AI Innovations and FutureProof Festival of AI Insights

0:00Incoming transmission [music] from the future. Vancouver AI community meetup. >> Hey, welcome everybody. You're at the HR McMillan Space Center. I'm Kris Krüg. Welcome to Vancouver AI Community Meetup number 32 in a row. Yeah. Nice to see you. Armen, you snuck right in there at the end, man. Very good. Hey Kush, thanks for holding down the registration desk tonight, man, so I could barbecue. It's like my favorite thing to do. So, thank you very much for making that happen. Um, thank you for being here. I'm going to say a bunch of tonight, but before we get started, I want to invite my friend and mentor Anthony Joseph up here tonight from the Squamish Nation. Um he's a counselor

0:37there. Last month, he came right after um doing the World Cup opening ceremonies, uh drumming in all the players and stuff. Came with Johnny and and so uh tonight's a special night. I don't know, I think I told you, but my best friend Dave Ols in town from Japan. That's why I'm drinking this saki and wearing the kimono. And uh >> I was questioning you about something.

0:58[laughter] I was I've never never seen you in the crowd before. But right on. >> And he he last uh gave a keynote presentation 13 years ago on this very stage. And now he's back from Japan with his new wife and his son and stuff. And so it's a really special night. There's a lot of people in the room who don't always come to our meetups who are just here to see Dave talk and stuff. So uh anyway, without further ado, Anthony Joseph, >> welcome.

1:23[applause]

1:28to CAT seats.

1:45um stolen anha tit seats. So I just wanted to raise my hands to each and every one of you guys for being here today. Uh special thanks to uh Chris and and his his friend. uh take it would take a lot to uh I know it would take a lot to persuade Chris on what what he's going to wear today [laughter] and uh but uh I think that's what I I love about Chris is the the personality just really brings it together welcomes everybody but brings a bunch of special personalities to to be a part of this for those of you who don't know me Anthony Joseph as my English name isa is my quish name, my ancestral name. I

2:37share that with my younger brother Russell, my cousin Nigel from my name's family in Nimo. Um, just uh I was just thinking how uh how special it is to uh um be a part of uh of this as well. I was thinking about uh all the good work, especially right now cuz right now uh we're uh we have a canoe journey, travel journey that's happening. Chris mentioned that when uh he was uh we were talking about the tribal journey and just just how special that is. So I thought like it's it's such good medicine to to uh to sing the songs but also the protocols. So, uh, I know many I know Chris was, uh, for those that

3:27don't know, Chris was our our support boat for our our Mun that went up to the canoe journey in Bella Bella. What year was that, Chris? That was >> 2014. >> 2014. So, uh, yeah, and it was definitely needed cuz I think they, uh, but Campbell River, our canoe, the canoe, uh, flipped >> and our our youth and our team were in the water for a little while. And, [snorts] um, yeah, and it was, uh, that that support that's appreciated on the water.

4:02So, but our our youth uh that went some [clears throat] of them came home before the end cuz there was the last little leg. It was really tough. I remember our youth came back and they really wanted to be a part of the celebration. So, uh I got to tag along. [laughter] I didn't can pull, but I I got to be a part of the celebration. And I know my uh uh what was it? Shawash states say states my work wife Charlene Williams who's uh Johnny Williams mom she uh she was she was always grilling me oh what the hell you get to tag along have fun with us just drum and sing and [laughter]

4:43like well [clears throat] they had to ask you to be a part of it so I was just I'd be honored to and that was actually uh you know come to think about it that was when I got to know Chris was probably around this time a year as Well, so just thankful for that. But, uh, to start you guys off in a good way, uh, I'm going to sing Cissium's journey song. Um, what was it? This is a song they would sing. A lot of times in protocol when they would get to a new village, you'd have to get up and sing.

5:16And, uh, you would sing a certain x amount of songs. Sometimes it's three or four uh, maybe more. Right, Chris? But uh and then they would say, "Okay, you may squish. You did a good job. You may park your boat and come on in." Right. [laughter] Uh yeah. So good medicine. So wanted to share that before I get started. But yeah, so this this song comes from Sissam, who's one of our tribal chiefs.

5:44He's our director of uh uh territory and culture uh Ray Nero, also known as Kahok. And [snorts] uh this is uh yeah this is journey song. Enjoy.

6:10Oh, wait. No, sorry. [laughter]

6:23[singing]

6:36I'm you know it's uh funny [laughter] on my way down I was thinking of a song that's uh [laughter] the becomes the the the national anthem uh cheap George song [laughter] and it's it's been it's been with me but uh

7:07>> [applause]

7:17>> Okay, here we go.

7:24Here I Heo.

7:36[music] [singing]

7:51[singing] Oh, here he

8:03[singing]

8:10Christ. [singing] I Christ.

8:21[singing]

8:31[singing] Christ come [singing] here I I s your t [singing]

8:53[singing] [music]

9:03Here I [singing] heal.

9:28[singing] [music]

9:34I go I saw [singing] [music]

9:46[singing] I s I [singing] Oh, come [singing]

10:09[applause]

10:13[applause] to raise my hands and thank you guys for your patience. You know what kind of got me uh confuzzled there was uh I was coming in here and and I was um I think it was I was hit by pride to see that when I looked back I could see the three towers now and just it just hit me that our our people are finally back. Our people have finally returned to where we've always been. So just wanted to [applause] share that piece [applause] and um this is the area we know as Son and uh it's uh it's a important piece for me.

10:56Uh I think about just how how rich we are in culture, how often our people were on the on the waters. Um, and just look forward to the the good meetings and and the good energies shared. Thanking Chris for uh always having an open heart, open mind, but also thank you guys for your patience. I know uh sometimes as a as a yo night to to lead sing. Uh we get a few of those songs cross cuz some of them sounds sound familiar when you start. So and it's a a tempo, right? So, but just uh I got so many songs up there I want to share. But uh but I don't have the time. So, I

11:39thank you guys for your time, your patience, and I hope you guys have an amazing uh conference, you know, presentations today. I I was just sharing with a few uh people that uh it's their first time. Um it's always a I sh that's what I shared earlier too is that uh I look forward to everyone watching but also learning and uh listen to the good words and the teachings that are shared cuz I I always learn something new when I come and I'm honored to be here and do this good work with Chris and and everyone else that's part of the team getting to know everyone.

12:17>> Thanks a lot. Thank you man. That was a that was a moment of like profound like strength and beauty in that like vulnerable moment there or whatever and I went on my own little mental journey. I was like you do have so many what's a yo yo knight? Not everyone knows what that means.

12:30>> A a yo night is a is a lead singer. So uh a lot of times you got singers but yo you got to learn and master the songs but also the tone right? So [laughter] uh the verses. So it's uh uh that's that's the part when when we get emotional sometimes it can kind of shift the songs that we had in mind sometimes and and I think that's what it was is like I was touched by came in just think looking back and thinking of our ancestors coming back too cuz in our ways of being we're taught in ceremony when we uh attend wherever we go we witness work that when the seats are

13:11empty they're not actually empty your ancestors are there. They're watching. They're listening. They're paying attention. But when we speak our language, that shows them that we're doing the good work. We practice ceremony. It shows that we're continuing that good work, that they laid the groundwork for our people. So that those traditions live on and and their their uh descendants. So really thankful for that. Thank you.

13:35>> That's awesome, man. Hey, I got a couple quick things to say before you scooch off. Um, one is like I'm not surprised that you like couldn't remember the lyrics or whatever at first because uh, dude, every time you come here, you give us a new song. You share a new song with us. I don't think you've ever done the same one twice. And you come, we've been doing this 32 months. You've probably been here almost half the time. So, thank you for like uh digging deep into the back catalog, you know, like you know, and um you know, I just wanted to say I guess while we're here, like part of the reason why we do this is

14:04like I felt my energy just completely change from like crazy barbecue guy, host like organizer person like to to just bring us all you bring us all on the same page and then we get started and we get to kind of go from there or whatever. So, it's really significant part of all this that you that you Thank you. Much appreciate that. [laughter] >> [applause] >> So, we're going to dive right into our community announcements and then we're going to have um AI filmmaker and creative uh visionary Dorothy Pang give a talk uh who's really she's blowing up around the world right now. We're very lucky to have her from Vancouver and in this room and participating. She's

14:41showing some new work that uh nobody's seen before. I'm very excited about tonight. And um and then we got our buddy Dave Olsen who's here from Okyama, Japan who's uh prepared a really special analog uh from the heart thing. He and I have been working on for a couple months and so it's like we got some handouts and some giveaways and stuff and he's got a whole a whole thing. But um you know the reason why we're here is because like 3 years ago when AI k came and kicked over the table of my creative industry and profession in photography and design. I was looking for a place to go figure that out and chat with other

15:14people about it and like learn more. I I got I both I I saw the disruption and I was like, "Wow, this changes everything. There's got to be some new things I can get involved with here." And so I started learning and started a Discord server and started inviting other people into that. And then I I moved back to Vancouver after the pandemic and I was looking to like go to the AI events or plug into an AI community and there was really nothing going on. The things that were going on were like highly technical hierarchical like the the programmers group of UBC or whatever, you know, or something like that. And and um and

15:45there was no there wasn't like a cross disciplinary big tent group of people who were getting together being like, "Yo, I'm excited and I'm scared." And both those things are true at the same time. And so that's what we've got going on here. That's what makes this community unique. You'll find people that are critical. They're in the streets doing demonstrations. I did an interview tonight about the data centers that are coming to Vancouver. Obviously, everybody knows about that. The politicians are co-opting the airwaves on that. And we're going to have a very healthy public dialogue during this upcoming election about um what do British Columbombians want when it comes to AI? What are we willing to take when

16:17it comes to data centers? How much voice and say do we want to have in the future that is manifest here in British Columbia? So um underpinning a lot of this organ a lot of this stuff is this uh BC AI ecosystem nonprofit that we started like a year ago. There's 300 of us are members now. It's an annual membership that gives you discounts and inclusion and do our different events and chats and different things like that. But that's really helped us gain some like political power and voice. We had um Minister Rick Glumac, the AI minister of British Columbia speak last month. Next month we are in the writing right here of a member of parliament

16:52Taleeb Noormohamed who's also by chance the parliamentary secretary for innovation and AI essentially the number two federal person when it comes to AI we in this community have a vision for building a west coast AI center of excellence out here akin to the ones that we find across Canada been fedally funded for like a billion dollars places like the Vector Institute MA Institute and the um Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute Amy me. So, um, you know, we we we've got momentum as a community.

17:21We're finding our voice and our personality and our legs. We've got infrastructure now. And, um, you know, I'm just going to skip right to my little thing because I've got the flow going, which is out of all this, out of our three years of meetups, out of our 12 subgroups, out of our 300 member network, people be coming to us and they're like, "Yo, Websummit kind of sucks and there's some other kind of [laughter] there's some other kind of halfbaked AI events going on around town. Why are you guys doing this monthly thing all the time? Why don't you do something more like an an annual conference? And I said, you know, that's been my passion

17:53for a long time. Before I started these meetups, I had I was a photographer for like TED talks and for South by Southwest and for fashion week and stuff for many years. And I like 20 years and I I developed a a strong perspective on what makes events awesome and what I wanted to bring to the people in terms of like uh you know community uh intellectual cultural events that were addressing the most important issues that we're all facing you know and I wanted to do that for a long time but I didn't have the drum beat. I didn't have community. We didn't have a nonprofit.

18:24And so when people have been coming to me lately being like are you want to do this conference? I'm like we're ready. We're we're ready. And so I spent the last couple months um building a website, outreaching to international speakers um and uh um you know I've been announcing them this week. Kevin, can we stumble our way through my slides? Is that cool?

18:45>> Yeah. So >> future proof festival of AI here in the space center. 3 days October 28th through 30th. The venue is booked. We're good to go. Hit it. Um, you know, like I said, this is the data center issue. It's in all of our faces. We're uh I've done like five media interviews with the Thai. I did one with Bob Mackin tonight. I did one with some PhD researchers from UBC this week. It's it's on people's minds. It's on the conversation. Um, and so let's have a talk about that.

19:18Um, this is the website I built. Please go check it out. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on there. There's a lot of depth in detail that I've been building as a foundation for you guys to learn more about what we're getting up to and figure out a way to get involved.

19:29I put out a call for speakers. Many of you guys have already submitted, but there's a chance to I'm The way I envision this is like 50% international speakers and 50% our local speakers. 50% international audience and 50% are local audience. It's a chance to like bubble up the best of what we got and show it off to the world. And it's a chance for me to curate into this community the best of what I see going on out there and bring it here.

19:54And speaking of the best of what I see out there and bring it here, Dave Olson, I'm so excited to announce this. Amber Case is our first international out of town keynote speaker that I booked. She runs the Calm Technology Institute. This is a a major international nonprofit that certifies big products as like human friendly calm tech non-disruptive to the nervous system. But she's got a long background in I used to work for Ezri, the environmental services re research institute, the big GIS provider. and she sold a company to Ezri back in the day. Before that, her and I used to organize cyborg camps in Seattle and Vancouver. People just exploring the edge and per periphery of, you know,

20:31humanity and stuff. So, Amber Case is a badass coming to Vancouver from Denver, Colorado. Um, who knows who this is? Ana Serrano. [laughter] Yeah, this is Ana Serrano. She's the chancellor of OKAD University Ontario College of Art and Design. She also runs a big conference out east called the Democracy Exchange. She's at the forefront of um helping to figure out how federal funds around adoption and upskilling for the creative industries, for the artistic industries, um for cultural producers, film, music, this type. She's very she's got the ear of Evan Solomon, the powers that be, and um runs Okadu. She's going to be coming out and talking about um their perspective on who gets to um you know

21:16decide the future of culture as it relates to AI. Who knows who this is? >> Lind Linda Brown. Linda Brown. Do we got any graduates from the Center of Digital Media here? Anyone go to Center for Digital Media? Anyway, we have a really cool center for digital media here in um in Vancouver. It's 20 years old. It's a a project that was a consortium of UBC, SFU, and Emily Carr, and then funded by the city, province, and the feds. So, this lady runs a AI healthcare startup, and she's had several along the way.

21:47She's a very successful entrepreneur, but she's my hero and mentor because she I was on her board of New Media BC back when DigiBC was New Media BC. Like so like our finance minister Brenda Bailey used to run DigiBC and then DigiBC used to be New BBC and when it was newb Linda ran it and she got the city to pony up some money. She took that money from the city and she got the province to match it and then she took all that money and took it to the feds and got them to put $40 million in the kitty and that's why we have that whole great Northern Way campus over there. So you guys know I'm

22:21trying to build this West Coast center of AI excellence. So, this lady going to come out and talk to us about like how we go from like grassroots community to building real life infrastructure. Gabriel Zaro. A lot of you guys know him from here. He works for EA as like the director of online community for all sports games. He This guy runs Discords with 5 million people in them. He knows a lot about AI. He's using it in all sorts of ways. But he's talking about humanity as the operating system and he's got a really unique TED talk that I'm excited to have him give um here.

22:55Antonia who runs Ethos Labs down the street. Again, this woman is at the forefront of figuring out how can Canada's AI money is going to be allocated and distributed when it comes to education. And you know, you know, black and indigenous youth. She runs a youth center on Main Street. It's amazing. A lot of the people in this room mentor during the AI experimentation lab that they run over there on the weekends for for youths.

