Shownotes
Transcripts
See, people don't appreciate the work that goes into having a podcast. They don't understand how hard it is to come up with something new every week to focus on a niche. And that's why so many people don't have niche oriented podcasts. They just want to talk about whatever they want to talk about, because it's so hard to. To stay within a niche each and every week.
Sara Lohse [:You know what we should do instead?
Larry Roberts [:What?
Sara Lohse [:We should launch a podcast that talks about random things and we should call it readily random.
Larry Roberts [:We probably shouldn't do that. But it was fun, I'm not gonna lie. I met a lot of cool people. Hey, by the way, speaking of cool people, what's happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.
Sara Lohse [:And I'm Sara Lohse. And this is Branded, your comprehensive guide to creative branding. That was super SNL.
Larry Roberts [:That was fairly SNL. Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:So SNL.
Larry Roberts [:Very SNL ish. I like it, though. It was fun. Yeah, yeah.
Sara Lohse [:Go on, continue.
Larry Roberts [:And on this episode of the podcast, we're not going to talk about SNL. We're going to talk about AI and how you can AI proof your brand.
Sara Lohse [:What does that mean?
Larry Roberts [:Well, it means that AI or artificial intelligence is really. I mean, it's just taking over everything that we're doing. It's in every facet of life. We see it everywhere. It's in all the headlines, it's in all the news stories. I mean, even yours truly is on tv on a regular basis talking about this AI stuff. So it's here and it can still be, even though, you know, I think Chad GPT dropped on the scene November of 2022. But even in this just, what, 18 months? 18 ish months, it's been overwhelming to see how it's transformed literally everything that we're doing.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I was one of the late adopters, as you are well aware. But all the new stuff that's been coming out lately has been really cool. And I know there's different ways that you can play with chat, GPT and different, like other AI's available that people can use specifically for growing their brand or promoting their brand or AI proofing their brand, as you would say.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, I mean, as you know, AI proof has kind of become kind of a sub brand, I guess, of mine, where I do these talks and they're all AI proof proofing whatever niche it happens to be. I've done an AI proof business broker talk, I've done an AI proof content creator talk. I've done AI proof education talks, and I continue to develop these talks that are all about AI proofing these various industries. And it can be very scary when we sit back and think about whatever we're doing and what our niche may be and what the impact of AI could have on it going forward. So I think that's really what inspired me to start going down this AI proof road, because we see all these podcasts and all these YouTube channels and all these AI experts that are coming out on the scene, but everybody that I'm seeing is talking about how to use AI, not so much talking about how to integrate AI and how we make sure that regardless of the progression that we see in the industry of AI, uh, we're still relevant. And that's the biggest question that I get asked, regardless of what industry it is, they go, how do I stay relevant in my industry with all these AI changes coming down the pipeline?
Sara Lohse [:I think this is a conversation that's been going on even longer than like, I know it's super, super prevalent now, but every time there's a new technology that comes out, it's the same thing. It's like, oh, well, this is going to replace this and this is going to replace this, and it's just another step. But there have been instances where it does kind of replace things. I mean, I've never, I haven't seen a taxi outside of New York City, and I don't know how long because Lyft and Uber took over, but so sometimes it does actually do that and make the other thing irrelevant. Blockbuster shut down because of Netflix. Yeah, but I think with AI, because it's not going against one single thing. It's applicable everywhere. It really can't be something that's going to replace anything.
Sara Lohse [:It's like you said, it has to just be integrated well.
Larry Roberts [:And that's the thing. I mean, there's definitely going to be industries that are literally flipped upside down. You even mentioned taxis and how Uber and Lyft came in and re engineered that whole industry. Well, I mean, I was just in Phoenix, I don't know, a month, six weeks ago, whatever it was. And literally they have autonomous taxis. Autonomous Ubers in Phoenix?
Sara Lohse [:That's terrifying.
