In this episode, we explore how Peter Hollens has leveraged artificial intelligence to grow his YouTube channel to over 3 million followers and sustain his success in the creator economy. Peter shares how AI tools have streamlined his production process, sparked new creative ideas, and even enhanced his ability to connect authentically with his audience. From optimizing workflows to experimenting with AI-assisted songwriting and storytelling, Peter reveals how technology has expanded his creative possibilities while staying true to his artistic voice. The episode also delves into the ethical challenges of AI, as Peter emphasizes the need for transparent practices that respect creators’ rights. This conversation is an inspiring look at how AI can amplify human creativity, helping creators scale their passions and engage with audiences in meaningful ways.
In this episode, we explore how Peter Hollens has leveraged artificial intelligence to grow his YouTube channel to over 3 million followers and sustain his success in the creator economy. Peter shares how AI tools have streamlined his production process, sparked new creative ideas, and even enhanced his ability to connect authentically with his audience. From optimizing workflows to experimenting with AI-assisted songwriting and storytelling, Peter reveals how technology has expanded his creative possibilities while staying true to his artistic voice. The episode also delves into the ethical challenges of AI, as Peter emphasizes the need for transparent practices that respect creators’ rights. This conversation is an inspiring look at how AI can amplify human creativity, helping creators scale their passions and engage with audiences in meaningful ways.
Key Takeaways:
Peter Hollens website: Peter Hollens
Youtube: Peter Hollens - YouTube
00:00 Introduction to Peter Hollens and First Impressions
01:44 Peter's Journey: From Choir to YouTube Sensation
05:56 The Creator Economy: Advising, Investing, and Building a Following
07:46 AI in Music: Exploring New Creative Frontiers
10:59 Personal Growth Through AI and Technology
15:12 Creativity and Authenticity in an AI-Driven World
29:14 Ethics and Content Licensing in AI
32:56 Reigniting Creativity and the Importance of Knowledge Sharing
37:35 The Future of Acapella and AI Innovation
42:51 Journaling and Self-Discovery with AI
51:54 Final Reflections
📜 Read the transcript for this episode: Transcript of How Peter Hollens uses AI to build a successful YouTube channel with 3m followers |
[00:00:00] Peter Hollens: Hey, my name is Peter Hollins. I am a dorky a cappella nerd. I've been singing online for about 14 years Ten ten million followers a couple billion views making dorky a cappella music on the internet I also advise and consult numerous creator economy companies You Um, currently consulting with two different AI companies that I really love.
Uh, spotter studio making creators have the opportunity to do content creation with confidence and, , Troveo helping, , protect creators, , rights on the internet and get them paid to license out, their video content. And I'm so excited to be here with you gentlemen. Let's go.
[00:00:31] Jeremy Utley: I just want to say, um, Henrik, when I met Peter, I met Peter at this wonderful, YouTube conference. And the thing that struck me was. He is one of the few people who I have ever met that I felt actually matched my enthusiasm, not only for life in general, but for Gen AI specifically. And I was just like, you know what, I don't even know what's going to happen here, but we have to talk to this person because he's so excited. That I actually felt we're going to learn something interesting.
[00:01:04] Henrik Werdelin: Meanwhile, I have gone deep on your YouTube channel. I've been jamming all morning. No, it's great. It's amazing. Um, , do you mind just kind of talking a little bit about how you got into it? I think definitely we want to kind of talk about music and AI, right? Cause that's obviously is your jam, , but I think, you know, it'd be super cool just to kind of hear when you first got introduced to it. And I definitely have like a, a zillion questions, after that.
[00:01:29] Peter Hollens: Um, definitely need to say that I think everything that you might have said was true in terms of my enthusiasm, Jeremy, but I'm not sure about me teaching you to about AI and given how many people and the wealth and the intelligence of the individuals you speak to, because I've really thoroughly enjoyed listening to your podcast since I met Jeremy.
Um, my dorky creator musician experience truly starts, uh, in the shower, , singing and I, uh, I really wanted to drop my French class and , my mom finally heard me singing in the shower. She's like, okay, well, this kid's got a voice, so I need to convince him to join choir. Um, so I never sang like around anyone else until I was forced to take choir , in high school.
She let me drop my French class. I figured out that mom does know best because I was like, this is just going to get me beat up even more, mom. This is great. Thanks a lot. Um, and, uh, choir was like how I found myself, my voice, my, my identity. , it later got me into college. I ended up getting a, uh, opera degree pretty much like as a, as a voice performance major at the university of Oregon.
Um, and along the way to kind of balance the, uh, antiquated classical music and some of the professors there that really only saw life one way. I started an acapella group there, um, that allowed me to get the affirmation from my peers that I desperately deserve, like desired as, as a young dorky nerdy kid.
[00:02:57] Peter Hollens: No, good catch, but no. Um, and so I fell in love , with the human voice and, and what male harmony does. , the male acapella group there that I started was called On The Rocks and We got to do a bunch of competitions and travel the United States singing. And I later fell in love with the recording studio just on our first time jumping into, , the recording engineering room.
And so desperately wanted the recording engineer to move faster. Cause like we were paying out of pocket personally to get this first album done. And I was standing over him being like, this guy is moving so slow and it's 95 an hour. And I cannot believe it. So all the money I'd saved to go to graduate school to become a choral director, I actually took out without my parents knowing and bought my own recording equipment.
Um, fell in love with teaching myself how to do what I saw, uh, this recording engineer doing. And then I started recording other a cappella groups around the nation. Um, and that was like , my first real business. Um, and along the way, I, uh, Ended up falling in love with another acapella nerd who was actually the premise for the movie Pitch Perfect.
Her group at the University of Oregon was what Pitch Perfect, Mickey Rapkin wrote his book about. Um, and so, uh, we were like the Danny Sandy of acapella, which, , in 99, 2000 was totally not a cool thing. And if it's slightly not, it's slightly a little cooler because of like glee and like the sing off and all the dorky stuff that's come with acapella since then.
And what, , the group Pentatonix has done, especially for the Christmas genre. I found myself on a TV show called The Sing Off, getting my group to go to it. And they were like, only if you come with us. And so I did and I auditioned with them. And, , that was a really cool experience because I saw all these people delusional enough to think that they could make a living in music.
