Unfiltered AI Talk: "People Should Vote on What We Do With AI" | Episode [4]

So we are in Rockridge. We're filming, we're doing street interviews, trying to figure out. Say it again. What's up?

Black people surviving childbirth. Two minutes at your time.

Yeah.

If you'll give me a street interview, I'll help you out. Where do you. I'm just asking.

Yo, what's up, man?

Boots on the ground. What do the people think? Is AI gonna kill us all or take our jobs? What do you think?

Is AI gonna kill us all or take our jobs?

Yeah.

I don't know, man. Me personally, I'm a rapper and I could see actually taking my job for real. I could see AI rap actually being like the next new thing and someone actually using.

Have you been playing with it? We're seeing what comes out of it. What tools or products or whatever. I know Lupe Fiasco had an AI tool.

You heard about that, bro? AI this year in general has evolved so much than it has last year. Yeah, bro, I'm gonna tell you right now, 20, 26, they talk about having like AI cars. I know you've been in Frisco, bro. I know you just seen a wayo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is a wayo?

Wayo, right? Yeah.

What is a wayo?

You've been in a wayo. I haven't yet.

I haven't been in a way.

You have not. I not in no wayo. Yeah, he's been in one. It's kind of wild, right?

Way.

Yeah, bro.

That's dangerous, bro. No one driving them.

It's crazy. So how do you feel about that? You would never get in one.

Hell no.

No. Okay, but that's dangerous. Dangerous, got it. Yeah. So would you. Would you bring an AI robot into your home to do your food, your laundry, your dishes? No, cuz it's dangerous. Okay, got it. Okay.

So I just feel like I have more. I don't know, I feel like I connect to people. I can't connect to a robot, bro. Yeah. Okay, if I say, hey, man, can you do something? I can sit reaction to it. Robots ain't got no reaction, bro. Is it.

Is it like, what is it that makes the humanity different?

I feel like it's the soul, brother.

The soul.

The energy that you carry. A lot of people walk around with a different energy. They walk around with a different vibe. They walk around with a different mentality. Some people are lazy. Some people have that structure to them, that hard work that really, you know what I'm saying? Hustle. A lot of people just don't have that, brother. So I feel like it's about your soul. The way you was raised up, the way that you was basically treated growing up, the culture around you.

Quick question. Who are your role models?

My role model? If you like hustling, it sounds like hard work. My role models. My brother, Nitty 420. He made music.

He a rapper. Very cool.

My other brother, Benny boat came about. Big 30s, sweet.

Shout out.

Shout out, bro.

I always be out of respect. My OGs, man. My mama. Definitely shout out to my mama.

Got it. You wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be here, right? Yeah. You wouldn't be here.

Everything for me, bro.

Okay, wait. And what's your name, bro?

Dami Bo.

Dami Bo. Okay. And people can find you your rap.

D A M I period, Underscore, period B. On Instagram.

On Instagram. Okay, cool. We'll put it on our. All right. How can I help you out, man?

I'm Robert. Hey, man.

We're trying to solve AI alignment so it doesn't kill us all. And we're doing it open source, building in public. That's what we're doing. So I'm interviewing the people, trying to figure out the pulse so that whatever we're building, it aligns with everything.

I feel like you should interview this man. If there's anyone you should interview.

Mama. Somebody wants to interview me? Mama, can you give me a second? Can I call you right back? Yeah.

Wow.

All right.

I love you, Mama.

This man is educated.

Okay. Yo, dude doing Quick street interviews. Pulse of the People. Is AI going to kill us all or ticker jobs? I just heard from your helmet, yo.

I guess it depends on the morality of the people making it. I don't really know these people. I don't trust the depictions on TV about it. I know AI can take us to places where we can revolutionize materials. We can just figure out game plans to get us to the stars if we want to. But really no investments have been really made unless it proliferated war. And that's pretty difficult. Also, what is AI going to consume to get us information? I don't know. Does Zuckerberg have black people's best interest? So is AI going to have the least of us or the least of us interest at heart? I don't know. That's not really how history is going. So. Yeah, tell me more about this.

Tell me more about that. That's an important topic.

In what way?

What frame you said from what history has told us?

Yeah, I mean, if you look at a country and you want to see where it is morally. Look at how it treats the least of its people, the incarcerated women in this nation. It's indigenous people and black folks, you know what I'm saying? This have a history of ever giving rights without bloodshed, you know what I'm saying? Right. Now, if you think about what's gonna take for a rural white man in rural Kentucky to be more mad at unconstitutionality than Latino people, I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but this country never changes because of humanity. But when strawberries turn $40 a piece and there's no labor and they have to work on their own places.

Kinda saw a little bit of that in Covid, right?

I mean, faf. Yeah. I think, though, during COVID it was for. Other than taking the dog whistle out of whistles and just being overtly racist. Right? So there's inherent solidarity around Covid when we had to go insular. But yeah, man, I have been waiting for the, you know, after 70 years of dog whistle politics, amassing racism.

You're 70?

No, we've had dog whistle politics since, like, Reagan. And it's a lot.

I was about to say you look fucking great.

I'm 43. I use a little sunscreen.

We're into longevity, and we're like, you're 70, man. What are your secrets?

You know, sunscreen, it keeps you from cracking.

Sorry, sorry to interrupt, but yeah, go on with the important topic.

