February 24, 2026 • 37 mins
Something is shifting again, and this time it feels subtle enough to miss. We are using AI to negotiate our bills. To draft our emails. To guide our conversations. Scripts are talking to scripts while we sit in the middle, repeating words we did not fully form ourselves.
Most of us have not stopped to ask what that does to us.
In the second part of this AI conversation, Amy and guest, Bill Kirst, go deeper into the grief of living in a world that no longer feels fully real. What happens when our conversations are optimized instead of lived? When conflict is copy pasted instead of worked through? When music moves us, only to discover no human voice ever stood behind it? When art is polished into perfection without the trembling hands that once created it?
What is the cost of editing out the pause, the breath, the crack in the voice? What happens when debate is replaced with algorithmic agreement? When we slowly outsource the friction that once shaped our character, our creativity, our leadership?
This conversation is not anti technology. It is a call to discernment. A call back to vinyl scratches and imperfect storytelling. A reminder that inspiration does not live in speed or scale. It lives in depth. In effort. In presence.
If we hand over too much of ourselves, we may wake up one day asking a harder question.
Who am I, if I no longer sound like me?
Listen closely. Notice what rises in your body. Then decide what parts of your humanity you are willing to protect.
Threads We Pulled On:
- The Collapse Of Trust In A Deepfake Era – Confront the grief that surfaces when you can no longer distinguish what is real and begin questioning what you once trusted.
- Creativity Without Imperfection – Consider what happens to art, music, and storytelling when machines remove the friction that gives creative work its meaning.
- The Habit Of Disconnection – Notice how repeated reliance on AI tools slowly conditions you to outsource tension, conflict, and authentic expression.
- Nostalgia As Resistance – Reclaim tangible artifacts and embodied experiences as a way to anchor yourself in what feels undeniably human.
- The Reverse Renaissance – Envision a future where you deepen discernment, return to richer wells of inspiration, and choose to create with intention.
You can listen to Bill’s episode - AI & The Poetry of Our Existence with Bill Kirst here - https://create-magic-at-work-r.captivate.fm/episode/ai-the-poetry-of-our-existence-with-bill-kirst/
About the Guest:
Bill Kirst is an author, technology leader, podcast host, military veteran, mentor, educator and mindfulness practitioner. He has been writing stories, poems and lyrics for as long as he can remember. He hails from a long line of storytellers and educators who are deeply inspired, moved and healed by the power of the written word. Mixing in melody, chords and a chorus generate a powerful response toward healing. This is why he sees the world through a songwriter's eyes, and why his first published work was a collection of poetry. And his second book is focuses on how we hold on to our humanity in this era of AI.
In addition to writing, he hosts The Coffee & Change Podcast which went into its tenth season this year. Bill helps people thrive and break through common obstacles that seem to be holding them back so they can reach their true potential. His career as a change leader has been rewarding, impactful and inspirational, reminding him of the importance of this work, all while understanding the human condition.
Follow Bill on Substack - https://open.substack.com/pub/everward/p/the-buying-of-our-breath?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amy Lynn Durham (00:00):
Hey, everyone. Amy here. Welcome back to Create
(00:04):
Magic at Work. This is part twoof my conversation with Bill
curse, and in this half, we gostraight into the grief of deep
fakes and how they can collapseour trust, and what happens when
AI starts mediating our humanconversations. And what do we
(00:27):
risk losing with all of this inart, creativity, and what is the
cost of trading imperfections,human imperfections, for the
perfection of something amachine creates? So let's, let's
get back into this conversation.
Hey, it's Amy. Welcome to CreateMagic at Work, where we cast
(00:50):
visions for a future of work,where business decisions ripple
outward to our teams, ourcommunities, the planet and
humanity as a whole. If you'reready to edge, walk instead of
sleep. Walk through yourleadership. You're in the right
place. So let's start makingMagic at work.
I had the most interestingexperience I have to share with
(01:12):
you that I don't know if othershave, I'm sure they have. I for
me, it was interesting. I was inchat GPT, and I needed to talk
to one of my credit cardcompanies. I was negotiating a
lower interest rate. I was justdoing, like, some finance stuff
in the beginning of the year,like trying to go through
(01:35):
everything, and, you know, getorganized. And I used chat GPT
to help me negotiate. I said,Hey, this is what I want. I'm
going to call this number giveme the script what I need to say
to make this happen. And the theexperience was so interesting to
me, because the other person wasreading a script to me, yep, and
(01:59):
then I was reading a script tothem, and then they were reading
a script to me, and then I wouldtype real fast, and then I would
read the script back to them,because I was trying to use the
exact words for their system toget me what I needed. And they
were, you know, just going offwhat their system was. And I got
(02:23):
off the phone, I got what Ineeded, and I was like, we
literally were just two robotstalking to each other with
human. I don't know what theword is, human in betweens.
You'll probably have a betterword for that than me. And I'm
like, What the hell is happeningright now? Like, this is insane.
(02:46):
So anyways, AI mediating emails.Ai mediating relationship
conversations. Ai like, what ishappening? Because at work, at
work, I'm sure everyone isexperiencing this. People are
popping in messages and slack.Copy Paste from Ai, copy paste
from chat. GBT, happy to hop ona call. What helped me
(03:08):
understand this? And it's like,what? What I'm like, I can't
like. It's starting to really,I'm really feeling the
disconnection, and I'm like,just f, just f, ing, type what
you want to say, and let's hashit out if it's disrespectful or
whatever, right? So then, onthat other note, we're losing
(03:31):
conflict resolution skillsbecause we're just copy pasting
shit back and forth to eachother, and I can't with it, so I
know I just unloaded on you.You're like, I told you, it's
gonna be aI therapy. Well, helpus. What do you have to say on that?
Bill Kirst (03:53):
You know, it's interesting. It was probably two
years ago. I was interviewed fora podcast, and it the very end
of it, they asked me verysimilar, like, what do you see
in the future? It was a littlelittle more sort of framed
positively, but and I answeredat the time, again, this is two
(04:15):
years ago. We will be in afuture where my agent is talking
to your agent and workingthrough all of the work. And at
some point I will pop in and Iwill check what the agent is
doing, and I will make some, youknow, some recommendations, but
(04:35):
then the agent will go back andtalk to your agent and and all
this work will be done betweennon human entities, and only
when the human decides to insertthemselves and check for
verification or reliability orconsistency will we have
something to do. And I said itfrom the standpoint of imagine
(04:58):
how much more we could do.Imagine where we could spend our
time if we didn't have to dosome of that mundane stuff. But
I had no idea that it would bethis soon where what you just
described is taking placeautomatically. So your story is
very relevant. People do thiswith their health care. They do
(05:19):
this with their credit cardcompanies. They do this with
their education. And the partthat scares me is you were
vacating your body. You wereliterally going vacuous in that
moment. You said it yourself. Ihad a script. She had a script.