23:20Um, she's amazing. She's super plugged in. She's funded by like Microsoft, Sony, and the NBA. And um they've got a If you haven't heard of Ethos Labs, you should definitely check it out. This is Sarah Downey. She runs our responsible AI professional certification program. She's a badass when it comes to helping nonprofits figure out AI and um she's going to be running her responsible AI professional program during our future proof festival.

23:46And we're going to have a little startup zone. We're going to have what kind of resembles a trade show. So, I was on our community call last week and I was hustling tickets to our closest group of members and they were like, "Yo, actually I want to do more than that. Can we have like a booth and buy a pack?" And so, um, uh, uh, Kareem, one of our members, helped me figure out a little startup package. So, we're going to have like a little exhibition area for startups that want to come do their thing. There's a couple I think there's up to like five people who already like said they're bringing their robots and

24:13their software that runs on robots. So, we're going to have like a a bit of a embodied AI theme to the whole thing. Cool. So, it's going to be Wednesday night at opening, full day Thursday, full day Friday. Kevin's planning a film festival component. Then, we're going to have a wrap-up party here. It's going to be a banger. And um I hope you guys can all come come check it out.

24:36Next one. So, this is the big thing that I'm doing tonight, and this is why I wanted to keep cruising. So, um I've built the whole website. I've built got the speakers coming. Everything's in place and like 30 of you guys have already before I launched kind of like bought a ticket or whatever, right? And that's kind of the wind beneath the wings right now is early ticket sales. And so to encourage early ticket sales tonight only until midnight, if you buy a ticket, I'll give you two. So you can bring a friend or a colleague or something like that. If you're one of those 30 people that already bought a ticket, same offer already applies. Hit

25:10me up and I'm going to give you a second one for a friend. But it's 650 until April 15th and then it goes to 950 bucks. It my cost for everyone here is like 350 bucks per person. That's what allows me to do the two for one and get everyone in the door right away. So this will be like the cheapest after this.

25:29I'm going to start marketing to outside like to the rest of the world or whatever. And so it's going to So this is what you want to do. If you're going to come, if you're going to be a part of this, hit up the code. If you sign up before midnight, two for one, you can bring a friend and we'll get them all sorted out. Okay, thank you for the sales pitch. Uh, I believe it to be important. Um, up next we got our community announcements. So, um, that's going to be Jimmy and that's going to be Josh and that's going to be Bill McGra.

25:57And, um, if you have a community announcement and I talk to you, now's your time to come up. >> Jimmy, >> I'm going to go follow that. >> Bro, I I'll do your I'll do your pitch for you, bro. >> Well, we'll give it a pallet cleanser. We'll give it a pallet cleanser. Yeah, Jimmy's got a cool AI conference coming up, too. So, he's like, "Don't make me go right after you." Come on up.

26:19>> I'm I'm one of those half day conferences. >> This is Steve Jones from our Comox Valley AI group. Come on, Steve. >> All right. Hi, everyone. Yeah. So, um few few months ago, uh someone in Comox learned his Gant uh teamed up with Chris and started a Comox version of of this kind of monthly event. And it's super exciting. Uh we've got people coming out of the woodwork. Uh, you know, I I spend half my year in Komox, half in Vancouver. Sometimes it feels like in Vancouver, this is where stuff happens in Komox, you know, you're just uh biking and kayaking and everything, but it turns out it's a lot of people working remotely for world-class

26:52companies and building world-class companies and just doing exciting stuff out in the woods and on the Gulf Islands. So, we've had this monthly meeting going for a few months now. Uh, there's a barbecue next week. If you're over in Comox, you're looking for an excuse to come over to Comox. And, uh, >> and not just the startup people, bro.

27:06talk about the little education thing that we stumbled upon this week about the uh SR71 you guys got over there. >> Yeah, so school district 71 is the local school district there. They're doing some interesting stuff with AI and and you know it it's everything is a little smaller, a little less political maybe than in the big city, which also makes it a little easier to to get into those conversations and and have some really interesting uh engagement. So we're hoping to have that. Vice superintendent of that school district and the director of technology for that school district have built a whole plan and strategy and portal and infrastructure and tools that is like beyond like a lot of what I see

27:40a lot of people asking questions and there's a lot of infrastructure in place out there. It's very very interesting. >> Yeah. So it's it's great. Um and uh we're having a good time. So if you're interested I think we'd also be interested. We don't have the full calendar booked out yet. Uh, but if you want to get in front of people and give a presentation and maybe this room is a little intimidating for you, hop on a ferry, come uh give a give a trial in Kox. And we're a pretty friendly, laid-back group. So, >> I go every month and I keep asking if anyone wants to road trip. So, if you want to go to Comox, let's go.

28:09>> All right. >> Come on up here, guys. We got to move through these things. So, >> when's the next one? >> Uh, it is next Wednesday, right, Steve? Next Wednesday. >> The fourth or the fifth? The fifth. August 5th. Wednesday. August 5th. Wednesday. August 5th. Jimmy. >> Hey. Uh, my name is Jimmy Stewart and um I'm putting together a community of AI uh professionals that are in the enterprise deploying um AI at scale. So, they're looking to bridge the gap between pilot to failure.

28:41A lot of stuff that they do and all these great conferences they go to, they meet a lot of hyped up people saying they got the next best thing in AI and they bought into it and now they bring it back trying to deploy it and it's falling over and they don't scratching their head why. CFOs on their back, CEOs on their back. They're having to answer all kinds of questions in the boardroom.

29:00So, they come to Jimmy to figure out how to fix all that. Chris is actually going to be one of our keynote speakers. He's bringing the human side to the event and really kind of grounding these leaders and uh making them putting them in check and uh essentially making sure that they're deploying human centric responsible AI which is a theme of our pitch for your conference. I've seen your guest list. He's legit got like 75 CIOS from American companies coming here. So if that's your customer, you should buy a past the Jimmy's thing and go hunt CIOS.

29:33>> Yeah. So yeah, definitely. We we're definitely got a lot of CIOS coming, founders that are not in pilot. They're a production. They can scale um policy makers, investors, anybody that's involved with enterprise scale AI. >> Thanks, Jimmy. All right, Angelica, Professor UBC. >> Yeah. Hi guys. Um >> SFU, I'm sorry. Give me a break. But you you said you said Yeah.

30:01>> All right. Yeah. [laughter] Um, will you tell them, will you tell them what your specialty is? >> I'm a roboticist. Um, I'm an AI roboticist. Um, and I work on developing robots that interact with humans. Um, and just as Chris said, uh, we all have this feeling of I'm really excited about this, but also kind of scared. Um, and so in this feeling, I recruited a neuroscientist and a psychologist to help us study what is happening in our brains when we interact with AI. Um, I am running this study. Um, I want to get as many people as possible to kind of get a diverse demographic, not just like this as a few students. So, if you have

30:40any ideas about how we can get the word out, it's just like coming over and interacting for 10 minutes and we kind of, you know, see what's happening in your brain. Some people will go and get their brain imaged and get a 3D scan of their brain at the end. Um, I'd love your help so that we can go for safe, responsible AI. Thank you. [applause] Where do we sign up?

31:01>> Um, Angelica, before you leave, real quick, I've been meaning to email you. >> Where do we sign up? >> Oh, thank you. Um, I don't know. I sent a slide. I don't know if it's still up there, but I I have a whole bunch of posters, so I can just come find me and then I'll give you the little QR code.

31:16>> Um, Angelica is on the mind AI and consciousness chat, so you could ping her there if you're on our WhatsApp group. That's that's a good way to do it. Um, I've been meaning to email you. Uh I really enjoyed our discussions about AI psychosis >> and I think it's a really important topic as you know I think it's a very important topic because I think it uh >> probably touches people who don't realize that it touches you know and stuff. It it's a very interesting phenomenon. It's got to be on the agenda for future proof festival and I would like for you to like propose something please or take the reigns and do something like

31:51>> yeah you want to hear about that sort of thing. Yeah. [applause] I've been on my sobatical and I've been studying it heavily this year. So, um I would All right. So, I'm on the spot. I can't really say no. >> Okay, cool. >> Or at least like pass me a colleague, but no, really, I want to have the I mean, I like for you to lead the dialogue, but at some level I want to be a part of it, too, cuz I'm fascinated.

32:11You know, >> we need to know what's going on, right? Um so, thanks. >> Cool. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. >> Come talk to me after >> check out her work. It's um it's profound. Josh. [applause] Hey everyone. This is my first time here. Thank you so much, Chris, for inviting me. I'd love to meet all of you guys. Uh, so what I do, I host and produce uh live stream content. It's kind of like esports for web design or or now I'm featuring AI tools. But anyways, that's kind of my background.

32:40Um, do we have a slide up here? Okay. So, how I met Chris was about two years ago with another Chris, Chris Doe. Uh, if you do you guys know who have you guys heard of Chris? >> Anybody know this guy? He's famous on the internet friend. >> Uh, he's from LA. He's coming. He's actually in town already. So, every year he usually comes for a fishing trip and then he usually does a talk. So, next Thursday he's coming in for a sales workshop. And I think now with AI, it's never been easier to build. And so if you're building something that's meaningful, I think the skill sets next that's really helpful is going to be

33:14sales and marketing. Like how do you go to market with your service or your product? And then how do you sell in a way that isn't salesy, right? That's um that's human and it takes something that's natural to you uh like your gifts, your talents, your abilities and share it in a way that is authentic to you and that meets your customers needs.

33:32So that's kind of what we're going to talk about. Chris's jam. Chris's jam is that he helps creatives figure out how to look across the table from their clients and be like, "No, ma'am, that's going to be $18,000 [laughter] >> in a way that helps >> and not to break poker f like like Sus is where's Susie at?

33:50>> Susie just became a consultant yesterday at AI consultant. Left her big company, became AI consultant." I know you need to look across the table and be like, "My rate is $250 an hour." >> Yes. and just hold that face, you know, that's his that's his whole jam is he helps people like figure out how to really understand their value so they can communicate it to people that are buying their creative services or whatever. And so he's the world's expert.

34:15>> Yeah. And uh yeah, if you guys are just done with the whole performance, you know, sales game and try to always be closing all that stuff, that's not what this is all about. It's really identifying like what is natural to you and then really relating to the customer. So all of that, it's full workshop. Uh there's great food. It's here in downtown. Again, uh you can scan the code and more details there. Um and if you want to know more, love to talk with you. So, thanks Josh. All right.

34:40Cool, man. >> Bill McGra, what's up, dude? Hey, >> thanks, Chris. You guys know Bill. He's been here since the very beginning. Like I said, we've been hosting this thing for like 3 years back in my studio back in the day. Bill's here. Been here since the beginning. You've kind of like found your way in AI. you started producing some AI events and stuff and you got a couple things going on in the next little while.

35:01>> Yeah, just quickly appreciate it, Chris. Uh I host a uh a meetup every month for the Agentics Foundation. Uh this is a group that's founded in Toronto. Uh grown to now 20 uh locations around the world. Uh they didn't have a start a meetup in Vancouver. So I I said, "Okay, well we we need we can't have that, especially with Chris doing stuff like he's doing." So we uh uh it just turns out we uh we do it monthly. It's tomorrow night at um uh Nor Eastern. So if you're it's free, there's food. Uh it's really focused on across uh we started with a lot of devs um and now we've got a lot of UIUX people who are

35:42just um dabbling, people who are deep into it. So lots of conversation about uh how do you actually deploy this and keep the human in the loop. I think that's the big thing. >> Yeah. If you guys are like, "Yo, Chris, your meetup's barely even AI. It's not even technical at all. I want to show people my cloud skills and have them check out my GitHub repo. You want to go to the Aentic AI meet up at Bill's Place." We definitely got those vibes in this room, too, but they don't always get flexed out here. And then you got another thing going on.

36:08>> Yeah. So, uh, it's just starting. You may have heard of Alexander College. Uh, they've taken over a it's a it's a private secondary postsecary school. uh they've taken over a building downtown and they're building out an uh innovation center for AI. So um servers in the in the basement uh they want to call it a data center. We can't call it data center anymore because that's bad.

36:30So [laughter] so it it's really not a data center but it does give compute to the students and compute for the community which I think is important. Uh second floor is going to be this innovation center. So we're looking at an incubator uh products uh all kinds of good stuff. We're just getting started with it uh in the next couple months and we'll have more to talk about it as we go forward.

36:53>> Thanks, Bill. >> Appreciate it. >> Yeah, ma'am. I'll take that. >> Anyone else on the community announcement train? Jason? >> No, I don't have an announcement. The question is, how do we get a hold of Bill? >> Bill McGrath. Hey, uh Jason wants to get a hold of you and go to the Agentics meetup and he wants to go to the Alexander College meetup. How do they find you? Like just on our group chat or what?

37:12>> Yeah, it's a it's a Luma event. It's um the Agentics Foundation meetup. Um and if you wanted uh if you want >> Jason, if you ask on the events channel, I'll reply later >> for sure. >> Yeah. Or find me. >> We're working on it, dude. It's a little wild here tonight, man. Like, uh I was feeling the flow and did the whole future proof thing and I blew up Kevin's whole deal over there. Like, come on.

37:33I'm sorry. But he didn't have a QR code anyway. [laughter] >> He didn't have a QR code anyway, though. >> Okay. Okay. Um Before we move on, is there anyone else who is in the community announcement zone who was feeling shy or didn't get a chance to talk at the right moment? Andrea Ry, you want to mention your podcast?

37:56[laughter] >> I'm coming to you. >> I used to be more agile when I had two hands. Uh, hi folks. Uh, my name is Andrea Rhyr. [gasps] I have a podcast called She They Us that looks at the people living at the front line of the housing crisis, which are uh women and gender diverse folks who structurally have less ability to access housing and therefore an greater crisis and would love to um have you check it out. I have no idea has to do with AI or what we're all about, but thank you for the opportunity. That's funny because I actually I was referring to Power You.

38:35I didn't even know you had that podcast. I She also has this really cool video series she does on the internet called Power You where she's examining like power, access to power, where it comes from, how it's accumulated, how it's reinforced, how you oppose it and challenge it. And I find it awesome and I I anytime someone starts to talk to me about this kind of stuff, I point them at power you. So that's that's what I was talking Yeah. And that's what that has to do with AI.

39:02Um, is there anyone else who needs to talk? This is that moment. >> Mage, I appreciate you not because you could have said so many things. Mage and Miami won another uh AI animation hackathon 3 days ago. Um, [cheering] [applause] >> we have it. We can roll it. >> Uh, yeah, you're going to get to watch it later once we get back on time track.

39:23Okay. >> [laughter] >> Kevin, uh, leader of our AI film club, would you please come up here and introduce, um, Dorothy? >> You bet. Hang on. Let me, [applause] >> please, hold. Your call is important. >> Um, this is Kevin. He's my right-hand man in all this kind of stuff. He also runs our AI film club where he hosts and gives a very compelling series of keynotes himself. All right, sir.

39:49>> Thank you, sir. Um, how you doing, everybody? It's been a little while. Um, we truly have um the most modest rock star you'll ever meet in our midst tonight. Uh, Dorothy uh uh we we we had been trying to get together uh on at the film club for several months. She was just rocking too hard internationally to be able to be in town at the same time, but we finally made it happen in May.