Larry Roberts [:They're literally driverless cars that will pick you up. They're part of the Uber app you can get. I'm sure they're part of Lyft in Phoenix as well because they're testing them in several major cities and Phoenix just happened to be a hub. But I saw these cars as I was coming from the airport to my, to my hotel, and they have all these cameras, they're still, I don't know, clunky is really the word that comes to mind. Uh, but there's. There's still an. We'll call it a developmental phase. And there's cameras literally on all points of these cars.
Larry Roberts [:And I saw so many of them. Uh, and initially, I thought they were Google cars that were mapping the road. Why do you have all these Google cars going everywhere that are mapping everything? Is Phoenix not mapped by now? And my human Uber driver was like, no, bro, those are autonomous cars. Uh, you can snag one of those, and they'll drive you wherever you want to go. Or you can go with a human like myself. And I was like, oh, my God, this is so crazy. It was. It I'd never seen.
Larry Roberts [:I'm in Dallas. It's not like I live in the. In the boondocks, you know? But we don't have, at least to my knowledge, I have not seen one anywhere in Dallas or Fort Worth.
Sara Lohse [:Honestly, it seems a little bit, like, dystopic. Like, every time I see things like this, I'm reminded of the movie wall e. Yeah, yeah. And how that was actually supposed to be a cautionary tale, not something we strive for.
Larry Roberts [:But it's funny you say that, because with all of this technology that's coming around, that's what I'm seeing. Dude, we're not paying attention. You know, we're definitely paying attention to the Sci-Fi movies of the, we'll say seventies, eighties, nineties, but we're not paying attention to the moral of a lot of those stories. I mean, if we dial it back, and I'm even dating myself here a little bit, but 2001, we all know you're old. Yeah, I don't know if that came out in the early eighties or the late seventies.
Sara Lohse [:Which one?
Larry Roberts [:2001 A Space Odyssey. It came out in the late seventies, early eighties, and it was a massive hit. And, I mean, it's a classic flick if you look it up. For all you youngsters out there, 2001 A Space Odyssey. And it had an AI component that was built into this spaceship, and its name was Hal, and things went kind of awry. But we see that in movie after movie after movie after movie. But then here we are in 2024, and just a couple weeks ago, I saw where you can literally buy an AI powered robot dog with a flamethrower attached to its back. For under $10,000, you can buy your own flame throwing pet AI dog.
Sara Lohse [:When are we doing the unboxing video? Because I'm sure you bought it so bad.
Larry Roberts [:I will. Literally, we just need one client to sign up. So if we can get one, if we get one client to volunteer, I promise you all the proceeds from your podcast launch will go towards the robot dog. Comes in at about $9,400. So come on in. We'll. We'll do your show. We'll produce it for six months, and in exchange, you'll buy us a robot flame throwing dog.
Sara Lohse [:And by the one responsible for the finances over here, I'm going to promise you that's not going to happen. But great idea.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, just call me Larry. Larry Roberts.com, my contact. Just call me. We'll work it out, I promise.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I'm stepping out of that one. But I also, like, there is a movie for, like, the younger people. It was like a DCom Disney Channel original movie called Smart House, I think.
Larry Roberts [:Okay.
Sara Lohse [:And it was the same thing they added. It was kind of. It almost reminds me of this point of, like, the Alexa's, because it's like the whole house was wired and there was, like, a AI basically mom that, like, was running the house, but she then wanted to become the real mom and kind of took over and trapped him in the house. And it was chaotic.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And, like, we saw it in Marvel movies, the, when one of the Avengers, Tony Stark, creates an AI that becomes real and a villain, it's like we're seeing so many cautionary tales.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. But we're not paying attention to any of it. And even on a more relatable level, my house is so integrated that without Internet, I'm kind of off the grid, and I'm completely lost because I can't even watch tv. I can't work because I don't have my computer. I can't turn my lights on and off at my house without Internet service because my whole house is integrated into a hue. Which is hue. It's a. It's a system.
Larry Roberts [:All my lights are on the hue system. They run on a timer or they run on an app on my phone. So I can turn them on and off with an app, or they come on it, I think, 08:00 a.m. And they go off at 09:00 p.m. It's just. But without wasteful. Why is it wasteful?
