Grammy Award-Winning Artist NE-YO and Ed Ulbrich, Chief Content Officer of Metaphysic, talk about AI ethics and risks when using AI to create art and entertain. Is AI in art about scaling and amplifying creativity, or just laziness? Can we maintain the artist to person connection when using their likeness to perform? Either way, AI is being used in art like any other technological tool, and we need the guardrails to keep what’s good.

Ed Ulbrich is the Chief Content Officer & President of Production at Metaphysic, Inc., the industry leader in developing AI technologies and machine learning research that creates immersive photorealistic content across film, tv, music, advertising, live entertainment and more.  

Ed is also the former CEO of James Cameron’s Digital Domain, former global President of Method Studios, award winning producer, and pioneer in virtual human performances and advanced visual effects.  He has over twenty-five+ years in the visual effects (VFX) and film, TV, and advertising production industries and has led global teams of up to 2,000 employees spanning four countries and managed P&L operations with nine-figure budgets.

Ed has executive produced visual effects for some of the biggest blockbuster movies in history including Top Gun: Maverick, Aquaman, Avengers: Infinity Wars, Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2, Suicide Squad, and many more; and executive produced the Academy Award©-winning visual effects for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, What Dreams May Come, and Titanic. 

Ed produced the epic sci-fi film Ender’s Game (Lionsgate - 2013) starring Harrison Ford, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Viola Davis and spearheaded the groundbreaking Tupac Shakur "Hologram" with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.  He has created visual effects in music videos for The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, and many more; and over 500 commercials.


Ed Ulbrich

Chief Content Officer & President of Production at Metaphysic, Inc.

NE-YO is a three-time GRAMMY® Award-winning R&B hitmaker, iconic songwriter, actor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist whose illustrious catalog has generated a combined total of 23 billion streams worldwide.

His debut single, 2005’s “So Sick,” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified quadruple-platinum. Since then, the Motown Records/Compound Entertainment recording artist has racked up a collection of global hits including “Sexy Love,” “Closer,” “Because of You,” “Miss Independent,” and “Push Back” [feat. Bebe Rexha and Stefflon Don].” 

Additionally, NE-YO has proven to be as powerful with his pen as he is in the recording studio and on stage, penning bangers like Rihanna’s “Unfaithful,” “Russian Roulette,” and “Take a Bow,” along with Beyoncé’s 2006 breakup anthem “Irreplaceable” and songs for such artists as Jennifer Hudson, Usher, Carrie Underwood, Celine Dion and Mario among others. 

The multihyphenate has also leveraged his platform as a musician to pivot into acting. His film and television credits include NBC’s World of Dance, Netflix’s Dance Monsters, Empire, Stomp the Yard, Save the Last Dance, Battle: Los Angeles, George Lucas' Red Tails, The Wiz Live!, Starz’ Step Up: High Water, Hip Hop Family Christmas Wedding and The Sound of Christmas. He starred in the latest season of 50 Cent’s acclaimed drama series BMF on STARZ.

NE-YO

Grammy Award-Winning Artist

NE-YO talks about AI ethics and risks when using AI to create art. Can we use AI for scaling art, and what guardrails do we need? 

AI Realism with NE-YO and Ed Ulbrich: How AI affects artists, from IP to CGI

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AI in Action explores what it takes to put artificial intelligence into action across a rapidly evolving business and tech landscape. Each episode focuses on responsible AI implementation and real-world business challenges, examined through a practical use case lens.

AI in Action

What if instead of focusing on productivity, we used AI technology to solve our most pressing, human problems like where to find medicine or how to avoid the collapse of the banking system in Ukraine? Listen to James Hodson, Co-Founder and CEO of AI for Good, talk about how AI technology can positively transform communities, but only if we provide the necessary infrastructure and education to get people on board.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM or any other organization or entity.

As CEO of the AI for Good Foundation, James Hodson is responsible for building economic and community resilience through technology. Since 2015, the AI for Good Foundation has worked with national and municipal governments, the UN, OECD, and many others to design, develop, and deploy tech-enabled policies/solutions for social, economic, and institutional transformation. AI for Good works extensively in Ukraine with more than 40 staff on the ground and strategic partnerships with Ukraine's Presidential Administration, Ministry for Digital Transformation, Ministry of Culture, and every regional government, providing sanctions recommendations, infrastructure resilience, deployed technology expertise, and real-time aid intermediation for regions covering more than 8M civilians. Hodson completed doctoral studies in Artificial Intelligence as a Marie Curie Fellow at the Jozef Stefan Institute in Slovenia, holds undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Philosophy from Princeton University, and previously founded and led the AI Research Group at Bloomberg in New York from 2012-2015. His academic work spans complex network analysis, natural language processing, labour economics, corporate finance, and accounting, as well as holding multiple AI patents and being an active angel investor in the "tech for good" space.

