In this episode (206), we dive deep into the world of AI and its impact on creativity, art, and various industries. I'm joined by my guest, Frank Pendergast, one half of the talented digital marketing duo, Frank and Marcy. Together, we explore the potential of AI, discuss its role in democratising creativity, and address the concerns and possibilities surrounding its implementation. So, grab a cup of coffee and get ready to explore the fascinating world of AI with us!

Here's a breakdown of what we covered in this episode:

• Introduction to the big giveaway happening soon, featuring amazing prizes like a high PR 40 microphone and a year's subscription to Agorapulse, Ecamm Live, and Restream.
• Getting to know Frank Pendergast and his journey into the realm of AI, inspired by an AI image generator called Mid Journey.
• The power of AI in expanding creativity and making it more accessible to everyone, while still valuing the unique touch of human artistry.
• Exploring the ethical implications and future possibilities of AI, including potential job replacements and the need for government regulation.
• Recommended AI tools such as Mid Journey for stunning AI-generated illustrations, ChatGPT for chatbot automation, and D-ID and Descript for transcription and video editing.
• The importance of understanding AI, staying ahead of its advancements, and finding a balance between AI-generated and human-created art.
• The need for equitable distribution of wealth and ethical considerations in the commercialisation of AI.
• Concluding with an invitation to connect with Frank on LinkedIn and a reminder to check out the most amazing marketing book ever.

Join me on this thought-provoking journey into the world of AI and its impact on creativity. Don't forget to subscribe to the Confident Live Marketing Show and level up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of Confident Live video. 

See you in the next episode!

Show Notes

iag.me/206

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The Confident Live Marketing Show

The Confident Live Marketing Show is a weekly live video show and podcast. It’s aimed at established entrepreneurs who want to level up their impact, authority and profits through the power of live video, webinars and podcasts. We’ll focus on knocking down the 3 main barriers these entrepreneurs face when creating live content - camera confidence/mindset, tech/gear and content marketing.

It’s hosted by Ian Anderson Gray. He is the founder of the Confident Live Marketing Academy and is the host of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast. He helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. He’s founder of Seriously Social - a blog focused on live video and social media tools. He’s an international speaker, trainer, teacher and consultant. He has a passion for making the techno-babble of live video and social media marketing easy to understand. As well as being a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, Ian is also a professional singer and lives near Manchester in the UK.

Welcome to the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson

Gray, helping you level up your impact, authority, and profits through

the power of Confident Live video.

Optimize your mindset and.

Communication and increase your confidence in front of the camera.

Get confident with the tech and gear and get confident with the content and

marketing together we can get live.

hello.

Welcome to the Confident Live Marketing Show.

My name's Ian Anderson Gray, and this is episode 206.

First of all, the deadline is approaching for the big giveaway.

Go to Confident Live.

Forward slash giveaway.

There are so many cool things, such as a high PR 40 microphone like this,

although you can choose the color.

We've got a whole year subscription to Agora Pulse, eComm Live Restream.

We've got copy of the most amazing marketing book ever.

You have a consult free 90 minute consultation with me.

And so much more.

I'm exhausted just going through all of that.

It's to celebrate episode 200 and the fourth anniversary of this podcast.

I do go to Confident Live slash giveaway.

a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of inviting a new friend of mine,

Frank Pendergast, onto the show.

we were delving into, authenticity, into success, into, how we I suppose how we are

online, how do we, put ourselves forward?

do we put our whole selves and we're getting quite deep.

in today's episode, we are going to be talking about ai, because Frank

has been going down quite a few rabbit holes, but really helpful

rabbit holes, in the realms of.

Ai.

yeah, just if you haven't heard of Frank, I'll just, introduce him again.

He is one half of husband and wife team, Frank and Marcy Award-winning

digital marketers who help solopreneurs and business, small businesses grow

online and rise above the blah.

Frank is also the owner of the most talked about mustache in the marketing world.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn and at Frank and Marcy Dots come.

Welcome to the show, Frank,

the applause.

Thank you.

Good.

Be back.

It requires multitasking, as the crowds die down in, into the distance.

thank you Frank for coming onto the show again.

we're talking, I want to talk, get stuck into AI because that was actually

gonna be the main topic of this podcast.

And then I decided, actually let's split it into two cuz we've got

so many different things to talk about and I am trying to make these

episodes a little bit shorter.

so we talked about this a few weeks ago, that we are.

Some of the authors of the 36 of us, I think.

Is that right?

Have I got that right?

36 authors.

Yeah.

36 and the most, yeah, most amazing marketing book ever.

over 10 countries.

