, right?

You're going to have movies that, um, you know, where you could use it the digital likeness of an actor who never performed.

Right.

But the voice, it looks like them.

It sounds like them.

Things they would say.

Yeah.

So we're really entering into a new world where

we're going to be able to create anything.

Right.

And you won't be able to tell.

Someone will be able to create a podcast of us

and it won't be us.

There's already Joe and Sound podcasts that are AI generated.

100%.

Yeah.

That's already here.

And think about, you know, as exponentially as that technology is going to increase, how quickly what's it going to look like in five years yeah it's definitely scary and something to keep an eye on if you're a celebrity because it comes down to what actually is your IP now right right so like what is the value you're providing can AI can just duplicate absolutely and and so so you certainly still own you certainly still own your own likeness so you own your likeness you own you know the if someone creates

an AI podcast and says, oh, this is a Sean Kelly podcast, you can go after them.

Hey, this is not really me.

You can't associate me.

So you have name and likeness, right?

But what I think, what I think really starts getting interesting is, and I think potentially even, I don't know which is going to be more scary for talent, right?

One is that

you're going to have digital twins.

And like, you know, we're working with digital twins.

We're saying, hey,

we're doing deals with the talent.

We're not doing it without talent consent.

We're doing it with the talent and saying, you own the twins.

You own the avatar.

We're going to help you monetize it.

And we're going to build it with you and we're going to train it with you.

So, you know, one aspect is what happens when AR starts creating things on their own?

If

you created a digital twin of Drake, for example, and that digital twin then goes and creates a song,

does Drake own it?

Does the digital twin own it?

At what point will AI reach, again, referring back to, I mean, look, you could go back all the way to things like Blade Runner, Free Guy, any of these movies where it really makes you ponder, well, who deserves rights?

What does it take to be human?

Yeah.

Right.

And we're at that point now.

I mean, we're going to be grappling with these what have previously just been interesting philosophical questions.

We're going to be dealing with the real life implications of,

you know, this decade.

Yeah.

Some artists have been embracing it.

They're even saying they'll give a percent of the song revenue to people that make the songs with their voice, like a 50-50 split.

And I think that's smart.

I think that's really smart.

Because the reality is,

you know, talent doesn't, you don't want to do what the music industry did when Napster and kind of that first wave of tech came along, right?

They said, we're not playing along.

We want to stop you.

We want to stop progress.

We're going to stop innovation.

We're just going to sue you.

That didn't work very well.

Yeah.

Right.

Didn't work.

So I think talent is ultimately going to be better off working with technology and not trying to fight it.

And at least in working with it, you can try to have some degree of influence over it, right?

Not unlike what, for example, when Elon Musk talks about, you know,

he's worried and concerned about the future of AI,

but he's also in that business so that he can try to have input on, you know, with Neuralink and other things.

Okay,

how do we take advantage of it and not get completely crushed by it?

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

So I think talent will have to do the same thing with these new technologies.

And

I think it's going to be, I think for those that embrace it, they're going to do really well.

I mean, look at, look at talent that embrace social media.

How many stars would we not have today?

I mean, you wouldn't know about Madison Beer, Bella Hadid, Camera Dallas, any of these people without technology, without social media.

Because it's so closed off.

So closed off, right?

So it really did start to democratize.

I mean, you can be anyone, anywhere, and you can start a podcast.

You can get into crypto.

You can launch an NFT.

You can, I mean, there's so many things you can do, launch an Amazon store, right?

I mean, there's so many things that you can do from anywhere in the world now because of technology.

And I think we're going to see another kind of quantum step forward as these Web3 technologies, Web 2.5 starts really emerging.

I think talent is better off embracing it.

Otherwise, I think the risk is, and by the way, I'm sure there are people, I'm sure there are large studios thinking about this.

I'm sure there are talent agencies.

Remember Brood?

I mean, the company's still around, but Lil Michaela.

Right.

It's an influencer that does not exist in real life.