40:19and what she shared about her craft, her background, her passion, her way of working the new frontier of just what the heck it is to present yourself into the world in this new frontier of AI film making was so generous and heartfelt and we got so much out of it. Um, and I can't wait for you to see, you know, just what she's accomplished in the mere uh where are we, 90 days since then. So, uh, Dorothy, I'm so glad that you're here on the main stage tonight.

40:52It's, uh, you're in for a real treat. Um, not just creatively, but as a human being as well. Please welcome to the stage, Dorothy Freaking Pang, y'all. [applause]

41:11>> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. >> Thank you. Oh my gosh, thank you guys so much. I have to carry paper because I get anxious speaking. So, you guys seem really nice though. So, hopefully it all goes well. [cheering and laughter] Yeah. So, it's honestly so nice to meet you guys. What a pleasure. I didn't know there was going to be a barbecue, so that was pretty amazing. So, my name is Dorothy. I am a full-time AI artist, creative director, and filmmaker. Um, I don't come from a traditional film background. Um but somehow today I find myself um a creative lead on this Hollywood movie um directed by Doug Lyman called Killing Satoshi um which is one of the first uh full feature films.

42:00So it's full hybrid feature film with Hollywood actors um integrating AI fully. So I'm on the post-production team as one of the creative leads and it's going to be going to theaters which is really really crazy. It's uh it's gonna be like an hour and a half. And for those who have made AI videos, yeah, an hour and a half. [laughter] Yeah, it's uh it's been keeping me busy, that's for sure. Um so, a little bit about me. Uh I didn't make a career out of creative work until later in life. Um and my path was anything but traditional. I actually came from the fashion and tech industry. Um, and creativity was always running in

42:43parallel, but I kind of just knew in my heart I was meant to do something more creative. Um, so I was always searching and I've I've done many different career paths and I've come across this which is pretty wild. Um, I also have a bit of an acting background that I explored on the side and that's kind of how I got exposed to being on set for TV, film, um, commercial sets and I'm just such a lover of film. Um, I didn't go to film school, but I've studied films critically since all my life. Um, I did film studies in high school and um, I really love film and that's the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing right now.

43:26Um, because I really want to create and tell stories. So, my design film making is completely self-taught. Um, I taught myself everything on how to edit. Um, and I'm really excited to share with you guys probably at the end one of my short films. So, how I accidentally became an AI filmmaker. I want to tell you guys a little bit about my journey. Um, and some of the opportunities that are available for people in the space. It's still very new and tons of opportunities for those who are interested.

44:02So, before AI tools, I actually just created videos. I created social media videos and that's how I taught myself editing um from the start. But when AI kind of hit the market in 2023, probably early 2024, I started playing around with MidJourney. Um so my partner is also an AI filmmaker. Um and I got really inspired to create images. I think that's actually the best place to start. Um MidJourney is an amazing playground for testing out styles. You can mix up different styles. Um, I turned childhood drawings, my signature childhood style drawing from four years old into a live action figure. Um, I took my personal photography and remixed it and made it really weird. Um, so it's

44:51such a I realized it was a it's like a supercharged creative canvas um to create and that's the spirit in which I've always really approached AI. Um it's creativity, playing and creating. Um so it helps me visualize dreams, emotions and it's really its own language and I want to tell you more about how I do that. Um so for those who've actually tried image generation, um can I get a show of hands? Who's who's ever generated an image? Cool. That's a lot of people.

45:27That's amazing. Um, I I know when I first started it can be really challenging. It can be challenging to actually get something that you like. Maybe that's even up to your standard. Um, but I assure you my first images kind of sucked. Um, and it's because I did it again and again, I swear if you do it a thousand times, 2,000 times, 10,000 times, your images are going to just get better. It's just an it's just having that ten tenacity to keep going.

45:56Um, so yeah, I really encourage you guys if you've ever played and given up, which some people have told me, they're like, "Oh, I played with Mid Journey for two days and I gave up." Um, keep going cuz there's there's way more things you can discover. And I think if you even approach it with with childlike uh wonder and not be going for an outcome and just more of discovery that can also really change your mindset when it comes to creating images or videos.

46:27So how this all happened was I created in public. So I started making images, videos, films and I started posting them on my social accounts. I entered film making competitions, international ones, local ones. Um, and it helps if you win, but you also just meet other filmmakers. And I made a lot of friends along the way. And that's how work started coming in. I created a portfolio of short films with range and people started reaching out whether it was for commercial work um, and and I'll tell you more about that.

47:09Oh, and I wanted to tell you guys a little bit um more of how I got a lot of empowerment through um AI film making. So, when I was doing acting on the side um I did it for a year or two. Um I used to do a lot of auditioning. Um I also did scene study which I love. Um which is really going deep into um scenes and story. Um, so when I was auditioning, I probably done over a hundred auditions and you get rejected a lot. Um, you often don't hear back. You don't know, you don't get feedback and it like it's it's very challenging. So, as a part-time actor, I actually felt

47:55that um I needed to create a channel or a place for myself to create because if you're not getting the green light to be a part of these creative projects, commercials, film, TV, then I have to create my own channel um to do that. And I think that's really healthy and it was a really healthy way to um to create that empowerment. Um because the thing with acting is that even if you land a role, you don't get to control the story. You don't get to write and truly be a part of the creative team. You are just a part of the execution. So this is a this is one of the things I really

48:35discovered along the way, the empowerment of writing your own story and putting your POV um into your work. Um, and that's that to me is one of the most magical things about AI film making that it's so accessible um and can be used for good. It was >> from passion projects to paid work.

48:57[laughter] >> Yeah. I wanted to share with you guys um there's a lot of work opportunities I see all the time in this space. So, I mainly work freelance in the documentary space, commercial space, and the film space. Um, I typically work freelance, but I've worked full-time the last couple months on Doug Lyman's movie.

49:21And the type of paid work that is most common, I'm going to share with you guys um a definitely AI artists. huge demand for AI artists, good and reliable AI artists um from all projects across the board, especially the commercial space. Um that is that is going to continue to grow and has been the biggest opportunity I think um for AI. There's just a lot of people looking to hire artists for commercial projects. Um after I created one of my short films last October, um I had an agent reach out to me from Europe who represent me for commercial work. So that is one avenue as well to get work. If you can you know get a good

50:01portfolio going sometimes these agencies reach out to you and you will they will find work find commercials that fit you and you can join bigger groups um and whatnot. Um because earlier this year I worked a couple months on a big commercial for the World Cup for this European company and it was a really great experience.

50:21So, in the documentary space, that's another really interesting application for AI. Um, so the documentary space does so much B-roll. So, the main the main footage obviously are the interviews, um, maybe articles, but there's a lot of B-roll. And so, what I've been hired to do before, and I did this for a Vice documentary, um, is to create the B-roll using AI. So I get a shot list and I help deliver these shots. They're usually just a part of people's storytelling. So there might be just an interview of say a murder documentary, someone talking about someone's childhood maybe and there's just no footage for their childhood, there's no footage for them as a teenager. So it's a really great space

51:11for AI to just imagine what that could be. Um, so that's one thing that I think there's work out there for. Another place is micro dramas. Um, tons of these little micro drama companies hiring. I was really lucky early this year. Um, this one micro drama company wanted to run a a test and they flew me out to San Francisco to work with some actors for a week and I helped make this micro drama which was really fun. Um, so it's ton I know there's tons of work there and they're looking for storytellers, full AI and also hybrid.

51:47What else? Um, there's a ton of new corporate jobs that are appearing all the time uh with AI as a part of the job. Um, so last year, uh, I worked with Amazon Music in this very experimental role with two other people as their first gen AI designer. Um, it was just a three-month contract and we basically just taught them a bunch of things. Um, I looked at their product roadmap and I looked at how they could actually integrate AI into their software. Um, which is a really fun task for me. Um, so these opportunities exist. So I encourage you u maybe set up a keyword keyword email. Sometimes I still get emails coming to me that I set up a

52:34keyword for AI or something else. Um, and these opportunities will just pop up into your inbox and you never know. All right, so the next slide was going to say, see, I'm lucky I I I printed this out, right? No slides. [laughter] I was going to say, uh, lessons from the industry. I was going to talk a little bit about what I've learned and just some myths about AI filmm um for those who and it's good for people who've never done it or also people who are in it as well. Um so the first myth I hear all the time is that AI is just about prompting. Um a lot of the the haters will say oh it's so easy you just write

53:20a sentence. Um, so while it has become very easy to create a nice photo, um, even kind of a a sloppy video, >> what I believe is really hard is to actually create something that's good. That remains the same, sorry, that remains the same as traditional film and video. You really need to put thought and detail into it. So the first thing is art direction. when I create work um and let's say if I didn't put in any thought and I just put in some generic prompts I get back the most generic images and my videos will look like the most average thing with a very gray blue color palette and it will lack you know

54:02vibrancy humanness in my opinion so I think if you want to actually do something good you need to still bring the art direction it is just like film they have set designers, they have costume, wardrobe department, they have makeup, they have props. You still need to think of these things. You should design them and make them your own. Um, so that's that's I think what AI filmm is. So you need to go into the details and make those choices.

54:31And if you want to make something that truly stands out, you really need to tell a story. Um, and that's one of my favorite things about uh creating and that I can confirm that AI is actually not good at that. Sometimes I do ask it to to create something for me. It is absolute garbage. So, you really still need the human to feed even if you use AI as a tool to feed it the story, the logic. Um, anything I make still requires so much rewriting. I rewrite drafts. It it's it's still the same process. Um, and ultimately the writing and the story, the idea comes from me.

55:10And I like to put a lot of like my life, inspiration, things I've read, things I feel, POVs. These are the most amazing things you can ever put into your own artwork and that will make you stand out. And the second myth, um, oh sorry, one more thing. Um to make a good film, you also need to have a good vision with your with other aspects like editing, sound design. Um through learning film making, I've become so humbled at how difficult it is um to edit really well.

55:46How difficult it is to create really good sound in a film. I have so much appreciation for people who are experts. I work with VFX experts um all day and I have so much appreciation for them and their brain. Um so it's these it's it's these skills that are still really valuable in my opinion um that AI can't just do although it is getting easier and easier in some aspects to make to make videos. An example would be agentic models. Um, there's a lot of these new agentic models like Luma Uni1 um that that do make making a film from start to end easier, but I've tested them and they still lack soul. I think

56:27you really need to still infuse humanity into the script and work back and forth with the agentic model. Um, so the second myth is that AI removes creativity. I actually think it amplifies your taste and your choices because you actually get more choice. You get more shots. If you think about it, a direct a normal director is um limited by budget, you know, locations. Maybe they only get six shots. You can do unlimited locations.

57:06Maybe you get 50 shots, but you still have to go through the action of choosing and knowing which one. Um, you still need to have that eye. I think if you want to do something good, you need to know what you're looking for, what what kind of performance you want, um, even from the AI.

57:23So as tools shorten the distance between idea, audience and iteration um you can also get quicker feedback from your audience. Um which is pretty amazing um in my opinion that you can actually in the past it might take 3 years, four years, 5 years longer to get your film made and by the time you wrote something all this time has passed. So this ability to iterate quickly and maybe you can get something onto YouTube and um and maybe people relate to it. Um that's it's all kind of amazing in that way.

57:58So as tech as technical barriers disappear, I think a filmmaker's greatest advantage is their ability to see the world differently and to express that through the vision of their film. So that to me is still the most human thing. So AI to me is still very much a tool. It's a means to create something.

58:23It's a means to create concept, but it is still human vision driving it that makes it shine at the end of the day. Third myth quickly. Making an AI film is easy. I can assure you [laughter] I've been working on this feature film, this hybrid feature film with an Eden Galgado, Casey Affleck, Pete Davidson, nothing about what we're doing is straightforward. Even if it's full AI, even scenes that I'm doing that are full AI, nothing is straightforward. Keeping a consistent film is extremely challenging. In fact, I think in some ways it's more challenging um using AI.

59:04So, every day I'm problem solving with artists. I work with 3D artists. I work with compositors. Um, I work with experienced VFX artists. And we don't just press a button and it's done. We are literally all doing using different tools. We're solving different problems. We're trying to get the hair mat working with the weird light on top. Um, so there's all these problems we're always trying to solve. And I think what is helping my project is actually the people. It's it's the people more than the the AI tools. We are simply experimenting, but at the end of the day, we're the ones who are driving the output of the film.

59:50I had a quote um that was going to be on a slide. I was going to share with you guys. Thank you, paper. >> [laughter] >> I was really lucky um to be at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas this year and I got to see Steven Spielberg um do a keynote there which is amazing. He's such a hero of mine and he spoke about um if filmmakers are truly able to be honest with themselves that we embed our subconscious into our work. Um, so that's very in line with some of the things I said um that really as makers, as artists, we are putting our subconscious and ourselves into our work. Um, and I found that to be it

1:00:36really resonated with me and just made me love what I'm trying to do more.

1:00:45>> All right. Um, so let's see. The next stuff might not work cuz I had something visual to show you which I can't now. But that's okay. Um, that's okay. We can skip ahead. We can skip ahead. [laughter] Um, okay. Next slide. The right way to approach AI film making. I asked the question, what can this medium do that nothing else can do?

1:01:17So when photography came out in the 1800s, early photographers were highly criticized. Painters who were the dominant artists at the time said, "Photography is cheap. You just press a button." Um, it's stupid. Such a dumb technology. Sounds really similar actually to what we're going through. Um, so at the time it was very illegitimate to be a photographer in the 1800s. In fact, photographers tried to stage their sets just like painters just to even be kind of in the ballpark respected. I guess they staged scenes, they use soft focus, they did portraits just like painters um manipulated paints. Um but some photographers argued that it should actually lean into the qualities that only they are good at.

1:02:08So, for example, photography can capture um it can be a still of a moving of motion. Um they can do aerial views, these crazy aerial views that a painter couldn't possibly have a setup to do. Um so, it wasn't really until they leaned into what they were meant to do that only they could do that I think photography really grew and became its own thing and not just a mimic of painting.

1:02:37So I think we're in this stage to really ask that question. What can AI film making and art do that traditional art cannot? Um so I don't have all the answers. I have some answers or I have my version but I think I challenge everyone to ask themselves that if you do make films and art.

1:03:05So in so for myself um what I think only AI can do really well um that's very difficult is this physics-free continuity um so this is actually I think very technical and difficult normally um if we were to do this traditionally but AI can you go you could like start off in the in the universe and then um shoot right into a planet and go into molecular level and go into the earth and the dirt and there's there's some things that are just so impossible to visualize traditionally like I couldn't bring a set to to film that shot and the VFX might be too difficult. Um but AI can do that stuff pretty easy. Um, so sometimes

1:03:53I personally try to test out AI to do things that traditional film would just not be able to. That is too difficult, too expensive, and frankly maybe weird. So physics free continuity is one. The morphing subject is another. I'm sure you guys have seen that. That's very AI. um the morphing of say you could you could morph myself as a baby into my my current self um in a 15-second video. Um that is very unique to something that AI can do. Um things that are morphing and I think that's something also that's fun to lean into.