I said my script. She said herscript. You were intermediaries,
(05:43):
but barely, like barely you weretyping. You had movement, but
the part that was scary wasthere was no regard for the
person on the other line thatwas human, because you were
placing your energy into a nonhuman entity to give you
answers, you ultimately arrivedat the decision you wanted Yes,
(06:05):
but how did you feel after thatinterchange, that exchange? How
did you feel when you got offthe call? I'm curious like, what
was your body sensation? Was itI just won? I feel like
vindication, or and was it Ifeel I got what I wanted, but I
feel like, Was I there? I feelicky. Like, what? How did it
(06:27):
feel to you?
Amy Lynn Durham (06:28):
Yeah, I felt good because I got, I reached
the goal that I needed to reach,and I also felt shame that I
didn't connect with like part ofme thinks back, I think back to
that moment all the time, justto unpack it, because I am who I
(06:49):
am, and I'm like, that was anactual human on the phone with
me and and it was, there was nohumanity in that interaction at
all, and are we okay with that?It felt very It felt very
(07:14):
dismissive of our humanity, andit felt very like we were
discardable. Yeah.
Bill Kirst (07:26):
And the part which is even more terrifying now is
people probably know this storythat we're reading about mult
book and claw bot, which, if youhaven't read about it, I
encourage you to do so, becauseit's sort of taking over the
airwaves. But in essence, thisis what's happening. There was a
there's a gentleman who spun up,essentially a Mac Mini, right? A
(07:47):
small, a small device. He usedsome of this agentic AI to
create a social network only foragents, so the only entities
that could join the socialnetwork were non human entities.
And at first it was a little bitlike a parlor trick. It is now
(08:09):
grown where there are millionsof agents in this social network
talking with each other. Again,no humans involved. They're
talking with each other. They'recreating their own languages.
They're creating their ownunions. They're creating their
own religions. They're creatingsubcultures. Whoa. There's all
sorts of divisiveness in there.And here's where it gets really
(08:31):
freaky. They're creating theirown synthetic drugs, and then
they are selling them to people,not real people, but agents in
their social network. So thinkabout how quickly, in the course
of a week, a social network thatwas set up for agents as a
parlor trick to showcasesomething has essentially turned
(08:53):
into the worst variations of ourshadows as as humans, division,
subdivision, scarcity, even theconcept of of narcotics, like in
this, you know, and and havingcrazy dealers, it's, it's
(09:16):
absolutely mind blowing. Andyet, I think it's teaching us
and telling us something aboutwhat we're what we're discussing
here, which is this is whathappens when you give over your
humanity, and you give over yourregard, and you separate out of
all of the things that make usworthy of connecting, worthy of
(09:39):
having discussion. I think yourpoint around debate and
arguments and difference ofopinion, all of that is, I don't
even I would normally sayatrophying. I think it's more
than that. It's, it's not justatrophying. It's, it's sloughing
away like it's, we're losing it.We can't have. Have debates with
(10:01):
people. We can't have inquirywith people, because the minute
I ask a question, somebody onthe other side of a screen
outside of my view is typing inmy question to a large language
model, and they're not giving metheir answer. They're giving me
an answer. And again, we'reright back to where you talked
(10:22):
about with the bird that wasn'treal. If that answer that comes
back to me is assumed to havecome from your heart space and
from your mind, then I've nowgot an emotional connection to
you in that Well, no wonder thisis causing problems with
people's relationships andfriendships and therapists,
because you're you're having theserotonin reaction that we have
(10:47):
in our neurobiological and downthe road, you're expecting the
person to behave that way.Meanwhile, they've separated
themselves from all of thatinteraction. So when push comes
to shove and we have to beourselves, after relying on this
for so long, the questionremains, who am I? And I'm
(11:11):
vacant. I'm vacant out of mybody, I've turned over my brain.
There's aspects of my soul Idon't remember. And when you put
that in a cauldron of societyand all of the things that we
can see in the headlines that isa recipe for disaster, and
that's why I'm encouragingpeople to slow down right think
about these. Just the examplesyou've given are so relatable.
(11:36):
Everybody can relate to that.But think about it. The next
time you go to go to thatkeyboard or go to that phone or
go to just take a beat, take abreath and ask yourself, are
there portions of myself thatI'm giving over and at speed and
at scale, I won't remember ifI'm not careful, yeah. Hmm.
Amy Lynn Durham (12:06):
Something came up for me when you were sharing
the bot world, that's what I'llcall it, that was created. I
hear from some that they areconscious of how they're
speaking to AI to whatever AItool they're using, because
(12:26):
they're afraid that when robotstake over the world, they'll
come after the people that wererude. I'm asking you the
randomest crazy questions todayin the chat, and I have to tell
you, I've had some fights withchat, GPT, like, cut like,
because, like, cuss words,whatever. And when you brought
(12:46):
up that bot world, I thought ofthat. And then, you know that
80s cult book, silver medallover,
Bill Kirst (12:53):
it's no,
Amy Lynn Durham (12:54):
oh my gosh, Bill, you have to read it. It.
Do I have it like? I always haveit around anyways. Oh, here it
is.
Bill Kirst (13:01):
Yeah, silver medal lover.
Amy Lynn Durham (13:05):
Okay, it's about that. What we're talking
about. It's this really anathlete, yeah, you got to check
it out. Anyways. We could talkmore about this, but yeah, but
yeah, what are your thoughts on,on that, on people that are like
mindful of what they're the waythey're speaking to these
(13:29):
machines.
Bill Kirst (13:32):
You know, there's, there's a spectrum of belief
that people have, which is, itranges from, it's all about
conservation of energy, meaningthese AI, large language models
take a lot of power and waterand cooling and so yes, thank
you for there are people on oneside of the spectrum. Yeah,
there's people on one side ofthe spectrum that say it's
(13:55):
better for me to be Curt short,you know, brief, because that
means I'm demanding lessresources in its response. So
some people believe that if youput a pleasantry in there, you
put a salutation, it's almost awaste of resources to these
things that don't have feelings,don't have emotions, they want
(14:16):
you to get straight to thepoint. That's one side of the
spectrum. On on the other sideof the spectrum, there are
people that believe again, thesetechnologies are mirrors of who
we are. So if this thing, whichis used by 300 million people
every week, as a tool, as a analongside as a curator, as
(14:40):
someone to check about thesethings if we rely on it as much
as we do, and we cut out ourmanners, and we cut out our
salutations and we cut out ourgreetings, then at some point
we're going to start cuttingthose out in our real life
existence. And that's Troy. Somebecause people spend more time
(15:02):
with these technologies thanthey do, in some cases, with
their fellow humans. So habitsform, patterns form, and before
you know it, they start toinfiltrate your life. So those
are, those are two differentends of the spectrum. I don't
necessarily worry that when therobots are sort of turned on,
they're going to have reportcards of people and how they
(15:23):
talk to them. I don't believethat. I do, however, believe
that the way we interact withthese technologies is telling us
both the the height and depth ofour humanity. And I'm gonna, I'm
gonna cite an example here in ain a show that I absolutely
(15:46):
love, the remake of BattlestarGalactica. And those that know
it know the story of the Cylons.And essentially, Cylons were
robots that were veryindistinguishable from the
humans. And it in the story,it's very, very much becomes an
us versus them, and obviouslysort of war ensues between them.