And I was like, , how do these people think they can do it? Uh, because, you know, you, you think that you need the fat man , in the suit, uh, telling you that you're good enough , to make that work. Um, that experience was beautiful enough and the people were, uh, so talented and I was like, well, if they think they do it, I can do it and I turned the mic on myself and, around that same time, I saw people starting to do this YouTube thing and I was like, well, I taught myself recording engineering.
I think I teach myself video editing. And so I started doing that, , recording myself, releasing like my music on there and, um, Just happened to, uh, be like, just stupidly, , dorky and entrepreneurial enough to like find myself a business and doing that. And along the way, the only way to really get your music up on iTunes was with this one company called louder, which was the first time I kind of fell in to having a network of.
, CEOs who were just so incredibly giving with their time and teaching. Um, and so, , I became an advisor and an investor in that company. , and later right around the same time, Jack Conte was starting up Patreon and I was like the sixth, creator on there and I, I'm the most unfiltered person ever.
So I would always provide. So much feedback and I got so excited obviously about patreon and what that was to Creators at the time who did not have any type of true passive income stream and
[00:06:11] Henrik Werdelin: but those people don't know what is Patreon.
[00:06:14] Peter Hollens: patreon is pretty much right when it started was like a Kickstarter that never ends it later become pretty much like the Number one membership site on the internet for creatives.
It has a CEO who truly is a creator So he lives and breathes and does and makes decisions for the creators and not necessarily, , for just the, , PNL, which is what most companies obviously focus on. And that was really great to be aligned to and want to invest in my time and my money and my energy.
And, um, those were my first couple of companies. I started, , advising and, investing in and. I never really had like a huge viral moment. , I just kept on releasing content consistently week after week. , and I, you know, found myself with over 10 million followers and a few billion views across all social media platforms doing dorky acapella music on the internet.
I was like the first person to do boxes and boxes and then like cloning myself to try to represent the music in which I was creating
[00:07:11] Henrik Werdelin: the boxers boxers is such a nice look.
[00:07:13] Peter Hollens: Yeah, it is until you like edit yourself for the 400th time and you're like, gosh, this face is not getting younger or prettier. Um,
[00:07:20] Henrik Werdelin: speaking of getting younger and prettier, like, do you remember when you first stumbled into some LMs or, or Gen, Gen AI ?
[00:07:28] Jeremy Utley: I was just wondering the same thing as like, when does AI kind of intersect with your path here, Peter?
[00:07:32] Peter Hollens: sure. I mean, I, could double back, but truthfully, like, um, it came and provided me a bridge to like the deepest, darkest chasm that I ever faced, even outside of like me being stupid enough to sign a, a recording contract with one of the majors. I lost my voice due to a surgery that had nothing to do with my voice.
This is a breathing tube. Unfortunately, uh, can take your, your singing voice away, which doesn't usually affect humans. And so I was about two years in on dealing with something called a stubborn granuloma, which is much worse than a node. Like a node is like what singers usually deal with, but that truly can come and go a stubborn granuloma truly is.
stubborn. Um, and so I had, , close to 10 W2, uh, employees across three different businesses and education and e commerce, my like music accelerator that I was doing with my wife, who's also a professional singer. Um, and, , then it all kind of like fell apart. Cause like the backbone of the engine just kind of ceased to exist.
, first time I ever had to start letting go of people and, and kind of like, And so in the midst of not being able to truly sing for the first time since I was 14, and that was like everything to me. I, was lucky enough to be living in a time where we have the total like human consciousness at our fingertips.
And it was like the first day, um, OpenAI came out with GPT 3. And at the time I was ideating on businesses. I was like, well, who am I, if I can't? Sing. And so I was getting on a bunch of different companies that were trying to get closer and closer to like the income stream between influencers and brands, but it just felt icky.
And I was like, well, why can't I get hired on by one of my companies that I advise or consult like full time? If I, I have such value, I know I can provide a 10 X value. Like why wouldn't they give me like a legitimate salary and no one was respecting creators. And so at the time I was trying to find the next business and the large language model truly that did recommend and help me.
Uh, to run with a company that I had founded called in house creators and trying to like fundamentally solve innovators dilemma, um, at AI companies, um, to place creators like myself that have created numerous seven figure businesses, um, horizontally across the company, both in terms of community partnerships, go to market.
Um, and I feel like. If a creator has done it before and they are wise enough to get over like the three main focuses of fame, money, and sex, which is what all, a lot of creators focus on early on in their career because they're too young to know why we have consciousness and why we're alive, uh, yet the large language model gave me, uh, the ability to not only find that business, but then actually be able to provide that value to truly any business that was, uh, willing to like, lean in and hire me because if I didn't know how to do something, I'd be like, yeah, I got it.
No worries. And then I would go and I'd either learn it or do it alongside numerous different large language models.
[00:10:34] Jeremy Utley: Can we just pause there real fast? Is there an example of a moment where you were asked to do something that the first answer, the unassisted Peter would say, no, I can't do that. And the assisted Peter says, uh, yeah, I can definitely do that. Like what's just to give somebody like, like granularity to that image.
[00:10:54] Peter Hollens: Yeah. I mean, uh, for somebody who never had a job job in their life and then was, , immediately, uh, brought into, you know, VC world or, , unicorn type companies, and they're just throwing out acronyms left and right of OKRs and KPIs. And obviously you could look at that upon, uh, from a definition standpoint, but , if you were just writing down the entire context of every single conversation and what you're being asked to do alongside any of my jobs, gosh, I mean, Okay, you're asking for specificity when my biggest weakness in the entire world, Jeremy, is memory, but I would have to say I use it in everything.
I use it in communicating to my wife in a more succinct way so that we can get over a fight. I use it in creating, , stories , with my children and my, , beautifully neurodivergent autistic six year old who but I get to do it alongside, , uh, the different AI companies so, , that I can actually communicate to him in ways that are subconscious within the stories that he, uh, resonates to with Henry the Hedgehog.
And, uh, you know, I use it in everything. Um, and which is why I'm so thankful now at this point, like every single time you get into a meeting and you have your like dorky note taker and people are like, what's that? I'm like, cool. I'm going to be able to not forget any of this and talk to it for the next 10 minutes afterwards.
I know exactly what we talked about, what the action items are and how I can over deliver in the next 30 minutes. Oh, and then I'll schedule the email like an hour and a half in advance. Cause they'll think that I put a lot more time and energy into it when it was really just like five minutes. And then a couple of quick filters and adjustments.