1:04:34All right. Um so the last part for me is the future of AI cinema. The first is AI integrated into tra traditional film and TV pipelines. We're seeing that already. Um it's this is just traditional shows and TV just with some AI integrated maybe into their post-production with VFX. Netflix actually revealed Netflix revealed that 300 titles um on their platform used generative AI in their process this year during post-production mostly for visual effects. So that's this that's this number one. The second is full hybrid film and TV contact content. That's the example I gave you. I'm the feature film I'm working on where we filmed actors for 20 days um on a set and we've now

1:05:27spending months and months to make the movie and make the environments um and do the crazy camera moves um post-prouction. So this is a full hybrid film and I think this is a part of the future of AI cinema and the last one is just brand new type of media which is um just fully AI film and TV. Tons of platforms are trying to do that right now just full generative AI films and movies for for consumption but also I think one of the best applications is to use it for concepts and trailers. So a lot of filmmakers are quickly testing their ideas and making a trailer just may and maybe to get funding maybe to test it out on the

1:06:15internet. Um, you can use AI still and try to film something traditionally. Nothing is stopping you um from using it as a means to to get the interest and funding you need. Um, there's a lot of filmmakers today who or there's a lot of indie filmmakers who have succeeded by by by creating and really carrying that spirit of creating on YouTube first.

1:06:38They got their audience on YouTube first, right? like Barry Barker um for example uh who who's been creating forever and brought his audience to the theaters. And that is kind of it from me. [cheering] [applause] >> Thank you. [applause] >> We do have your film. >> We have your film. >> Okay. So, would you like to do Q&A first and then the film or? Yeah, >> let's do the film.

1:07:10>> Let's do the film first. Break it up.

1:07:28Heat.

1:07:45Heat.

1:08:18Oh my god. Oh my god. >> Keep pushing. We're trying to pull you out.

1:08:29>> I'm going to go get more help.

1:08:47There's nothing you can do but breathe slowly. Eyes closed. 5 4 3 2 1. [music] Remember grandma 10 years old and working any job she could find. [screaming]

1:09:24>> [music] >> You can do one more minute.

1:09:35[music] There's nothing to do now but breathe. [music] It's so cold it hurts.

1:09:51>> [music] >> I remember what it feels like to be warm. Sitting on the beach in Pasatano right now. That pizza place near the beach. It had so much [music] cheese on it. That's where I'll go after this. Animals survive winters like this every year. There are things living down here. [music] Tiny things.

1:10:40This is it.

1:10:47I spent the day with beautiful friends doing the best thing on earth.

1:10:58We can do one more minute. [music]

1:11:26>> [applause and music]

1:11:34>> Well, that that was positively haunting. Beautiful. Um, would someone hit the second light switch from the top on the wall panel back there? All right. So, I imagine there's going to be some questions for Dorothy. Uh, who who's got something they'd like? Yep. >> Is that Ted? >> What's up, man? Nice to see you, dude.

1:11:56>> Always good to see you, Chris. >> Yeah, I guess. >> N man, for the live stream, bro. >> I appreciate it. Thanks, Chris. Dory, wonderful, wonderful talk. I'm uh honored to have the first question for you. But um so I've been kind of hacking away building myself um you know a bit of a creative more from the gaming side of things. Uh and what you mentioned about how you first started and how you start growing was through um building a public uh and sharing. So honestly I've been dragging my feet about that for a long long time. I've been wanting to do it, but uh always just kind of not uh having that first step of thinking about

1:12:33how to you know present the stuff that I'm building. Um so love to kind of learn about your process like you know what worked, what didn't. Uh was it just about sharing your content directly or it's about sharing your process? Um just love to kind of learn about how you got started with that.

1:12:51>> Yeah, it's good question. It's definitely not onesizefits-all. Um, but I can just share for myself um, what I did and what was right for me. Um, for myself, I wasn't necessarily just trying to grow a following. I was just trying to get my work publicly um, out in the public and to put my portfolio up in visibly. Um, I wasn't trying to get a million followers by doing very viral things. Um, so everyone's goals are different. So I would actually ask yourself um what's your goal? Are you trying to get noticed by a company? Are you trying to there's there's so many motivations. Um but for myself, I knew that I just wanted to I'm

1:13:36trying to get into film making. So I should just make I should make high quality work. Um in that way um that actually kind of works against me sometimes cuz Instagram says we will not promote your reel because it's too long. [laughter] So, so in that way sometimes I'm I'm like maybe I'm not the right person to even answer the social media question.

1:13:55But um if I were to give you advice from the very beginning, um I would say if you're so uncomfortable right now and you're still in the creating phase, I was I would sometimes just create and just tuck it away. Um the most important thing is to keep creating. Keep creating whether it's image or video. Um, but if you do start feeling more comfortable and you're more happy with maybe what you're doing, um, just put it on YouTube or Instagram, um, just get it out there.

1:14:24You can delete it later on if you don't like it. >> Um, you never know. Maybe people really like it. You don't even know, but it's very easy to just delete it. I totally resonate with the just keep creating part, but then you mentioned photo and video, but I thought that one of the things that carried your work was like the audio like the music and the effects and stuff was like pretty like is a beautiful part of it all.

1:14:46>> Thank you. >> Was that Do you consider that part of your own practice and expression like >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Natasha's got a question over here. >> Yes. >> Oh my god, that was like mind blown. At first when I was watching it, I thought really AI and that was that good. And then there were a few things that AI does that just like it's like oh if you didn't do that this could be so cool. So I want to ask you how you deal with it.

1:15:14There was a scene where she's under the water and her mouth is going above the surface of the water. Under the surface, but she's breathing through her mouth and that's not possible. >> Yeah. >> How do you deal with that? Yeah, it's it's definitely a tough one. Um, so it's all about it's about your tolerance. So for myself, I was trying to do this for a certain competition and you have to make trade-offs as a filmmaker. I can keep working on this for another 6 months and nail every single little shot. It's just going to take me a longer time. Um, but it depends. Again, my goal is like I just want to get reasonably good content out

1:15:55there. This was for a competition so I had to do it. I had a limited amount of time. So sometimes I have to accept that something is not perfect. But I am a perfectionist and I'm actually learning to try to let go of certain small things. Um I think in the spirit of creating it's better to just do the thing and maybe it's not imperfect rather than spend like 10 years on it.

1:16:19>> Traier [applause] you're up next after mage here. You can have a seat. I'll come to you in a second. >> I'll come to you in a second. >> Oh, yeah. Hey, uh, beautiful. Obviously, um, I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you decided on a lot of the shots. Like I mean obviously the first part with the the skiing was was clear and obvious storytelling, but then you cut away to a lot of really interesting things like neurons building and um the fox was just inspired and there was so many different little aspects there. I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about how um those things came to you,

1:16:58how much you experimented with that, how much uh editing you did to kind of like put something in, try it out, take it out, or and how you ended up with that whole thing. and and also how long did it take you given that like for me doing obviously the same sort of work that you do um I just felt like intimidated by the breadth of the um just the breadth of the content that you put in that all added towards the story. So can you tell me a bit about your process?

1:17:29>> Yes, that was a handful. I'm I'll do my best. [laughter] Um so I start with writing. Um for me writing is the my foundation. Um I actually changed the concept three times before and I even started stuff and stopped it rewrote started stopped rewrote cuz it just wasn't working. So that's a part of my like painful process. Sometimes um what I what I wanted to say is just not translating at all even into film. So, a lot of time was actually wasted on on rewriting things that weren't working. Um, so when I when this script and this idea did work, um, it all just comes together.

1:18:10So, I actually write a proper screenplay. I do actually have I try to pretend pretend I'm like selling this thing. Um, I actually write it into a screenplay, which means I actually have the details on how I envision the shots. Um, what what what the voice over is, for example. Um, so specifically your question was about the montage when she's underwater. How I thought about um how I came up with those shots. Um, that part for me was actually easier than the the hardest part was actually the action shots and the water and the ice and the consistency. Um, those montage shots.

1:18:46That was the fun part for me where I was just all I was was dialed into the script. I knew what the lines were. So now all I have to do is read it and think about what is uh what's the spirit behind it. Um so for me I get into my characters. This is based on a real woman who actually survived kind of like this like trapped um skiing underwater 80 minutes. Her heart actually stopped.

1:19:12her heart stopped um for many hours and somehow she resuscitated um because the it's amazing our bodies but um her uh the it was so cold that her brain kind of just reduced its capacity need for energy and she somehow survived not breathing for hours. Amazing. Um so I was like what what would that be like if you knew you might die? um that you were just trapped underwater with your skis up there. Um what might that feel like?

1:19:45So while doing that, I came up with, oh, I would probably think about someone strong in my life. And she thinks about her grandma. I'd probably start trying to comfort myself. Um and maybe think about going to get pizza after. Um these are like my real thoughts. I was like, I'd probably um yeah, think about Pasatano, Italy. [laughter] Um, so a lot of it actually just comes from my own um I'm trying to like empathize with the girl.

1:20:13>> Okay, there's a few more people who want to ask questions, but we are going to enter the lightning round now. >> Christopher Tratier. >> Yeah, >> Alex. Who else has their hand up? Oh my god. Oh my god. All right, we're going to deal with this. We got [laughter] Chris, >> you get one sentence. It has to be a question.

1:20:31>> Yeah. Great. and then please give like a 30 second at the maximum answer. We're going to try to get to the rest of these. Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, my question is um considering that AI generates so much slop, how do you get your good stuff into the hands of the gatekeepers because obviously you're working with really qualified pe people and talented people. How do you do that?

1:20:55>> Thank you. >> How do I get my good stuff it? Um, by creating by choosing not to post cheap stuff is probably my biggest strategy. >> I want to I want to interject even, but like like the legitimacy level. So it's like if you're like, "Yo, I'm an AI film." How do you get past that? Oh, it must be sloppy slop Like how do you get people to even watch your thing?

1:21:15>> Exactly. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Like how the photographers >> You must know what I'm talking about that you say you're an AI filmmaker and people are like pew pew. Uh, thank you very much. But [laughter] like uh >> Yeah. So, you're a midterm. >> I don't I honestly don't have that many followers to be honest. [laughter] I don't know that like there's like even that many people watching my stuff, but I honestly it was about posting like I think a lot of people like to take the strategy to post one thing a day and I take so long to make a post and it's anti the proper strategy, but I have really chosen to only post stuff that

1:21:49I'm truly proud of and so somehow the right people have seen it at the right time. So after I posted like clinical comm like my agent reached out like within a day or two. How? I don't know. Somehow some someone saw it. Um you are a humble hero because I joked to you when I was working the barbecue earlier when I tell people you were speaking here tonight. They were like I wish I could fly from Toronto. So your following might not be that great on the numbers but like everybody's watching what you're doing.

1:22:19>> [applause] >> Your narrative section was visionary. It was great. Um, I'm also a filmmaker working on a hybrid project. Um, but what I wanted to ask you is how do you deal with the negative negativity and like the echo chamber for filmmakers right now because as a filmmaker that's really horrible and it needs to stop and hopefully it will stop.

1:22:41I honestly don't think I'm important enough to get this like hate online to be honest. And maybe I would feel differently if I got a lot of online hate. Um, for myself, I'm really proud of what I do because I don't I choose not to like put out cheap crap. So, I know if I'm proud of my own work, um, and that that I think it has a real story, that's that's my way of dealing with it. Um, so, so yeah, I don't I also maybe I just surround myself with other a filmmakers. I don't really feel it too hard. [clears throat] >> I'm right back here.

1:23:16>> Lightning round. >> Lightning round. Thank you so much, Dorothy. Uh, Stacy, I'm a director of communications at the University of the Fraser Valley Rally. So, storytelling of course resonates. What stuck with me as you said earlier, some of the tools you use don't have a soul. This so obviously had so much soul in it. So can you quickly talk about very esoteric but where does soul come into that process for you because it obviously does but just curious about how you navigate that with all the criticism negativity AI is fake is not authentic not human where how does that all >> um conoles together >> I think I think I infuse soul in it

1:23:51first through the writing a lot of the time the writing um comes from sometimes an experience I've had it comes from maybe I saw a new story and I felt really strong about it so that's for me infusing soul even just the choice of topic and what what it's trying to say that's like the number one thing and then number two is how is the style I think style is like so personal and that that's like a really big choice that reveals your soul or or lack of or lack of choosing as well if you want to be super generic with no choice that's also you see that right so >> I got at least one more right here

1:24:31>> and then I'm going to come up Jimmy and then we're going to wrap it up and go to Dave Olson. >> No pressure whatsoever. Um, midjourney beta user. So, absolutely love when you brought that up. How far it's come is just remarkable. Uh, so are you using that for part of your film production or what type of AI model are you using for producing these films? And where do you see it going? cuz where it started it's just so crazy of how you can now influence the style of imagery you want it to produce and so what's how is it going to evolve from here >> I two questions >> you sure did >> uh I'll I'll answer in two parts

1:25:12personal work and um paid work um so for my personal work I use all tools because I like to experiment with everything I like midjourney um always to set style specifically for I think for animated style you can get really creative in midjourney at midjourneys though not so good for live action though um so so yes it's continues to be a tool for personal um usually uh I find in my professional work we don't really use midjourney um for one reason or another that's not even my choice it's like the producers um but sorry was did that answer your question >> film like >> just your top do right now of the moment tools.

1:25:55>> Of the moment tools um definitely sea dance, but that can be done through many places. >> You the happy horse. >> Happy horse. Um no, I have >> there's a new Alibaba model that I've been messing with this kind of interesting. So, okay. So, sea dance and what else? >> Yeah, definitely sea dance and cling 01 the cling omni because you can infuse more you can infuse human performance and do a lot more weird things.

1:26:19>> I got one more right here from this guy Nash. >> Yeah. Uh great great film. It resonates with me because I live in the Arctic and I've heard these stories live and I see a lot of value in these stories being told because search and rescue and sharing what to do in these situations is phenomenal. What I wanted to understand is how do you get a lot of experts to you know come together to bring that together because when you're talking to someone interviewing they're telling you their experience but then now to translate that there is my vision there's their vision and there's a lot of you know experts you kind of have to

1:26:52bring around to bring that richness and for it to translate that soul just wanted to know how you get those experts around you. Can I make sure I understand the question? Um, how how I get the right people to watch my film? >> Well, no, no, not the right people, not the audience. I'm talking the the team that you're working with for them to really curate that together.

1:27:15>> Uh, you know, there's a lot of people, I would imagine, sound, like you said, visuals and all that sort of stuff. How do you source that? How do you find the right people to come for that project to actually bring it to life? >> Completely depends on the size of project. So, the project I'm working on, um, I'm I'm a creative lead on the team and all the hiring choices are made by our executive producer. So, that's not actually one of my choices. Um, but in smaller projects that um I I take on, for example, if I get hired to make a short film and I have a budget, um, I can make my choices on say a sound a

1:27:50sound designer or anyone that I want to help me. So, usually it'll be within my network. Um, and and yeah, I don't know. Does that answer your question? >> We might talk more. >> Okay. [laughter] >> Have you ever wondered what it was like to go up on stage and like have your keynote not freaking be there?

1:28:08[laughter] >> I'm just like, you passed the test. You passed the test. >> Me and you even had that chat. You're like, we talked about the confidence monitor. I'm like, ah, sometimes it's sketchy. I would just recommend paper, but I wasn't even thinking about that when that >> Yeah. [laughter] >> How about Dorothy Pang? Thank you very Thank you very much. [applause] >> All right, so now the moment you've all been waiting for. Um, there's a cooler in the back with beers and bubbly wines in it. I'm going to set up Dave's little perch right here. We got Dave Olsen in here from Okyama, Japan. Um, I've been really sentimental about this the whole night, like cuz I invoke Dave's name all

1:28:51the time at these meetups. Dave uh you know broadcasts in sometimes. He's the reason why we have a podcast cuz he's like, "Hey, you got to tell me what you got going on over there." So now Dave and my mom listen to the podcast. Um but I've been really sentimental about this whole thing. I'm really excited so many of you came. Grab a drink in the back.