So the ability to start creating, for example,

with all the data that Google, YouTube,

that systems have, right, that the internet has on you,

why wouldn't it just create an influencer for you that's your perfect influencer?

Right.

Just for you, that speaks exactly the way that you like, that looks the way that you like, that likes the things that you like, right?

And that imagine going onto your feed and what you see and the ads that you see, right, are the influencers that are, that don't exist in real life.

They're digital, they're virtual, and they're just for you because it will have the highest conversion rate for you.

Right.

And imagine watching movies or imagine watching shows or commercials.

And, you know, person A sees, you know, I don't know, they like Tom Brady and Tom Brady's in their version.

Person B likes something else.

And so that, you know, this digital, this, this,

you know, created personality is in their commercial because it converts better.

I think we're going to see all of that.

We're going to see it really soon.

Absolutely.

It's going to be exciting to see how it plays out.

I think there's a lot of skepticism, but I think overall AI will help a lot of people.

I think it will.

I'm already using AI, by the way.

I mean, even, you know, in biz dev, legal, I'm using AI to do, to help me with a lot.

And what I'm finding is it's just like when, when, honestly, when a digital recording sampling, right, Pro Tools, all that stuff came out for, you know, or think about filters, think about photo filters.

It doesn't make you a great photographer, right?

It's just a tool.

Yeah.

So I think people that lean on it like a crutch ultimately aren't, aren't going to be super successful.

But people that use it as a tool.

and know its place and know how to leverage it are going to be able to do more and be more efficient.

And,

you know, you're not going to miss things that you otherwise would have missed.

And it's going to open new opportunities.

I mean, it's, it's, it's incredible where it's going.

I think that, I think it's probably correct that there, you should be a little concerned.

So that we should be concerned enough to be looking out for the pitfalls or the, you know, the landmines, right?

We don't end up like Terminator.

Yes.

Well, right, right.

Because, you know, there have been days where on my feed, I'll see a video from like Boston Robotics that does these incredible robots, if you've ever seen them.

And you look at the robots, you go, man, these robots are amazing.

Like they, this is getting to look like Terminator.

And then you look at some of the AI and you look at what it's doing, you go, man, you start combining these things.

And this,

this gets real fast.

I just saw my Instagram yesterday that I think ChatGPT can see and hear now or something.

Yeah.

Something crazy.

Yeah.

I mean, and this is going to move at lightning speed.

Yeah.

I mean, next year, if we're sitting here, it's going to be a completely completely different world we're living in reminds me of that black mirror episode where um if you lost a relative there was a company you could go to and it would put an ai inside of a vessel and for sure act like that person yeah and i think we will be immortal in that way soon i mean i think you know our our lifetimes we're going to be we we will be able to be uploaded yeah i think they'll find a way to transfer our consciousness to like a computer for sure or even another vessel for sure another vessel it could be a kind of hybrid it could be kind of humanoid you know this is going to move really quickly and then when you start looking at where quantum computing is going and where what that's going to enable, and you start looking at that in combination with AI and in combination with some of the other technologies, it's, it's, our world is going to change so quickly.

Yeah.

I feel like our world is changing so fast that nothing surprises anyone anymore.

Like we have people testifying before Congress.

that we have captured aliens, that alien ships are real.

Yeah.

Like many people.

And it's like, people are like, oh, yeah.

No one gives apparently there's aliens.

I mean, this is like one of the biggest discoveries in the last, you know, however many millennia.

Yeah.

People are, I think, they're so conditioned.

I don't, what do you think that is?

We're just so numb to just,

like, I don't know.

Maybe social media just made us so numb to information almost.

Maybe yeah.

Like nothing really surprises us anymore.

Right.

I remember back in like elementary school, like anything would surprise me.

Right.

Before technology, but now it's like, oh, that happened.

Okay.

Right.

Next, next post.

Right.

Well, and it's also creating this environment where it's hard to know what to trust.

It's really hard to know what to trust.

And I think, you know,

I've been working with Patrick David and Valutainment and his team, and I really like a lot of what they're doing.

And,

you know, when you look at, you know, what does the future of a media company look like?