James Hodson

Chief Executive Officer, AI for Good Foundation

Does the transformative power of generative AI end with productivity, or can we use it as a tool for creating a better tomorrow? 

Gen AI for Good with James Hodson: Using AI to create a better tomorrow, today

Can AI agents can make you better at your job? Listen to Ethan Mollick, Co-Director of Generative AI Lab at Wharton, for tips on how to use AI agents to be more creative and efficient. The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM or any other organization or entity.

Ethan Mollick is the Ralph J. Roberts Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies the effects of artificial intelligence on work, entrepreneurship, and education. His academic research has been published in leading journals, and his work on AI is widely applied, leading him to be named one of TIME Magazine’s Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence. Ethan also writes to a wider audience about AI, including in his book, Co-Intelligence, a New York Times bestseller.
In addition to his research and teaching, Ethan is the Co-Director of the Generative AI Labs at Wharton, which build prototypes and conduct research to discover how AI can help humans thrive while mitigating risks. Prior to his time in academia, Ethan co-founded a startup company, and he advises numerous organizations.
Mollick received his PhD and MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. 

Ethan Mollick

Co-Director of Generative AI Lab, Wharton School

Ethan Mollick, Generative AI Lab Co-Director at Wharton describes how AI agents are about to transform the way we work and how we can benefit.   

Change Agents with Ethan Mollick: How AI agents will reinvent productivity

While 81% of executives stress the importance of secure and trustworthy AI, only 24% of AI projects are secure. Is it ever ok to prioritize innovation over security when it comes to AI? Listen to Chris Thompson, Global Head of IBM X-Force Red, and Moumita Saha, Senior Security Architect at AWS talk about the generative AI attack surfaces, risks and how we can secure AI models.&nbsp;&nbsp; The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM or any other organization or entity.&nbsp;

Chris Thompson is the global head of IBM X-Force Red where he leads a team of experienced hackers who help organizations identify and fix vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers. He recently established X-Force’s AI Security Testing service.

Chris Thompson

Global Head of IBM X-Force Red

With over 11 years of experience in cloud security, financial application management, and transformation projects, I collaborate with global AWS partners to architect cutting-edge security solutions. At AWS, in the past 5+ years I've held pivotal positions, guiding Fortune 500 organizations through secure and compliant cloud migrations. Currently, I focus on the success of AWS global partners with innovative security initiatives leveraging demanding technologies like GenAI. A regular author of technical content and speaker at premier security conferences, I'm also passionate about advocating for women in cybersecurity. Beyond work, I am an outdoor adventure enthusiast, enjoying most of time doing Marathons, skiing, hiking, nature photography, painting and practicing martial arts.

Moumita Saha

Sr Security Partner Solutions Architect, AWS 

With generative AI, comes new security risks and attack surfaces. Learn about how to secure your generative AI models and the risks of deprioritizing security.

Hacking generative AI: Limiting security risk in the age of AI

Building an AI pilot is relatively easy, but implementing it in a real-life environment is much, much harder. In real life, costs, data quality and user experience become difficult to control. Listen to guests Anupam Singh, VP of Engineering at Roblox and Nick Renotte, Chief AI Engineer at IBM, talk about why 4 out of 5 of AI pilots fail and how you can avoid yours being one of them. The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM or any other organization or entity

Anupam leads Roblox's AI & Growth engineering teams, which provide the infrastructure for high throughput AI services for safety, recommendations, and assistants. Before Roblox, Anupam was chief customer officer at Cloudera, where he led product, engineering, and field teams for Data Warehousing products. Anupam has co-founded two companies in the Big Data space, acquired by Cloudera and Marketshare, respectively. Anupam built his database expertise on the SQL Query Optimizer teams at Oracle, Sybase (now SAP), and Informix (now IBM). He graduated from Pune University in India and holds patents in the areas of automatic SQL performance tuning, object databases, and resilient query execution.

Anupam Singh

Vice President, AI & Growth Engineering Roblox

Nicholas Renotte, Chief AI Engineer - Client Engineering, started coding in VBA when he was eight years old but gave it all up for a life in finance. He finally came to his senses, and has since built machine learning models for Fortune 500 companies, founded an EdTech startup and currently leads over 500 AI engineers across the globe at IBM. Over the past 5 years, he has built a following of over 265,000 AI engineers and data scientists on YouTube, created hundreds of machine learning models and shared over 50,000 lines of code on GitHub, which has helped thousands of organisations and individuals take their first steps into the field of AI to build better, faster, more efficient businesses.

