will.i.am loves everything about what artificial intelligence (AI) can do. It’s the humans that worry him.
“The tech is amazing. But if we put social media business model on this agentic space, it is no bueno,” he said in a video interview Wednesday from Salesforce Inc.’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. “We know what happened. The technology, if unchecked, leads to human greed that will once again f— it up.”
“As creative tools, it’s pretty awesome in what it can do. As far as what it will do, in spawning new industries, it is extraordinarily amazing,” he said, picking up rhetorical steam.” Regulation, which distinguishes between human and machine made, needs some delicate parenting. For example, I can’t sell you a fake Louis Vitton bag but can show you a fake video.”
The Black Eyed Peas front man believes that by 2030 a transformed media landscape will emerge shaped not by the entertainment industry’s strategic choices, but by the technology sector’s relentless innovation. “Imagine what happens when 6G arrives, when devices and camera technology optimize to support Sora 3 and Video 3,” he said. “That’s the world imagineers need to envision now.”
The film and television industries face a reckoning in particular, he said. They failed, as the music industry did before them, when they didn’t build their own technology. When MP3s and Napster disrupted music, the industry was caught flat-footed, forced to depend on hardware makers like Apple Inc. and the devices that followed, iPhones and AirPods.
History threatens to repeat itself. The creative industries are repeating that mistake with AI video generation. They should have been the ones building Sora. They should have been designing the infrastructure. Instead, they’re watching from the sidelines as technology companies dictate the terms of their future.
This mirrors a pattern from cinema’s history. Charlie Chaplin didn’t just make films but understood the technology enabling him. “What we’re witnessing is the beginning of a new industrial revolution and renaissance,” he said.
The moment demands original thinking. The temptation will be to use these tools to regurgitate existing films, to recreate what worked before, he added. The real opportunity lies in imagining what becomes possible when 6G-optimized devices meet generative video technology designed from the ground up by people who understand storytelling, visual language, and human experience.
will.i.am emphasized that proper governance and regulation are not matters of politics, but of necessity.
Yet the call for regulation extends beyond simple oversight. “We need to make sure it doesn’t regulate us,” will.i.am argued, underscoring a critical tension of how to establish guardrails without allowing regulatory frameworks to become tools of control that constrain human freedom and innovation.
“These are interesting times we live in. Great times,” he said. “I am for the technology but against the business use that is inhumane if you lead with greed.”
The underlying concern, according to will.i.am, is fundamentally about community protection and human dignity. “This is humanity,” he emphasized, framing the debate not as a technological question but as a matter of societal values.
To illustrate the stakes, he deployed a vivid metaphor around zoos. “I love lions. They are great, but how would I feel if they wander the streets? What if they are roaming the streets? Bears on the loose, shitting in the streets?”
The Grammy-winning artist and tech entrepreneur, who is founder and CEO of FYI.AI, has a rich legacy in tech. Earlier this month, he was named Goodwill Ambassador for AI Education by the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union.
The appointment recognized his efforts to democratize access to emerging technologies through his FYI.AI platform and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) initiatives in underserved communities.
In 2024, will.i.am debuted Sound Drive at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a groundbreaking music-driving system developed in partnership with Mercedes-Benz. The first-of-its-kind technology uses AI to synchronize music with car movement in real time, creating a unique driving experience that has generated significant attention in the automotive technology sector. The system has been rolling out to international markets throughout the year.
Late last year, will.i.am launched RAiDiO.FYI, an AI-powered audio platform that transforms music discovery through real-time commentary and personalized playlists customized for individual listeners. The platform is powered by his proprietary FYI.AI application.
“The old (entertainment) industry was, ‘Hey watch this, now play and interactive with it,'” he said. “Life is not view and listen; it is engage and act and participate. It is experiential.”