Sara Lohse [:Because you're not in those rooms all day. Why do you have the lights on?
Larry Roberts [:Well, in a lot of sunlight. No, no, I don't like sunlight. But at the same time, I mean, if you were to look at my hallway right now outside it looks dark out there because all the lights in the house, they are on at about 30%. I'm kind of vampire esque most of the time. I like just enough light to see where I'm going and not bump into things. But I don't want so much light. And I'm like, it's too bright. I don't like it.
Larry Roberts [:But the point is, we're not here to judge Larry and Larry's light habits. We're here to talk about how that we're so integrated with technology that it can be, when that technology is not there, it can be overwhelming or it can be devastating to our brands. It can put a halt to everything we're doing.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah, I think people have been doing a lot of damage to their own brands with AI, because it's one of those. Just because it's there doesn't mean you need to use it. And if you create content with AI and you're not reading it.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:You're just putting it out there with your logo on it, that's not gonna end well. No, we've seen it so many times already. Yeah.
Larry Roberts [:And one of the, one of the biggest stories out there, and I'm sure.
Sara Lohse [:Lawyer.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, the lawyer. You know, most people probably heard the story, and I know you have because I tell it every time I talk. And you could probably do most of my talks for me at this stage. But there was the lawyer out of New York who did his case briefing, briefing on chad GPT, and I had no idea what that flesh colored shaft was. It just came into the screen. I'm like, what is she, what? What are you doing, bro? It's where. It's just a straw, folks. It's a, it's a flesh colored straw.
Larry Roberts [:I'm not sure what's going on there, but we may edit that out, probably.
Sara Lohse [:I hope so.
Larry Roberts [:No, it's pretty funny.
Sara Lohse [:I just don't want flesh colored shaft.
Larry Roberts [:Covered on our podcast shooting.
Sara Lohse [:We can't lose our clean rating.
Larry Roberts [:What is going on here? But this lawyer did his case briefing in chad GPT, turned it into the judge without reading it, and it literally had nothing to do with the case. And while he wasn't disbarred, at least the last I'd heard, maybe he may have been by now, but it was national level news and he was definitely disgraced. And that's something that can easily happen to your brand if you don't use these tools that are out there and use them cautiously. Like Sarah was saying, you know, you have to read every bit of content that you create in a chat GPT or a Claude or a Gemini or a Microsoft copilot or a llama. If we want to go down the llama route, you know, meta's got to get in there. Meta Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg's got to get in there with llama. And I named off five chatbots.
Larry Roberts [:Those are my top five chatbots that are out there, and those are some of the most popular ones that people are using. And they're integrated into a variety of different product suites that we use. I mean, if you look at Microsoft Copilot, it's integrated into the office suite. So if you open up word or you open up PowerPoint or Excel, you have that AI companion that's there. It's kind of like if you're old enough, you remember Clippy. You remember Clippy? I miss Clippy was worthless as boobs on a boar hog, but at the same time, he's pretty funny. So I love that pace. That's an amazing.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. Or more hogs don't need boobs because boars are dudes, so they don't have a use for them. See? So that's the saying in Texas.
Sara Lohse [:It's not. I live in Texas.
Larry Roberts [:No, but you're a transplant. You don't count. So you're from New York. So it doesn't, it doesn't resonate. But for real Texans that have been here all their lives, wordless is, well, they say the t word on a boar hog. That's an old school saying that Texans like to use on a regular basis when something is worthless. You see? You don't. You don't.
Larry Roberts [:You don't see?
Sara Lohse [:I don't.
Larry Roberts [:All right, maybe I should have gone down that path, but, but we'll edit my, my boobs on a boar hog out if we edit the, the flesh colored straw out. So we'll see what gets edited and when. So, but anyway, a b test, it will ab.
Sara Lohse [:Some of you are going to hear really strange things, and some.
