AI Needs Intention, Not Fear | will.i.am on Leadership, Creativity & the Future of Artificial Intelligence

It's not the tech. It's the grease.

Is that the fate of AI? [Music] It's an honor to be here. We are at the CES show, shooting for tomorrow today and CNBC. Thank you, Will. Thank you.

So, I'm just like a...

An enthusiast, a tanker, a thinker, an ideator, a manifestor, you know, I love making stuff.

I know that, like, you know, you had a very humble beginning, like you used to take like a, like a bus, like a yellow bus from like East Brentwood, like, you know, like, you know, like the rich kids from my house, and I'm sure like you were watching, like, you know, as you were passing by.

“So, what came to your mind when you were watching outside and what you did not want to be when you were watching that?”

So, when you were in a poor neighborhood, you don't know your poor because everyone's poor. You only know your poor when you see how someone else is living. And because I went to Britainwood and I saw how people were living, I'm like, "Why are you living like this?" And I'm living like that, like, "What are we doing wrong?" But it wasn't till I met a Persian family, a missionary, and I asked, "How do you live like this?"

Because she was a single parent, had two beautiful daughters, and she was like, "Well, I work really hard. I come from Iran after the civil war, and I work really hard." And, you know, I came to the country, studied, became a teacher, and someone that, that's come from a war-torn country, came to our country. And figured out how to make their way to where they could take care of the family and the most luxurious, that blue by mine. And from there, I wanted to apply that same type of focus.

It's just focus, that work ethic of focus on who you surround yourself with.

“Like, if you want to build an awesome company, you've got to hire the right people.”

You want to have a freaking awesome team that wins the Super Bowl, you've got to have the right players. You want to go from a nightmare and dream and manifest that dream, the change of reality, you've got to pick the right friends. There's no way you're going to get out of your circumstance if you're hanging out with folks that don't resemble the life you want to live. It's like your company, you are the company you keep, and you can end up either working for a company, and helping somebody else with their dream,

or you can be very selective on the company you keep, and you manifest your dream. Absolutely. So, you're saying that poverty is your origin story, not like your identity.

First off, when I was poor, it was beautiful.

I have no, like, that was the most beautiful experience, and I love my neighborhood.

“That's why I go back to my neighborhood, I have my foundation there.”

We serve about 500 schools with my robotics program, serving over 14,000 students. Like, I'm committed to my neighborhood. The outside was able to get out, but I want to go back, and that's part of the dream that I have with the Trinity. It's to manufacture the Trinity in the neighborhood, while teaching the community robotics and agent assistants. You know, not everything should be like, I want to be the richest, I want to have more than it.

I want to change. I want to mission to like, you know, because when I was in the hood, people came and gave us food. Somebody had a big heart, and was, you know, provided programs like the food drive. I was one of the recipients, the kids in the line, getting free cheese, free milk, free warm lunches.

I brought free Wi-Fi to my neighborhood, doing COVID.

I have a robotics program in my neighborhood, a college prep. I've sent hundreds of kids to school with my, my, I am scholarship. And now I want to like, take it to the next level. Let's build a vehicle. Like, I know that's audacious.

But, feel you got to have intent. I remember back in a day when you would say, wow, this is made in China. Back in a day. That was in Pakistan. That's nice.

That's nice. That's nice. But I'm from India. We can't get along. So China is inspirational.

What shins in was able to accomplish in 30 years, what it is now. Like, that's fantastic. Why can't that happen in Boyle Heights? Like, Singapore is, my mom is older than Singapore. The way my uncle's older than me, the way.

And so when you have countries that are 70 years, less under 70 years old, and they're booming, why can't that happen to content? Why can't that happen if it's worth? Why can't that happen to sell wants? Why can't every inner city overcome its issues?

And the intentions, you know, intentions are all we need. Google knows about that because they said, attention is all we need. Transformer. What the attention is all you need, paper. Transformer paper.

It transformed how we learn, transform how we change knowledge with the largely with model. Without Aiden, he's one of the authors for the Transformer paper, founder of co-hear. So, intentions are all we need. And we will transcend. Attention is all we need.

We transform. Intention is all we need. We transcend. When you have the right intentions, when you have a moral compass, when there's ethics at the core of the products you build.