We're all from, I think we're representatives from 10 countries, and

350 ideas over 750 years of marketing, combined marketing experience.

Have I got all the stats right?

Frank?

I think I've, that

all sounds, that all sounds absolutely

correct.

Oh, that's good.

I've got, and it's been amazing to be part of this.

This is a collaborative, Effort really, headed up by Mark Shaffer.

now the front cover of this is really interesting because it is AI

generated or partly AI generated, and we've got you to thank for that.

So I'd love to, we, a few weeks ago we talked about.

That you tend to go down rabbit holes, and that's not always a good thing,

but sometimes it is a good thing.

And I would suggest to you that ai, the AI rabbit hole has absolutely

been a fantastic thing for you.

Tell us how you got into ai.

it was, God, I'm trying to remember when it was.

I can't remember.

But, a friend of mine sent me a text, I think, and just said,

have you heard of Mid Journey?

And I was like, what?

No, I haven't.

what is he talking about?

and he said it's, an AI image generator.

And he started sending me some images that he was creating.

And the one that sticks in my mind was like, he sent me, cause we're

both comic fans and he sent me, an AI image of Civil War era Batman.

And he said, this AI.

Generator created this from scratch.

I just typed in Civil Warrior Batman.

This came back and I just thought, wow, this is amazing.

At the time it was invite only, he had an invite.

so I, I got on there and I started playing around with it and was just blown away.

Was just, I was putting in things like David Byrne doing ballet on

stage with his pet pig observing.

and it would come back with something that, you know,

pretty, that looked like that.

and so that was kind, that was essentially how I got into it.

And I just, I started playing with it.

And, you had a certain amount of images free.

I tore through those free images, then you could pay a nominal amount

to get a couple of images monthly or whatever tore through them.

I upped my plan, tore through them, and then I found I was on like the,

the kind of maximum personal plan.

And then I went, okay, I'm spending money on this thing and I'm just playing.

All I'm doing is just creating images in amazement at what it can do.

But if I'm spending money on this, I really need to figure out,

what can you actually use it for?

and so what I started doing then was, could I use it?

At the time I was, I had just committed to, to writing a monthly blog post and

I was really struggling to, to come up with imagery for the blog posts.

Cause I was writing about things like, personal branding or defining

your values or, marketing stuff that.

Doesn't have stock imagery that is interesting enough to

illustrate a blog post with, sure.

If you want, if you want a couple of guys in suits looking like they're sitting

around discussing values, you're golden.

But that's not what I wanted.

And so I was doing these, I was trying to create these typographic

images in Photoshop and quite honestly, They weren't great because

they were taking too long to do.

I had, I only had one image at the top of the post, and frequently I wasn't a

hundred percent happy with it because I didn't have the time to spend to

get it to where I wanted it to be.

and so I thought, okay, what if I could do this with Mid Journey?

And so I started exploring could I get it to do abstracty illustrations

that would make sense for the posts.

so that's how I, that's how I first got into it.

Really interesting.

We've all got these stories of how we got into ai, I think.

And I think for me, so it's interesting cuz obviously you you

have an artist, artist background and it's very much how you probably

think, whereas I think I started with chat G P T and I was looking at it.

So I actually, cuz I, I.

Do a lot of, website work and WordPress stuff and sometimes I get asked to

by a client to do something quite technical and I've actually found chat.

G p t is amazing at coding, so I don't have to be an amazing hardcore coder.

I can actually get chat, gp, PT to help with that.

It's just an amazing time to live, isn't it?

So you can be.

You can be an all right artist and get mids mid journey to help you.

And you can be a kind of a, an average coder and get chat g p t to help you.

So some people might be saying at this point, this is a bit of a,

this is also a bit of a scary time because, okay, this is cool, but what

about the actual artists out there?

What about the actual coders out there?

What about the actual writers out there?

what would you say to people about this?

Cuz there's a lot of doom mon, do doom and gloom about this and the fact

that we're all gonna lose our jobs and we're gonna have, what's it called?

Skynet or whatever it is.

yeah.

and all that kinda stuff.

Yeah.

So what would you say to

people about that?

Yeah.

Oh, I would say, that, what I'm trying to do.

I understand that fear, and I don't think that it's, I don't

think it's an irrational fear.

I think it's, I think it's a very real fear.

But like everything in life, we can't let that fear rule us.

so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to explore ai, understand it as best I

can understand what it can do for me.

understand where it can help me in my job and understand where

it might replace me in my job.

and I'm also, I will admit, I'm like, I'm reading a book.

I've now, I've been reading it since the start of the year because it's a

heavy read and it's not an, it's not an easy read, but I've been reading a book,

called Super Intelligence by Nick Bostrom.