Larry Roberts [:Of you won't, which you should always a b test your content when you put it out there to see what works and what doesn't. And anyways, I don't even know where the heck I was going, but some of these tools, they're worthless if you don't use them properly. Oh, I saw about Clippy. So Clippy, it was pretty worthless. But some of these, these copilots, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, which is integrated into the Google office suite with Google Docs and Google sheets, those are great, man. Those can really help you when you get stuck from a creative perspective. A lot of times if you need to write a paragraph, you need to write a chapter of a book, or you need to write some content for a blog or a social media post, those things are great. But at the same time, we have to do our due diligence to make sure that what's going out there is the message that we want to deliver, and it's being delivered in a way that we want to deliver it.
Larry Roberts [:So these AI tools, it doesn't really matter which one you're using. They all have a tendency to hallucinate, which takes us back to the lawyer. I mean, it completely did not know the case that the lawyer was asking about, so it just made stuff up. And I'm sure it sounded great, but when the judge read it, he was like.
Sara Lohse [:I was at a conference, and there's a couple of people there that had this whole study that they've done on chat GBT, and they're talking about the hallucination. So hallucinating. For chat Gbt, it's when chat Gbt just makes things up. Like, there's nothing. There's no proof, no nothing. It's just this. It just made it up. But I heard a lot of people, they even said this at the conference we were at the other day, is ask it for sources so that you can verify the sources it hallucinates.
Sara Lohse [:Sources.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, sure. 100%.
Sara Lohse [:It will create. If you say you wanted to learn something about, like, how to protect your brand, it'll just have, like, protect your brand.com is where we got this from. But it doesn't. Like, it just puts words together. That's like, that sounds like it could be a source.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And it pretends it is.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. Yeah. It's 100% terrifying. And it's just kind of a lesson that we have to learn, and hopefully we don't learn that firsthand by creating something, citing a source, giving it to a client, and then that client going, what? And then it's going, oh, my bad.
Sara Lohse [:So that was, that kind of happened to me. I, when I was putting my book out. I guess the person that was doing the about the author must have used chat GPT, because it. I don't know, and I don't know where it got its information, but my bio was completely wrong.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, yeah.
Sara Lohse [:And, like, I think it was a book description, too. The whole book. Like, I had a little bit about my past and finance, and the whole point of talking about it was that I got out of it right, that I'm no longer in finance. And the whole, like, they wrote the description of my book as basically, like, this is what life is like in the finance world. I'm like that you just made all of this up.
Larry Roberts [:And it will it will, especially if you have a common name. And and while it made up stuff for you, if you have a name like Larry Roberts, there have been several Larry Roberts that are much more successful than I am. I mean, there's been, like, a scientist, there was an actor, there was a politician. So when I asked Chad GPT to write about me, I get all kinds of crazy stuff and I'm like, oh, this stuff sounds amazing, but it's not me. So so it can be extremely tough. And that just goes back to what we're saying, man. You got to do your due diligence. You have to check your work, and you have to make sure that the content being created is relevant.
Sara Lohse [:What are some of the platforms that you've been using for content for your brand that you do really like? Which ones? And I mean, besides chat GPT like, are there any ones that you just, like, are like, wow, this is amazing. Everyone needs to use this.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, I mean, my fallback and it I don't want to say that it's becoming my favorite, but it maybe is going to become I'm almost to the point where I'm willing to pay for it. It's that good. Uh, it's Claude. I love Claude. And it it sounds, when it gives you content, it's, uh, melodic. I mean, it just, it just flows. It just sounds so nice and it writes so well, and it's just so engaging and it sounds so human and it has emotion and it just feels good. So I will often, and I'm a diehard chad GPT guy.
Larry Roberts [:You know, I'm huge on Persona modeling, and I have several different Personas that I use within chad GPT for my projects, depending on what I'm working on. I love that fact that you can Persona model, but at the same time, even without Persona modeling and without making any real significant changes, you can go to Claude, and that's Claude AI. Claude AI. And it just, it does an amazing job of generative content. So a simple prompt can get you some really robust stuff. I love that one. It's great. I mentioned the others, the other three as well.