1:29:07Come find your seat. I've got a handout to give you that me and Dave been working on for a month. And um we'll get this party started in like one minute here. Dave Olsen, come on up, buddy. [applause]

1:29:25Oh, hello. Hello, everyone. Hello, young Ichiro son. How are you, sir? He's smiling. That's all we need to know. Hello everyone. Uh my name is Kemp. Uh it is my great honor to be in front of you. Uh I've been working with Chris uh behind the scenes to help support him uh with this event. Although, man, as you know, Chris does so much. Um, and so, uh, I also, uh, it was a long time ago.

1:29:54It was like 2007, 2008. And I was sitting in a classroom at BCIT learning about social media. And I was like, I know all about this Twitter thing. And I was like, I have these three people. I need to learn. I need to meet these people. I'm going to use this Twitter thing. I'm going to meet these people.

1:30:09They're so cool. They're the coolest people. One was my future boss at Hootsweet. Uh, one was Dave and one was Chris actually. Um, if you Google Kris Krüg digital footprint, you will find my blog interview with Chris from 2008. It is very interesting. Um, but also uh Dave uh who has been sort of a mentor to me uh and uh uh manur manatee a kind of symbiosis has occurred over time. Uh but it is truly my great honor uh to introduce after 10 plus years. We were here for Northern Voice, the last one that I recall. I remember sitting right there introducing Dave uh as he was giving a talk that was similar but different. Um but this is something all

1:30:56new and I'm so glad to be able to introduce Dave Olsen who needs no introduction.

1:31:11Where's our uh First Nations brother that gave us such that warm welcome off the top. Anthony George and just left. Oh, I brought a present all the way. Okay, I'll put her on standby. There will be other presents. >> All right, let's hit some slides. Let's see what happens. >> You got the You got the button right there, sir.

1:31:38So, here we are again together alone. Everyone good? [cheering] >> All right. Well, this is not my first apocalypse. [laughter] Dear little Dave hanging out with his super cool bif focals. Have you ever seen bif focals look that punk rock on anyone? and what seems to be a dwindling fire and a bowl of oatmeal. Well, when I think about that little Dave, I think, what would f what would he find handy?

1:32:11Cuz tools. We humans love our tools, don't we? After all. So, lighters. A collection. Everyone has a collection of lighters at home, right? >> Yeah. Yes, of course. >> And that cute little bif focal Dave would probably want a pocketk knife. So, just in case next time I'm traveling through that time, I keep at least a dozen on standby cuz it seems like he would need that. But what he really wanted is a big knife cuz whoever's got the big knife wins, the biggest computer, the biggest thing wins. Or is it the person who has the best eyesight?

1:32:44Cuz all of you have a collection of glasses, too, right? >> Yeah. >> I'm going to make a mobile sometime. I think I paid for the orthodontists of children of opthalmologists by now. Let that one sit for a minute. That was a lot of syllables and I pulled it off. Well, that's uh I guess we call it good now, eh? [laughter]

1:33:11But what I really love is scissors. I love these scissors so much. I bought them 3 years ago. I still haven't taken the tag off of them because it just looks so right. You know, I think about someone handmaking those scissors and tying the tag on it and coming all the way to my barn in Japan.

1:33:28Oh, and a good tape dispenser. We've been We've been fooled by big tape to put up with those tiny little crappy things. Singleuse tape dispensers. And really, if you're going back to an apocalypse, tape. Think of all the things you can do with tape. And parenting tip to any of you who are parents, get your 5-year-old a proper tape dispenser.

1:33:53>> Yeah. >> Yeah. And he's going and he's working out fine. He's working out fine so far. And then do that and then let's all check back in 10 years or so, right? Oh my. Oh. And then typewriters. Who doesn't love a typewriter? Except the people who don't know how to fix things and have poor eyesight. Um, [laughter] I got a collection of those, too. They don't ship well. They don't travel well.

1:34:18But my goodness, when you sit down and type, it feels like doing trapeze without a net. On our computers, we can change anything. And if we want want to change it, we just ask a robot to change it for us. And even if we don't want to change it, there's little squiggly lines popping up. How hard is it to invent new words when there's always autocorrect in some word that you've come up with or giving you little things? No, I want to write. So, do you know what you do is you get a typewriter and the typewriter never complains except when it's a broken type. Do you have your handouts?

1:34:50Did you get your handouts? Kathy, make sure you take one anyway cuz it's a great momentto. So, I I typed this on an Oliveti Lura 33, which it turns out, like everything on the internet, there's a massive subset of diehard enthusiasts about typewriters. They collect typewriter user manuals. They quibble about the different subsets and subm models. And sure enough, this Lura 34 that we found on our honeymoon at a thrift store, 2,300 yen, about 20 bucks.

1:35:23Uh, one, it's not listed in any databases because it's the model that has a yen key, which seems like it would be really valuable. No one really cares, right? The second thing is there's a spring or something missing. So, the thing hiccups. So, you'll see I went diligently went out to type this thing.

1:35:39Now, I could have gone back and corrected all of that, but you know, where's the fun in that, right? You can see in there, some of you will figure out which of my keys is faulty. One of you will probably figure out, well, if you replace this spring, then it will work out. All right. I however do not have those skills.

1:35:57The other thing that's very handy to have during an apocalypse is a is a map. My family and I uh recently flew from uh obviously the we flew across the Pacific and every time I've done this I've done this so many times in my life. I've flown so many times and I'm always trying to make it slightly less sucky.

1:36:19Uh, however, I'm not I'm [clears throat] not one of those wealthy folks or one of those people who collects points. Uh, so there we were thinking about the only time I crossed the Pacific that I was comfortable was on a ship. So I found this map. I drew a map just in case the ship got lost. I made some memorandum to share with the captain.

1:36:37Maps handy, right? And now we got uh, you know, all these devices. I remember in the days before there was just one or two dominant map service providers. Uh all the excitement about the ability to have a map to anywhere in your pocket robot. Now, do you know what's really fun is leaving the house with no maps or getting a paper map.

1:37:01Last summer, we took a road trip around Japan. We went to JAF, which is like the BCAA. They no longer produce paper maps. I was furious. But undaunted, I took a 1992 expressway map purely for aesthetic purposes. We did not use the map. They built some roads. Unlike Vancouver, infrastructure projects move along quite quickly. Oh, inside of here. [laughter] All right. Awesome new bridges. I've driven across several new bridges while we're staying in Langley. Has anyone ever been to Langley? Oh, more way more than I thought. [laughter] I grew up in Siri, so there wasn't too many places we could make fun of. And actually, no, no one made ever talked about Langley, so there's really nothing

1:37:44to it. [laughter] >> Okay, so the other thing that's great to have in apocalypse is friends and friends who stick with you and you find common ground on beyond things. So many people here, we met simply because we were using the same types of technology way back in ' 06 or whatever and we all convened together and we have so many of these faces in here. We have all convened in many windowless [laughter] conference rooms with recycled air. Fortunately, this one has beverages and is not surrounded by uh guys that smell like axe body spray that are trying to get you to try their new database tool. [laughter] You totally know the guy. So, as a

1:38:22boardcertified time traveler, [clears throat] I have my card in here somewhere. Believe me, I have a certificate. Uh, I'm going to tell you a story about when I was back time back then time traveling through Egypt. However, this photo, there's not a problem with time travel in Egypt. Not a lot of cameras. Only the Aztecs had cameras. But there is this snapshot from me in around the 1500 BCE. Um, doing a I was a stunt double for King Tut. Very rare job. Unfortunately, they killed me when he died at 19.

1:38:53However, the story I want to tell [laughter] you fast forwards another uh till about 300 B.CE after Alexander the Great told me told me the P is silent. That's how punk rock. You can have a dynasty with a silent P and it still lives through all those years. They built the library of Alexandria.

1:39:15You've heard of it, right? Right. And then these tollies, the second and the third in particular, case you're keeping score enacted a great terms of service agreement for anyone who wanted to bring a ship to Alexandria, which everyone did. It was a big deal. It was like an important city. It was a world class a worldass city. It was probably on top 10 list of most livable cities. You know those ones. [laughter] Oh, dang. Melbourne. Oh, Zurich.

1:39:46They enacted a law that said anytime a ship came in uh to port, they could go on board and seize any documents, any manuscripts, any scrolls, any papyra, any clay tablets, anything that you had written. But it's okay. We're going to take the original, but we're going to have our scribes over there at the local kinkos make you a copy and then you get the copy back because it's the same words, right? So, we're going to keep the original. We're going to give you the copy and we'll let you stop stop here in Alexandria. And people like, well, gez, I guess, you know, it's a copy. It's good enough. Meanwhile, they're also sending people around to

1:40:26buy up, you know, private collections. They were doing the antique road show. They were going and buying they were on their eBay buying collections of books and stuff, right? But they really needed the the premium goods. So, they said, "Well, you know who's got the best stuff is those Athenians, right? Hang in there. [laughter] >> What are you copying me?

1:40:51So then the the the those Greeks, right? They got the best the best stuff. And and this dynasty of Egyptians, you know, this was after 200 years of Persian rule. This was a Greek uh insp Greek Macedonian uh consortium dynasty that was running the thing. So they were like, "Hey Greece, man, you guys got all this great stuff." And they're like, "No, no, no.

1:41:12We know your scam. We're not sending you the works of Escilis. Like, come on. This is original, dude. This is a first edition Batman. We're not sending you this unless you pay us a deposit like like I don't know, like a cost of doing business. Like what you would get is a fine from a that GPD. Like what do those companies get fines for? When you get a fine for addicting kids to social media apps and you get a fine like I don't know 5 million, 10,000, 50 million. Is there really any difference? just rounding errors, right? So the Alexandrian the the the folks who were working there in the library and keep in mind the library was a mighty campus and

1:41:50employed all kinds of professionals who their job was to copy things maybe decorate things maybe you know there's like free wine at the Tvernite things get a little sloppy there's some little jokes in there things get lost or whatever right but then there was also people who were hired just to think let's think about this stuff let's categorize this what a beautiful thought taking all the knowledge of the world and categorizing having it instantly accessible. Oh, except that we stole most of it.

1:42:22[laughter] So the Athenians uh you know sent for all the money Alexandrians never returned it. They started doing this scam all over the world until people start really started resisting but they're like well can't come here then. But that wasn't what really destroyed well the two things happened. One uh Julius Caesar invaded Alexandria. You know the story Cleopatra was there da da da da da. But the main thing was they just stopped funding it. They just stopped paying attention. One by one the scribes got better offers at some new startup. Scribes are us or whatever, right? They had [laughter] a pingpong table is the perk, right?

1:43:02Get some stock options and something the Spartans. Who knows? This Homer guy might be on to something. Can I back Can I Kickstarter his book? >> [laughter] >> So, I love libraries though, right now. Library of Alexandria, it's all gone. We don't know where it is. Nothing really happened. There's no end of the story because no one was left there to write it down. And no one really bothered. No one was paying the bill to say, "Hey, would you mind writing this down?" And not everyone writes for free and Papyrus that cost money. So, we don't really know except that it wasn't maintained and fell into oblivion and all the world's knowledge disappeared. Okay, bye. And then [laughter]

1:43:41uh but now we live uh fast forwarding to contemporary times. We live in a city has majestic right moment. >> Look at this. Who's that little guy on the screen? >> Oh is that tiny? We love libraries. And I heard recently about the way one of the one of the LLM models is gathering old text. They're taking old editions of books and cutting the spines off of them.

1:44:14Talk about a way to break my we achy heart. All right, Egypt. No cameras. Now we have cameras. What comes next as we time travel? Note where we at? Oh, Siri 1979. [laughter] There were still dirt roads. Guilford Mall was brand new. [laughter] Yes. Imagine a world where you would have to get across the old pull bridge with thank goodness that thing is torn down with that middle lane cuz it was always raining and you weren't really you may have had a driver's license but you were not a driver until you drove the middle lane of the Padullo Bridge on a Friday night at 10:00 in the rain and get past the turf. There's a reason the

1:45:05parents never told us what goes on in the turf. So Siri, it was a far away land. [laughter] I took it upon myself to get a mimograph machine. Now in between that whole thing with the Egyptians and the Romans and mimograph machine, there was printing press, but everyone always brings that up and you know talks about Gutenberg and blah blah blah, but still you needed to go to a guy with a printer and pay money. Mimograph machines, oh my goodness, these things were cheap. You got like this carbonyy kind of um page you typed or wrote on it. You got some weird fluid that anyone over 50 remembers this from their elementary school. You remember that, right? Or

1:45:51maybe some of you remember this from the church bulletin that told you about the bake sales mimograph machines. These were great because anyone like some goofball kid uh adorable with bif focals 8-year-old kid in Siri could foretell the eclipse of the sun. What if there was not this community newspaper available to tell people? They would be shocked. They would go out one day and there would be an eclipse happening. The second page had an instructible drawing about how to make your safety device so you could gaze the eclipse safely without burning your retina. Yeah. Um there was about 30 subscribers about what my blog has now. So you know I fig continue the same thing three same three

1:46:33column layout. [laughter] Seven years it took to get six years it took to get that lap. How are you? [laughter]

1:46:49So, the Pig Express went a few issues, but it wasn't much longer that I uh discovered the joys of the road. And I uh I went on a big road trip in this case. I'd already been on some trips, but I went on a big trip with my grandpa. He came and picked me up and he says, "Oh, we're going to be away for a couple of days." And two weeks later, we were in Mexico driving in his uh I don't know, like some little hatchback. He smoked two packs of C of Salem's a day, the Salem menthols. And every time I'd roll down the window, it'd be like, "Oh, there David. It's a little bit uh just a

1:47:24little bit cool there." [laughter] So, a little cute little trying to, you know, get a pre fake ID Dave. Pre- awesome beard Dave going along with uh and then he'd go in the back and sleep and I would uh drive in Mexico um unlicensed. We went across the border with my junior high school ID card and he had a letter from um some like ambass Mexican ambassador he played golf with like 15 years previously. Oh yeah, this this will be fine, David. This will be fine. He's in the back and he stops breathing, which is, you know, unnerving. But anyway, the point of this was he started me making travel diaries, travel journals, and you can see my um

1:48:06uh interesting uh handwriting on the left and um oh, and then a little bit of grandpa's exceptional curs cursive up there on the top right. He taught me a couple things. Write everything down even if it doesn't seem important at the time. Um I've taken a different approach where I write down all the unimportant things, right? Which is great because that's what becomes poetry. His was very much a log book. Um, the second thing was on road trips. The best way to do this instead of one person driving till they're tired. Everyone alternate drivers every two hours. Just try. It works. I no longer drive. Poor Yoko just drives all the time. But I say every two

1:48:42hours like, "Oh, let's stop for a coffee." But that's actually just me. [laughter] So Mimograph gave us a means for copying our own thoughts. So did cassettes. Albums are beautiful form. I have far too much vinyl. I've had to have a serious relationship talk about my vinyl purchasing habits, etc. And never had the same love affair with CDs. But cassettes and cassettes, you all with that didn't throw away your cassettes from the 80s. Oh, buddy. Cha-ching.