And that is about, he wrote it, I think maybe 2019.

or yeah, or even earlier, a very long time ago in AI terms.

but it's about the issues with trying to create, artificial general intelligence,

which then could lead to artificial super intelligence, which then could

lead to the destruction of mankind.

So I think that it is worth being aware of the potential issues.

but I also think it's really important, particularly there are certain jobs like

marketing that, AI is already replacing certain activities and, I'm talking to

people who are saying they feel like their work is drying up as a result of ai.

So it, it is a fear.

And we just have to try to figure out how we can, what I think I, I've

put it before as like I'm trying to embrace AI and outsmart it as

best I can or stay ahead of it.

As best for now.

Yeah.

So it's so interesting.

I think we ha had to get that out the way cuz I, I'm very, yes, there are some

negatives and yes, there is fear here, but there's also a lot of positives.

but sometimes we have to just let's just.

Name the fear, let's just get it out there.

Let's, and then let's say, look, we're all in the same situation.

We all have to look at it in a positive way.

How can this actually help, my, the kind of the boring stuff maybe

in our businesses and okay, it might replace some aspects of me.

that's a downer, but there's gonna be new opportunities here.

And one of the things that we, we were talking the other day and, About ai and

one of the things that really interested me about what you were talking about is

when it comes to creativity and be, and actually allowing you to be more human.

so how can AI makers more human?

And I think one of the things that you were saying to me was that

it can democratize creativity.

So maybe expand on that a

little bit.

Yeah, so this is a conversation that I have with people a lot where

people say to me, AI is not creative.

And I don't agree with that statement.

but I also think that, maybe you define creativity be because I think

everyone, creativity is not something that is like concretely defined.

So maybe you define creativity in a way that currently excludes ai.

But I heard someone say recently, this is the dumbest version of AI that you will

ever use because technology is advancing, computational power is advancing.

AI is just going to get smarter and smarter.

and so I 100% believe that even if AI is excluded from your definition of

creativity, now it's going to advance.

And you are not gonna be able to exclude it from that definition of creativity.

It is going to be creative.

But what I find really interesting is, I went to art college and when I was a

kid, all I wanted to be was an artist.

Now I'm a digital marketer.

I never really found my artistic medium.

And I think that one of the reasons I didn't was because I.

I have this, I have this desire for immediacy, so oil painting.

Laborious slow.

You have to wait for layers to dry, come back, apply another layer,

screen printing, love the output.

But all those processes, you've gotta go through all these

chemical processes to get there.

Same with photography.

I love taking, I love digital photography now, but when I was in

art college, it was film photography, so I loved taking the photographs.

I loved having the end result, but I did not enjoy being in the dark

room, going from, again, chemical bed to chemical bed, putting the.

Photos in each one in turn.

And, so my kind of my, artistic style ended up, in college being

these like really quickly scribbled cartoons, but I never really figured

out how to make a, I don't know, a living or a, or a career out of that.

And now along comes ai and I can ideate, imagine.

And then feed it to AI and get the output immediately.

the friend who introduced me to Mid Journey First, is

also an incredible artist.

his name's Emett O'Neill.

He's an incredible creative person and artist as well.

And he said to me that he didn't feel any ownership over the Mid Journey output.

Now, this was a while back.

I must actually check back in with him and see if he still feels the same way.

but he felt this was the work of ai.

It wasn't his, and I don't feel that way.

I actually, recently I put together a little exhibition in, in the

Metaverse in Spatial of Artworks that I'd created in Mid Journey.

And I didn't set out to create an exhibition of those

works, in the Metaverse.

I was just creating these artworks because, I wanted to create

them and I wanted to see them.

I wanted to admire them.

and I very much feel an ownership over those artworks.

And they're like, there, there're a series of black and white

artworks really, abstract, really.

they're very, black ink and paint splashed on canvas type of feel.

and I feel as though those artworks are mine.

I.

Came up with the idea for those artworks.

I worked on the prompts to get them to look the way that I wanted them to look.

but AI created them.

So I don't know what that, symbiotic relationship there is

between imagination and creativity.

But this is why I think that AI can democratize creativity

because I speak to so many people.

So before AI ever came along, I would speak to people, clients.

And they would say, oh, I'm not creative.

And I would say, okay, but you have an imagination and

that's the important thing.

And they would say, what do you mean?

I'd say, can you picture close your eyes and picture a tree?

Can you see it?

Yes.

You have an imagination.

we all have an imagination.

The difficulty is having the skills to bring what's in your imagination

to life into the real world.

AI can do that for us.

