Pop star-turned-Arizona State College professor will.i.am teaches “The Agentic Self” at his headquarters in Los Angeles, Calif., on Jan. 14, 2026.
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Emily Choi/FYI.AI
The Black Eyed Peas spoke to a technology within the 2000s with tracks like “I Gotta Feeling,” “Let’s Get it Began” and “The place is the Love?”
Recently, nevertheless, co-founder will.i.am has been talking to a brand new technology – fairly actually – along with his three-hour-long, weekly courses for Arizona State College on the theme of “agentic AI.”
Both beamed in on screens from Arizona State’s most important campus, or proper there with him on the lecture theater he constructed as a part of his enterprise complicated in Los Angeles, the roughly 80 college students enrolled in will.i.am’s class are every attempting to construct their very own AI agent – a software program system that may carry out duties autonomously, with out requiring a human immediate.
The artwork of future-proofing
As somebody who has lengthy projected a tech-forward picture – it was will.i.am who got here up with the a lot quoted lyric, “I am so 3008. You are so 2000 and late” from the Peas’ 2009 music “Increase Increase Pow” – the pop star turned philanthropist, entrepreneur and educator is now working to equip younger folks for an employment market that is being reshaped by expertise.
“You’re a firm, Dave. You are not identical to a artistic dude,” will.i.am stated throughout a current class, sounding extra like a motivational coach than a school professor as he addressed people within the tiered seating round him. “You are an organization – Claudia – Karen.”
College students instructed NPR they get loads out of will.i.am’s strategy.
“Not all people that is coming inside this class has a tech background,” stated undergraduate Ren Flint. “He is been in a position to break AI down and make it accessible to everybody.”
“Some folks would possibly suppose what he is speaking about could be bizarre,” stated graduate pupil Luke Azariah. “However this man is future-proofing quite a lot of us.”
Realizing wild concepts with tech
In an interview with NPR a number of hours earlier than class, will.i.am stated people can not hope to compete with AI except they’re hyper-creative.
Members of the Black Eyed Peas — apl.de.ap, Fergie, Taboo and can.i.am — on the 2011 iHeartRadio Music Pageant in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Isaac Brekken/Getty
“It is the best time to dream and materialize ideas that have not been materialized,” he stated.
Realizing wild concepts with tech is principally what is going to.i.am has been as much as for many of his life. Born William Adams in 1975 in a working-class Los Angeles neighborhood, will.i.am stated he was 12 years previous and experimenting with stage names – his first moniker was “Will Chill” – when he took his sister’s Barbie and the Rockers cassette tape, recorded his personal rap loops over it, after which performed the combo again by means of his sister’s cassette-tape-powered, animatronic Teddy Ruxpin toy bear.
“My sister was pissed,” will.i.am recalled.
The musician and entrepreneur stated there is a direct hyperlink between this early experiment and “MÖFO” – or “Modular Omni Operate Operator” – the AI agent-powered Teddy bear he developed in partnership with Qualcomm and confirmed off at this 12 months’s Client Electronics Present in Las Vegas. The agent is just not a toy, will.i.am stated, however is meant to enhance productiveness and studying. However he stated the lovable exterior helps to humanize AI.
Foreseeing the “growth growth pow”
It is too early to inform if “MÖFO” will take off. However the man appears to have a knack for predicting the technological improvements almost definitely to go “growth growth pow.”
Take AI music.
It is grow to be large information over the previous couple of years. However will.i.am was enjoying round with it properly over a decade in the past, as seen within the music video for the 2010 Black Eyed Peas music “Imma Be Rocking That Physique.”
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“I simply kind within the lyrics. After which this factor sings it, says it, raps it, talks it,” he says to his bandmates within the video.
Singer Fergie is visibly upset.
“We’re not robots!” she exclaims, earlier than storming out of the room. Then the music begins, accompanied partly by pictures of pleasant, dancing robots.
Competing pursuits?
At present, the cultural backlash in opposition to AI and AI music is widespread. So will.i.am devotes quite a lot of time in his Arizona State class to discussing ethics and accountability. A video performed throughout class warns of the dangers: “You have seen how company brokers are used. You have seen what occurs with no guardrails.”
But will.i.am has additionally embraced company tech. He is an investor in AI corporations like Anthropic and OpenAI, in addition to the AI music creation platform Udio, and has partnered with Apple, Intel and Nvidia, amongst different Silicon Valley giants.
“He was an incredible model ambassador,” stated Deborah Conrad, a former chief advertising and marketing officer at Intel who employed will.i.am as the corporate’s Director of Inventive Innovation in 2011.
Intel’s Deborah Conrad and can.i.am on stage saying his appointment as director of artistic innovation in Jan. 2011, on the firm’s worldwide gross sales and advertising and marketing convention.
Courtesy of Deborah Conrad
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Courtesy of Deborah Conrad
Tech journalist Brian Service provider stated it is exhausting to reconcile these seemingly competing pursuits.
“That line between ardour for expertise, ardour for the concept that it might make folks’s lives higher, and simply increasing his market portfolio and his salience as a pop cultural icon, will get fairly blurry in there,” Service provider stated. “However that does not essentially imply that he is not real in his objective to strive to determine a option to get AI to work.”
will.i.am is just not the one high-profile musician to have ventured into the world of tech. He co-founded Beats Electronics with Dr. Dre (and document business govt Jimmy Iovine), which was offered to Apple in 2014 as a part of a deal that additionally included Beats Music for $3 billion. Nas, Snoop Dogg, Brian Eno and Justin Bieber have additionally invested closely in tech.
Nate Sloan, an assistant professor of musicology on the College of Southern California and co-host of the podcast Switched on Pop, stated will.i.am stands out from the pack. “willi.am has made it extra part of his identification and extra of an integral a part of his profession than anybody else I can consider,” he stated.
Alongside all this, will.i.am’s music profession remains to be going. The Black Eyed Peas are heading out on an abroad tour in June. Past his work with the Peas, will.i.am additionally launched the anti-ICE anthem “East LA” final 12 months, although it has been a number of years since he launched a success single or album as a solo artist or with the group.
A prototype of “Trinity” on show at will.i.am’s enterprise complicated in April, 2026. The three-wheeled electrical car is supplied with an agentic AI system to assist improve productiveness whereas driving.
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He appears extra targeted nowadays on his entrepreneurial and academic pursuits. Amongst different initiatives, he is creating a automotive with an AI agent. And he stated he is hoping to show a second semester at Arizona State.
“The thrill of constructing music and singing on stage, we’ll all the time try this,” will.i.am stated. “However instructing is that this totally different calling. That is simply the primary 12 months, and it is dope.”