But right now we just got overt bigotry and racism, right? And black people like Martin Luther King talked about the negative peace, right? For a letter of a Birmingham jail. They didn't want people to protest injustice. Just shut up, be quiet and take it. Which is lethal for black people. So I can only invite this coming to a head because I don't think we can get to the promised land unless we look at ourselves in the face instead of just gilding our face with gold leaf. That is bad quality.

I'll say.

Yeah, wait, tell me about the gold leaf thing.

I'm from Frisco, man. I'm from Hunter's Point. So the idea and concept of a gilded city, I've known for a long time. San Fran looks beautiful. The only reason why black people had Hunter's Point is because it was radioactive. It has the best weather in the city. They just let us have it still, they kicked us out of there last, you know what I'm saying? We're 5% of the population with 38.7% of the unhoused, you know what I'm saying? And they're walking around eating ice cream, and they don't understand why I'm mad at them.

Got it.

Okay. Okay.

So if you had one thing to say to Sam Altman or Zuckerberg or any of these people building AI at the top, what would you say?

I mean, I don't know that dude. I don't know what philosophical angle to come at somebody I don't know that has that much wealth. It took me four years to get to talk to Benioff, and I said, hey, Benioff, I'm trying to save my community. He looked at me like I was gonna rob him and then talks me to his handlers and. Yeah, so I don't. I don't know that dude. There's a lot of philanthropy, but that dude treated me like most white men do. So I don't know what Sam Altman would do. He might be cool. I don't know that guy. But I'd have to know somebody to think of what angle to take. I just would want him to understand that. I don't need lip service. I don't need pages. I don't need a free subscription to Chat GPT Pro. I need $4,000 a month. So throw the only weekly hip hop event in the entire Bay Area. Like, I've done 50 weeks in a row at Berkeley.

And tell everybody about that.

A slow lounge. Check it out. We also do a reproductive justice hip hop show at Hunter's Point. I'm trying to bring the second weekly hip hop event, which is a rap writing contest, to Mission street by January and then San Jose by the fall. Surprisingly, when you kick all the Negroes out, we can't create a business model around y' all white folks, and y' all ruin everything. So I need white folks to give us some resources, like San Alton. I shouldn't have to work seven days a week as a single black father with full custody, eight employees, and not getting no damn sleep to make sure black people have. Have a space to heal, thrive. Yeah. Sam Altman can give a brother a sabbatical, so. Gotcha. Yeah. Give us some money, bro. Straight up. Come and come hang out.

Come hang out.

You're welcome not to the cookout, but to the rap show. You can't come to the cookout. Yeah, you come to the rap show.

There's tears of it. There's tears of it. I feel you.

Yeah. Yeah. Anything else?

Good, brother, what's your. Where can people find you on social media?

My name is Kafri J. Kafrey J. Your mostly friendly Neighborhood black activist K H A F R E. I got a radio show on KPO San Francisco. We do a blog on LinkedIn with 22,000 subscribers. We do hip hop therapy, hip hop K through 12, work, reproductive justice shows. My job's getting the culture paid and taking money and redistributing it from places that have it. You can find me on any platform. But if you want to check out my work, which is way above me, go to hip hopforthefuture.org give me your money. Straight up. I only get lucky when you give money and then when you come hang out with black people instead of just seeing black culture on white tv. Yeah, it's not our best look.

Yeah. And, and then the other thing I wanted to say is it sounds like with AI, the main concern you have is the people building it. Are they concerned with the folks all across society, not just the cream of the crop? That's what I'm hearing from you, right?

I mean, yo, it's like giving a three year old a AR15 that's loaded and ready to go. So what are we doing? When you have people that are dealing with technological advancements like this, it becomes, you know, mutual assured destruction. So people just go for bigger and bigger and bigger without the roadblocks, you know, without just being fucking careful, you know what I'm saying?

It's like the whole Frankenstein problem.

Yeah. So we got China over there crushing, crushing it, crushing the game. And then we can't even like handle our computer right, you know what I'm saying? You know, we got Trump over here messing everything up with tariffs and. But right now we have a push for these corporations because they have a fiduciary responsibility before they have a moral responsibility to just feed, feed, feed. Let's make a fake day to get in. Let's take steal this shit. Come on. We need our to be powerful and we are. We're walking slowly towards nuclear holocaust, biological warfare or Ultron, I don't know. Yeah, but you know, with safeguards, with literal slowing down a little bit, man. AI could be the thing that makes us go to Star Trek, you know what I'm saying? Instead of like 12 monkeys, you know what I'm saying?

It could be the thing that elevates everybody if we do it right, but it could also be the thing that exacerbates problems.

I'll tell you like this, you know, guns don't kill people, but I would love to ban guns. I think we've, we've had our shot. You know what I'm saying we've had our shot, no pun intended. But with AI, AI doesn't kill people. But I would love to just. I don't even want to see it banned. I just think. I mean, don't let me get all democratic socialist on you, but I think people should own that, and I think people should vote on what we do with it because it's that influential and that potentially kind of strikes like a public utility.

Everybody should have a man.

I'm a democratic socialist.

Yeah. Okay. Yo, this is great, yo. Thank you so much.

Got you coffee, J. Y' all Hip hop for the future with me. Give me your money. Come hang out.

You heard him, let's go.

Colonizers ruin everything.

Awesome. Yo, that was great. Learned so much. I want to help these guys out. I think we're almost at time, right? We could probably call it there.

Do me a favor, fellas. Yeah. That's my digital card.