And how do you start, how do you start restoring some degree of trust?

I think that, you know, that's people like Joe Rogan have done so well because people trust him.

Right.

There's a, there's an, there's an element of authenticity

that, you know, conceptually, could he be misleading?

Could he ever be like, yeah, but gosh, when you sit down, it's one thing when you're reading for 30 seconds off a teleprompter.

It's like, well, is that really what they think?

Are they being told to say that?

When you're sitting down with someone for four hours and you're having a conversation,

the BS tends to kind of leak out, right?

It's hard to keep up a facade for four hours

conversation.

Yeah, you can only do that for so long.

Only do it for so long.

Yeah.

So I think, I think, you know, that's why podcasting has emerged.

I listen to, I listen to podcasts every day when I'm driving, when I'm showering.

I'm listening to podcasts all the time.

And I think a lot of people are.

And I think it's that element of authenticity.

I think influencers really started that way.

If you remember 2013, 2014, 2015, a lot of what brands liked and the push that you'd hear from agencies was, well,

influencers are authentic

in a way that...

you know, an actor who's hired to do a commercial with a script is not.

But now I think, you know, because that even kind of that the social media landscape has evolved and matured so much,

okay, but you know, some of the biggest influencers, how real is it?

Yeah.

Right.

How many filters?

How many surgeries?

How many,

what kinds of things are being done?

You know, how much authenticity are you really getting anymore?

And I think people are, to a certain extent, I think people crave both, right?

I mean, I think that to a certain extent, I think some people crave,

I was in Paris, went to the Louvre recently, and you look at these statues and they were like, it's like, that was like the, those were like the, you know, I don't know, the rock or, or, or, you know,

you know, Kylie Jenner back in the day.

It was like these were these kind of icons, right?

They were heroes, so to speak, that people would aspire to be like, for better or for worse.

And, and I think people yearn for that.

And then, but then, you know, they yearn for Adele, right?

They yearn for, you know, the new, a top gun movie that costs however many hundreds of millions of dollars.

But then they also yearn for raw, 15-second, on-the-cheap, you know, TikTok videos or Instagram stories.

And, you know, I think, I think there's a place for kind of these well-produced,

let's call them less authentic versions.

Like the Hollywood content.

Yeah, traditional Hollywood created, but now we're seeing it also created in social media, right?

It's kind of almost been a hybridization of traditional entertainment and social media.

And then you also have things like, you know, again, like looking at like what,

you know, people are doing with podcasts and just sitting down and having real conversations and that for the most part are not edited.

Yeah, I don't edit shit.

Right.

And that's, but people love that.

And I think that there's a realness and there's an authenticity there that I think people are really craving because I think we don't get much of it.

We don't feel like we're getting it.

I certainly don't feel like I'm getting it from the news, from traditional media.

Definitely.

You know, if I want something authentic, I'm going to go go to YouTube and find someone that I trust.

I'm not turning on NBC or Fox or any of the others.

Yeah.

Right.

And I think that's what's really great about what

Patrick and his team are doing is really trying to create a media company that is,

that can be more trusted.

I love it.

It's great to see.

It's also very hard to pull off because a lot of these social media platforms will censor you if you start speaking too much of your truth.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think we're starting to see it.

We saw another one very recently.

And, you know, look, claims need to be adjudicated, right?

We still should be innocent until proven guilty, right?

That's something that

most people in this society have protected for a long time, right?

The American value of innocent until proven guilty.

Some of that seems to have changed, at least culturally, right?

Where it seems like now if someone goes off script for long enough or becomes big enough, level some accusations, doesn't need to be adjudicated.

And then you get

media company, you get censored, you get stopped, you get demonetized, you get, you basically get professionally assassinated.

With no proof.

With no proof.

No adjudication.

You're basically guilty until proven innocent.

Yep.

And by the time that you ever get proved innocent, you know, who did that recently?

Maybe Johnny Depp,

but that took years.

And he had money in it.

And he lost his movie roles.