[00:12:24] Jeremy Utley: That's great. By the way. That's great.
[00:12:26] Henrik Werdelin: when did you start to use it actually for music? I guess you probably used it for text before audio to start with, right?
[00:12:33] Peter Hollens: yeah, yeah. I mean, like right over here, I have , my pro tool session recording on the two different mics in which I have my large condenser and then the SMB that I'll send you guys later for this one. But, um, like literally just up on the Chrome over here, cause this is my, like, I am in musician mode.
I have, um, I have Suno open, UDO open, Kits. ai, which is what I've been utilizing , to model my voice across all of my different registers. I think prior to AI really coming in a pro consumer. I was trying to do this in scale, early on because truly recording 150 wave files of your voice in order to encapsulate, uh, let's say like the Skyrim theme is, uh, extraordinarily tedious, , cumbersome and, and the thing that took me the most time.
And as an entrepreneur, I wanted to automate every aspect , of my production flow so that I could do the next cool thing. And so I had already previously recorded and created. Um, across every vowel and then voice consonant and like six different dynamics, , my entire register of , my voice, uh, and two mics and two amps.
And so it's like completely playable. And so even back in 2015, my orchestrators and arrangers were playing my voice, but utilizing contact, which is the closest I could get to like an AI modded version of my voice. Um, Now I did that in an extraordinarily organic way and not quite yet. Do I have the capability on the front end?
Like if kits. ai CEO would just freaking respond to me on LinkedIn, I would be the best case study you've ever had in your entire life. I don't know why he won't respond. But, um, I think that we're like so close to being able to allow people like myself who have saved everything they've ever created to truly recreate, and then not only be able to like.
monetize the brands that we've been able to, uh, I don't know, I guess, uh, creates another word again. I just said it again. , but then also like every single idea I could actually put into my dorky genre and , put it out there in a way that was authentic to my audience and provide them with the thing that, that they love most from me in a much.
faster way. Like, it's not quite there yet, but I know it's coming.
[00:14:49] Henrik Werdelin: the authenticity, do you, I think that I'm super curious asking you about was you obviously now like get people like myself who don't know how to sing or to make music. And I go on Suno and I'm like, make a reggae music that makes fun of Jeremy Otley and you like have a great giggle of that.
And then I talked to people who are musicians. And they make the argument sometimes, yeah, you know, that's okay. That kind of, , the sound might sound nice, but people emotionally connect , with the story, , the trauma, the narrative of the singer. And so in the sense of like figuring out authenticity in a world where now people who are even not quote unquote musical, like myself can create music.
How do you think about that?
[00:15:35] Peter Hollens: So as someone who has always felt like I had something to say, but I wasn't able to adequately put it on paper in a succinct way that could be digested, Through the pop world, which is pretty much the way that you're almost forced to nowadays. Um, what has happened within like, pretty much like the last, model release of oh one preview and the reasoning capabilities on the songwriting front places that I've got to on a prompting side of like, this is what I wanna say.
Like I'll go on a walk, right? Like my entire like superpower now that I try to teach everyone is like. Go on a walk, think about everything you possibly can on the way there. Like, , let things come to you. And then on the way back, you just start recording everything you're thinking. Um, , and in , this capacity, this has really helped me grab at least like a half dozen, like true, like gems of like, this is something that I want to leave to the world if I pass.
And then the only way I've been able to get that. into a song form that I'm proud of is by begging and pleading with the AI to like dig deeper into my why. Why do I feel this? Why do I want to say this? Ask me every single question that you could possibly think of as my like co songwriter in this Nashville room.
Um, and usually when I finally get down to like the spark of that, , which like the one that I, I recently did, uh, with my six year old who, like I said, is like just the most unique individual ever. He was forcing me to run down these dunes on the Oregon coast. And I have a hip replacement. I'm like, I shouldn't be doing this.
And , the rare moment in which he like looked me , in my eyes, which doesn't happen very much. And he said, dad, I really want you to do this. And I was just like, Oh, I'm doing this. I can't not do this now. I tried to encapsulate that moment and just how much fun I had those five minutes after that, and being a child alongside him in this song and the large language model was able to like coerce that out of me.
So that the nuance and specificity to your point is in the song. And I'm like, this is so close and this is already so close. And then I was able to, you know, within the confines of the new iterations of Udio and Suno encapsulate a lot of my favorite singers, like descriptions , of their, of their music.
And then after like 50 different iterations, cause you kind of have to just like, it's like quantity. It's not quality yet. Find the ones that work and then like double down and then create another remix and another remix. And then you keep adjusting. Um,
[00:18:12] Jeremy Utley: , Peter, have you told oh one , or whatever LLM you're using in that instance, what good looks like, you know, or , because , I'm drawn to this statement. You said the LLM coerced it out of me. And my question is, have you told it what to coerce or is it drawing on his training data?
How is it pushing you? And even this statement about ask me why as my co-writer in the Nashville studio. What context does it have on, on what it takes to be a good co writer?
[00:18:43] Peter Hollens: yeah, I mean, I do find the longer the chat window to be. And the more feedback I give about what I do like and what I don't like that we get closer and closer to the heart of the matter, um, in terms of something that I think is actually worth then taking to my songwriter and being like, please, Anna save me.
Cause she's like, she's the real gem. ,
[00:19:02] Jeremy Utley: And do you, do you have like a chat per song or does all that context say song one, does all that context. Then when you come to song number two, you go on, I want to stay in this conversation because this conversation has all of this history that now I'm starting not at zero, I'm starting at 100. I'm trying to get to a million or whatever.
[00:19:21] Peter Hollens: I think I always utilize the same chat window, but then at some point, uh, a new model will come along, and I can't take that entire thing over there, and so I have to like copy and paste it in, copy and paste it in, and then I'm sure there's like, uh, some lost synapses across the, , specific chat that I was having.
[00:19:38] Jeremy Utley: No, I asked that very, very deliberately, I mean, just to give like a different example, but hopefully helping our audience think about this conversational opportunity. I got a, advanced voicemail, an ideogram coach. And so I basically provided all of my ideogram information and said to my coach, knowing what you know about my type and my strengths and motivators and weaknesses, and I want to do a daily debrief with you where you ask me questions and then help me craft experiments. And then importantly for me, and I bet for you too, Peter, this would be helpful. I want you to hold me accountable to the experiments because I know that I'm likely to forget. So I want you to ask me about the stuff that we've agreed to. And for like two weeks, it was this incredible conversation, like truly remarkable.