Yeah, you know. So let's talk about a little bit about AI. There's a lot of fear about AI. People are worried about it.

Like mom's talking about, basically, like children.

And like, you know, work is talking about losing the jobs. But you seem to be the guy who's actually embracing AI. Like as though there's no tomorrow. What are why are you so different?

“And what are you seeing that is so different than all the others?”

I'm optimistic at my core. And I don't think there's anything going to be worse than being in the slum. We're being in the projects. But hey, when you were in the slums and I was in the projects, AI didn't create that.

So will it ever get any worse than what you experienced? Absolutely not. There's nothing to lose. So from what we experience and what we overcome, there will be nothing that bad. And look what we were able to do.

Your optimism got you to where you are. My optimism got me to work. If I see AI, I'm like, no, no, that's a solution for us. Because when we, the life we live, we didn't have a, had me had a lot of people wouldn't live like that. Because they could solve their problems themselves.

Absolutely. It's a, it's a liberator. If you think about it, you know?

“And that's why I, I, I've seen what robotics did to my neighborhood.”

I've seen what, you know, science technology engineering mathematics skills that did to my kids. How it motivated them, how it brought them like this like. I see myself contributing.

You know, they have the tools to identify the problem, to critical think, to solve problems.

And AI can, can be that. So when people are afraid of AI, they're afraid of the business model. I don't know if they're really truly afraid about AI. Got it. It's the business model as to why they're like, hey, what's going on?

What's going to happen? Because they've got and their intuition tells them that this technology coupled with that business model. That's what we're talking about. It's not the tech. It's the greed.

Got it. So how do you prevent greed? And like, the peach intelligence, what you?

“Well, first off, can you do that in the first place?”

Can people do that? Yeah. Think about how complex it is to walk down the street in India. How many cars are there and and bikes and cows?

I gave this example and I got to tell you this.

“So in India, it's very, you got to be a 360 driver, right?”

Like because people sense of direction and people sense of like lean is like almost lost. So like usually people say, like, I'm taking a left turn, I want to indicate left that, but they'll turn right. And they'll show right and then they'll turn left. And they will have both hands up and then they'll start going straight. So I had a very weird experience.

My driver knows how to drive. And every other driver knows like what the driver is trying to tell him, like the intent is shared. But when the cow was sitting in the center of the road, no one knows how to like communicate with the cow. Right? So a lot of like building of the technology and all of this seems to be like that intent sharing problem.

Like I and I know what I'm trying to build, but the intent is not clearly translated and communicated from a literacy perspective. So how do you solve the problem of embracing this? No, the reason why I wanted to use that as a metaphor is because Because our dangers But folks that are operating the vehicle have a license.

Folks that put the vehicle on the road have a license. And in a very complex environment like India where you have cars, bikes and cows, even the cow is safe. People have licenses. Folks that deployed vehicles out there took a test. Here we are in 2026.

People that are deploying AI never took a test.

They don't have a license to deploy systems that are going to interface with humans. To make sure they have the right intent. So one of the first things when you're taking a driver's test is the intentions. Do you understand this means stop? Do you understand like just basic stuff?

We haven't even scratched the service on basic intent. And so not stifling the innovation. Not no, that's not what we're asking. Hey, do you lean well? Are you deploying this?

Do you have what are your intentions for society? Or is it for your shareholders to be rich? That could potentially compromise society as a whole. We saw that happen in social media. Yeah, is that the fate of AI?

And that's what people are feeling. They're not feeling the tech. They're not feeling it from just the tech on its own. They go about teaching virtue to AI. Because you see, in my life, I couldn't have been where I am without my father and mother doing all the things that they did.

And whatever they did came as a boomerang in my life. People came out of nowhere to try to help me and show me the direction where I need to go. I call the angels.

And angels are nothing more than basically telling you,

don't we are of a certain destination, stay on it, and let me open the door for you. Right?

“So how do you bring that human goodness in technology?”

Because all these companies, because I'm an optimization won't. Like, you know, I spend like 25 years of my career building system for Walmart, co, PepsiCo, and all those guys. And all I focus was how to save up any more than last year. Right? So if the intent is all optimization,

where is the line for dignity? How do you understand, where is the crossover? How do you balance it? Okay. Am I making sense to you?

