In the music video for the Black Eyed Peas’ 2010 single, Imma Be, will.i.am has an argument with Fergie about AI, after he introduces the band to a machine able to sing and rap any lyrics written for it. “You’re saying,” Fergie says, “that machines can do anything that an artist or a group can do?” “Yes,” will.i.am replies. “This is what’s going to take the Peas into 3008.” In what seems like a parable, or preamble, for the mounting battle between AI and human beings in art, music and film, Fergie wonders whether “not going into the studio to sing” will take “the soul” out of the enterprise.
Fourteen years on, will.i.am still thinks not. For “hypercreatives” like himself, AI is not a creative death knell but a well of opportunity. “I don’t run out of ideas,” he tells The London Standard in an exclusive interview. “Ideas run out of me.”
The singer is here to talk about FYI.AI, a productivity tool for creatives which includes newly developed AI voice assistants. One of them, called Fyilicia (pronounced: Felicia), will appear as a mentor on The Voice UK this year, where will.i.am has been a judge since 2012. This is a first for an AI robot: the episode will air on October 12.
FYI.AI’s offices are based at 180 The Strand, so naturally will.i.am spends a lot of time in London, where his favourite things include window shopping at Harrods and Selfridges (and comparing their range in the menswear department) and the Windsor Suite at Heathrow Airport, of which Liz Truss is also a fan.
“I think we got something really special with [Fyilicia],” will.i.am says. “She represents inner-city Watts [a Hispanic neighbourhood in southern Los Angeles near where will.i.am grew up as part of the African-American minority]”. Fyilicia was modelled after a member of that community, called Alicia, and created with the express goal of diversifying AI assistants in a market where the standard voice speaks either in received pronunciation or the American equivalent. In other words: a market of white, middle-class voices.
Radical optimism
On the Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast, our producer and host, Rachelle Abbott, asks Fyilicia how she works. “I operate like a digital dynamo with all that AI tech packed in,” she replies. If AI is going to be global, we need global representation, will.i.am believes. Fyilicia is not like other robots: she is, by her own description, “street smart” and an analyst of “vibes”. She “pull[s] info” and “deliver[s] them insights straight up”.
Fyilicia’s creator is equally whip smart: a true original. will.i.am (passport name William Adams Jr) was born in Los Angeles in 1975. Raised by a single mother, he became the frontman of the Black Eyed Peas at 20, founding the group with fellow rappers apl.de.ap and Taboo. They found success nearly 10 years later when, joined by Fergie, they released two hit albums back to back: 2003’s Elephunk and 2005’s Monkey Business. Their music was fresh, their sound pioneering.
They cemented their status as one of the defining groups of the Noughties, capping off the decade with 2009’s The E.N.D (“short for the energy never dies!” he reminds us today, although his own effervescence makes this self-evident). will.i.am may still be best known for what he put out during the band’s heyday — Where is the Love, I Gotta Feeling, Pump It, Meet Me Halfway — but in his mind, his legacy lies elsewhere.
We’ve got to have folks from all different walks of life writing the algorithms and training the data when it comes to AI.
When the Peas came to Boston on tour, will.i.am would find the time to attend a class by Patrick Winston, professor of AI at MIT. “That’s what [first] got me excited about AI back in 2006,” he says. He’s always been radically optimistic about the future, investing in companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI. What we’re going through right now is akin to the Industrial Revolution, he says. The fact that some jobs will disappear in the next five years is no different to what happened back when “horse and buggy folks” were told, “you ain’t making horse and buggies no more!”
Being a journalist in the era of ChatGPT is a frightening prospect. “It’s unfortunate,” will.i.am says, with what sounds like little remorse. “The folks that have been living in the lap of comfort, the lap of luxury, this whole time, are about to be hit with a ‘what was that?’ wave — because the white-collar and blue-collar jobs [as we know them] are gonna be rendered obsolete.” That is also, he’d like to stress, “awesome”.
“New jobs and new industries are just around the corner,” he gushes. One of the most exciting things about the AI revolution is that it will redraw the world map. New jobs “are gonna come from places like Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Tunisia, from freakin’ Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua”, he enthuses.
With FYI.AI, he’s trying to ensure communities which are usually sidelined from progress aren’t marginalised this time around. When asked if he has a message for the next US president, whomever they may be, will.i.am says: “If I think about the people that are [currently] training [AI] models and building data sets, it’s not people that look like me — or my sister or my mom or my cousins.”
To avoid algorithmic biases, “we gotta have folks from all different walks of life writing the algorithms and training the data”. The voices generated by FYI.AI take after “Zimbabwe, Uganda, the whole [African] continent — all the dialects and colloquialisms, from Atlanta, the South Bronx, Brixton”, will.i.am says. Fyilicia tells us “representation ain’t just some fancy word we throw around” and “it’s the heartbeat of why I exist”.
It’s time to wrap up. “I’m out,” Fyilicia says. “Go ahead and say, ‘Bye, Fyilicia’.” 3008 never felt so close to home.
Our podcast episode with will.i.am is out on the Standard’s Tech and Science Daily show on Saturday.