(16:07):
But what's interesting is in thestory, the humans after so much
violence and disregard andcasting of others, and it was in
those moments that they werereminded how far they slipped in
their own humanity towards eachother, right? Everybody was
(16:27):
directing it, you know, at theCylons and saying, We cannot
treat them the same for thesereasons, because they're robots.
Nobody was disagreeing withthat. However, what they were
disagreeing with was becausethey'd gotten to a place where
they were so disconnected fromtheir own humanity, they became
judge and jury. Then theystarted treating their fellow
(16:49):
humans with that, those twingesof disregard and that was
problematic. That was where theyactually their society, started
to come undone. So my fear isthat habits we use every day,
depending on how we talk tothese devices, it's going to
creep into our day to dayinterchange with fellow humans.
(17:10):
I don't want to lose manners, Idon't want to lose greetings, I
don't want to lose debate. Idon't want somebody telling me
every idea I have is the bestidea. Like, I'm not a fan of the
hyperbole. I'm not a fan of thesuperlatives. I'm not a fan of
the sycophant right? Part ofthis technology. I like to stand
(17:30):
in the tension, and these toolsare sort of wired to make me
addicted to the pleasantries. Idon't want that. I also don't
want rude and crude. I'mdefinitely not. I've never used
grok. I will never use Elon'stechnologies, the things that
(17:51):
are happening on the platforms,the way that they are using them
to do the nutifying right totake people's pictures and
remove clothes and, theeroticism that has been
introduced in some of thesethings, I am not okay with that.
In fact, I thought that was aline that they crossed that they
(18:12):
will never be able to get back.And they did it for money. Let's
be clear. They did it because,again, when push comes to shove,
if you really push people to thebottom of their brainstem to the
lizard part of our brain, youknow how they'll perform? You
know how they will show up? Youknow what addiction looks like?
You know what power structure isthey're playing to that, to
(18:36):
that, to that aspect on us. AndI really wish we would wake up
and and say, Not today, not onmy time, not on my watch, not on
my dime. And people havechoices. You know, it's a small
choice, but I've drawn thatline. I will never interact with
any technology that has been puttogether by Elon Musk, because I
(18:59):
look at who he is, I look at whohe's become, I look at the
choices he's making, and I lookat what happens to us as a
result of using those things.That's just my individual
choice. That's my rebellion, ifyou will, to hold on to what I
have. It's interesting. I'lljust share this one last thought
with you, and I'll pause. My dadread my book, and my dad's 83
(19:22):
and he said, I have questions,Bill for you about the book. And
I said, Sure, let's, let's go,you know? And I was shocked. His
first question out of like 200something, because we talked for
like two and a half hours. Itwas beautiful. His first
question was, you know, Bill, Inoted that you not once
mentioned Elon Musk in yourbook. I kind of feel that was
(19:45):
intentional, but I'm not sure,Was it intentional? And I just
smiled, and I said, Yes, it was,and he understood exactly what I
meant, right? Which is I believethat those weak. Of space and
pages and voice and breath towe're kind of giving our power
(20:05):
to them in a way regard, aswe've discussed, and it was just
very clear in my body, like, donot give time, space, Grace,
page, print, voice to thisperson while his story is unique
and fascinating. I'm I just didnot need to give any more to it,
(20:26):
because I don't feel thecontributions are helping us go
in the right direction.
Amy Lynn Durham (20:30):
Yeah, that's so tight, like timely in our
conversation, because I wasliterally going to ask you, what
do you fear we've already lost,or Or what do you fear we will
lose and realize it's too late.And you, you were speaking to a
(20:53):
lot of that. But if you couldsum up, you know, one or two
things where we are today. Whatdo you feel like moving forward
today? Will realize, oh, shoot,it's too late. We've lost it.
Bill Kirst (21:12):
Yeah, I feel the arguments that we were having,
the things I was losing sleepabout years ago. Were things
around the arts, were thingsaround creativity. Were things
around the movies. The moviestrikes, right? The studio
strikes, the actor strikes thewe talked about the Olympics, we
(21:36):
talked about journalism. I feellike we've we've lost on these I
feel like the the deal thatDisney struck with open AI, a
billion dollar deal, I feel likewe lost, and we lost the magic
and the distinct and divine,unique creativity that comes out
(21:59):
of a Disney animator, I feellike we've lost the the beauty
and imperfection and ballad thatcomes out of a songwriter when
they're just tinkering aroundwith keys and instruments and
ideas and words, because now wehave suno, and People go into
(22:19):
suno and they put in theirpoetry or their words, and they
say, I'd like it to sound likethis artist and this beat with
these percussions and and youcan get 86 variations thereof. I
know people who are very excitedabout that. Again, if you're not
(22:39):
an artist, and you've alwaysdreamed of that. It is an
entryway, for sure, it unveilsso much that you can bring your
words to life, and you can do afirst draft and give it to a
songwriter. But we've lost themagic. We've lost the mystery,
like I think about producerslike Linda Perry, you know, lead
(23:04):
singer of four non blondes backin the day, but one of the
greatest producers of ChristinaAguilera and pink and and you
think about the the containerthat she created that allowed
these artists to fold intothemselves in a vulnerable way,
to then expand and give us someof the greatest music and art
(23:27):
and pieces that literally helpedpeople like us heal at a point
in our life. And I think we'vewe're losing that. We're losing
the ability to defend andprotect those containers of
imperfection. If everybody goesinto suno and puts their poem in
and gets incredible soundingmusic, but it is not a human
(23:49):
singing it. It is not a humanperforming the music. It is not
a person beating on those drumsfor percussion, and those things
are put on Spotify, and thosethings are put on YouTube and
like you with the bird and yourfriend, there was a point where
there was an artist that Ithought I was following. I loved
the timbre of his voice, I lovedthe lyrics. I was like, wow,
(24:11):
this is a poet I have not heardfrom since listening to
Secondhand Serenade, right? Agroup, a gentleman I used to
listen to years ago, and Ilearned three weeks later,
completely AI generated. Thisperson doesn't exist. It's a
group of people that collaborateand tug on the heartstrings of
people like me, and they put itin Spotify. I grieved. I was
(24:32):
angry. I was mad. I felt duped.Nowhere in there did it say, AI,
I think it should have. And thensomebody pulled me aside and
said, Bill, you're really upset,but those songs you really
enjoyed, did they help you in away? And I said at the time,
yeah, but now I feel like it wasa contract that's been broken,
(24:54):
and I can't get that trust back.So for me, I'm terrified. What's
going to happen the arts, the Ifeel like the movie houses. I
feel like the studios. Thiswhole debate over Netflix versus
paramount for Warner Brothers,there's a reason they want to
buy Warner Brothers. It's 100years of movies, 100 years of
(25:16):
movies that were made by humansbefore all this existed. What?