Yeah, big time. Yeah. So I have a course that I'm teaching at ASU as my wife. Why don't you not do? Sorry.

Sorry. That's a good question. I don't sleep enough. So I have a course called The Agintic Self. At first class, it begins next Wednesday.

And the course starts with self. Because a lot of times when you're in technology, you lose yourself in it.

No one never asks who am I.

The whole premise of the internet sometimes was to like be anonymous, where your self is not important. You want to be something else. And that's cool. That's good to show up in cognito.

But the same system that you're showing up to in cognito, is smart enough to learn you and knows you more than you know yourself

“is when you need to start asking who am I.”

Because the machine knows you more than you know you. This whole time you've been going on the internet in cognito and your cookies are all you need to learn.

And now companies can micro target you predict you and you can't even predict yourself.

“So in 2020 now, asking and being your full self and owning your data is the most important.”

And you know, step that we need to take in this new agentic realm. So we dive into like, you know, the pains that social media has caused. We, the students learn the greatest hack. You know, Brittany Kaiser, the whistleblower. She's coming and speaking to our students.

Aiden from cohere speaking to our students. Green Hoffman is coming to speak to our students. Our prime from stability AI, we have an awesome cast of folks that are going to mentor and speak to our students. As we teach them the basics of agentic systems, building agents, but then at the same time reminding them the ethics. So they, so they combine their point of view and their point of interest.

Stitching beliefs into the agents they build. Stitching concerns into the agents they build so that when they reflect on the agent that is theirs. On a GPU that sits at the home. Right. So it doesn't have to go into some unknown cloud where who's scouring all your information.

It sits at home. Like the refrigerator. Your refrigerator stores the food jug and eat. You know, you want to buy a house where you're storing your food next door or somewhere else.

“You want to buy a house where you have to go take number two or number one down the street.”

So do you give away the data yourself to the neighbor, but you give away all your stuff to somebody else. Absolutely. There's not even a data center in the house yet. In 2020 right now, there is your own cloud. Yeah.

As far as everyone knowing that, that's like default. Like or refrigerator is or air conditioning is or plumbing. Or kitchen and stove. I'll be too far past it like. Nope.

It's right now. We start not about some new jump jump. We'll tell me about the toy that you're holding in the hand.

First off, it's not a toy.

It's a gigantic AI collectible. I wanted to build the system that was, you know, for the agent itself. So reimagining the OS. Instead of AI being a layer on OS, collaborated very deeply with Qualcomm, where we reimagined the operating system from the agent and built the product from the agent up.

Got it. What is it so for you? Oh, so let's think about my digital life, right? There's a lot of noise on email. A lot of like incoming calendar requests.

A whole lot of text messages, DMs and the mobile because it's the operating system.

“I put the mobile on my threads that are important, all my emails that are important.”

And it will help navigate my digital life. Using it in workflows and NCP protocols.

But in this case, because of the operating system, we don't need to always depend on APIs that are available for the mobile.

For the mobile to connect you. Because it will use the device the way a human does. It will swipe, click, type, engage, browse, connect, work with apps and allow apps to be used in a concert way. Because right now an app is like, it works one at a time. And calendar doesn't talk to phone, phone doesn't talk to email and concert.

So you're trying to create a connected system. It's a connected system down at the core. So it's a modular, omnifunctional operator. So it's an operating system. Yes, that it's core, but more an operator.

It doesn't need you to swipe through it for it to be functional or tap through it for it to be functional. Does it also solve the loneliness problem? Oh, the loneliness is because it's conversational at its core. You know, you converse with the mobile about your digital life. You could talk about because it has the power of browsing.

It couldn't reason what's going on in the world. And talk about it in a very natural life like human life. What the expression, emotion. And because it also has the ability to express itself with facial expressions. We say a lot, how we blink and sad face or not emoji.

Like break it out of emoji and really having a dynamic facial expression while you're speaking to the mobile.

It's fantastic. It's fantastic. So what other toys do you have here?

Well, first off, it's not a toy.

For winter advisory. So does it swear?