1:49:18But making mixtapz is really fun because you send a mixtape to someone in the post and they're like, "Well, I don't have a cassette player." Like, well, now you have now you have a side quest to go get a cassette player because do you know what's way more fun than a Spotify playlist?

1:49:35A cassette playlist. And you get to get your Sharpies out and scribble on the label and write little love notes on the the J card. So much fun. Has anyone not made a mixtape? >> [laughter] >> All right, I mentioned Kinko earlier. Now, in dedication to my craft, I worked at a Kinko for three months.

1:49:58[laughter] For those of you under 50, Kinko was a copy center. Kinko in many ways was the internet before the internet was because in the town of Olympia, Washington where I worked, everyone who had a band, a venue, a concert, a judo iikido club, a church musical, a play, was trying to publish a book, was trying to do a thing, was leaking secrets from their accounting firm. All of them came to Kinko's. And a lot of the weirdos [clears throat] came to the night shift where I was there with my little name tag said saying, "I'm here to help you.

1:50:32I'm Dave." They kept on putting me at the cash register despite my discalculant inability and indifference towards money. But I got to work there to make stuff with all the machines. You know, sometimes things fall off the back of the truck, as they say, right? [laughter] I love this. I love this side of you, Ro. I love this side of you. I love your laughs.

1:51:00[laughter] >> So, uh this I do have my name tag somewhere, but this uh shows us that once upon a time to correct things, you would get out a small container of liquid, which coincidentally, as the junior high kids knew, would get you high if you smelled it, and you would cover up the letters and go back and fix. I did not do this on your handout.

1:51:23I did not use the liquid paper. Has anyone ever seen the show The Monkeys? >> Michael's mother. >> Michael Nesmouth's mother invented liquid paper. >> And for a short period of time, probably a 30-year lifespan, liquid paper was absolutely critical. Now, >> no, not so much. Invest wisely, kids. >> All right. So, story about me and the internet. Are y'all hanging with me?

1:51:50>> Yeah. >> Okay. So, uh, once so I was making all these little arts and crafts projects, right? Like making all these fines in between there. There's punk rock, uh, punk rock fan where I learned that if you make a punk rock fanzine, you can call up the promoter and they'll get you a free ticket and then you'll start getting free records in the mail, which is like the best and then you start going other places and builds on a whole builds a thing. The downside is Xerox copies are significantly more expensive than mimograph as I learned. My parents were in real estate in Siri in the 80s and uh I used their their key counter thing on the

1:52:25thing and on the machine and it turned into a whole debacle cuz all of a sudden my fans cost $80 to produce. It had Joey Ramon on uh Joey Raone on the cover. Still, it's hard to recoup those kind of costs at a buck 50 a piece, right? Especially since everyone says, "Yeah, I'll totally pay you later for that, man. That's great. Cool.

1:52:44Cuisine, man." So, in between all that, uh, I started going elsewhere, far away, anywhere I could buy a one-way ticket to, cuz roundtrip tickets, it turns out they're way more expensive. You just buy a one-way ticket cuz in those days, no one cared if you had an ongoing ticket. You just go to a country, right? No one cared if you had a giant hatchet on your carry-on bag or a loaded camp stove. I can attest to all of these things. Oh, it's wonderful days. Wonderful days. no maps.

1:53:16Ah, so I ended up on the island of Guam uh in Micronia and I was uh diligently working my way through life as a as a fire stick uh juggler and my head felt like a Jimmy Buffett song. My job was to go to help people have a good good time on the beach every day. At the time there was loads of Japanese tourists coming like you know dozen flights a day. Now there is not um because Japanese people have just basically stopped having fun since those days. So um [laughter] my job was to help them have a good time on the beach. I was very diligent and very serious about my job. But then one day

1:53:54Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead died. This was the same day that Netscape had its IPO. Coincidence? [laughter] All right. So, as we do, as dead heads do, we gather in some park with a candlelight vigil and [clears throat] some, you know, there's some guys from the newspaper, couple howies, off islanders, right? And they had all the information about like how Jerry died, you know, was there memorial, what's going on? They had all and I'm like, how do you guys know? And they did an interview. See, that's the newspaper thing. They asked me some quotes and there were some cheesy quotes in there.

1:54:36I've been given cheesy quotes to newspapers since long before Julian Sha. I've been given ch the cheese to the suri leader. Oh, I got a collection. >> No, I don't. >> This time it was the Guam Pacific Daily News. And they I give some some cheesy quotes about that. But I asked these guys, "How do you know all this?" And they're like, "Well, we have the internet." I'm like, "What's the internet?" And they said, "It's like words and pictures coming on your computer screen through the telephone line.

1:55:06And I'm like, I don't understand anything you just said, man. [laughter] Guys are weird. What? Two days later, I took a class. Trumpet Windock, Windows 3.1, 144 modems. We connected to the internet. Yeah. Quentos.wam.net. I wonder if that email still works. I started downloading dead.net, the first web page. And then about a third of the way down, the a brown tree snake built bit into the uh power lines and cut off power to the island [laughter] for two days.

1:55:42So I'd seen the future, right? And it was just like these magazines, these little zenes and newsletters and whatever I've been making, right? Except it was like what? This is seems super cheap and anyone can get it. I don't have to pay for postage. So right away I started making web pages and I quickly left the island of Guam because I thought, well maybe there's this whole thing with this internet. I'm 25 now. I'm practically an adult. I should probably go finish that college degree. [laughter] Oh. So I flew to uh Olympia, Washington, Evergreen College. First night I was there, I went out looking for change for the laundry machine and uh I saw some

1:56:23guys setting up a booth to sell some tie-dye shirts. So I said, you know, I'm like, "Okay, these guys are safe. I can talk to these guys." And they're like, "Are those hemp overalls you're wearing?" I'm like, "Yes, [laughter] these are hemp overalls. Come see us tomorrow." Yeah. Yeah. Cool, man. Thanks, J. They're like, "We started an ISP." I'm like, "You guys have accounts at an internet service provider?" Like, "No, man. We started an ISP. We got 336 modems [laughter] and there's three dudes and they're all likeinly internet hippies and I'm slightly lessly.

1:57:01[laughter] So I weasled my way and I boot camp the internet for a few months and then I worked my way into be the marketing guy for this internet company which is very nice. Good job Dave. Congratulations. But um we we were the first one to do DSL on US West then US West network and we gave static IP addresses right so you you program are like oh my gosh I can run a server from home yes and we were your only choice and in those late '9s days there's companies like Amazon there's a startup called Amazon and like people could work from home if they could have a VPN so to get a VPN you need a static

1:57:35IP address or you did at the time so there's one ISP to get that from ching only And one by one, the little ISPs, the mom and pop ISPs died and withered and all the quarters came to us. And we had a lot of those guys that say, "Hey, you want to go get pizza? We want we have coming in. We're going to buy your company. We're going to make you an offer." Uh, thinking that they could buy us off the scrap heap. And we were just like, "Get away from us. We are commodinely internet hippies."

1:58:05>> [laughter] >> But finally a group came and their address was 420 Stony Point Road, Santa Rosa, California. We thought it's a sign and they said, "We need bright young we need bright young internet minds to modernize our company." were like like like like us and they're a competitive local exchange carrier which was you have like in Canada you have Bell Rogers Talis which are your incumbent local exchange carriers for a brief moment in time there's competitors you could like choose another company besides the cartels anyway um we sold the company to them and everything imploded this was uh early 2000 you guys remember.com bomb all that so I had that unique feeling of losing $800,000 in a day before I was

1:58:5030. It's good to get that out of the way, those milestones. [laughter] So, I took revenge. The only way I do is like uh call up the newspaper guy and say, "Hey, this run a sensational article. I'll give you a cheesy quote." And look at my photo. Oh boy, did we cause trouble with this.

1:59:06And then two days later, the company declared bankruptcy. Except for the $800,000 part. It would have been nice, but then we wouldn't all be here together, would we? No. >> No. Sliding doors and all that. So, I tried to get a job after that. No one would hire me because I was just an ex chromoginly internet hippie. So, me and one of the other chromogenally internet hippies, we said, "Well, we should just start this do the same thing." So, we find a little cafe and we put free Wi-Fi in there cuz we didn't want to work in an office anymore. Nobody when we put up sign said Wi-Fi, people thought, "Wiffy?

1:59:38What's Wiffy? [laughter] The heck?" So, we had DSL and Wi-Fi connections. We put them in all our favorite coffee shops and cafes and record stores and bookstores from Bellingham to the other Vancouver. And so, our work was location independent. What? It's all possible. Think of how sucky your job would be right now without Wi-Fi, without DSL doing like we got AI, we have all the compute and we have 288 modems. [laughter] So, we uh that was one of my great uh tasks of liberation and trying to explain Wi-Fi to people because they thought, well, people are just going to come in our coffee shop and buy a coffee and sit here all afternoon.

2:00:22And we said, no, no, they totally won't. It they did. It just took 10 years later for them to change their behavior to that. And now possibly like some of you, I'm looking for the coffee shops that are just like no Wi-Fi digital in the nomad using up our counter space. And if anyone dares put a Zoom call on speaker, you'll be forever banned. [laughter] Oh, we had it all for a minute. So before the internet, there was telegrams. My older brother got this telegram on the day of his birth, 1969.

2:00:55I am the second child. I did not get a telegram. I also got the smaller bedroom. [laughter]

2:01:11[laughter] >> Please start my GoFundMe. Start a GoFundMe for it. So, [laughter] I started looking into Telegram technology and I went all the way to Signal Hill in Newfoundland just to go investigate that because you have to run a cable under the water from, you know, the UK, wherever. I don't bother learning the place names anymore cuz they all just sound like places in Siri all the way to uh Newfoundland. They got a couple telegrams across and then the cable broke.

2:01:39So, they had to send a ship across. Was that error on your end? No, man. We're fine here. I thought it was your guys's. Send a ship across for me. It's like, "No, this wasn't them." So, they go down and get the geek down to the basement. I don't know, man. Everything's fine here.

2:01:53Guess we just got to lay a new cable. All right. That's going to take 5 years. [laughter] But telegrams lasted for hundreds, like more than 100 years, right? In the same form. This is 1969. This is still the same ticker tape cut out and pasted on there where I thought, if I can't have my own telegram, I'm getting through it, man. I'm getting through it. you and me, I should just remix the telegram form into my own uses. And so I printed I got a bunch of old telegram pads. Thanks, eBay. And I started sending out telegrams. Anyone ever any of you ever get that? Some of you get mail from me, right? Yeah. Okay.

2:02:27All those mail strikes. I'm never I'm never sure. And I thought, you know, I could cut up these things and make my own telegrams and start sending in notes. And then I took telegrams and wrote a story on them. And I sent them to four separate people who may or may not ne ever know each other. And I should have taken pictures of all all of these things before I send them.

2:02:44[laughter] Oh, the postal services of the world are one of my great joys and I see it diminishing right now and it breaks my heart. So telegram. So when I this guy, this happy jolly fella who's no longer impressed by my jokes was born, some friends sent a telegram to us because we had sent a telegram to them in Switzerland for the wedding. In Switzerland, guy shows up a chap in a cap, not the app. And you know, it's Switzerland, they probably bought chocolates or something, right? Um, in this case, the post office sent um my wife's fax number an email cuz it's an EAC thing saying there's a telegram and it says these words on it.

2:03:24I'm like, hold on, hold on. I want like a thing, like an artifact. She calls, he said, well, you know, we got this thing. I guess we can print it. And this this is a telegram that was faxed to the post office. They print it out and then print out on paper. [laughter] And now I took a picture of it and put it on the internet. So I think we just achieved communications yatsi [laughter]

2:03:53and now it lives in Icho's uh scrapbook, his baby scrapbook because we make a scrapbook for everything. Look how cool this the the weird mutated faxed uh whatever. Um yeah, very cute. Hey, it kind of cute, you know, to to paraphrase Borgus. Uh cuz who doesn't paraphrase Bourhees? [laughter] The original is unfaithful to the translation.

2:04:20>> Voila. That evergreen college diploma. Interdisciplinary studies is my degree, which just means I don't know. I couldn't really decide. [laughter] All right. So, in those early days, the ISP, back to the ISP thing, at that cafe, we had Wi-Fi everywhere, so we started doing podcasts. Has anyone listened to a podcast that doesn't involve celebrities namechecking each other and going, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I was on his show. Oh, that's funny. We should golf together."

2:04:50Anyway, do you need to buy a mattress? I have a subscription to a toothbrush service. >> Has anyone listened to a podcast that has none of those attributes? >> Yeah. >> All right. >> They do exist. >> Yes, they do exist. In 2005, me and my buddy, we started the Clubside Breakfast Time Podcast. That newspaper you saw earlier was called the Clubside uh cafe and we started doing a podcast and everyone says, "Well, I can't listen. I don't have an iPod." Oh jeez. Another one of those things like Wi-Fi trying to explain these stupid terms, blah blah blah blah blah. Um but these things live on. And now I uploaded all my old podcast to the internet archive because

2:05:25I was so pleased to see uh the uh a couple months ago >> talking about internet archive which I adore >> and you know I've had some health challenges I may mention. Anyway, I uploaded all these things to internet archive cuz I think things seems like they should live on. A guy in New Zealand found all my audio archives and sound samples and all this stuff and we started collaborating. We've talked on the telephone one time for 10 minutes.

2:05:51Aside from that, we made an album. >> There's actually a vinyl, but vinyl is totally difficult to travel with. So, I brought the CD so the '9s folk will get this. And look how cute it is. And it's me absolutely appallingly with two original pieces and then a James Joyce who's public domain and Jack Carowak who's, you know, >> you know. Um, so I just mixed me and those two guys in there together. No big deal. But the Winter Keep guy in New Zealand because he found this stuff on Internet Archive.

2:06:26And if I started thinking about it be like, "No, no, no. That doesn't fit." So I just gave him carp launch and then sure enough we have a CD. You can buy it on the internet. I have no idea how. But yes, you can clap for me releasing a CD this year. All right.

2:06:40[applause and cheering] Okay. Okay, so we made podcasts back in the day and podcasting was beautiful cuz you could do it so for so cheap and now it's just become just another way to sell mattresses to sell like Rick Rubin, come on, dude. Like are you really hurting for cash? You really need to push me on your energy drinks or whatever, right? Ah, [snorts] make more beautiful podcasts.

2:07:02>> All right. Oh, my mic mic technique is off. Thank you. All right. Payones. In Japan, we have convenience stores, public toilets, and pay phones everywhere. Nener, Nener, Nener, Nener, Nener. [laughter] I'm traveling with like an international phone number. I'm trying to catch a cab the other day cuz uh uh the child is of the limit where he needs to anyway, car seats, cabs, blah blah blah. And they're like, "We need a call back number." I'm like, "Dude, you don't have enough letters, you know, numbers in your thing, right? So, it's a real hassle."

2:07:36And I went to look for a pay phone and there's no payoneses along. They all packed them up. What' they do with them? I bought one of the old ones in Japan and I put in my studio and people say, "Does it work?" I'm like, "Yeah, dude. You can pick up the handle and call anyone at any point in time." And it's beautiful. [laughter] Kate, you've used it. It works. But I've taken upon myself on all my rambles and travels to document payoneses. Because payoneses, as you longtime travelers know, you would take all of the change that you possessed in the entire planet and you'd plug it into a pay phone and you get about 45 seconds of conversation after

2:08:10doing the math for the time zone. Right? So to me, these were a portal and a lifeline to the whole outside world. And one day soon they'll be gone. So I started then saying, well, what can I do with all these pictures? And I'll make postcards out of the payones and mail them to folks like you, right?