Larry Roberts [:I mentioned Microsoft, Copilot, Gemini, and llama. Those are good. But the top two cat daddies are Chad GPT and Claude. If you use those two, you're going to be able to put out some really amazing stuff.
Sara Lohse [:And are those just like, for words, Claude?
Larry Roberts [:Yes, just for words. GPT can do images as well. And you know, they have a video platform, but it hasn't been released to the public yet. But the video platform, Sora is the name of the platform. It is insane. Some of the videos that they've created with just some simple one to two sentence prompts will blow your mind. I'm talking 4k, high definition, crazy colorful, robust, super crisp, super sharp imagery that is just mind blowing. And they haven't quite found a way to release that to the public in what they consider a safe.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, safe is definitely the word that they're using. So I don't know if it's necessarily to that point yet, but yeah, it's super, super cool. So Chat GPT and Claude Chad GPT will give you images because they've integrated Doll E. If you're familiar with Chadgpt and some of the other platforms that OpenAI, which is the creator of ChadgPT, if you're familiar with some of their offerings, Doll E is their image generation platform, and they've gone so far as to integrate that directly into chad GPT. So if you have a chad GPT account, you can ask it to draw an image of something, and it will do that. And you don't have to switch between platforms or anything. You have to do literally nothing other than change your prompt to ask for an image. And you can get images back as well.
Sara Lohse [:What is the one I know you've been using, or at least playing with one for like, video content?
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, and again, I mentioned Sora is the video content one that's out there.
Sara Lohse [:Opus.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, okay, so you're talking about like, using AI to cut up your clips. Yeah, it doesn't do generative video, but Opus is amazing for taking long form content, finding the highlights, and cutting it up into, we'll call it micro content or reels. Video AI was another one that we used to use quite a bit, and it's still a leader in the industry. They do a great job. But man, Opus just seems to have that algorithm really dialed in where it just really understands what is relevant and what's not relevant, how it does it. Of course, that's proprietary. Don't know the algorithm there, but it does a really good job of identifying the key points within a long piece of, of video content.
Sara Lohse [:I know one of the biggest struggles that so many of us have when we're running like a brand or small business is our social media. And you and I are the worst at this. And we're do as we say, not as we do kind of people, because we'll tell you that you need to stay on social and be active and we are not. But having tools like that, even with chat GBT, you can ask chat GBD to give you basically a content calendar. It makes it a lot easier to manage, like actually creating content if it's going to create it for you. Yeah, read it, read it, read it.
Larry Roberts [:Read the content.
Sara Lohse [:Don't just post it, read it.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, 100%, man. But there's so many tools that are out there, and it kind of goes back to when we were starting the conversation of we are in the middle of a revolution, a technology revolution and AI revolution, that we haven't seen anything like this since. Honestly, I think the Internet, I mean, this is at the level of the Internet. And for those of you that were old enough to be around when the Internet broke, there were a lot of people saying it was going to be a fad, that it wasn't going to last, that it wasn't going to have.
Sara Lohse [:Any impact, that I'm still not fully sold on it. I think.
Larry Roberts [:I used it from time to time, but we're seeing the same thing with AI. But I think we're actually kind of getting over that hump where people go, holy schnikeys, this stuff is here and now. It's going to put me out of my job. It's going to change the way my children learn in school. It's going to change the way that we do our every everyday activities. And it is, but the way we have to make sure that we're ready for that change is that we have to be aware of what's out there and at least have a high level understanding of how it works. Because you are going to be involved in AI, you are going to be impacted by AI to a certain degree, and the level of that degree really is up to you. You know, what do you want to do? What are the steps you want to take to make sure that you are AI proof going forward? And one of the things that I want to help do there, because people, they don't have those answers.