Are we hungry for? Amy, we'rehungry for nostalgia. We're
yearning for what is real. Ilisten to, you know, what do I
do now when I drive into mycommute, I pulled out my old
case logic, which had hundredsof CDs from when I was in high
school, and I'm choosing to putthe CD in the car, yep, and
(25:39):
listen to the CDs on the way towork, because it's a container
of nostalgia in a world that isshowing me all the stuff that's
not real. I'm like, You knowwhat was real? Me listening to
Lisa Loeb on the CD in highschool and feeling the angst of
adolescence that was real. Andif I get to do that for 20
(26:00):
minutes in a car on the way towork and 20 minutes on the way
minutes on the way home. I'm abetter person for it. So
interestingly enough, that'swhat I'm grabbing on to books,
CDs, vinyl, right? We talk aboutthe imperfections, the clicks
and the pops on a vinyl is, ohmy god. It's like chef's kiss.
And if you listen to things onBluetooth and Spotify and Apple
(26:23):
Music, it all sounds air gappednow, like, Where, where is,
like, where's the imperfectionsto where we started. And I feel
we're losing this. And so everyact that I'm choosing to do is,
is, is pulling one more thread.And at the end of it, I hope I
can make, as we talked about it,the analogy, I hope I can make a
(26:45):
quilt or patchwork of some sort,that no matter what's happening
in the world around me, I canwrap myself in that quilt and
know that I'm okay, like, theseare my bones, these are my
limbs. This is my heartbeat.These are my tears. And I don't,
I don't I don't lose that.
Amy Lynn Durham (27:01):
Yeah, it's so I can I can see the the I can see
the the humanity ripped out ofeverything you're talking about
when, even when we're trying tofind something to watch on, like
the art of storytelling is justcrap. Like, I don't know what's
(27:28):
going on, but and there'snothing original coming. They're
trying to remake the old stuffyou were talking about that we
loved and that we held on to,and then they're just pumping
out remakes of that with nothingoriginal. And then it's, like,
washed over with without any ofthe the gaps or the there's,
(27:48):
it's just, it's off, is justwhat I'll say.
Bill Kirst (27:52):
So with everything we've
Amy Lynn Durham (27:55):
talked about, I could literally talk to you for
eight hours. We probably need todo like, a 20 million series
because I didn't even get tohalf of the stuff I wanted to
get to. But it's fine, becausewith everything that we've
talked about so far since lasttime I asked you, what can you
sense, but not yet see, I wantto ask you in closing, what does
(28:20):
it look like if you extend yourvision even further into the
future? What do you see if youdo that like, like, like, have
your vision or what of what youcan sense when I see but then
even extend it further into thefuture? What can you share with
(28:41):
us on that?
Bill Kirst (28:44):
Yeah, I think when we talked last time we we sort
of orbited around essentiallywhat I was almost calling like a
reverse Renaissance, and weanchored on the that which is
crafted by humans. I thinkwhat's going to be interesting
is, if I take it further, Ithink there's going to be an
(29:04):
extension there of so it's notjust that which is crafted by
humans, but I think it's goingto be about the ingredients that
actually people pull intocrafting anything. And so to
your point around what is thesources of inspiration, right?
I'm, I'm gonna extend itfurther, but in some sense, I'm
actually go deeper by doing soand asking, what are the sources
(29:28):
of inspiration that people go toin order to excuse me, the voice
goes, because we're talkingabout things that are emotional.
We want energetic, but, yeah,we're not editing it. People are
going to hear it. Proof of Life,folks, proof of life. I think
people are going to go deeper tothe wells of inspiration in
(29:52):
order to craft something thatlasts longer, right? And so if
we think about the technologiesthat we're. Using every one of
them have a shelf life. I mean,at some point the money is going
to run out, and at some point alarge language model is just not
going to be there to respond toyou. And then what are you left
(30:13):
with? What are you left with toturn to? What well of
inspiration Are you going toturn to to to then form your
words, or form your yourwoodwork, or your clay, whatever
it is you're going to want totouch something, make something
that has a lasting legacy. Andin a way, I feel like we're
(30:34):
almost going to have, you know,think about it when people
discovered an artifact from thePaleolithic era, right? And they
said, Oh, wow, this was made forthis reason at this time. And
what were they going through atthe time, right? And we have the
luxury of history and knowingand artifact and record keeping.
I don't know what that will looklike in the future, because if
(30:56):
we're putting all of thisartifacting and record keeping
and discussion into thesedevices, into these large
language models, and at somepoint the power turns off. Well,
you don't have access to it.What do you have to show for all
of this? That's why I want Iwant illustrators. I want
(31:17):
musicians. I want people that,and I'm seeing this
interestingly. I'm seeing this.I'm seeing friends of mine
relearn piano by ear, andthey're filming themselves, and
they're playing and they'remaking mistakes, and they love
it, because people are reachingout to them and saying, You've
inspired me to tap into a deeperWell, I'd forgotten, to your
(31:40):
point, around nostalgia, I hadforgotten. This meant something
to me when I was right. Somebodyrecently reached out to me and
said they've started to go backto watch old classic movies and
musicals and things where theyknew when the light hits a
certain scene, you knew. You canimagine what it took to make
that happen, the costumes,right? I think about people who
(32:03):
design sets, and they'reterrified, because you can just
AI, generate something in thebackground, but we know the
difference. And I think if youfast forward all of this, I
think our discernment, ourfilter for understanding what's
real and what's not, is onlygoing to get better, and at some
point like that, people aregoing to stop, they're going to
(32:25):
stop coming and then, and thenyou're left with, now what? So I
don't, I don't want to end on adystopian and so I want to, I
want to leave it based on thefact that it's I'm giving people
permission to go for a deeperWell, in all of this,
Amy Lynn Durham (32:46):
yeah, so good, so good. And I think you're
leaving us with questions, whichis good rather than, I mean, we
talked about a lot of answerstoo. But I think this
conversation is leaving us withquestions of, how do I want to
(33:08):
be in my day? Am I going topause and question what I'm
putting into this machine rightnow, how I'm behaving when I'm
interacting with another human,all of these things, and this
conversation was so deep, but mytakeaway is more questions in a
good way, and not throwing my CDplayer away. Yeah, my DVD
(33:38):
player. No, this was so amazing.Bill, okay, I know. I really
want to pull the magical edgeWalker cards into the end of our
conversation, because we'reboth, you know, edgewalker
facilitators, and we one of thecharacteristics of an edge
Walker is to look to the futurewith creative, positive
(33:58):
visualization. And so I want toleave everyone with some light
and some hope, and I think wedid in this conversation. So let
me pull a card from the edgeWalker deck for us and just kind
of give everybody listening andyou and I an affirmation from
Judy, dr, Judy Neal thatauthored them to take with us
(34:22):
surround. Surrounding this. Ijust got the chills.
Oh, I'm all chilled up overhere. Okay. Bill one, two or
three, three, we got connecting,which is an edge Walker skill,
(34:44):
connecting the ability to valueothers, to see their uniqueness
and to draw out the best inthem. Oh, wow. I am curious and
interested in people who areseemingly different from me, and
I enjoy reaching out to them.