2:08:28super fun. >> So, >> um there was some conversation earlier about uh turning this kind of stuff into job and your creative endeavors into job. And I was thinking about how to summarize this cuz I'm incapable of brevity as you learn. I [laughter] moved I moved to a country that doesn't do hugs and everything has to be short and to the point.

2:08:57Ah [laughter] ah I have a hundred yen store whiteboard that we have on our fridge along with postcards that we've received from wonderful folks and I write little messages on there and I wrote a little message to my future self that seems like it should be written in papyrus type face and sold at a gift shop in Bali. Super cheesy, right? But in my double nickels on the dime, 55 years and dozens and dozens of businesses and you know like you could say I hit some Can I make a sports metaphor? I hit some doubles. [laughter] Got hit by a pitch a few times. That was a movie set. Oh, [laughter] >> that's for you.

2:09:44Um I've done, you know, I've done my things, right? But if you're not doing something that you're passionate about and you're working for someone else and they all do this thing where they say, "Oh yeah, we're all in it together. Oh, just this next three months is really important. Oh, this next weekend. Oh, we really need to get together and do this this push, this sprint. We're going to do our standup and then the then the VCs roll in, right? And the money starts rolling in and things get different and things get weird really fast.

2:10:16But the great news is you can do your own thing. You can understand contracts and you can change yourself 15 times in your life at least. I mean, heck, I've changed myself at least a dozen times. And I don't mean just like who you are and and what you do. You can completely reinvent yourself. You can throw yourself. It's like walking out of you go to a movie theater and you go to the Lou and then you walk back into another movie accidentally, but takes you like 10 minutes to figure out that you're I'm in a completely different movie. That's happened to me so many times, right? And that's where the magic happens. This is

2:10:52where you veer off the path and reinvent yourself. Plus, you end up with so many freaking ID cards, right? And then I look at these pictures. So, I did a project leading up to my 50th birthday where I found pictures of me that could be dated for each year of my then young 50-year-old life, plus an artifact to that I could actually triangulate and date to that because, you know, some people do puzzles or sedoku or whatever, right? I just like I do personal archaeology and I found all of these and dated them and triangulated them. I made them into a blog series that I don't know, no one looked at. I don't know. Probably

2:11:30someone did. Well, thanks. [laughter] >> [snorts] >> And I had a blast doing this. And this guy, he'll be able to look back and be like, "Oh, okay. Here's my dad's whole story. I don't have to do all that thing like it's the end of the life and your parent is." And he he won't ever have to sit down and do that with me because I like, "Dude, check my website." It's like, it'd be easier just to sit down and talk with you, right? [laughter] >> So, which is which is your favorite Dave?

2:12:01the one on stage. >> No, stop it. >> Okay, so everyone talks about transparency, right? Transparency is like one of those bud buzzwords like leverage and synergy and standup and sprint and hackathon. So, here's my transparency. Here's all my ID cards. You can copy all of those and uh and uh hack all my information, right? And reinvent new versions of me. And just to triangulate, so you have for my Wikipedia page cuz shockingly I don't have a Wikipedia page. Here's all my ribbons from uh elementary school science fairs. So you can enter all of those in and so it's totally accurate.

2:12:41So it's all factbased. And there's also a list of all my talks that I've ever done. All the newspapers and magazines from Wall Street Journal to high times. I've been in them all. List them on though. Yeah. All right. Oh, and there's my first fake ID. Look at that. I was like rolling in there like, "Yeah, of course.

2:13:00I'm 23 years old." [laughter] >> Worked every time. >> Utah. What's that? >> You on Granville Street? >> Um, no. I I did get one of those Granville Street ones. I used this Virginia one to get a BC Ident card just just off Granville Street. Yeah. >> All right. Passports. I love passports because it wasn't 60, 80 years ago, people didn't need passports. Just wherever you were, that's where you were. You existed. We didn't have all this documentation. And passports now are so unbelievably critical and complicated. Boy, how do you ever lose your passport in a foreign country? You think about embassies and consulates are going to be all like, "Oh, welcome Canadian. We've got donuts

2:13:45and coffee." No, it's so not like that, right? So I've taken upon myself to remix passports. Can I show you a little show and tell? >> Okay. Um, so this is a Yugoslavia passport. These in itself are, you know, kind of like neat rare kind of stuff. You know, the country had went through some upheavalss and you get you go from one country you get like six out of the is it six Vishna?

2:14:12>> Yeah. Okay. More or less. It changes every six months or so. Um, so this uh gentleman's passport, I thought, you know, the Egyptians said we only stop dying when die when people stop talking about us. There's a call back to the Egyptians, right? You guys thought I was just making this up. So I said, you know, this fella, we should still he should still be part of our world. So I have an acquaintance named Jason MD EMD in GeFu, Japan. We're both from British Columbia. He is from Vernon. I am from like wherever, right? And he writes poems. He makes podcasts.

2:14:48He's been to the same concerts as me and we've never met. And he's met two of my brothers. What? So to get to know each other, we took this gentleman's passport. We mailed it between ourselves 20 times each time filling putting in little weird cryptic magic things. And that's a great use of a passport. You get a little scrapbook out of the deal, right? Yeah. Does anyone want to look at this that will take care of it? Here, Julian, you irresponsible.

2:15:18>> We This ain't our first rodeo, [sighs] you and I. >> Here's another one that's super fun because this is a Cascadia passport and I've lived from >> You got about like an hour and a half left. Just >> Okay. [laughter] Oh, no. All right. Later, if you want to nerd out on passports.

2:15:35All right. I'll expedite. I'm so sorry. I don't get to talk much. [laughter] Okay. Here's my advice. This is a beautiful windowless room filled with beverages and brilliance and fun times. Do not, dear friends, go work for a company and your life becomes spending your precious weekends in windowless conference rooms. I cannot emphasize this enough. I have spent so many weekends of my life in malls and Canada place and all. Hey, how you doing? Yeah, here's the go. Yeah. [laughter] Take your knowledge that you're gaining at times like this. Make your money and cut and run.

2:16:17[applause] >> You have a tiny window of opportunity before the world catches up with you. Don't try to do everything with it. Try to do what's the easiest way I can get X. I say I'm a millionaire. I live in Japan on our rolling yen. But whatever number you want to come up with, however many commas you want, get that money and get the f out of the game.

2:16:41Yeah, >> cuz everything's going to change >> and then put on a new hat and make cute postcards about it, right? >> You can be a big shot with all your billion dollars and buy yachts and stuff or you can just not work a lot and go buy cool hats in foreign countries cuz the sunsets are the same sunsets. Oh, put that on your Bali tapestry.

2:17:06So now what do I do instead of tech is I do laundry and dishes and make pickles and vinegars in a provincial town in Japan. [applause]

2:17:24And I get to make the labels for it, too. [laughter] And I'm loaded. Look at that w of cash I roll with. Right. Just rock around with that all the time. Yeah, [laughter] >> if you like money, if you need money, just print it out of the laser printer is what I always say. [laughter] I learned that at Kinko's or make your own Canadian tire money, but call it Canadian crypto money. Yeah.

2:17:54[clears throat] [laughter] All right. So, here, Gen X guy, you're just all full of apathy about these tools. Here you are reminiscing about mimograph machines and Telegrams. Great guy. I have my hundred my 1 point I was going to say $150,000 mortgage. That's Japan. It's your $1.5 million mortgage here in Vancouver, right?

2:18:17I uh I want to teach you uh I want to tell you about revolutions. Revolutions come and go and they go in waves and they have uh patterns and this is Alexandria and Ditto machines and punk rock fans and all these things and all these waves of the internet through the ISP days and what we colloquial call the web 2.0 days.

2:18:37[laughter and gasps] Turns out that was just code word for another way to sell you a bunch of crap on the internet. Oh, [laughter] my hands are filthy. Ichum just a little bit more. All right. Chris already told me to hurry out. [laughter] Revolutions. I wrote something on my beautiful Underwood, the Remington Jr.

2:18:57typewriter about this. I'm not going to try to read it right now because, you know, clock's ticking. But these will all be available. But instead, we will turn to Lauren H. Olsen, realtor of Siri, now deceased. We already went to visit his grave while we were here, and he left us this wonderful gift of a box full of notepads that he hadn't given away for his real estate business.

2:19:19Right. And this is so old school. Doesn't even have the 604 on it. You didn't even need an area code on your real estate letter head, nerds. Right. All right. So, Mr. Gen X guy living in Japan, how do you use AI? Ah, all right. I have a chronic complex illness going on 13 years. I have been through every kind of medical test you can imagine.

2:19:44And uh I've got really good at it, really good at dealing with because I hate it and I want to fix it. I want to be on the forefront of fixing all of this. So I go to I found a hospital, Okama University Hospital. Shout out to them cuz they're awesome. Founded 1870, 100 years before me. And they have a special clinic dealing with my illness and illnesses like mine. And I said, I'm going to be the best patient you've ever had. And also, I'm your only foreign patient. So, I need to represent for all foreigners because that's important in Japan.

2:20:19So, I go in with bilingual memos every appointment four times a month. And this gives them a longitudinal view of my health situation. And because it's a teaching university, they often have interns, like medical interns, not interns. Anyway, I love them all. And so then I have a copy for their intern. they get to read it and look at it and then I don't forget anything because I forget things all the time and I get on the bus and I go to the doctor I'm like and uh instead of cryptic memos they now have a dossier and but before this before I was using the AI pocket robots I have to tell pocket robot I said I've

2:20:57been doing this for years before you showed up right and then they say why don't we take all your data from all of the years and compile it together and make a report I'm like I didn't ask you for that I just want a memo Make me a memo. We'll do that some other time. But I got stuff to do. Pocket robot. But now I have this massive 10-year archive of medical memorandum. The last seven years of which are bilingual. And I'm going to be able to be part of someone's understanding of something dot dot dotbd.

2:21:29>> Yeah, >> that's pretty awesome. >> Yeah. >> All right. Laundry. I take very good care of laundry at our house cuz my wife is an arborist. In fact, she's a Japan nationalist certified tree doctor as of last year, OCTOBER. [applause]

2:21:48And there's Ichiro, and he has no off button except for right about now. So, I take very serious care of our laundry. I'm sound like a commercial now, aren't I? But we have a a laundry machine because it's Japan and it's a robot and it has a thousand buttons on it, right? And it's not written in cute little symbols or in the easy hiragana. It's written in dense kanji. And I'm like I got dodgy eyes and I'm trying to read the things and it's LED screen. So I say robot help me. I have a load of describe the load and then goes into incredibly goes into this three menus deep and over to the left I connected my heat pump air

2:22:29conditioner to the infrared remote control to the Wi-Fi and it connects to my phone except it's not smart enough to know that I'm in another time zone when I try to connect it says oh your clock's off by more than 5 minutes I have to connect my phone to Tokyo to adjust my heat pump but I got that heat pump connected and that was thanks to those robots because I didn't know how to do it. So, I'm using for laundry and uh air conditioners [laughter] and how to pace my days. So, I run out of energy really easy. My mitochondria doesn't work. I don't make new energy.

2:23:03I'm always tired and I get kind of grumpy and spaced out. And in the last few months, um, the pocket robots have been helping me out with, um, how to organize and pace my days cuz I'm in, we've had this Canada trip, the slow Fraser trip, um, that I tried to cancel because of going to the hospital. Um, but I bought the cheap tickets and here we are together. Yay.

2:23:28[cheering] Um, so I'm managing hospital stuff, right? cuz just cuz I have a memo bilingual and I'm going there trying to be smart and talk all fancy. It's still like wo, right? It's a hospital in Japan. And then uh uh I mentioned Japanese immigration. I have a complicated immigration situation that I know and I'm going to get into, but we have a very nice lawyer and we're going back and forth and boy howdy has it been uh um and then uh uh and then and then had concerts and had a birthday. What a life, right? And so I uh for pacing my days and organizing my days. So all of y'all are going, "Wow, this guy like

2:24:07hardly does anything." Nope. Nope. Nope. I'm not finished. [laughter] Dear wonderful people, Vancouver AI ecosystem. I have a side hustle. I never thought I'd use those words. Side hustle. Actually, it's not a side hustle because there's a pay. Um I am uh I'm the Santa Claus's regional representative in Okama area. >> [laughter] >> And uh last year for our community association Christmas party, which my wife played accordion at because she was just like, I think I'm going to play accordion at this cuz great-grandfather had played accordion there in 1947.

2:24:46Weird, right? So I went to the robots and I put in pictures of me as Santa Claus in the past and said, "Chub me up just a little bit, you know, flush out the beard just a touch and make these into coloring books." And then I had a picture of me on a Santa Claus probably at Guilford Mall. Uh and I'm looking disgusted like eight, nine years old just going like this is super lame.

2:25:10[laughter] Uh so I uh I put my face on it and all the kids were coloring five, six different designs of Santa Claus and then I roll in with my bag over my shoulder. Ho ho ho. And all the kids are like, "Oh my gosh, it's that guy." [laughter] And then they see that there's no string, but we have rules. It's Japan. No one sits on my lap. They stand a respectful distance away. I give them a choice of poses. There's double piece, [laughter] antler piece. [clears throat] They got choices.

2:25:47They hung the pictures up on the wall. And I was like, "No, kids, children, take your pictures." yonder. But I was just left with I have a big stack of Santa Claus uh colored pictures. So, if anyone wants one, hit me up and I'll mail you one. Okay. So, what do I want AI to do? I want it to tidy up messes. I have a 5600 post WordPress [clears throat] um personal creative archive and the world is filled with websites that we all made diligently in 1995 and 2005 and last year that are filled with broken links and broken images and broken crap and WordPress. I remember some little kid worked for CNET out in

2:26:27the patio talking about this new blogging software he had made. So I know some of that code is at least well older than uh college students. So I got a hunch with all this vibe coding and all these tokens and all this agenticness there could be a whole new way to repositize personal creative content. I don't need another website. I don't need a Substack because you know what that is? That's an email, right? We already did list serve.

2:26:58Um although I'll totally subscribe to you and I totally won't filter it. Um [clears throat] so I want I want tools that can fix up things and then um manage the mundane. So we have um an endless supply of broken government websites. We have all kinds of social problems that just need fixing. We have supply chains that we that need refined. We need like basic civic information and we need AI to also do the mundane and the janitorial tasks of our life for us.

2:27:32Movies are great. I made a movie in 1997. I'm so sorry, Chris. on VH on VHS tape. So, I also have the feeling of what it's like to have 500 VHS tapes on hand. So, I made it into a notebook. [laughter] Yeah. So, this was also a benefit of working at Kinko's. Okay. I think I'm on my last one or almost. You don't have to be sorry.