And I got to the point I was excited. Like. I love, there's several podcasts I love. And there was one day where a new pod dropped and I actually didn't listen to it and stayed in my voice chat because I was so excited about continuing this conversation. So it was rich. And then I didn't know this. Uh, once you use text as input in a voice conversation, the model reverts back to 4.
0 and you can't get it back to advanced voice mode. And I honestly, like to say, I don't want to be dramatic. It's not like somebody died or something. , it took me days to try to, , summon the activation energy to restart a new conversation with a new coach. It was like a really weird experience for me.
Um, so we can talk about that, but I ended up basically getting that old coach to craft instructions for a new voice coach that I had to read it because you can't load it in via text or else it's, it reverts to the model. Right. So I actually had the instructions from my old coach on the screen and I was verbally reading it to.
A new model, because I wanted to stay in that voice only mode. But anyway, to me, this question of what context does a particular conversation have actually matters a lot. And maybe they'll extend memory at some points where it really is across conversations. But right now, like you literally have this one conversation that has, when you start leaning on it, right.
As a co writer of songs, it's like, dude, I don't want to start that over again. Like this is that conversation. And so anyway, I wondered how practically, like, if you're going on a walk every day, are you literally opening the same chat? And then how reliable do you find it? That's kind of where my mind's at.
[00:22:01] Peter Hollens: Yeah. Um, I personally like it to be a one sided conversation just due to the fact that my, my mind works even faster than I can verbally say. And so I wouldn't want to have to wait. And then I can't wait till , it allows you the opportunity not to get interrupted by it. Cause then for me, I'm like, Oh, what am I?
No, no, no, wait, stop talking. Yeah.
[00:22:22] Jeremy Utley: Dude, just tell it. Just tell it. Okay. This is a huge unlock. You ready for this?
[00:22:27] Peter Hollens: I'm totally ready.
[00:22:29] Jeremy Utley: I want you to only respond with the word. Okay, unless I say otherwise
[00:22:35] Peter Hollens: okay.
[00:22:37] Henrik Werdelin: See what you did there.
[00:22:40] Jeremy Utley: It's an unlock dude. I kid you not because now all of a sudden instead of Thinking that it needs to fill the space. It just says okay and balls back in your court
[00:22:51] Henrik Werdelin: but the thing is that I'm not quite sure even how much it matters what it says back to us. Right. , I was playing with this experiment, , yesterday where I ask it from all of our interaction, what is the one thing you can tell me about myself that I do not know about myself
[00:23:06] Peter Hollens: I did that as well. Uh, I saw, I saw that on Reddit.
[00:23:09] Jeremy Utley: That might be making its way around this scene
[00:23:12] Henrik Werdelin: yeah, it's like a Reddit thing. Just to finish that point, obviously you do it on Cloud and then it says, basically, I don't know much about you. And the truth of the matter of course is that, uh, chat2BT actually don't know much about you. It only knows a little bit that it's stored in memory and knows a little bit of what you put in custom instructions.
It actually don't have like a memory bank based on these conversations. And so what it says to you is something that you kind of would like it to say. I think it's called the bottom.
[00:23:40] Jeremy Utley: Like a horoscope kind of
[00:23:42] Henrik Werdelin: Like the Bownham effect, right? You know, like that, yeah. Like it just says, you know, Hey, what I really like about you is that you're really good at being able to use both your left and your brain.
And, you know, everybody goes like, yeah, like spoon me more of that, you know? And so
[00:23:55] Jeremy Utley: well, you know, the useful iteration, Henrik, is to say, tell me something that you think I don't want to hear.
[00:24:02] Henrik Werdelin: but I think all these things, the point is that it's a mirror in many ways, more necessarily like an Oracle, right? Like that it doesn't necessarily say anything to you that. You wouldn't be able to come up with otherwise, but it just makes you have a reaction to what you hear. And that's the interesting part.
Um, and so I think maybe when we talk about making music, , it doesn't take away soulfulness that you use AI to dig deeper because what you're really using is just to have a conversation partner that just allows you to kind of scrape, you know, parts of the onion off. And so you get into kind of what is the story that you'd like to tell.
[00:24:36] Jeremy Utley: Can I say one thing about this authenticity point that I didn't want to forget when y'all were talking about that earlier? I was just with a CEO of a training company that's using AI in really cool ways. And there was this question that came up , among the audience about what is generative AI doing to our creativity?
And this wonderful guy in Texas had told about how he used it to write a wedding speech that was really touching. And then the question, of course, when people found out was, Is it really your speech? Is it not? And what is it doing to your creativity? All this stuff. But this CEO of this training company said, you know what I did?
He said, I've been married for about 20 years and I worked with Suno to craft my wife, a song that's based on a bunch of our memories and experiences. And it was really touching. It actually brought her to tears. And to me, what I found myself saying to this group is take that example that the CEO just gave you know, what if I had told you that he hired a personal songwriter, had the songwriter interview him about his relationship with his wife of 20 years, and then he hired a band and he gave , artistic direction to a band to record a song in her favorite song.
Would you say that uncreative jerk, I don't think you would. Right? I think you'd say that's wildly creative. The fact that prior to Suno, he'd never thought about hiring a songwriter and hiring a band , to write his wife a deeply bespoke and personal song. It doesn't mean that the LLMs are somehow making us less creative.
They're expanding our capacity. And I would ask you all this question about authenticity. Is it inauthentic? I think it's actually, I mean, my, my point of view is it's deeply authentic. He crafted a song that was really moving to his wife. He couldn't have done it before. So I think there's a lot of these words that their definitions are evolving as we, as the tool set that we have access to is expanding.
[00:26:31] Peter Hollens: And unfortunately, only to certain demographics and not others. I mean, , I have a very, uh, distinct emotion. That's a total polar opposites that first and foremost, uh, to be , on the musician only side, like. out to some of the people that, you know, , in other cases would be paid for that. Uh, and, , how immensely I wish each and every single creative would lean in, uh, with every fabric of their being in order to be able to then provide as much creativity, human emotion, , and potential, by using these things.