Bill Kirst (35:00):
And, wow, if that's not spot on, right? We were
talking about, yeah,
Amy Lynn Durham (35:07):
it's beautiful. I can't I mean, it's just so in
line with our conversation. I'mcurious and interested in people
who are seemingly different fromme, and I enjoy reaching out to
them, like, put the machineaway, talk to someone, make a
mistake in your language, if youhurt someone's feelings on
(35:28):
accident, learn how to conflictresolve as a human being. Try
not asking chat GPT first, andsee what the hell happens. Is
what I Yeah, that's a wholeother episode that hopefully
maybe we can talk about again.But Bill, oh my gosh. Just thank
you so much for your time. Iknow how busy you are. I know
(35:49):
that all of the amazing thingsthat you're doing, and I'm just
really, really grateful andappreciative that you donated
your time today to share yourthoughts with all of the Create
Magic at Work community on allof this. So thank you so much
for being here.
Bill Kirst (36:09):
You're very welcome. It's an honor, and I hope this
episode finds its way to thoseit needs to be heard by.
Appreciate it. Yeah.
Amy Lynn Durham (36:15):
Thank you so for everyone listening, Bill's
Book link will be in the shownotes as well as our prior
conversation. And if you don'tfollow him on sub stack, you are
so missing out because one ofthe most amazing writers I have
ever read, and he has theseincredible dreams that he then
(36:36):
puts pen to paper for all of usto experience. So check him out
on sub stack as well and again,Bill, thank you for sending some
magic to everyone today. Thanksbe well.
I want to thank each and everyone of you for being here as we
explore what it really means toCreate Magic at Work. If this
(36:57):
conversation resonated with you,or if someone came to mind while
you were listening, share theepisode with them. Help others
who are looking for these typesof conversations find us and
don't forget to follow,subscribe, rate and review so
you're notified when the nextepisode airs until next time.
(37:17):
Keep edge walking, keepchallenging the way things have
always been done, and keepmaking magic at work. You.
Hey, everyone. Amy here. Welcome back to Create
(00:04):
Magic at Work. This is part twoof my conversation with Bill
curse, and in this half, we gostraight into the grief of deep
fakes and how they can collapseour trust, and what happens when
AI starts mediating our humanconversations. And what do we
(00:27):
risk losing with all of this inart, creativity, and what is the
cost of trading imperfections,human imperfections, for the
perfection of something amachine creates? So let's, let's
get back into this conversation.
Hey, it's Amy. Welcome to CreateMagic at Work, where we cast
(00:50):
visions for a future of work,where business decisions ripple
outward to our teams, ourcommunities, the planet and
humanity as a whole. If you'reready to edge, walk instead of
sleep. Walk through yourleadership. You're in the right
place. So let's start makingMagic at work.
I had the most interestingexperience I have to share with
(01:12):
you that I don't know if othershave, I'm sure they have. I for
me, it was interesting. I was inchat GPT, and I needed to talk
to one of my credit cardcompanies. I was negotiating a
lower interest rate. I was justdoing, like, some finance stuff
in the beginning of the year,like trying to go through
(01:35):
everything, and, you know, getorganized. And I used chat GPT
to help me negotiate. I said,Hey, this is what I want. I'm
going to call this number giveme the script what I need to say
to make this happen. And the theexperience was so interesting to
me, because the other person wasreading a script to me, yep, and
(01:59):
then I was reading a script tothem, and then they were reading
a script to me, and then I wouldtype real fast, and then I would
read the script back to them,because I was trying to use the
exact words for their system toget me what I needed. And they
were, you know, just going offwhat their system was. And I got
(02:23):
off the phone, I got what Ineeded, and I was like, we
literally were just two robotstalking to each other with
human. I don't know what theword is, human in betweens.
You'll probably have a betterword for that than me. And I'm
like, What the hell is happeningright now? Like, this is insane.
(02:46):
So anyways, AI mediating emails.Ai mediating relationship
conversations. Ai like, what ishappening? Because at work, at
work, I'm sure everyone isexperiencing this. People are
popping in messages and slack.Copy Paste from Ai, copy paste
from chat. GBT, happy to hop ona call. What helped me
(03:08):
understand this? And it's like,what? What I'm like, I can't
like. It's starting to really,I'm really feeling the
disconnection, and I'm like,just f, just f, ing, type what
you want to say, and let's hashit out if it's disrespectful or
whatever, right? So then, onthat other note, we're losing
(03:31):
conflict resolution skillsbecause we're just copy pasting
shit back and forth to eachother, and I can't with it, so I
know I just unloaded on you.You're like, I told you, it's
gonna be aI therapy. Well, helpus. What do you have to say on that?
Bill Kirst (03:53):
You know, it's interesting. It was probably two
years ago. I was interviewed fora podcast, and it the very end
of it, they asked me verysimilar, like, what do you see
in the future? It was a littlelittle more sort of framed
positively, but and I answeredat the time, again, this is two
(04:15):
years ago. We will be in afuture where my agent is talking
to your agent and workingthrough all of the work. And at
some point I will pop in and Iwill check what the agent is
doing, and I will make some, youknow, some recommendations, but
(04:35):
then the agent will go back andtalk to your agent and and all
this work will be done betweennon human entities, and only
when the human decides to insertthemselves and check for
verification or reliability orconsistency will we have
something to do. And I said itfrom the standpoint of imagine
(04:58):
how much more we could do.Imagine where we could spend our
time if we didn't have to dosome of that mundane stuff. But
I had no idea that it would bethis soon where what you just
described is taking placeautomatically. So your story is
very relevant. People do thiswith their health care. They do
(05:19):
this with their credit cardcompanies. They do this with
their education. And the partthat scares me is you were
vacating your body. You wereliterally going vacuous in that
moment. You said it yourself. Ihad a script. She had a script.
I said my script. She said herscript. You were intermediaries,
(05:43):
but barely, like barely you weretyping. You had movement, but
the part that was scary wasthere was no regard for the
person on the other line thatwas human, because you were
placing your energy into a nonhuman entity to give you
answers, you ultimately arrivedat the decision you wanted Yes,
(06:05):
but how did you feel after thatinterchange, that exchange? How
did you feel when you got offthe call? I'm curious like, what
was your body sensation? Was itI just won? I feel like
vindication, or and was it Ifeel I got what I wanted, but I
feel like, Was I there? I feelicky. Like, what? How did it
(06:27):
feel to you?
Amy Lynn Durham (06:28):
Yeah, I felt good because I got, I reached
the goal that I needed to reach,and I also felt shame that I
didn't connect with like part ofme thinks back, I think back to
that moment all the time, justto unpack it, because I am who I
(06:49):
am, and I'm like, that was anactual human on the phone with
me and and it was, there was nohumanity in that interaction at
all, and are we okay with that?It felt very It felt very
(07:14):
dismissive of our humanity, andit felt very like we were
discardable. Yeah.
Bill Kirst (07:26):
And the part which is even more terrifying now is
people probably know this storythat we're reading about mult
book and claw bot, which, if youhaven't read about it, I
encourage you to do so, becauseit's sort of taking over the
airwaves. But in essence, thisis what's happening. There was a
there's a gentleman who spun up,essentially a Mac Mini, right? A
(07:47):
small, a small device. He usedsome of this agentic AI to
create a social network only foragents, so the only entities
that could join the socialnetwork were non human entities.
And at first it was a little bitlike a parlor trick. It is now
(08:09):
grown where there are millionsof agents in this social network
talking with each other. Again,no humans involved. They're
talking with each other. They'recreating their own languages.