Yeah, and he lost the movie roles in the process.

He had enough to be able to sustain himself through that.

The average person does not.

Definitely not.

So I think that's really

frightening for a lot of people.

I think that's really damaging.

That's really damaging.

This kind of that mob mentality and the way that we're starting to see

governments acting in concert with media companies, acting in concert with big tech.

It really, it's worrisome for people that value authenticity and freedom of speech and things that have always been, you know, values that have made the country great.

And part of the reason why people have always wanted flock to come here and build lives and build careers and things.

Yeah, man, it's really scary because, you know, people go through old tweets from 10 years ago when you can call people names that were normal back then.

Right.

And then they pull that up and out of context, it looks terrible.

Yeah, you can't be held liable.

I mean, it's like, you know, holding someone liable for something, for something that was okay

in its time.

It would be like, it would be like if there was a video of me doing, I don't know, 70 miles an hour on the freeway and then the speed limit gets changed 10 years later and I get a ticket.

Yeah, I love that.

It's like, that wouldn't make sense.

Exactly what it is.

And yet that's exactly what we're doing to people.

And I also think it's really, I think people are really,

I'm trying to remember who talked about that.

I think Jordan Peterson talked about that.

This kind of this idea that, you know, you would ask a class of students and say, you know,

who if they were a soldier or if they were, you know, a German in World War II would not have done X, Y, and Z.

And of course, everybody raised their hands.

I would never have done it.

It's like, no, the sad truth is most of you would have.

That's just reality.

That's the truth.

For better or for worse.

Certainly not that it's right.

It's terrible.

But you know, in the time with the pressures under, you know, with the belief systems, with the, you know, threat of death and things like that, people do things that in hindsight are terrible ideas.

Right.

And um and i think we have to we have to be able to we have to have some perspective with that right like if you look at a show if you look at a tv show that you know i go back and i look at things like you know friends friends is one of the most popular tv shows i've seen some episodes i'm like they couldn't do this today no i don't they could not do half of these episodes the office they could not do half of those episodes

I mean, some huge shows

people up.

Family Guy, my God.

You can't even believe that Family Guy is still on or that South Park is still around.

Yeah, how did they not get canceled?

How did they not get canceled back then?

But I also wonder, you know, we had amazing comedies, right?

What's the last great comedy you've seen?

Like comedy movie?

Yeah.

They're so

dude.

Like, have you seen anything?

No, even the new Sandler ones, they don't hit the same.

No, no, that there, there are no great comedies.

No great comedies anymore.

And probably the last,

well,

the only great action movies that we've had recently have been John Wick series, which I loved, but that's keano and you know it's it's like tom cruise and keano you know it's it's like people that are 50 years old plus yeah there are no new comedies yeah there are no new action stars um i'm conscious they're fast and furious yeah you can't watch another fast and furious and then you know there that's been going on forever um

so

i i think i think we've got to try to

I think we've got to recenter.

I think we've got to have more perspective and a little more grace with people.

And I think,

you know, the cancer culture, especially, you know, not allowing people.

I mean, it's fascinating to me that the same people that seem to advocate for cancel culture are the same people that for years

were donating and advocating for rehabilitation of criminals, like people that actually killed people or that actually, you know, I think Chappelle talks about that in one of his shows.

He's like.

One of the rappers he talked about, he's like, he actually went in and shot people.

Yeah.

Like he didn't get canceled for that.

He did get canceled for saying something, right?

Like, I think we need to have a little bit more perspective and

allow people to

not be so eager to demonize people.

Yeah.

It was crazy watching him get canceled, but for him, he doesn't really use social media.

So I don't think he got hit as hard, but a lot of these creators make a living off of social media these days.

They do.

And I think that's where the pressure is, right?

And I see it with.

I see it with clients that, you know, want to speak up or want to voice and they feel like

they don't really have freedom of expression anymore.

And if it doesn't align with the narrative, you can't say it or you're going to lose clients or your job or your agent or your whatever.

And I think that's, that's a really sad place to be.

Super sad.

