ChatGPT ‘a great co-pilot for creatives,’ will.i.am says

Black Eyed Peas hip-hop artist, singer, songwriter and i.am Angel Foundation Founder will.i.am joins Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi and Julie Hyman in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum to discuss his philanthropy, technological change, how AI can complement creative work, and his biggest influences in the business.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: This is Yahoo Finance Live. Once again, you are back in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, and Brian and I's coverage as we are getting snowed upon more and more. And we're joined now by a man who now-- this is his eighth World Economic Forum, that is musician, investor, non-profit-- what would you call yourself-- foundation-- will.I.am is with us.

WILL.I.AM: Yes, in the house.

JULIE HYMAN: You wear a lot of hats. As I said, you've been here eight times. What is your goal for this particular Davos?

WILL.I.AM: Well, this is the first time since COVID that we've been here in the winter. I was here in the summer, which was an odd Davos. But every single year that I come here, I come here with the sole premise to get as many skill sets or programs for my kids in the school-- my foundation work.

So I've had my program since 2008. I started with 65 kids. Now, we serve about 12,000 students in Los Angeles with computer science, robotics skill sets. And so I come up here to find mentors.

We've had great mentors from Boeing, NASA in the past years. And we've sent kids to Dartmouth, and Brown, and Stanford. And I want to continue to scale and grow the work that we do there. Given how technological the world is going with robotics, AI, generative AI, natural language understanding, conversational computing, and just anticipating the inevitable where these new technologies will render a lot of jobs obsolete, but there's going to be new jobs that are going to be unearthed and they should come from communities like mine.

BRIAN SOZZI: You encouraged me to improv before we came to the segment, so I'm just going to roll with it. What do you-- as someone that have written songs and music that is the fabric of our lives, what do you think about AI and something like a ChatGPT?

WILL.I.AM: I think ChatGPT is awesome. I think it's going to be a great copilot for creatives. And hopefully it raises the bar on everyone's creativity. Now, you have something else that's that responsive.

You can push it and it will push you. I think it's awesome. It's like asking a mathematician, hey, what do you think about this thing called a calculator? You know?

BRIAN SOZZI: It's pretty awesome.

WILL.I.AM: Yeah, that's pretty cool.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, I mean--

BRIAN SOZZI: I like calculators.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, ChatGPT has some things-- probably some implications for our business too. But that's-- you're not interviewing us. But it's interesting to talk to you about technology, because you have partnered with technology companies in the past. Is it-- what are you most excited about on the edge of technology right now?

WILL.I.AM: I'm excited about the youth getting their hands on these new tools, because they are tools. And folks that are nervous and worried are conditioned by yesterday. And there's a lot of folks that have been left behind due to humanity and the inhumane practices or lack of investment.

And now, these kids, these folks from these communities, have the ability to solve the problems themselves, create industries themselves. And so the jobs of tomorrow are going to be amazing when they come from kids that look like me that are from communities like the ones that I came from. And it's awesome. 2023-- sorry, 2030 is going to be awesome. Let's go.

JULIE HYMAN: And those kids that you're working with through your foundation, we've heard a lot of pessimism here, right? So bring us a little hope-- what are you seeing in these kids? What are you seeing in terms of their potential?

Because there's a lot of talk about mental health problems among younger communities, there's a lot of talk about access to technology, there's a lot of talk about them using technology too much, particularly when it comes to social media. But what are you seeing when you meet these kids?

WILL.I.AM: OK, imagine it's 1923, and there were kids like me from some inner city-- you know, freed slaves, sons of freed slaves, daughters of free slaves-- and a lot of us were not a part of the third Industrial Revolution. When it came to electrifying America in the world, connecting-- we built the railroads, but we didn't own the machines that were on top of the railroads.

We weren't the champions of the industry, you know? Thomas Edison did an awesome job creating the gramophone and we sung songs that were recorded on them. But it took Berry Gordy to really show us that we can be the entrepreneurs in the record industry as well.

And now here we are in 2023, and let's go. We're a part of that conversation. We're being-- we're embodying what it means to be engulfed in these skill sets and applying ourselves. I'm seeing our kids do that. It's a brand new world, and let's go. Let's bring it.

BRIAN SOZZI: Before we let you go, Will, you mentioned mentors earlier in the segment. Who do you go to for advice when you want to put money to work, when you want to think about or sound out some ideas you may want to put to work with your foundation?

WILL.I.AM: Marc Benioff. That's my big brother, mentor. I love Marc. Thank you for all the things you've done in helping us at I.AM Angel. Ron Conway, that's my, like-- that's my bigger, bigger brother.

MC Hammer, that's the dude that connected me to Ron Conway. Jimmy Iving, that's, like, the guy that really saw the spark in me. So yeah, there's my go-tos-- as well as Oprah Winfrey. I love her. That's where I want to start my foundation. I started on the "Oprah Winfrey Show."

And she pushes me to bring the best out of myself. Gayle King, I love her like an aunt. And so yeah, I have my-- I'm blessed to have an awesome network of folks to keep me on the straight and narrow and pushing to solve problems.

JULIE HYMAN: Will, thank you so much for talking to us. Appreciate it. Will.I.Am-- musician, investor, philanthropist was the other word I was looking for earlier that escaped me. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.