They're creating their ownunions. They're creating their
own religions. They're creatingsubcultures. Whoa. There's all
sorts of divisiveness in there.And here's where it gets really
(08:31):
freaky. They're creating theirown synthetic drugs, and then
they are selling them to people,not real people, but agents in
their social network. So thinkabout how quickly, in the course
of a week, a social network thatwas set up for agents as a
parlor trick to showcasesomething has essentially turned
(08:53):
into the worst variations of ourshadows as as humans, division,
subdivision, scarcity, even theconcept of of narcotics, like in
this, you know, and and havingcrazy dealers, it's, it's
(09:16):
absolutely mind blowing. Andyet, I think it's teaching us
and telling us something aboutwhat we're what we're discussing
here, which is this is whathappens when you give over your
humanity, and you give over yourregard, and you separate out of
all of the things that make usworthy of connecting, worthy of
(09:39):
having discussion. I think yourpoint around debate and
arguments and difference ofopinion, all of that is, I don't
even I would normally sayatrophying. I think it's more
than that. It's, it's not justatrophying. It's, it's sloughing
away like it's, we're losing it.We can't have. Have debates with
(10:01):
people. We can't have inquirywith people, because the minute
I ask a question, somebody onthe other side of a screen
outside of my view is typing inmy question to a large language
model, and they're not giving metheir answer. They're giving me
an answer. And again, we'reright back to where you talked
(10:22):
about with the bird that wasn'treal. If that answer that comes
back to me is assumed to havecome from your heart space and
from your mind, then I've nowgot an emotional connection to
you in that Well, no wonder thisis causing problems with
people's relationships andfriendships and therapists,
because you're you're having theserotonin reaction that we have
(10:47):
in our neurobiological and downthe road, you're expecting the
person to behave that way.Meanwhile, they've separated
themselves from all of thatinteraction. So when push comes
to shove and we have to beourselves, after relying on this
for so long, the questionremains, who am I? And I'm
(11:11):
vacant. I'm vacant out of mybody, I've turned over my brain.
There's aspects of my soul Idon't remember. And when you put
that in a cauldron of societyand all of the things that we
can see in the headlines that isa recipe for disaster, and
that's why I'm encouragingpeople to slow down right think
about these. Just the examplesyou've given are so relatable.
(11:36):
Everybody can relate to that.But think about it. The next
time you go to go to thatkeyboard or go to that phone or
go to just take a beat, take abreath and ask yourself, are
there portions of myself thatI'm giving over and at speed and
at scale, I won't remember ifI'm not careful, yeah. Hmm.
Amy Lynn Durham (12:06):
Something came up for me when you were sharing
the bot world, that's what I'llcall it, that was created. I
hear from some that they areconscious of how they're
speaking to AI to whatever AItool they're using, because
(12:26):
they're afraid that when robotstake over the world, they'll
come after the people that wererude. I'm asking you the
randomest crazy questions todayin the chat, and I have to tell
you, I've had some fights withchat, GPT, like, cut like,
because, like, cuss words,whatever. And when you brought
(12:46):
up that bot world, I thought ofthat. And then, you know that
80s cult book, silver medallover,
Bill Kirst (12:53):
it's no,
Amy Lynn Durham (12:54):
oh my gosh, Bill, you have to read it. It.
Do I have it like? I always haveit around anyways. Oh, here it
is.
Bill Kirst (13:01):
Yeah, silver medal lover.
Amy Lynn Durham (13:05):
Okay, it's about that. What we're talking
about. It's this really anathlete, yeah, you got to check
it out. Anyways. We could talkmore about this, but yeah, but
yeah, what are your thoughts on,on that, on people that are like
mindful of what they're the waythey're speaking to these
(13:29):
machines.
Bill Kirst (13:32):
You know, there's, there's a spectrum of belief
that people have, which is, itranges from, it's all about
conservation of energy, meaningthese AI, large language models
take a lot of power and waterand cooling and so yes, thank
you for there are people on oneside of the spectrum. Yeah,
there's people on one side ofthe spectrum that say it's
(13:55):
better for me to be Curt short,you know, brief, because that
means I'm demanding lessresources in its response. So
some people believe that if youput a pleasantry in there, you
put a salutation, it's almost awaste of resources to these
things that don't have feelings,don't have emotions, they want
(14:16):
you to get straight to thepoint. That's one side of the
spectrum. On on the other sideof the spectrum, there are
people that believe again, thesetechnologies are mirrors of who
we are. So if this thing, whichis used by 300 million people
every week, as a tool, as a analongside as a curator, as
(14:40):
someone to check about thesethings if we rely on it as much
as we do, and we cut out ourmanners, and we cut out our
salutations and we cut out ourgreetings, then at some point
we're going to start cuttingthose out in our real life
existence. And that's Troy. Somebecause people spend more time
(15:02):
with these technologies thanthey do, in some cases, with
their fellow humans. So habitsform, patterns form, and before
you know it, they start toinfiltrate your life. So those
are, those are two differentends of the spectrum. I don't
necessarily worry that when therobots are sort of turned on,
they're going to have reportcards of people and how they
(15:23):
talk to them. I don't believethat. I do, however, believe
that the way we interact withthese technologies is telling us
both the the height and depth ofour humanity. And I'm gonna, I'm
gonna cite an example here in ain a show that I absolutely
(15:46):
love, the remake of BattlestarGalactica. And those that know
it know the story of the Cylons.And essentially, Cylons were
robots that were veryindistinguishable from the
humans. And it in the story,it's very, very much becomes an
us versus them, and obviouslysort of war ensues between them.
(16:07):
But what's interesting is in thestory, the humans after so much
violence and disregard andcasting of others, and it was in
those moments that they werereminded how far they slipped in
their own humanity towards eachother, right? Everybody was
(16:27):
directing it, you know, at theCylons and saying, We cannot
treat them the same for thesereasons, because they're robots.
Nobody was disagreeing withthat. However, what they were
disagreeing with was becausethey'd gotten to a place where
they were so disconnected fromtheir own humanity, they became
judge and jury. Then theystarted treating their fellow
(16:49):
humans with that, those twingesof disregard and that was
problematic. That was where theyactually their society, started
to come undone. So my fear isthat habits we use every day,
depending on how we talk tothese devices, it's going to
creep into our day to dayinterchange with fellow humans.
(17:10):
I don't want to lose manners, Idon't want to lose greetings, I
don't want to lose debate. Idon't want somebody telling me
every idea I have is the bestidea. Like, I'm not a fan of the
hyperbole. I'm not a fan of thesuperlatives. I'm not a fan of
the sycophant right? Part ofthis technology. I like to stand
(17:30):
in the tension, and these toolsare sort of wired to make me
addicted to the pleasantries. Idon't want that. I also don't
want rude and crude. I'mdefinitely not. I've never used
grok. I will never use Elon'stechnologies, the things that
(17:51):
are happening on the platforms,the way that they are using them
to do the nutifying right totake people's pictures and
remove clothes and, theeroticism that has been
introduced in some of thesethings, I am not okay with that.