And I, I love that. I love that example for so many reasons, because I want everyone to be able to experience music. And I think in that way, that's the only thing that can get us as close to being like, United as one in a, in a spiritual sense as possible, whether or not you're utilizing AI to do it or not.
I, if I could give anything to like my entire creative class, uh, , it would be just to like release from , , the disposition of thinking that AI is going to stop you from grabbing, uh, the, the human realistic, like. Aspect of yourself. It's almost as if like, there's a lot of things being drawn forward from even like a decade ago, where it's like, well, I can't create that because that person already created it.
, and so I've spent so much time and energy telling people, like, it's uniquely different because you created it, even if you created the exact same thing, because it came through your mind, your voice. And it's the same thing. We're just reliving it across like a different iteration now. And it's really scary because it is so incredibly powerful.
And if these individuals who are so So creative and are leading the world , , with looking outside the box. Don't truly utilize AI to gravitate towards every single idea that they have, then like , they're losing the opportunity to push us forward with within a thousand X multiple.
And I, and I, and I hope and pray that words from people much more intelligent than me , would, uh, inspire people to take a breath. Look outside themselves if they truly are not leaning in because of something that they heard or something that they thought one of their friends would think of them if they were to use it, um, and to jump in with all, all abandoned, right
[00:28:55] Henrik Werdelin: And where are you on the, I mean, like they seem to be the two arguments that you hear mostly from creatives, right? One is that basically people shouldn't use it because it's taking a human's job, which, you know, in many ways, genie's out of the bottle. So even if they were to be right, it seemed to be tough to undo that. And I agree with you, like,
[00:29:12] Peter Hollens: Impossible, but yeah.
[00:29:13] Henrik Werdelin: Um, I think, you know, we had, uh, this amazing woman called Jenny on the podcast the other day, and she was talking about, um, it's not about making things more efficient. It's about doing things that was impossible for you to do prior, right? The second argument that you often hear is this notion, yes, but these models are built on base, basically stolen content.
And so there is a lack of morality in even kind of engaging with it
[00:29:38] Peter Hollens: honestly, to that point, um, there's stuff even like coming out now. Um, , a company that I just started advising last month's pushing back against the, like unethically, um, scraped, right? Like I can go to a couple of sites and type in my own YouTube channel and be like, this model, has been trained with 37 of your videos.
And I'm like, you took 37 of my dorky acapella videos. I made that first and foremost. Cool. Secondly, Can I have some money? And so like this one company called Trovio is creating like a do not scrape register. And then simultaneously those that do lean in, uh, have the opportunity to then license their content and get paid stupidly handsomely, uh, for all of their time and energy and work that they've put into these videos.
And then forcing that, relationship with each and every single one of those AI companies that they do business with, that they cannot scrape. They cannot use the identity of these individuals. And then we also get paid and, that's a necessity. And I think it has to have a capitalistic way of going about doing the right thing because yes, pretty much every YouTube video online has, could have been, and probably already has been.
Scraped for every morsel of its worth. But some companies, uh, like the Adobe's of the world are supposedly doing it in a ethically trained, , correct way. A lot of smaller ones that I'm now hearing of because of this company I'm advising are trying to do, uh, similar things. And who knows if regulatory ever catches up or if copywriting is even the right word to use anymore because of how fastly we're pushing through any semblance of what copyright used to be.
[00:31:08] Henrik Werdelin: And when you say all these things, where are you on the, the kind of what sometimes it's the counter argument of yes. These models have been trained, but most music is inspired. And obviously when you sat down pre AI tools and was making something, you may or may not have been inspired by something you've heard in the past without being able to do contribution.
[00:31:31] Peter Hollens: sure, sure. I mean, I, we all know that. , the Bach's and Beethoven's of the world all learn from one another. Um, and that's what, that's what makes humans human. I mean, I think like that's why we have the consciousness and we are where we are in the food chain, because we have always learned from one another.
And so it's a catch 22 to say that you're not allowed to, um, within a different tool set, but do the same thing. And, and, and truthfully, like one of the people that really, inspired me to start on, on YouTube. His name was Mike Tompkins. He was starting to do the same box and box thing. And he has, and he similar to me, uh, has really taken a step back and been burnt out.
I finally got to show him some of the stuff that I was doing with Yudio and Suno and truly encapsulating this dorky acapella thing that like only him and I really know because of making hundreds of these types of videos. And I showed it to him because we, in the beginning, we're like competitors and now we're like best friends.
Uh, his kid's name's Dash, my first kid's name is Ash, and I'm like, well, you copied me this time, and, anyway. Um, and I showed it to him, and he, I think for the first time in years, he was like, Will you please send me looms of how you're doing that? Like, that makes me want to create music again, and The fact that AI can, you know, reignite somebody's passion that had been truly stamped out by just how incredibly daunting being a long term creator is because it's almost impossible.
You always reach a peak that you'll never make to again. And then just hearing that in his voice of like, Oh my gosh, send that to me. How did that happen? How did I just get inspired by music? That was a hundred percent created by AI, you know? Um, There's something there. And obviously we're so like the, the fractions of like the first inning of where we're going with this.
And, uh, I absolutely truly believe, um, I want to be able to help ignite those types of feelings and in the hearts and minds of as many creators as possible, because if those are the people that truly lean in, then that's how we can get to it, the next Renaissance. Um, And I would, and I love your example of the, the husband that was able to create a song for his wife, and I want that to be a thing, but I, , I much more want the individuals who can't breathe without creating on a daily basis, , or they become a shell , of a human.
I, I need them to lean in.
[00:33:52] Jeremy Utley: You know, I love this example of sharing your workflow uh, with someone you call them a competitor, you know, uh, Ash, Ash or whatever, you know, it's like, who knows competitor, lover, et cetera, um, co conspirer. But to me, there's something really powerful. I mean, even, you know, as Jenny mentioned to me and Henrik, the power of a GPT is that it's shareable.
It's. Knowledge that's codified that now anybody can access. And I think, you know, Diara, I don't know, Peter, if you've heard our conversation with Diara, who's this amazing fashion entrepreneur. But one of the things she does is she's got a robust process for. Sharing via loom videos with her team, everything she's doing, because she said, she's got abilities now that she's never had before.
And she said, I don't want to be leveling up in private. If I'm asking them to level up, I've got to be leveling up publicly. Right. And so to me, there's something about, I think, uh, I just wanted to put a fine point on it, the responsibility, those of us who are maybe leaning forward and experiencing renewed invigoration, et cetera.