“I swear you have to check it out for yourself.”

So here at CS also have a car that I've had on display at Fountain Blue. It's a Trinity, fully electric, zero to 60 in under two seconds. Yasa engines on the back wheels. 400 horsepower in each wheel, given you 800 horsepower in the vehicle. The same type of agentic system is inside the Trinity as well.

So the Trinity is called the Trinity because it emerges man, machine, and agent. So that's there at the Nvidia booth. Here with Qualcomm. Our agentic radio station is there in the Zinger. That system has been approved with Qualcomm as I'll see software on chip.

And so we're going to scale FYI radio, which is our agentic radio stations where we have agentic host that go between segment and music. And so they have that here Qualcomm. This here with Qualcomm removal. Have my LG speaker bags, the boom bags that LG's booth. And then my Trinity over at Nvidia's booth.

So you're like an out and out AI guy. Wow, it's 2026.

“So I saw an interview where someone was asking you a question about creativity.”

And like you know you asked them what is creativity.

And then they never like answered that question.

So I want to ask you that question. So what is creativity for you? Creativity. Yeah. Amen.

Creativity is making sense of noise. Creativity is a rinse. I felt something I rinse it out. It's being free with your rinse. Allowing your rinse to bring you joy.

However it comes out. Creativity is not perfect. And sometimes creativity is perfect. But the moment that you try to make your creative output perfect is when you have right as block. You create activity blocked.

Whatever you make, someone will love it. And then the more you get good at it, your creativity is build buildings. And you know bridges. No pun intended to know what type of bridge. It could be a gym, a bridge that spans across the globe.

For one point to another point, or bridge could be like a song. Because it helps somebody get forever or something. You know, creativity is like... It's spiritual. You feel it inside.

It's a human, true human language. Like math is math. Language is language. But then creativity, the expressiveness. That rhymes the same as poetry.

It manifests in the calculative of the same as math is when you connect. But it's freedom. Our creatives wondered about creativity, like my grading into AI. And like people giving up the agency to AI. Like, there's a big problem.

People are actually talking about it. They're worried. Actors are worried. Artists are worried. Like, there was a recent song which was created by AI which became number one on Spotify.

Yeah, that's awesome. Right? So, it's creativity. Like, not what we thought it is. Like, can machines replicate it?

Okay. Okay. Okay. So, for example, you built... Jordan Poles.

Your whole life, you wanted to build objects that go up.

But you've never seen a tree.

For example, in your life, you've never seen a tree. But in whatever you live, you've been building objects that go up. And then finally, you come across a tree and you see it. Are you inspired? Or are you threatening?

“Oh, the fact is, there's somebody who's like, "Who are you talking about, Willan?"”

I'm saying. Nature is awesome. Nature creates. Does it don't you? Does it back hold you back?

Does it see how beautiful nature is? It hasn't, right?

Even though nature creates everything. So, wait.

“So, now you're going to get all freaking sensitive and emotional”

and freaking cry because AI can create? Fuck out of here, bro. I'm sorry.

Does nothing more powerful than nature?

Yes. And we've already out created to the point... We ignored how fucking awesome nature is. Nature is so dope that we're like, "Oh, man, this gravity's shit. We're going to do it."

We made helicopters, we freaking created magnets thing. No. We didn't let that stop our human nature. And so now humans created AI. And now AI's created.

Now people can be like, "Ooh, not a boat, that ain't it." And we're still in that we're not true creatives to begin with. Got it. That's fine. Because true creatives are like, "It doesn't matter if they're not afraid."

A true creative is not afraid.

Because that's what they need to do. It's a part of their self-created, again. Yeah. And so no disrespect to anyone that is concerned. They have every right to be concerned. But I would say, "Here's your concern, that energy, that energy force of your concern,

and create a new type of theater." For example, there's a guy by the name of Charlie Chaplin. He was a traditional theatrical artist. And then film came. Did he shy away from film or did he go head at it?

And help both Hollywood. Here's a guy that could have been like, this film stuff that's taken our stages away. Our theaters are, you know, amphitheaters and basilicas. No. He was like, "There's a new stage that happens in a Nickelodeon.