2:27:53>> All right. >> Um, we're not going to go back out and do the bar and do the whole networking thing afterwards. So, you have like 10 more minutes, man. And then we got to go. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Most scenic dump slop in, slop comes out. You all have beautiful ideas and beautiful backstories and beautiful uh artifacts and you have fantastic elementary school report cards and stellar imaginations. And you have your master's thesis. Master's thesis. master thesises that you wrote and it went on a shelf after two people read it. All that stuff is our legacy and can go into the world if we put the good things out into the world. If we keep the things that are

2:28:34the best of us tucked away in shoe boxes, but I know all of you keep my postcards wrapped up with uh twine, little red ribbon, some cedar in a shoe box, right? Don't you? Right. Um, we have so much wonderfulness and I believe there's more to us than we can even really imagine at this point because now all these roadblocks of tools and compute and what's possible is combined with also the sense of that there's business models behind all of this that we have to navigate. There's once upon a time you get a company that has a shiny name and you were just like cha-ching, this is my thing that I do.

2:29:14or in Japan, you get a job for a company and you're going to work for that company for 50 years. But now there's a whole new landscape that is possible to get your piece of. I'm don't have any skin in it, but I want you to get your piece so you can come visit in Japan.

2:29:32But don't waste your time putting garbage into the systems. Don't waste your tokens having one thing analyzing other things. If you got something to make, make it. Don't put just put the the leaves in a bucket just because the leaves are falling, right? Maybe the leaves want to stay on the tree. Maybe they want to be scattered. You need to let yourself loose from the parameters that you think you have to do for your personal and professional life. Um, I once said years ago, stats make art. There's my buddy Cameron that brought it up and sent it to me and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm still relevant for half a second because I

2:30:06said that in 2008 when everyone was trying to get a million hits on their website." But those million site hit sites or for the most part disappeared or else giant evil conglomerates. But the art that all of you have made over the years, I have art from people in this room that sit in my flat folder with dehumidified pro protocols because Japan is humid.

2:30:30But these things are precious to me. And these are the things that are going to be part of your legacy in 20 years and 50 years and 100 years or in the case of the Egyptians, what uh 3,000 years, right? Oh yes, there's something I was going to say clever about this. Oh, the Concord flying from Akaba to Aman is 150 miles.

2:30:52They didn't need the Concord for the transportation. The Concord was a label to put on the thing so they could make a first day cover so people would buy the first day cover. I don't know why or how, but I sure bought one and had a time rolling to Akaba, Jordan. Do have you guys seen Lawrence of Arabia?

2:31:08>> Yeah. So, I went rolling into Akaba in this row, right? As like my little like jump. And I thought it was hilarious and awesome. I had the best day. All right. Fill up notebooks all the time with everything. This is my list of what I was looking for for community. Notebooks. Notebooks. Notebooks. Okay.

2:31:27Zen. I I'm a foreign guy living in Japan, so I'm obligated to make like well actually in Japan reference [clears throat] at least one thing. I've been holding myself back, but I'm just going to say that this is at Ahenji, which is the original Zen temple. So, a guy called Dogen. you maybe use that as like your video game avatar name or something like that. Went to China, got Zen, brought Zen back and we were at this temple. You have to put your shoes in a plastic bag. And I'm like, this doesn't feel very Zen. And then I found one little shrine that's covered with punk rock stickers. I'm like, ah, it has survived hundreds and hundreds of years

2:32:02just waiting here just for me. And all of us have this I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it. moment of zen awaiting us out there in this big weird world. So, what I want out of life is I want sleep and poetry. The three of us were up on the Adima. That's the Osaka Bay down below. And you buy these little heart-shaped rocks, which is a great business model if you have heart-shaped rocks. And you throw it into the abyss.

2:32:26I don't think you're supposed to write on it or take a photograph of it, but like duh, like there's no rules posted. So, this is what I want out of life. And how I look at these tools, any tools, whether it be pocket knives or pocket robots or AI models or whatever, and I say, how can I use these things to get what I want out of them? I have my list.

2:32:47I actually have a longer list of an idea that would be a great piece of something that's like a personal archiving tool. I want an AI, LLM, whatever on my local computer. I have a 10-year-old Mac Mini, so I guess I'm halfway there. But it can take in all of my hard drives. Chris, you This is what you need. You need a machine that you can put in all your 87 hard drives of photos and all your Quirk Express documents, Sean, and all your ClariS works documents and all your stuff. And this AI will go, "Wow, man. I see you got a bunch of stuff. You got pictures of payoneses. You got pictures of post boxes. You got all the stuff

2:33:22from this year. You got this format. I got an idea. Why don't we organize it like that and then let's pull in your Twitter feeds because I don't want them to own it. I want my stuff on my server. But you know, I got laundry to do, right? So, I'm waiting for someone else to figure out all those things so I can just install it.

2:33:40>> I've been telling you, Dave, we got that. >> I know. I know you've told me, but I'm waiting for it to be I've been busy, man. I've been in hospitals. I've been painting post boxes. The top line of the haiku on the post box wore off. So, I do the things that I'm capable of doing, right? You notice the gold gold paint?

2:33:56So, I had a little kinugi flare. There's my two references, my two Japanese references. So, here I am now. Your friend Dave, I married two other time travelers and here we are in the Taiisho era traveling through time cuz this dude's apocalypse. He's got fire. He's got music. He's got a knife. He's got his own knife, you guys. Yeah. Like, of course.

2:34:21Right. And my wife's got a little Tonka truck there. So, we're ready for the apocalypse, man. Whatever is coming, we're dialed in. I won't know all of the things, but I know you guys. So, I'm now here calling. I'm like, "Hey, I'm your pal. So, you're going to tell me like, "All right, Dave, we're going to take your 5600 post [snorts] pile of ancient WordPress slop and we're going to get all fixed up without me spending $39.99 each on 15 different plugins. Is it possible? I don't know.

2:34:51So, in the meanwhile, I'm going back to my true love, which is making little analog things. It's become very hard to ship things between countries, tariffs. [clears throat] Um, so I make things that can go letter rate that fit in a little handy cute envelope and they're little folded books. And I've been selling sending these around the world and oh my goodness, is it fun. They're stamped and numbered and they have all the emotions. And this one was from a healing hotring that's filled with radium. It's totally good for you.

2:35:21Radium, dirt. It's the uranium that's the precursor that's bad for you. But I put a diagram in this book so you'll understand the thorium and the radium and the uranium and how they all fit together. I didn't know, but Marie Curry did. And there's a statue of her in this town in Japan. [laughter] And who else is going to make a little book book of poetry about it with prayers and haiku and a picture of me with the mayor in 1994?

2:35:49I mean, this seems totally normal, right? And then I took it a step further and I taught Mr. Iro how to make these origami fold zons. Guess what? I have tons of now. And he makes the little I love you cards. Get your children a tape dispenser and you will get things like that, >> right? And it all folds out the same style. And then I found a poem that I wrote at that same hotring in 1993.

2:36:22And all of a sudden, you got a bundle that can go into an envelope. [laughter] There they all are. Oh, and here's all Iro's books right over there. Look at that. >> 100 bucks each. No big deal. [laughter] Um, so this this is my next uh project which is going through Nepal. I set up this whole mis scene, including a fictional letter head for a guest house that never existed or did it. And then I have an overhead laser scanner. One shot is the truth. That's all you get. And that's coming out pretty soon. It's that 106-y old printer shop in Japan right now. There's the There's the front of it. That's all you get. Oh, there was

2:37:03the last one. Blah blah blah. All right. So, here we are 13 years later. The chair was slightly right there. >> Oh my god. Look at that That's amazing. >> That's my campfire blanket. I did a talk called Poets, Punks, and Revolutions. Forgotten Vancouver Stories. >> I have hair. >> What's that? >> I have hair.

2:37:21>> You have hair. You know, it's a long time ago that he has hair. >> So there I am. I We had a campfire up on the stage. I had a chair because I'm a delicate ball of prince. And that was the last time I've been on a stage. That was the last talk ever of Northern Voice. I broke Northern Voice. I didn't mean to. Um, and then I set off in this whole other part of my life. And what I realized along that nice Shabuya Republic shirt, by the way. Um, oh, there was a diagram. I had to set up a schematic. You know, it's not a talk unless you have a schematic of your

2:37:59stage setting. It's art direction, right? Is that what it's called? So, in my attempt to regain my title that I earned at summer camp of Mr. Fun, which I'm totally not, I'm Mr. Go to bed at 9:00, Mr. Send some postcards. That's fun. That's fun. I'm I'm fun if you need a I'm fun if you need a coffee. Um, so, uh, what I learned through all this with all the other stuff about money and blah blah blah and passion and all that crap, um, friends, friends will crowd surf you along the way. There were so many of you that I've known for a hundred years.

2:38:39I've shown up at every time someone asked me to speak at a thing, whether it be some college or some association of something something that they didn't even give me a freaking Starbucks gift card to give to a guy outside. No thank you letter. I'm looking at [clears throat] a credit union right now. Um, I showed up, but it's the friends like you who are the ones that crowd surfed me to safety. I had to disappear into some far away lands to find myself cuz you get lost and sometimes you get found, but not always. But because of people like you, I found my way back here for this night only. So, thank you very much. And you can send me a

2:39:17postcard. [applause] Come by.

2:39:29[applause] Thank you, David. We're definitely going to do a Q&A. I know a lot of you people came to get uh be here with Dave tonight. And real quick, I want to invite you guys to come stand with him here and get a photo taken real quick. I just want to do a group photo with David and then we're going to jump right into the Q&A. So, if you came here to be a part of this, even if you're not, if you're new, welcome to the cult.

2:39:54But come on up. Let's do a group photo on the stage right quick. >> Hey, Ichy the house. Drop boots up. >> Fantastic. >> Thank you, Tristan. All right, let's do the Dave Q&A. Thank you guys for playing along. >> I love you. I'm so proud of you. So proud of you. Check it out. Here we go.

2:40:16>> David, this is my friend Zoe. >> Hello, >> Dave. Thank you. Um, I noticed that you >> Dave, I noticed that you won first place in the science fair in grade five. >> Um, I won three times actually. >> Oh, three times. Great. I'm wondering, do you happen to remember back to that project and during the process of that project? What surprised you?

2:40:41>> Thank [laughter] you. You you you'll be amazed to know that there's comprehensive blog posts about all three of those. Um fourth grade was uh Charlie Transit, which preaged the ALRT, which became known as the Sky Train. Uh grade five was the King Tutt. Um I was going to go to regionals, but there was a teacher strike. I'm still angry about it. Where's the guy that was setting up the GoFundMe page? He'll like that. Um six was about like grade six was about like Rubik's cubes and puzzles like that, which were like a big deal at the time. And seven was about guided missiles. That was a very newsworthy topic. Yeah.

2:41:15>> Yep. Yeah. That's my illustrious career. My I I have two brothers who are engineers and I say my achievements are on par with them, but they uh they disagree. >> Um bro, that was a little bit of chaos tonight. Um, but one of the community announcements that I didn't get to give was Andrea Mills here and >> she works for the Internet Archive Canada and they've been a sweet partner of ours or whatever and we're about to like drop a fellowship on the world tonight. Actually, it's open. People can apply. Martin Monto. Yeah.

2:41:45>> Um, anyway, the off webcam. >> Yeah, we're doing like a um Why don't you say a thing? Dude, David, the thing you said about archives tonight was amazing, bro. She's like, I want the recording. I'm uh yeah, like I'm a I'm a super fan. I have a massive archive of stuff and I've been evangelizing forever and sending my little $5 and that kind of stuff. So, um I I I I have huge admiration for the work that you did. I was going to go down more into a rabbit hole of this and that, but you know, telegrams and whatever, no one ever talks about them. So, thank you for your hard work.

2:42:16>> We're kindred spirits. I mean, that you're, you know, telegrams and all. I But I just wanted to say thank you. uh for someone like me, I I've worked for the internet archive for 20 years and coming to a night like this to be here hear your story um was really reviving for me.

2:42:33>> Thank you. >> Um and I you know I will bother you about thesis and what we're doing with AI and thesis. So I I I feel like I've made it a made a new friend that I and I will bother you. Um so thank you so much for >> I live in Japan. And so I what I I do is I give you my card with both hands and it's like a very formal exchange and you look at it as though it's like oh my gosh I've never felt paper that exquisite before. Thank you so much.

2:42:59>> And one [clears throat] thing I was going to say is you know we've been collecting the internet archive for years and it it stands on the shoulders of the library of Alexandria and many many other uh archives and libraries. Um, but what you were saying about, you know, AI, the age of AI, we've made these collections and now, you know, let's make the robots work for us, [laughter] make these collections better. And it's really, it was just really bouncing off of what Chris and I have been working on. So, I've gotten to know this community a little bit um over the last year. Um, come to a few sessions. Uh, you know, I made you all listen to me.

2:43:36Um uh and we have a fellowship idea that came uh from conversations that Chris and I about using the internet archive uh government data to make something uh using AI. So that's what Chris and I are just like burned out on all kinds of other things and we forgot about this whole thing that we worked on that made a lot.

2:43:54>> Yeah. So it's a live on the BCA AI website right now. You can check out the $5,000 fellowship that we're going to run over the next month. >> Hey, thank you Mr. Um, >> hit that right here. >> It's real. For the first time, you can submit your idea. We're going to give away $5,000 to somebody to build something on top of the archives like David's been doing. Uh, you should check out this thing.

2:44:18>> Yes, please. Yes, please. >> Well, I as soon as I get home from the trip, I go right into the hospital. So, I'm just going to wait for someone else to do it. Awesome. And then I'll uh I'll like cheer them along and send postcards. Say, "Good job." >> Are you Mr. Fun?

2:44:30>> I know a conference room. Sorry. Say it again. >> I said, "Are you free this weekend?" [laughter] >> No, no, >> no. I'm uh I'm I'm strictly hot tubs now. >> Okay. [laughter] >> Solid plan. >> I want to thank you all for being a part of something fun for me and pretty awesome. David, I hope you had a great time. You're amazing, man. Like, >> um Chris, I want to I want to thank you for inviting me and dragging me into this. And I also brought a present for Museum of Vancouver.

2:44:59>> Lorraine, are you still here? Uh, so I'm hoping that that can somehow end up in in uh their archive rather than their recycling. Um, but uh but it's made with love and affection and gratitude. This place means a lot. This is for the archives. >> Yeah, that's for Museum of Vancouver. That's uh or if they don't want it all right. Yeah. Um, >> thank you guys so much for being a part of this. It's a very free flowing experiment. Uh, welcome to my laboratory. [laughter] tonight. That means we got a GTFO and there's a few things we got to do before we do.

2:45:38>> Um, you have to pick up after your neighbor. Kush, get your ass up here for a second. >> Kush, we got to clean up before we get out. All right. >> Am I cleaning up? >> No. [laughter] >> You're coming under my arm over here, man. Um, Kush is going to like rock the mic. This guy's like a rapper and an MC.

2:45:57He talks about open source software. He talks about what's going on in the world and um so we got about 12 minutes [laughter] to grab our and go >> except for you and you in the back. [laughter] But I'd appreciate if everybody else took grabbed a drink from the cooler in the back and stepped out front onto the Yeah. And that's where we'll all be. Dave's going to come there.

2:46:21>> Did you guys have a good time tonight? >> Oh yeah. Cookies. I don't know. >> I've heard I heard that the cookies are really the main reason to come here. So, I need I know it's like a trust situation. So, there's cookies. There's cookies in the room. Uh Eliza and Noah made 200 cookies. They laid them all out on the table in uh where we were having food and drinks earlier, but just don't stay too long. Grab some cookies. Grab some cookies and [laughter] go. I love you guys. Thank you for being here. This is >> Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody.

2:46:55Keep your keep your handouts. There will be wise advice that you can meditate on in the future uh at the gift shop in Bali.