That we have to share with people who would benefit, right? I think there it's non trivial that you reached out to Mike and said, you got to see what I'm doing. And I think right now there may be some hoarding, you know, people, I could imagine a scenario where Peter goes, dude, I can't let Mike know because the lead is so great.
You know, and I think there's some kind of a, you could call it a moral imperative, perhaps. What does it look like , to think about who is the person if, if you've built a hat, if you've built something that's reinvigorated you, who is the person who you need to share with? I think is a really important question for people to ask
[00:35:27] Peter Hollens: I couldn't agree more. Um, and , I'm so thankful that early on in my YouTube career, when I did believe due to the way that the music industry subconsciously teaches everyone about competition and this award and you, there's only this billboard rank, and there's only one person that can be number one, Early on, , I was taught, thankfully with some collaborations with artists that were much bigger and had a, you know, a larger distribution than me and how lovely they were and how they treated me as a peer and not , as a competitor.
I, I, and I learned that in 2012. I was like smacked in the face with Lindsay Sterling, who was this amazing electronic violinist with on our first collaboration. I'm like, this, this is what this is about. I don't need to pretend like I'm something I'm not. I get to help. And then henceforth, I've moved through my career and.
Doing collaborations where I did all the work. I put in all the money and I would still split like everything 50 50 on the first penny because I wanted the entire relationship to be about knowledge sharing and being in this together because it is such an isolating thing, being a creator. Um, and so absolutely, I'm all about sharing.
I'm all about trying to teach every single person the, the newest hack and the newest trick. Um, because I mean, being at, being at the forefront of, of technology right now is the most. I mean, honestly, it's one of the things that's truly that's keeping me out of singing into the microphone because I'm just so excited about it.
And I feel like there's so much value to provide that education, even on like , a close relationship basis. Like my wife was the hardest person to win over and I'm finally getting her to utilize. And she's like, this was so great. I just told them the songs that I was creating. That's because she produces shows and she's like, and then it gives me the entire list.
And then I like ask some more questions and I ask it to critique itself. Like you told me, and. I'm like, yes, this is everything I wanted. Now don't use it to, to argue with me on text. Okay. That's only for me. All right. I won't tell you that part.
[00:37:16] Henrik Werdelin: what is one of the things that you've done that you couldn't do before? That was kind of like a massive, like, wow, I can do this now. and You're using kind of like pretty technical term about like how you're sampling your voice in different registers and stuff like that, which I thought I've understood, but not really, but are there kind of areas like that or elements like that where you've done stuff where, you know, like now acapella can really become kind of like a new thing because I can. Do X.
[00:37:47] Peter Hollens: I do truly believe that, uh, the human voice will be the last thing from a genre perspective. Um, acapella to be able to actually at least convince somebody as jaded and anoretentive in the recording studio as me. , that it's good enough. I know we'll get there. And I'm just constantly trying to stay at the forefront of it.
But like I could send you like me singing the newest like pop song based upon me throwing in like 26 really top quality iterations of my voice on a solo and then just put in like the newest song and then I send it to you and you're like, Oh, I love that song. And I'm like, yeah, that's me. I'm like, I didn't sing it.
It can convince some people. Uh, my, my vocal editor who's intimately heard my voice for thousands of hours, uh, was convinced on like the first thing I sent him. And I was like, Oh my God, we're there, but we're not. Cause it's, it's getting close.
[00:38:43] Henrik Werdelin: And then what about, you know, like I were never a very good coder. I took some classes, but now I can kind of do enough Python and specifically now when new tools like Repl. it allow me to just explain what I want to do in English and then start to code and then , when it comes with errors, at least I know enough of like what it looks like to go in.
And yeah, yeah, if I have always wanted to sing and I'm not very talented in that area, but I guess have stories, where would I go to kind of start my journey as becoming kind of like a, musical artist, but
[00:39:19] Jeremy Utley: a troubadour, I think is the word you're looking for, Henrik. A troubadour.
[00:39:22] Peter Hollens: I mean , the musical iteration of Descript and 11 Labs is called kits. ai and it is the best pro consumer iteration of that. Um, I would absolutely put that in my like tech stack to allow someone like yourself to sing just about anything. And cause it can grab your tone, your frequency, your resonance, and then you can tell it to like, then sing this song and that song.
Um, You have to provide it with a certain amount of context to be able to do a good enough job. I would be happy enough to share my loom that I shared with Mike to teach you how to do that if you really want to. Because every human does truly have the ability to sing. Some, just like any type of muscle, have a better DNA ability to be a little better than others. But it is absolutely trainable. Um,
[00:40:13] Henrik Werdelin: I mean, I would really like that. And obviously if you're up for it or happy to share it with the people listening to, but like, I would love that. Cause I have always wanted to kind of like practice. I downloaded some of the apps that are kind of like teaching you to sing and you try a few things and you're like, I mean, I spent eight years of MTV, , working there. And I think I'm past the, what we should say, like money, sex, and, uh, fame. You know, like, I think I'm past that point now.
[00:40:38] Peter Hollens: , I don't mean to like throw, uh, but I mean, when you're young, it's like, that's kind of like, unfortunately, the subconscious North Star that we get programmed into. So, um, I, I do wish that we could somehow , as a species, get to some fabric of like figuring that out a lot earlier so that we, Don't start chasing why we are.
Do you guys? Okay, because we're about on the same age. Let me, do you guys think that there's some type of correlation between a midlife crisis and then redefining why we have consciousness versus those three things? Because I do believe that there's something there. , , and I hope and I pray that being able to distill every idea that we ever have, which is why I think journaling, but , in a transcribing form is the new superpower power of our age because the more More you're able to take all your ideas and put it out there that come to you.
I think the more you're going to quickly be able to push back against everything that we have been. Programmed through TV and book and everything because I feel like it's so much more than what we have been told life is right and as soon as we get to the point where like perhaps capitalistic intentions isn't everything and maybe we're no longer like pushing for the next million dollars or just to pay for your rent and insurance, but like we all get some type of aspect of energy or productivity to like, um, I don't know, sorry, I'll, I'll digress.