That happens on screen." And he went to Hollywood on the boy-up and created United Artists. And he embraced it and dreamt. And so it was AI. Great. They could do film. That's cool.

But it's doing what we did yesterday. Now, I would be worried if it's like, you know, did you see that new thing AI did?

What? It just made something that never existed.

This new thing.

“Then, yeah, again, that's when you should worry.”

But if this is doing what we did yesterday, then you should worry. That's what we did. Now, what are we going to do? That's new. That's a creative smite. That's the creative smite.

What if you lived for 300 years? Someone gave you a pill and said, like, you can live up to 300 years. Would you take that pill? How do you know I'm not 300 years old? I don't even know. You look like you are.

Oh, you said it all. No. It's like, don't crack. But like, you know, I, you know. But, you know, you seem to have accomplished so much in,

like a short-spirited of time, like, you know, with someone, like, you know, 300 years of, would have actually achieved. But, would you take that pill and what is a societal impact to all of those things? I would take that pill. If I knew exactly what I would do with that time.

If I don't know what I'm going to do with that time, then that pill is prison. Because maybe going on to the next, maybe you're summons to do something in a, in a different realm. And maybe the pill is a spiritual imprisonment,

unless you know what you're going to do with that time. And what can you create in 300 years? That's worth you taking that pill. Time is awesome, it's valuable. But, or if someone's taking pills, then they don't know what to do with that time,

then time could be misused. Society could be a lot worse. Because we're not maximizing the time that we have now. Look at how, inhumane we are to one another, when we only live 100 years.

Look at how, inhumane we were, to one another when we lived 40, 50 years. Now, you know what I mean?

“So, I think we need to start asking how,”

how productive, how, you know, solution-oriented, how collaborative, how empathetic, how loving, how helping we are to one another. I know that sounds like Kumbaya, but love, you know, where's the love? It was love.

Hey, I know somebody that sings the song. Thank you so much. I don't think it will impact humanity. Hey, I will help you. So, I see I as a tool, like internet or computer,

not as a, as impacting humanity.

because as an artist, the point is to do it yourself

and make this choices and put yourself into the work. So, it being used in like cancer research, like unfolding proteins, that's super cool. But that's not where the money is going. That's not what people are hyped about.

So, I think people are interested in it because they want work done for free. And that's the wrong reason to be interested in it. If you can give me an AI that can give me a, a companion replacing my wife, my wife.

I will buy that. It's going to improve quality of life for everybody at the end of the day. Innovations will be faster. Use cases for things that we haven't thought about

around how life can become even simpler or easier.

“More than simpler, I think it's just going to be a reality very soon.”

If it's not already getting there. AI is going to have good sides on that side. It's going to help take a lot of thinking workloads off of people. It will help answer a lot of questions. But it will also take away a lot of jobs and people.

That's just a progression of normal life. I'm just concerned that if that some of the, the more capitalist instincts within across the globe will use it to replace human labor. I know these that the people are getting like,

it's care for the future. You know, maybe we are thinking about in the future. We lost some jobs,

or maybe the machine or the AI will be the replace us.

And then that's make scary, you know, in the future. As a Latin American people, we are scary about it. Because most of us, we are working in operations, stuff, you know.

“And I think it's the first thing that AI will be the replace.”

I think it's deeply integrated in all aspects of how we live, especially like I work in the marketing. And I also know some friends in law, which is in the humanities of our life. And I think AI is going to be able to do these kind of jobs better. Yeah, a lot of human beings.

So I'm not saying it's gonna replace us, but I see a lot of opportunities in this aspect. I feel like it's ignoring a lot of people, and it's going to take jobs away from people. That I'm very concerned about.

From someone who is in tech, it has a lot of pros, but also considerably dangerous scones. So I recently visited my native land, and I was able to see billboards of Open AI in a rural area. That really shows how AI is taking over the world.

And I hear school kids doing homeworks with AI. So in my sense, it's definitely a good. It's faster, it makes things life. It makes life much easier. But is there, so we have a lot of discussions.

Is there going to be a lot of thinking? Well, people have patience. There's a lot of questions that I don't have answers to, and it definitely scares me to some extent. I mean, it's been helping now too.