And so that's why I think it can democratize creativity.

You can put your imagination to work and have AI do the actual creation.

Yeah.

No, that's interesting.

Do you think part of this, a part of the issue that we have is we want

a bit of blood, sweat, and tears to go into the creative process for us

to then to be able to call it art?

I see this so often.

when I see.

Blog posts that have been churned out, and it's it by ai

and it's not so much thought.

So I've even seen somebody talk about a website that was completely AI driven.

it was importing it basically had some categories that it knew it was going to

talk about and it would pump out these AI images and blog posts every single day.

And it would be perhaps the same with music, or, Do you know

what I'm trying to say here?

There, there's an element Yeah.

Of we, we want there to be a little bit of that.

However, it perhaps depends on the kind of, content that we're looking at.

For example, if it's just, we just wanna learn how to do

something, maybe it doesn't matter.

The AI has generated that.

but yeah.

what about the blood, sweat and tears when it comes to, art, Does that matter?

Okay.

really good question.

And I think this is gonna be fascinating to see how it develops because while,

yes, I believe that AI can democratize creativity, and make it, accessible

to anybody, I still think and hope that we will have great artists who.

Put their blood, sweat and tears into works and that we will still

want to engage with because of that human connection that we crave.

Because of that, the shared human connection that comes through

connecting with great art.

I think that.

so I think I unfortunately can't remember who it was, but there

was a post recently by a musician.

Was it, was it, what's the guy's name?

Ruben maybe.

when he was talking about, love Will Terrace Apart, and he was saying, AI

is never gonna be able to create a song like Love Will Terrace Apart.

It's, its beauty is in its imperfection.

and.

I think we will always have people who will create love will Terrace apart.

I think there will always be people who will say, I do not want to use ai.

I want to create something from the heart, with my hands.

there's no reason for artists to paint with oil paints.

Nowadays, like, why would you paint with oil paints?

Why wouldn't you use Photoshop?

why wouldn't you?

I don't know.

there are faster and easier ways to create images than oil paints, but we still have

artists who paint with oils and we still love to see a beautiful oil painting.

We still love to hang them in our homes.

So I think and believe and hope that we will always have.

Blood, sweat and tears, artwork from great artists.

But yeah, in the meantime, we can all create with ai.

Yeah, definitely.

And I don't think it can be, it's necessarily either or.

You can do, you can have both.

and there is beauty and there's value in, in both things.

And perhaps, We're in danger of the starving artist mentality, which is,

we need to be true to the art and there needs to be that blood, sweat, and tears.

and forgo any success.

because that's the most important thing.

So

that's a really interesting point in that, okay, let's take Love Will Terrace apart.

I.

Truly believe there will always be people who will want to create their music.

However, will a, record label want to pay an artist for creating something

like Loveville Terrace Apart, which could, you know, who knows how long

it takes to create a, an incredible piece of music, an incredible song?

Will they want to pay that artist if.

AI over here can do it in two seconds at a potentially a fraction of the cost.

So that's where things get really complicated and tricky, and where

we really need to be keeping a close eye on, AI regulation and ai.

There's a lot of talk about a living wage at the moment, again, because

of ai, like if it's going to replace.

Sues of jobs across all industries.

Then, do we need a living wage?

And I would say we need more than a living wage.

We need a, I dunno what we'd call it, a thriving wage.

if AI is gonna be able to take over so much of the commercial world, then we

need to be looking at, how do we create a future where, okay, fine, AI looks

after the commercial world, but ev the humans are looked after economically.

Unfortunately, my, my concern is that, We haven't figured out,

equitable distribution of wealth now, and it's a problem now without ai.

So I'm still, that's where I get slightly concerned is that AI is now ethical.

The ethics of AI right now are residing with corporations and I'm, that's

something I'm a little bit uncomfortable

with.

Yeah.

And it is interesting and the company that, OpenAI that runs Chachi, BT,

they have actually been coming out and saying that they does need to be.

legislation.

There just need to be, they don't want to just, they don't want to be in

charge of doing all of this, of all the messy stuff that we're talking about.

Stuff that we're talking about.

Yeah.

But they're a little bit like the, it's a little bit, so a, yeah.

OpenAI say that and they do have projects that are look looking after the

social aspects, but I would say, put.

prove put your money where your mouth is and put, all, put, I think that

they're right now investing massively in the AI and Let's put a trickle

over here into the social aspect.

And equally, they're saying, oh yes, AI needs to be regulated.

We need oversight here.

But then they're turning around and saying, oh, actually, when we said that we

meant future dangerous versions of ai, we didn't mean our current, versions of ai.