So it's a really, and I think we're all losing out as a result.

And the reality is it will eventually come for you.

Right.

The people that are, you know, the people in the mob attacking people at some point are going to be attacked because you can never be good enough.

You can never be enough of an angel or you can never be noble enough or

virtuous enough.

And I think that

to not have some perspective and grace with others eventually is going to come back to you.

And I don't think

that's not the society that we really want to live in.

We've always believed in, of course, punishing things that are wrong, but also having like a jury of your peers and

having the ability to actually, did this actually happen or not before you get punished.

You don't get punished.

We didn't punish people and then figure out if it was right.

Yeah.

Right.

We didn't do that.

And yet that's a lot of what we're seeing today.

And I think, and to your point, because we're living in a world where we're so inundated with so much all the time, people are a bit numb.

And so either people don't have time to think about it, or if they do think about it, they think, well, that's wrong, but what can I really do about it?

And so it just continues and it keeps happening.

I think we're starting to see pushback.

you know, in certain ways.

And I think, um, I think we're starting to see people kind of speak and have a bit more of a voice.

And frankly, I mean, look, that's why you see a lot of people moving from some areas of the country to other areas of the country where they feel like there's more freedom to express.

There's more freedom of all kinds.

I think freedom comes in many,

many different

elements of freedom.

Yeah.

So speaking of moving, I mean, you were an entertainment lawyer in Hollywood for many years.

You must have seen some crazy stuff over there.

I did.

I mean, look, I have, you know, on my mom's side of the family, I'm seventh generation native California.

So I really have so much love for California.

It's sad to see what's happening in California.

I don't agree with a lot of the policies.

I don't agree with a lot of the politics in California.

I don't think it's good for people.

I think people know it's not good for them.

I have a lot of friends and others that have moved out of California

a few years.

Yeah, and we're seeing it.

And look, the data is clear.

The pattern is clear.

You know, people are moving from New York, California, Seattle, and they're going to, where are they going?

Miami, Nashville, Austin, Vegas, Vegas, right?

So it's clear where people are moving.

And I think on a high level, why they're moving there.

You know, I, I,

as much as I love California, as much as I hope California does get, get it, kind of fix itself, I don't see it happening very soon.

Not soon.

And that's really sad because it's such a great state.

And, you know, the, the,

the geography geography there, the opportunity there, the innovation that's happened there, just incredible.

So, it's really iconic.

Yeah, it's iconic, and it's sad to see that happening.

But,

you know, at least for the time being, I think there are some bright spots.

That's what, you know, you go to Miami right now, I mean, there's energy, and people are moving there.

They're entrepreneurial, they're optimistic.

I went to a dinner last night

with a friend of mine that runs a big venture capital fund down in Miami.

And some founders.

Much of what we as a group were talking about, just the optimism, the welcome.

People are welcome there.

When I went to Miami, it wasn't like if you go to LA or San Francisco, like if you go to San Francisco and you want to be in tech,

you know,

the, you know, the big funds and people aren't saying, oh man, I got to meet this guy.

And let's, you know, yeah, we'd love you to succeed.

And here it feels closed.

It's like you have to fight to kind of get in.

And entertainment was always like that.

I mean, it was unbelievable.

When I started, you know, I had grown up as a trained musician.

And so I started trying to get an entertainment law in LA.

It's like no one wanted you in.

It was like everybody's there to protect their corner, and they don't want any more people in.

And that's how it always felt.

And Miami has been polar opposite.

I mean, the friends and the network that I built there and of people that are really doing cool things and unbelievable.

And there really is a difference

in

the culture there.

The culture there is different.

And,

you know, I think probably people are seeing that.

Man, been a great episode.

I'm excited about what you're working on, man, with PVD, with AI.

I'm going to keep an eye on you.

Anything you want to close off with, man?

No, no.

Thank you for having me here.

It's been, it's great.

I love the show.

Yeah, if you want to find me on man, Instagram, Eric F.

Galen, G-A-L-E-N.

Absolutely.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you tomorrow.