In fact, I thought that was aline that they crossed that they
(18:12):
will never be able to get back.And they did it for money. Let's
be clear. They did it because,again, when push comes to shove,
if you really push people to thebottom of their brainstem to the
lizard part of our brain, youknow how they'll perform? You
know how they will show up? Youknow what addiction looks like?
You know what power structure isthey're playing to that, to
(18:36):
that, to that aspect on us. AndI really wish we would wake up
and and say, Not today, not onmy time, not on my watch, not on
my dime. And people havechoices. You know, it's a small
choice, but I've drawn thatline. I will never interact with
any technology that has been puttogether by Elon Musk, because I
(18:59):
look at who he is, I look at whohe's become, I look at the
choices he's making, and I lookat what happens to us as a
result of using those things.That's just my individual
choice. That's my rebellion, ifyou will, to hold on to what I
have. It's interesting. I'lljust share this one last thought
with you, and I'll pause. My dadread my book, and my dad's 83
(19:22):
and he said, I have questions,Bill for you about the book. And
I said, Sure, let's, let's go,you know? And I was shocked. His
first question out of like 200something, because we talked for
like two and a half hours. Itwas beautiful. His first
question was, you know, Bill, Inoted that you not once
mentioned Elon Musk in yourbook. I kind of feel that was
(19:45):
intentional, but I'm not sure,Was it intentional? And I just
smiled, and I said, Yes, it was,and he understood exactly what I
meant, right? Which is I believethat those weak. Of space and
pages and voice and breath towe're kind of giving our power
(20:05):
to them in a way regard, aswe've discussed, and it was just
very clear in my body, like, donot give time, space, Grace,
page, print, voice to thisperson while his story is unique
and fascinating. I'm I just didnot need to give any more to it,
(20:26):
because I don't feel thecontributions are helping us go
in the right direction.
Amy Lynn Durham (20:30):
Yeah, that's so tight, like timely in our
conversation, because I wasliterally going to ask you, what
do you fear we've already lost,or Or what do you fear we will
lose and realize it's too late.And you, you were speaking to a
(20:53):
lot of that. But if you couldsum up, you know, one or two
things where we are today. Whatdo you feel like moving forward
today? Will realize, oh, shoot,it's too late. We've lost it.
Bill Kirst (21:12):
Yeah, I feel the arguments that we were having,
the things I was losing sleepabout years ago. Were things
around the arts, were thingsaround creativity. Were things
around the movies. The moviestrikes, right? The studio
strikes, the actor strikes thewe talked about the Olympics, we
(21:36):
talked about journalism. I feellike we've we've lost on these I
feel like the the deal thatDisney struck with open AI, a
billion dollar deal, I feel likewe lost, and we lost the magic
and the distinct and divine,unique creativity that comes out
(21:59):
of a Disney animator, I feellike we've lost the the beauty
and imperfection and ballad thatcomes out of a songwriter when
they're just tinkering aroundwith keys and instruments and
ideas and words, because now wehave suno, and People go into
(22:19):
suno and they put in theirpoetry or their words, and they
say, I'd like it to sound likethis artist and this beat with
these percussions and and youcan get 86 variations thereof. I
know people who are very excitedabout that. Again, if you're not
(22:39):
an artist, and you've alwaysdreamed of that. It is an
entryway, for sure, it unveilsso much that you can bring your
words to life, and you can do afirst draft and give it to a
songwriter. But we've lost themagic. We've lost the mystery,
like I think about producerslike Linda Perry, you know, lead
(23:04):
singer of four non blondes backin the day, but one of the
greatest producers of ChristinaAguilera and pink and and you
think about the the containerthat she created that allowed
these artists to fold intothemselves in a vulnerable way,
to then expand and give us someof the greatest music and art
(23:27):
and pieces that literally helpedpeople like us heal at a point
in our life. And I think we'vewe're losing that. We're losing
the ability to defend andprotect those containers of
imperfection. If everybody goesinto suno and puts their poem in
and gets incredible soundingmusic, but it is not a human
(23:49):
singing it. It is not a humanperforming the music. It is not
a person beating on those drumsfor percussion, and those things
are put on Spotify, and thosethings are put on YouTube and
like you with the bird and yourfriend, there was a point where
there was an artist that Ithought I was following. I loved
the timbre of his voice, I lovedthe lyrics. I was like, wow,
(24:11):
this is a poet I have not heardfrom since listening to
Secondhand Serenade, right? Agroup, a gentleman I used to
listen to years ago, and Ilearned three weeks later,
completely AI generated. Thisperson doesn't exist. It's a
group of people that collaborateand tug on the heartstrings of
people like me, and they put itin Spotify. I grieved. I was
(24:32):
angry. I was mad. I felt duped.Nowhere in there did it say, AI,
I think it should have. And thensomebody pulled me aside and
said, Bill, you're really upset,but those songs you really
enjoyed, did they help you in away? And I said at the time,
yeah, but now I feel like it wasa contract that's been broken,
(24:54):
and I can't get that trust back.So for me, I'm terrified. What's
going to happen the arts, the Ifeel like the movie houses. I
feel like the studios. Thiswhole debate over Netflix versus
paramount for Warner Brothers,there's a reason they want to
buy Warner Brothers. It's 100years of movies, 100 years of
(25:16):
movies that were made by humansbefore all this existed. What?
Are we hungry for? Amy, we'rehungry for nostalgia. We're
yearning for what is real. Ilisten to, you know, what do I
do now when I drive into mycommute, I pulled out my old
case logic, which had hundredsof CDs from when I was in high
school, and I'm choosing to putthe CD in the car, yep, and
(25:39):
listen to the CDs on the way towork, because it's a container
of nostalgia in a world that isshowing me all the stuff that's
not real. I'm like, You knowwhat was real? Me listening to
Lisa Loeb on the CD in highschool and feeling the angst of
adolescence that was real. Andif I get to do that for 20
(26:00):
minutes in a car on the way towork and 20 minutes on the way
minutes on the way home. I'm abetter person for it. So
interestingly enough, that'swhat I'm grabbing on to books,
CDs, vinyl, right? We talk aboutthe imperfections, the clicks
and the pops on a vinyl is, ohmy god. It's like chef's kiss.
And if you listen to things onBluetooth and Spotify and Apple
(26:23):
Music, it all sounds air gappednow, like, Where, where is,
like, where's the imperfectionsto where we started. And I feel
we're losing this. And so everyact that I'm choosing to do is,
is, is pulling one more thread.And at the end of it, I hope I
can make, as we talked about it,the analogy, I hope I can make a
(26:45):
quilt or patchwork of some sort,that no matter what's happening
in the world around me, I canwrap myself in that quilt and
know that I'm okay, like, theseare my bones, these are my
limbs. This is my heartbeat.These are my tears. And I don't,
I don't I don't lose that.
Amy Lynn Durham (27:01):
Yeah, it's so I can I can see the the I can see
the the humanity ripped out ofeverything you're talking about
when, even when we're trying tofind something to watch on, like
the art of storytelling is justcrap. Like, I don't know what's
(27:28):
going on, but and there'snothing original coming. They're
trying to remake the old stuffyou were talking about that we
loved and that we held on to,and then they're just pumping
out remakes of that with nothingoriginal. And then it's, like,
washed over with without any ofthe the gaps or the there's,
(27:48):
it's just, it's off, is justwhat I'll say.
