The Black Eyed Peas spoke to a generation in the 2000s with tracks like "I Gotta Feeling," "Let's Get it Started" and "Where is the Love?"
Lately, however, co-founder will.i.am has been speaking to a new generation – quite literally – with his three-hour-long, weekly classes for Arizona State University on the theme of "agentic AI."
Either beamed in on screens from Arizona State's main campus, or right there with him at the lecture theater he built as part of his business complex in Los Angeles, the roughly 80 students enrolled in will.i.am's class are each trying to build their own AI agent – a software system that can perform tasks autonomously, without requiring a human prompt.
The art of future-proofing
As someone who has long projected a tech-forward image – it was will.i.am who came up with the much quoted lyric, "I'm so 3008. You're so 2000 and late" from the Peas' 2009 song "Boom Boom Pow" – the pop star turned philanthropist, entrepreneur and educator is now working to equip young people for an employment marketplace that's being reshaped by technology.
"You are a company, Dave. You're not just like a creative dude," will.i.am said during a recent class, sounding more like a motivational coach than a college professor as he addressed individuals in the tiered seating around him. "You're a company – Claudia – Karen."
Students told NPR they get a lot out of will.i.am's approach.
"Not everybody that's coming inside this class has a tech background," said undergraduate Ren Flint. "He's been able to break AI down and make it accessible to everyone."
"Some people might think what he's talking about might be weird," said graduate student Luke Azariah. "But this guy is future-proofing a lot of us."
Realizing wild ideas with tech
In an interview with NPR a few hours before class, will.i.am said humans cannot hope to compete with AI unless they are hyper-creative.
"It's the greatest time to dream and materialize concepts that haven't been materialized," he said.
Realizing wild ideas with tech is basically what will.i.am has been up to for most of his life. Born William Adams in 1975 in a working-class Los Angeles neighborhood, will.i.am said he was 12 years old and experimenting with stage names – his first moniker was "Will Chill" – when he took his sister's Barbie and the Rockers cassette tape, recorded his own rap loops over it, and then played the mix back through his sister's cassette-tape-powered, animatronic Teddy Ruxpin toy bear.
"My sister was pissed," will.i.am recalled.
The musician and entrepreneur said there's a direct link between this early experiment and "MÖFO" – or "Modular Omni Function Operator" – the AI agent-powered Teddy bear he developed in partnership with Qualcomm and showed off at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The agent is not a toy, will.i.am said, but is intended to improve productivity and learning. But he said the cute exterior helps to humanize AI.
Foreseeing the "boom boom pow"
It's too early to tell if "MÖFO" will take off. But the man seems to have a knack for predicting the technological innovations most likely to go "boom boom pow."
Take AI music.
It's become big news over the past couple of years. But will.i.am was playing around with it well over a decade ago, as seen in the music video for the 2010 Black Eyed Peas song "Imma Be Rocking That Body."
"I just type in the lyrics. And then this thing sings it, says it, raps it, talks it," he says to his bandmates in the video.
Singer Fergie is visibly upset.
"We're not robots!" she exclaims, before storming out of the room. Then the music starts, accompanied in part by images of friendly, dancing robots.
Competing interests?
Today, the cultural backlash against AI and AI music is widespread. So will.i.am devotes a lot of time in his Arizona State class to discussing ethics and accountability. A video played during class warns of the risks: "You've seen how corporate agents are used. You've seen what happens with no guardrails."
Yet will.i.am has also embraced corporate tech. He's an investor in AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as the AI music creation platform Udio, and has partnered with Apple, Intel and Nvidia, among other Silicon Valley giants.
"He was a great brand ambassador," said Deborah Conrad, a former chief marketing officer at Intel who hired will.i.am as the company's Director of Creative Innovation in 2011.
Tech journalist Brian Merchant said it's hard to reconcile these seemingly competing interests.
"That line between passion for technology, passion for the idea that it could make people's lives better, and just expanding his market portfolio and his salience as a pop cultural icon, gets pretty blurry in there," Merchant said. "But that doesn't necessarily mean that he's not genuine in his goal to try to figure out a way to get AI to work."
will.i.am is not the only high-profile musician to have ventured into the world of tech. He co-founded Beats Electronics with Dr. Dre (and record industry executive Jimmy Iovine), which was sold to Apple in 2014 as part of a deal that also included Beats Music for $3 billion. Nas, Snoop Dogg, Brian Eno and Justin Bieber have also invested heavily in tech.
Nate Sloan, an assistant professor of musicology at the University of Southern California and co-host of the podcast Switched on Pop, said will.i.am stands out from the pack. "willi.am has made it more a part of his identity and more of an integral part of his career than anyone else I can think of," he said.
Alongside all this, will.i.am's music career is still going. The Black Eyed Peas are heading out on an overseas tour in June. Beyond his work with the Peas, will.i.am also released the anti-ICE anthem "East LA" last year, though it's been a few years since he released a hit single or album as a solo artist or with the group.
He seems more focused these days on his entrepreneurial and educational pursuits. Among other projects, he's developing a car with an AI agent. And he said he's hoping to teach a second semester at Arizona State.
"The joys of making music and singing on stage, we'll always do that," will.i.am said. "But teaching is this different calling. This is just the first year, and it's dope."
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