You guys are so much smarter than me, I'd rather, like, ask you guys questions to pontificate about, like, what life is about, but,
[00:42:09] Jeremy Utley: that's that's on your show peter. That's your podcast, you know Yeah, you don't get to ask the questions here
[00:42:17] Peter Hollens: but you guys have spoken, you guys have been able to spoke to so many, so many, um, experts, oh, and you keep on bringing up Jenny, I've listened to that one three times now, that's such a great podcast, if you guys haven't listened to that one, go listen to Jenny, she's amazing, oh my god,
[00:42:31] Jeremy Utley: stop this show right now as interesting as peter is and go listen to jenny , I wanted to ask you, Peter, um, if you were going to give somebody instructions in journaling in a transcription form, well, you know, somebody said to you, what do you mean? You, you talk about going on a walk with ai.
You talk about journaling in a transcribing form. What, what is your kind of call it how to beginner's guide to journaling in this way?
[00:42:59] Peter Hollens: Yeah, , my favorite app for, um, grabbing that and then transcribing it currently is Super Whisper, , it's just a free app, , , I currently only use Mac, , stuff due to the fact that it's, so conditioned for creatives, and so I recommend Super Whisper, you could use any type of voice memo app on your phone, um, But I think that you can only get the most out of your thoughts when you're in motion.
I think doing it on a walk , is the easiest. You're still in breath. You still have, uh, you're connected to the earth. You're in a, in a surroundings that are always changing. And so then your brain starts to go. And so I think allowing yourself to have five minutes of nothing, you don't listen to a podcast, you don't walk with anyone else.
You just. Live and breathe in that walk and then breathe and then take out your phone and start transcribing and just speaking out into existence Everything you're thinking.
[00:43:53] Jeremy Utley: Wait, , so step one, get in motion Step two, do nothing for five minutes other than walk. Then step three, you open Super Whisperer or whatever your app of choice is. And what, and you know, for the, for the kindergarten lesson, what's step three?
[00:44:13] Peter Hollens: Step three is to start talking out like perhaps for that day Like you have something on your mind what you want to get done what you want to get accomplished I'm I'm a little more strange and I like to go to immediate like Macro level, like what am I going to write a book about? What's in my next Ted talks?
, how do I get this thing done for this company that I'm consulting , in the easiest, fastest way. And sometimes I'll already start prompting in my transcription. Thus, when I input it directly into a large language model, it'll already know. my goals, but I'll just start talking out loud, um, and letting my thoughts go without judging myself, which is truly like the most difficult
[00:44:51] Jeremy Utley: okay. Let's do like a double click on that point. Again, beginner's guide to how to journal in transcription form. Peter said something very important just now. Don't judge. How does judgment manifest and how do you fight it?
[00:45:06] Peter Hollens: Gosh, How does it manifest? It manifests by being a human and just all of the baggage that you bring , into the day. Um, I am not some spiritual guru. All I know is if I let my stream of consciousness exist without me identifying. All the things that are wrong with me, or all the things that I'm worried about, then the value , for that walk and that day can be extraordinary.
Um, , I think a lot of the things that people get into mentally prior to meditation is extraordinarily valuable in this exact example. I think you can kind of get into a meditative state if you're out on a walk, especially in nature and not necessarily amongst other humans. It's a lot easier to not be judgmental if you don't see another human.
It's something about looking at another human's face makes me personally, um,
[00:45:57] Jeremy Utley: but I think part of what you're saying is don't judge the thoughts as they come or when you're kind of going through the stream of consciousness, anything is on limits, nothing's off limits. , don't be self conscious or self critical. Is that what you're getting at?
[00:46:10] Peter Hollens: What would you write in your own diary? Because I feel like that in and of itself is the most powerful thing. If you're able to provide millions and millions of characters of context over days, weeks, months, years, that you can always then talk to, who are the people that are toxic in my life?
What are the ideas that I've had that I haven't acted on yet? I mean like so much value lies within just talking out all of your ideas. And I just think so much more of humanity can be gained , by doing so. So yeah, sorry. I'm ADHD, obviously.
[00:46:42] Jeremy Utley: no, no. That's great. So, so you go on the walk, let's say, and you take 10 minutes, , what happens next in, in the call it workflow?
[00:46:48] Peter Hollens: yeah. So if you're using super whisper, then you, um, you press the, transcribe button. You'd like to, you finish your thought and then it transcribes it out. I then take that and copy that out directly into my large language model of choice. And, Depending upon what got the most recent update is usually the first one I go to, but then I'll always take it to a second.
Usually my top three are, uh, you know, whatever iteration of open AI that you're paying for anthropic iteration, which I hope the new Opus comes out soon and then Gemini, because as soon as I, we haven't talked about notebook LM yet, but it's like, Just so awesome. I will absolutely throw it in there. I even just yesterday took the entirety of like , my main business, entire bank account , transactions in there, and then just listen to them talk for 45 minutes about my business.
Like you can give it everything. Anyway, I digress.
[00:47:37] Jeremy Utley: What is this guy spending money on? I know, right? I mean, but importantly, you said you, I just want to make sure that there's kind of a very clear, you know, protocol for somebody who's listening because I happen to agree with you. This is probably the most important and most powerful thing someone can do.
So I want your thoughts. So you press transcribe. You copy it into your LLM of choice or even across multiple.
[00:48:01] Peter Hollens: Yeah, and then label it the day, label it that day, right? So that, hypothetically, if we go forward a year and there is something else extraordinarily amazing, a product, something that, that, that you can, then you can go through and you can grab all of the context in which you provided, right? I, I love the idea of having a secondary app so that it's truly backed up, because if it's only one place, it's not backed up.
Creatives, don't think you're ever backing up by having it one place. That's not called backing up. You need to double back.
[00:48:28] Jeremy Utley: But so importantly, by specifying that you're labeling it with the date, you're not loading this kind of diary into one single meta call it diary conversation where every day you're adding it, you're creating a new conversation each day.
[00:48:42] Peter Hollens: I am. Um, I have gone back and then tried to do numerous, , , and then my ADHD fix on and I'm keep on telling myself, well, I'll get back to it when I have time to add it all in. Um,
[00:48:56] Jeremy Utley: okay. So once you upload it to your LLM of choice, do you ask it questions?
[00:49:01] Peter Hollens: I start talking to myself. I'm like, here's all the ideas in which I had on my walk today. Uh, please tell me the things that stood out the most. What are the action items , that I discussed? Are there specific people I need to reach out to? I go through the whole thing.