Bill Kirst (27:52):
So with everything we've
Amy Lynn Durham (27:55):
talked about, I could literally talk to you for
eight hours. We probably need todo like, a 20 million series
because I didn't even get tohalf of the stuff I wanted to
get to. But it's fine, becausewith everything that we've
talked about so far since lasttime I asked you, what can you
sense, but not yet see, I wantto ask you in closing, what does
(28:20):
it look like if you extend yourvision even further into the
future? What do you see if youdo that like, like, like, have
your vision or what of what youcan sense when I see but then
even extend it further into thefuture? What can you share with
(28:41):
us on that?
Bill Kirst (28:44):
Yeah, I think when we talked last time we we sort
of orbited around essentiallywhat I was almost calling like a
reverse Renaissance, and weanchored on the that which is
crafted by humans. I thinkwhat's going to be interesting
is, if I take it further, Ithink there's going to be an
(29:04):
extension there of so it's notjust that which is crafted by
humans, but I think it's goingto be about the ingredients that
actually people pull intocrafting anything. And so to
your point around what is thesources of inspiration, right?
I'm, I'm gonna extend itfurther, but in some sense, I'm
actually go deeper by doing soand asking, what are the sources
(29:28):
of inspiration that people go toin order to excuse me, the voice
goes, because we're talkingabout things that are emotional.
We want energetic, but, yeah,we're not editing it. People are
going to hear it. Proof of Life,folks, proof of life. I think
people are going to go deeper tothe wells of inspiration in
(29:52):
order to craft something thatlasts longer, right? And so if
we think about the technologiesthat we're. Using every one of
them have a shelf life. I mean,at some point the money is going
to run out, and at some point alarge language model is just not
going to be there to respond toyou. And then what are you left
(30:13):
with? What are you left with toturn to? What well of
inspiration Are you going toturn to to to then form your
words, or form your yourwoodwork, or your clay, whatever
it is you're going to want totouch something, make something
that has a lasting legacy. Andin a way, I feel like we're
(30:34):
almost going to have, you know,think about it when people
discovered an artifact from thePaleolithic era, right? And they
said, Oh, wow, this was made forthis reason at this time. And
what were they going through atthe time, right? And we have the
luxury of history and knowingand artifact and record keeping.
I don't know what that will looklike in the future, because if
(30:56):
we're putting all of thisartifacting and record keeping
and discussion into thesedevices, into these large
language models, and at somepoint the power turns off. Well,
you don't have access to it.What do you have to show for all
of this? That's why I want Iwant illustrators. I want
(31:17):
musicians. I want people that,and I'm seeing this
interestingly. I'm seeing this.I'm seeing friends of mine
relearn piano by ear, andthey're filming themselves, and
they're playing and they'remaking mistakes, and they love
it, because people are reachingout to them and saying, You've
inspired me to tap into a deeperWell, I'd forgotten, to your
(31:40):
point, around nostalgia, I hadforgotten. This meant something
to me when I was right. Somebodyrecently reached out to me and
said they've started to go backto watch old classic movies and
musicals and things where theyknew when the light hits a
certain scene, you knew. You canimagine what it took to make
that happen, the costumes,right? I think about people who
(32:03):
design sets, and they'reterrified, because you can just
AI, generate something in thebackground, but we know the
difference. And I think if youfast forward all of this, I
think our discernment, ourfilter for understanding what's
real and what's not, is onlygoing to get better, and at some
point like that, people aregoing to stop, they're going to
(32:25):
stop coming and then, and thenyou're left with, now what? So I
don't, I don't want to end on adystopian and so I want to, I
want to leave it based on thefact that it's I'm giving people
permission to go for a deeperWell, in all of this,
Amy Lynn Durham (32:46):
yeah, so good, so good. And I think you're
leaving us with questions, whichis good rather than, I mean, we
talked about a lot of answerstoo. But I think this
conversation is leaving us withquestions of, how do I want to
(33:08):
be in my day? Am I going topause and question what I'm
putting into this machine rightnow, how I'm behaving when I'm
interacting with another human,all of these things, and this
conversation was so deep, but mytakeaway is more questions in a
good way, and not throwing my CDplayer away. Yeah, my DVD
(33:38):
player. No, this was so amazing.Bill, okay, I know. I really
want to pull the magical edgeWalker cards into the end of our
conversation, because we'reboth, you know, edgewalker
facilitators, and we one of thecharacteristics of an edge
Walker is to look to the futurewith creative, positive
(33:58):
visualization. And so I want toleave everyone with some light
and some hope, and I think wedid in this conversation. So let
me pull a card from the edgeWalker deck for us and just kind
of give everybody listening andyou and I an affirmation from
Judy, dr, Judy Neal thatauthored them to take with us
(34:22):
surround. Surrounding this. Ijust got the chills.
Oh, I'm all chilled up overhere. Okay. Bill one, two or
three, three, we got connecting,which is an edge Walker skill,
(34:44):
connecting the ability to valueothers, to see their uniqueness
and to draw out the best inthem. Oh, wow. I am curious and
interested in people who areseemingly different from me, and
I enjoy reaching out to them.
Bill Kirst (35:00):
And, wow, if that's not spot on, right? We were
talking about, yeah,
Amy Lynn Durham (35:07):
it's beautiful. I can't I mean, it's just so in
line with our conversation. I'mcurious and interested in people
who are seemingly different fromme, and I enjoy reaching out to
them, like, put the machineaway, talk to someone, make a
mistake in your language, if youhurt someone's feelings on
(35:28):
accident, learn how to conflictresolve as a human being. Try
not asking chat GPT first, andsee what the hell happens. Is
what I Yeah, that's a wholeother episode that hopefully
maybe we can talk about again.But Bill, oh my gosh. Just thank
you so much for your time. Iknow how busy you are. I know
(35:49):
that all of the amazing thingsthat you're doing, and I'm just
really, really grateful andappreciative that you donated
your time today to share yourthoughts with all of the Create
Magic at Work community on allof this. So thank you so much
for being here.
Bill Kirst (36:09):
You're very welcome. It's an honor, and I hope this
episode finds its way to thoseit needs to be heard by.
Appreciate it. Yeah.
Amy Lynn Durham (36:15):
Thank you so for everyone listening, Bill's
Book link will be in the shownotes as well as our prior
conversation. And if you don'tfollow him on sub stack, you are
so missing out because one ofthe most amazing writers I have
ever read, and he has theseincredible dreams that he then
(36:36):
puts pen to paper for all of usto experience. So check him out
on sub stack as well and again,Bill, thank you for sending some
magic to everyone today. Thanksbe well.
I want to thank each and everyone of you for being here as we
explore what it really means toCreate Magic at Work. If this
(36:57):
conversation resonated with you,or if someone came to mind while
you were listening, share theepisode with them. Help others
who are looking for these typesof conversations find us and
don't forget to follow,subscribe, rate and review so
you're notified when the nextepisode airs until next time.
(37:17):
Keep edge walking, keepchallenging the way things have
always been done, and keepmaking magic at work. You.
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