It's very creative. It made a lot of good movies. One of the good television studies. Yeah, it's very artistic. It was pretty clever too.

It's very clever. It's so very amazing. What I can do. Uh-huh. I mean, I did it.

Like, I tried it here and there in the library. Yeah. Try to look it up. Yeah, it's very creative, and it's really quick. Neutral to concern.

I mean, I've seen tragedy between makes a really terrible art. So I'm not like, oh man, it's good to change the world.

“You know, I think I could definitely see a model that ends up, you know,”

coming into contact or conflict with people. I think that's real. Well, I mean, they're like everything. There's pluses and minuses. Uh, if AI just is allowed to go without any kind of oversight

or regulation, it's probably going to be problematic. Uh, exactly how you're looking at part of the AI thing is the data centers and the processing and the impact that it's having on people's, uh, you know, access to electricity and the cost of that electricity. Um, it replacing people's jobs.

Uh, in the arts, which is something that I'm involved in,

There are also some incredibly creative things that are done with AI.

So, like anything, you know, the pendulum's got to be more in the middle. Not to one side, not to the other. I think that diminishing returns to capital spend,

“meaning you need to put a bunch of data centers on the ground,”

means the, like, kill the world AI is going to be very, very expensive to produce. Uh-huh. Unlike chips themselves, which I think you get diminishing returns to building bigger boundaries, like building bigger data centers is more heat and more power.

Um, but yeah, at a certain point, you already say AI's that, you know, in a lab environment or down to kill their owners or blackmail them or, you know, at the end of the day, do stuff to ensure their own survival

and, I think, at a certain point, we'll put heads with that.

I like the idea of discovering new drugs that might help people, medical research. Um, and yet, I think some things might get out of control very easily. And I don't understand. I don't think government, I think government is reluctant to put any restraints on it.

And that worries me. So, I'm not necessarily negative, just inherently negative towards AI or inherently positive.

“I think that it's still within the control of human beings”

to decide how to use it for the betterment of mankind or toward the detriment of mankind. Hey, I make this society working more efficiently, especially in programming coding stuff. I think AI plays a very big part of the roles.

But at the same time, I think AI is also taking some people's jobs and making some people jobless. I think it's like, it's a kind of problem that people and the government should think of. Yeah, it's a problem.

But I think, overall, it makes this society more productive, more efficient. But right now, we are trying to use for positive things, including my baby when we have some question about his growing, about his new skill about him. We search or we try to use the AI to help us

how can we manage those next level for him or how can we manage the new challenge about him. And the AI is helping us a lot. If you look at it, both from the pros and cons perspective, there are abundance.

When you see concerts, jobs are going to be really, really scarce. They're going to be layoffs. But on the other hand, if you see that, a lot of diseases and a lot of infections, their order diseases, they are getting kind of reasonably solved

or at least, they're getting better with respect to adapt to your medicines, and all that. So, there are pros and cons, but I think over time, society will technically adapt to how to use AI. And in the long run, I'm very optimistic that it's going to be pretty good. Yeah, there will be concerns, the regulation will catch up with that basically.

So, it's always going to be technologies going to keep up the pace,

no matter what, whether you like it or not. AI is very good. It took away my decision making, I can ask AI. But, how to make that AI in as intelligent as you and me, does work. It all depends on the need.

It doesn't affect me so far, myself, as individual, but, you know, in general, in the public, it might be, you know, take over human's job and intelligence. You know, all these things might be affected, regular, you know, regular, basic things. As always, if it is a number of factory machinery stuff like that,

AI might be works, better. But, individually, I don't like it. I don't like it because, you know, it does impact on our job. Yeah, so, that's the only thing, but parts. To answer your question, there are problems going to be.

Another five years going to be millions of AI out there. That's why NVIDIA is still keep going. But, I hate to say it, you know, the state is behind. In the long run, it is going to be helpful for all of us, just like it was internet back then.

I use it in my work, it's been helping me become more efficient. I don't personally think it's, to me, I remember time before the internet

“and to remember that switch, and to me, this is like a modern day version of that happening.”

And so, I think it's going to take some time for us to catch up and figure out how to use it ethically and in a way that helps more than hurts, but I think, like the internet, we figured it out,