No, we don't want those regulated.

In fact, we're gonna pull outta the EU if the EU.

passes their bill about ai.

I don't think that we can trust the, platitudes coming from

corporations about AI regulation.

It needs to be at a government level, which is also tricky

because the government needs to come up to speed, pretty, pretty

quick if they're gonna do that.

very true.

we're almost outta time now.

can you recommend.

AI tools.

So then what are the AI tools that you're using on a regular basis?

Obviously we've talked a lot about Mid Journey and to definitely check out

Mid Journey, but what are the other kind of tools, that you are using

that you'd recommend people to get

started with?

so yeah, mid Journey is my favorite.

I just love it.

then chat, Chachi, bt we use chat bt and we.

We very much, all of our content is very human focused, so we very much try to, we

use chat chip PT for the type of how-to content that you alluded to earlier,

or the stuff that previously you might have had to just do some research on

Google and then write up a post about it.

we use chat chip PT for that level of content.

and then we will often layer on kind of human stories on top of

that to make it much more engaging.

I use, yeah, I use a variety of tools.

I use, a thing called d i d for making little, you can take, you can, I

create images in Mid Journey and then basically make them talk with d i d.

I use Opus Pro, incredible tool for if, for example, I could say to you, would

you mind if I took the video version of your podcast and created a little

snippets from my own social media?

And if you were open to that, I could pop the long form video into Opus Pro

and it will chop it up into little bits and it will even rank the snippets.

for me.

So it'll say, look, I'm, I'm 95% confident that this clip will

do really well on social media.

and then it gives you all the clips ranked from 90% down to 60%.

I, and I have found that at the upper level of the upper levels

of confidence, it's pretty good.

I also use D Script, which is AI powered, that allows you to pop

in long form content, have it transcribed, and then edit it.

Edit it like you would a Word document, so you're editing video the

same way you would just edit text.

where I find that incredibly useful is for things like if you have, like I will do

testimonial videos, for clients using Des script because I can just quickly scan old

videos of testimonials, pull out the, best bits and just copy and paste and I'm done.

I think, yeah, I think they're probably the most useful tools that I'm

using right now that I can think of.

Wow.

that's

amazing.

I'm a big fan of the script and there's a lot of other tools in there.

There, there was one tool that I need to look into.

I'm gonna have to go back and listen to the recording and write all of

those down cuz they were amazing.

So many cool things.

It's a great and exciting time.

Yes, there is maybe a little bit of.

A little bit of fear in there, but there's a lot of excitement.

There's a lot of uncertainty, but there's a lot of possibilities

as well in the world of ai.

And thank you for helping us navigate through this exciting time.

Frank, it's been great to have you on the show.

I do remember to check out the book, the most amazing marketing

book ever, and Frank was involved with the cover using what?

What were the tools you used for the cover,

Frank?

mid Journey created the main illustration.

and then I also used AI to, so Mid Journey will create a, an illustration that

wouldn't really be suitable for printing.

So I used AI to, take that and make a print ready, which is incredible.

so yeah, mid Journey for the illustration and that little bubble with the,

ideas that, what is it, 350 ideas?

that little bubble was also created, in Mid Journey.

and then, Photoshop to add the text AI tools in Photoshop as well,

because I needed to extend the, the background to, wrap around the book.

so yeah, AI tools used in Photoshop as well.

So AI all over that cover.

the typography was the human bit.

It's amazing AI feeding AI and it's great.

Yeah, Photoshop has ai, it's got Adobe Firefly.

There's so many different, amazing, cool tools out there.

thank you Frank, for being on the show.

As we said last time, if you want to get in touch with Frank, the best place to

go is, first of all, it's the website.

Is it Frank and marcy.com?

I've got that right.

Yeah.

Frank and marcy.com.

And then, yeah, LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is where I live at the moment.

so would love to connect with people on LinkedIn.

send me a message.

Send me a message.

Let me know that you listened in here and, and yeah, let's have a chat.

Yeah, do send a personalized message and Frank, we'll get back to you.

thank you Frank.

It's been great to have you on the show as always.

thank you so much.

Cool.

Thank you.

This has been great.

Thanks.

That's been great fun.

thank you so much for watching or for plugging us into your ears.

this is a podcast as well as a show, on a video show, on

YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

If you haven't come across the podcast, just go to iag.me/podcast.

That's iag.me/podcast.

But on tail next time, I encourage you to level up your impact,

authority and profits do the power of Confident Live video.

See you soon.

Bye.

Thanks for watching the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson.

Greg, make sure you subscribe at Iag me slash podcast so you can continue

to level up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of Live video.

And until next time.