Larry Roberts [:And I think we mentioned at the start of the episode, I'm starting a new podcast. It's going to be out about two weeks. It's called AI proof. And we're going to go over how you can take the steps necessary to AI proof your house, AI proof your family, AI proof your career, AI proof your education, your children's education, and AI proof, literally, your future. So we want to take a different perspective on this AI revolution that we're all experiencing and figure out how we can leverage it to our advantage. Because in all honesty, if you look back at any of these companies that are saying they're building AI ethics always comes to the forefront of the discussion. They want to make sure they're developing these in an ethical manner, an accessible manner that's going to be accessible to everyone. And that's a huge concern.
Larry Roberts [:How do we bridge that digital divide? Because there are certain people that may not be in as advantageous positions as others and may not have access to some of this technology. And it's scary to think that they're going to be left behind just because they don't have access to this technology. So we want to make sure that we're AI proofing everyone. And as branded, we want to make sure we help you AI proof your brand, your business, and everything revolving around that. So this was a pretty high level conversation, I think.
Sara Lohse [:One of the things that I feel like if we're going to talk about AI proofing, and I don't want to spoil your podcast by bringing this in, but the thing that is going to be the most important across the board when it comes to setting yourself apart from AI and from that technology, technology does not have emotional intelligence.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Sara Lohse [:Chat GPT is never going to have a full spectrum of human emotion. And you do, and AI is there to do this, like, the simple things, the things that are like calculations, and the things that you don't need emotion to do, the things that are purely objective. But you need to have that emotional intelligence to be able to connect with people, to be able to connect with your audience, connect with your consumer, connect with your employees, whatever it is that you're doing, that human connection is becoming more important than ever because it's the one thing that chat GPT cannot recreate. And actually, we're just having this conversation this morning because, like, when I put my book out, it's about storytelling, and storytelling is such a hot topic right now. And I think that's part of it, is that we're realizing that all the information is available to us. The only thing that makes us different is the stories that we tell surrounding that information.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah, it's funny because I was watching Pat Flynn this morning, literally this morning, probably about 435 o'clock this morning. My typical ritual when I wake up and start my first monster, and he was talking about how course creation is no longer at the forefront of digital entrepreneurship. If you dial it back three, four years ago, being a course creator, being on Udemy, or having your own education platform, that was the key to making money online. But there's so much information out there now that people aren't willing to pay for it because it's out there and it's out there for free. We just got to kind of do our homework. And even if the information's not there now, we have AI that will create the information for us. We could literally build a course on anything you want in about 30 minutes. You could literally have an outline.
Larry Roberts [:You can have the video descriptions. You could have everything. You could have the scripts. You could have everything in about 30 minutes. And as a former course creator, that's. That'll put a. That'll put a dent in your business plan quick. So, I mean, think about how fast.
Sara Lohse [:You wrote a book.
Larry Roberts [:Oh, exactly. Well, and to reinforce your point, you know, yeah, I wrote the book in a couple of weeks, but guess what I wrote. What chapter?
Sara Lohse [:Chapter three.
Larry Roberts [:Why?
Sara Lohse [:Because it's your stories.
Larry Roberts [:Boom. So it couldn't write my story. It couldn't write the story of the red hat and where the red hat came from, because it doesn't know. That's the human component, and it's the same thing and everything that we're doing. So make sure you have that human component, keep that human component in your content, in your business, and your brand, and you'll continue to flourish even throughout this entire AI revolution.
Sara Lohse [:Yeah.
Larry Roberts [:Yeah. And with that, we're gonna wrap this one up. Hopefully you found some value in this episode. If you did, do us a favor, smash that subscribe button so we can continue, continue to bring you these episodes each and every week. And with that, I'm Larry AI Roberts.
Sara Lohse [:I am Sara. Not that Lohse AI Roberts.
Larry Roberts [:I made it up. I don't know.
Sara Lohse [:Well, trouble is my middle name.
Larry Roberts [:Well, there you go. Rawr. Trouble with that flesh colored straw that you have.
Sara Lohse [:We'll talk to you next week.
Larry Roberts [:We'll see you next week.