I truly do not have a template yet, because I've only truly been embracing this probably the last, like, three months. Um, But it's been so beneficial. Yeah. I mean, , it's, it's like a combination between like getting to the place you are right before you would try to meditate or like, you know, when we're stuck on a play and the wifi doesn't work and you're like in that like Brown noise and you start just like, Oh my gosh, I know everything I want to talk about now.
It's like you, you want to get there and then you just want to just open up and talk without any premeditated thought and let that stream of consciousness be grabbed. And then you later talk to yourself, which is, The most awesome thing ever. Come on people. If you're not doing this,
[00:49:55] Jeremy Utley: but when, but we, but when you say you talk to yourself, to be clear, you're talking to an LLM, you're talking to your own diarized, transcribed diarized reflections via conversation with college HGBT. Yeah. So when you say talk to yourself, just to be clear, you're not saying, so Peter, what do I think you're typing in what stood out from this conversation, right? That's what you need by talking to yourself. So you're talking to your diary. You could say,
[00:50:21] Peter Hollens: Yeah. I think that's a simplistic way of saying it. And how fun is that? If you could create a product like that, that actually looked and felt like a, an Apple or a Tesla and like it'd be a game over. That's a trillion is a dollar idea. Go make that and put me in as an advisor. Someone.
Thank you so much.
[00:50:36] Jeremy Utley: We got it. You got it. 1%. You got it. Um, Henrik, I mean, this conversation could go easily another hour, I think. And Peter's already said that he wants to invite us onto his show to talk about all of his questions.
[00:50:49] Henrik Werdelin: We'll take that anytime. , Peter, thank you so much. I mean, if you don't mind sharing that loom with nothing else with me, then I'll, I'll very much take it. And then I'll, uh, I might send back when I, uh, have a person.
[00:50:59] Jeremy Utley: My only request Henrik is that your first troubadouring be. , uh, a spoof Jeremy song. So I want to hear your singing voice spoofing me, please. And then you can make your wife like a love song, whatever. But it's like knock off the , cob's webs. Okay.
[00:51:17] Henrik Werdelin: okay, Jeremy, let's just do a recap, uh, thoughts after talking to Peter,
[00:51:23] Jeremy Utley: I mean, I love Peter. , what an incredible, enthusiastic, experimenter creator. It's he's my people for sure. Couple of things that I wanted to highlight. I mentioned even in the conversation, but just put a fine point on them. One is the imperative to share with others. I think right now, whoever's on the leading edge, like probably if you're listening to this show, you're trying more than your peers in whatever your field is, , take one action item, take one homework assignment from the professor here.
something that you're doing with someone like you who is probably one or two steps behind That's to me. His story about sharing with Mike was super cool. That's one thing. Second thing, , obviously, obviously the transcription journaling, you know, kind of protocol that we went through. I thought it was great.
I loved his emphasis on not judging, uh, fighting judgment. And then I love his emphasis on actually talking to your diary through an LLM. I think it's super cool. I think To me, it's something that I've been experimenting with and playing with it in a bunch of different ways, as I mentioned, um, and I loved anybody who hasn't tried something like that.
Just go through , his steps real quick. I can recap them real quickly as well. One, get in motion to do nothing for five minutes while you're walking. Three, start talking, stream of consciousness about your to dos, goals, it can get to big ideas, et cetera. Four, don't judge, no matter what, just keep talking without kind of criticizing it.
, five, , press transcribe on the app, whatever it happens to be. Uh, six, copy that transcription into one or two or three LLMs. And then. 7. Talk to that diary entry and ask follow up questions. , I think if anybody will take that seriously, they'll be amazed at what happens when they let themselves think out loud.
Henrik, the word you've used before that I really like is babble. He just gave a prescription for babbling, basically. , what stood out to you?
[00:53:27] Henrik Werdelin: I was very. Kind of, I get like, um, grabbed by this idea that we're going to live in a time where people like myself who didn't know how to code can now like code enough to do a website or a service or tool. And, people like, I can't really paint, but I can describe something I'd like.
And I think what I learned out of this and which I, I got real appetite on was like, I've always wanted to make music and I have zero talent. But I do have, like, ideas of, like, stories that I'd like to tell and that I'd like to put to music. And I think he made this point, which I think was a point of permission, which was, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad, or if it sounds like , something that somebody else have done, what is important is that I got to do it for me.
And so I'm kind of like just blown away by this kind of time that we are going to live in. And that we. Already starting to live in, which is if you'd like to do anything creative, like if you have something to express, uh, even for self discovery, you now don't have an excuse anymore. You can make an app.
If you want to make an app, you can make a song. If you want to make a song, you know, you can write a poem. You want to make a poem. And in interaction with the LM, you can kind of like nudge yourself through 50 iteration close to something. Should be good enough for you, but honestly might actually also be really meaningful to somebody who's listening and that is just incredible.
[00:55:01] Jeremy Utley: When you say you've always wanted to sing, I just have a question for you. Uh, where does that come from? Do you have any sense?
[00:55:08] Henrik Werdelin: I don't know. I mean like I did spend eight years of my career at MTV, and this was the time we were playing music videos and so I will admit that when I walked down the streets of the Lower East Side on Manhattan and it's like warm and you can see kind of like the heat coming out from the asphalt and And I go out in the middle of the street and I sing a song that I like.
I do have this innovation that if I look back, the dancers will come up from behind the cast and we are in the middle of a music video. Um, so I don't know. I mean, like, I've just always loved. music, but because maybe because it came through MTV in a very poppy way, right? Like not in an elegant that I understand, like the B side of a cool kind of Indie.
I just always just love what's on the charts, specifically boy bands, full disclosure. Uh, and so, uh, Yeah. Like it's not like something like that's cool or that I'm proud about. It's just something that I've always like been sitting there and jamming, jamming on.
[00:56:14] Jeremy Utley: Maybe start there. Just start recording covers of your favorite NSYNC songs or favorite Backstreet Boys songs. That's all you have to do.
[00:56:23] Henrik Werdelin: That is a very, very tempting thing
[00:56:26] Jeremy Utley: Thank you folks. Thank you for joining us today. If you enjoyed this conversation share it with someone that you'd write us a review leave a Recommendation drop us a line and let us know who else like Peter. We should be talking to you until next time