Nicholas Renotte

Chief AI Engineer, IBM Client Engineering

Most AI pilots fail due to cost, data quality, and user experience. VP of AI and Growth Engineering at Roblox gives advice for building AI models that can scale

AI Pilots to Progress: The lowdown on what makes AI projects successful

There's a vanguard leading the charge to make AI accessible to all, and others are still catching up. Yet, amidst this progress, a concerning reality exists: a gender gap is forming in the field of AI. Listen to Reshma Saujani, Founder &amp; CEO of Girls Who Code, talk about “aspirational AI” and what we can do to close the gap. The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM or any other organization or entity

Reshma Saujani is a leading activist, the founder of Girls Who Code, and the founder and CEO of Moms First (formerly Marshall Plan for Moms). She has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women and girls’ economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in the tech sector, and most recently fighting for the structural changes moms need and deserve including affordable child care, paid leave, and equal pay. She is a New York TimesBestselling author of several books including PAY UP: The Future of Women and Work (And Why It’s Different Than You Think), Brave, Not Perfect, and the Girls Who Code book series. As a leading voice on women’s empowerment, her 2023 Smith College Commencement speech on imposter syndrome has more than 15 million views, and her influential TED talk, “Teach girls, bravery not perfection,” has more than 54 million views globally.  Reshmabegan her career as an attorney and Democratic organizer. In 2010, she surged onto the political scene as the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. Reshma lives in New York City with her husband, Nihal, their sons, Shaan and Sai.

Reshma Saujani

Founder of Girls Who Code, Founder and CEO of Moms First

Despite efforts to reduce AI bias and promote AI diversity, there’s a gender gap forming in AI. Listen to see how we can close the gender and wealth gap in AI. 

Leaders v. learners: It all comes down to AI accessibility with Reshma Saujani

Leaders v. learners: It all comes down to AI accessibility

Generative AI is expensive, and it gets even more expensive as you scale. Find out about the hidden costs of AI, like AI integration, data, and AI security with host Albert Lawrence, Rebecca Gott, IBM Distinguished Engineer and CTO of Power Platform, and Penny Madsen, IDC Senior Research Director of Cloud and Edge Services. Listen to see how you can make your AI project returns justify the cost, and how an AI center of excellence can help.&nbsp; The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM or any other organization or entity.

Penny Madsen is Senior Research Director within IDC’s worldwide infrastructure research organization and part of the Cloud and Edge Services practice. Madsen is lead analyst for Cloud Pulse, IDC's flagship research service on cloud adoption trends, vendor strategies and investments. Her research – delivered via syndicated, special intelligence services and custom engagements – takes a holistic view of the cloud infrastructure, platform, and software services markets. 

Penny Madsen

Senior Research Director, Cloud and Edge Services, IDC

Dr. Rebecca Gott is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technology Officer for IBM Power Platform, responsible for the technology roadmap across silicon, firmware, operating systems, AI strategy and solutions for IBM Power Systems.  Dr. Gott received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1995 from Tulane University followed by serving in the United States Air Force where she worked in GPS development and test. Dr. Gott joined IBM in 1999 in the area of High Performance Computing and Power processor development before moving to IBM Z where she served in technical leadership roles within hardware development and later developing solutions for the emerging workloads on the platform.  Dr. Gott also enjoys teaching, where she has served as an adjunct faculty member at SUNY New Paltz teaching courses in science and technology.

Rebecca Gott

IBM Distinguished Engineer, CTO IBM Power Platform

Can you afford gen AI? Learn about the hidden costs like AI integration and AI infrastructure and how a Center of Excellence can help. 

Recent Episodes

SEASON 1

AI Realism with NE-YO and Ed Ulbrich: How AI affects artists, from IP to CGI

Gen AI for Good with James Hodson: Using AI to create a better tomorrow, today

Change Agents with Ethan Mollick: How AI agents will reinvent productivity

Hacking generative AI: Limiting security risk in the age of AI

AI Pilots to Progress: The lowdown on what makes AI projects successful

Leaders v. learners: It all comes down to AI accessibility with Reshma Saujani

Can you afford gen AI? How AI infrastructure, integration, data and other hidden costs make AI expensive

About The Show

AI in Action

Albert Lawrence

Host

Recent Episodes

SEASON 1

AI Realism with NE-YO and Ed Ulbrich: How AI affects artists, from IP to CGI

Gen AI for Good with James Hodson: Using AI to create a better tomorrow, today

Change Agents with Ethan Mollick: How AI agents will reinvent productivity

Hacking generative AI: Limiting security risk in the age of AI

AI Pilots to Progress: The lowdown on what makes AI projects successful

Leaders v. learners: It all comes down to AI accessibility with Reshma Saujani

Can you afford gen AI? How AI infrastructure, integration, data and other hidden costs make AI expensive

About The Show

AI in Action

Albert Lawrence

Host

Hacking generative AI: Limiting security risk in the age of AI