As The Voice UK’s 14th season kicks off on ITV, its only remaining launch coach will.i.am has revealed plans to launch his own TV show, combining elements of The Voice and The Apprentice. The Black Eyed Peas star also opened up about his ADHD-driven creativity, insisting that no AI machine will ever outpace human talent.
A Show Built on Teaching and Mentoring
Will.i.am, who is estimated to be worth between £36 million and £51 million, says: “I'm gonna teach for the next 20 years. I'm gonna do that. I've done The Voice for almost 15 years. I think there's a show that can exist from my teaching that feels like The Voice, that feels like The Apprentice, that's purpose-based.”
He added: “It's like pushing folks, encouraging folks, mentoring folks to supercharge their imagination, to go out and solve the world's problems with the agent that they built. I would love to make a show like that. I like pushing my mind to dream up the undreamed. I love creating at high speed, not regurgitating what I used to do.”
The Voice UK Returns with New Hosts
The Voice will open with Alesha Dixon and Stacey Solomon replacing Emma Willis, who is moving to Strictly, as hosts. Alongside Will.i.am as coaches and mentors will be Sir Tom Jones, Kelly Rowland, and McFly's Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones.
While will.i.am is a stalwart on the show, where singers perform blindly while celebrity coaches listen with their backs turned, pressing a button to spin around if they like a voice, he admits to feeling devastated whenever he rejects a hopeful singer. Describing it, he says: “That dream crush is like, 'oh my God!’ It’s the worst.”
ADHD, AI, and Human Creativity
Open about his neurodiversity, will.i.am, who has ADHD, says the rapid shifts in attention that characterise the condition drive his fast-paced creativity. It is this frenetic flow of ideas that means the founder and lead singer of The Black Eyed Peas, who has also produced tracks for stars including Rihanna, Michael Jackson and Britney Spears and has won multiple Grammy Awards, is fearless - especially when it comes to AI.
Will.i.am, who prefers living in hotels to owning a traditional house, says: “I don't give a f*** how awesome AI is. It cannot outpace my creativity. It's not imagining. It's a regurgitation of imaginations. It's gonna reproduce what's already been produced. I believe that critical thinking and like rinsing out your imagination and being purposeful is our [way of being] AI proof. Music will always be.”
While the musician is in awe of AI, he believes human beings are better. Will.i.am, who is intensely private about his romantic life, says: “There's just as many, if not more, bots online than there are people. So this means live events, Broadway theatre, real performance …When I say real, I'm talking about human sweat. Human rinse out, is going to be the most sought after, valuable form of entertainment. At least that's what I hope, because damn, the machine is freaking amazing. But humans are even more amazing.”
From Estrada Courts to MIT and Arizona State
Technology has always been alluring for will.i.am, who was brought up by his single mum in LA’s tough Estrada Courts housing project. First it was simple things. He says: “I loved the idea I could record something from a radio station, and then put it on a cassette. That to me was like, ‘wow.’ My mom was like, ‘boy, who taught you how to do that?’”
And, as he got older, he says: “When I got my hands on my MacBook and Pro Tools, that's when I was transfixed.” Will.i.am credits the late Patrick Henry Winston, former American computer scientist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for imbuing him with a love of tech. He says: “Professor Patrick Winston used to let me sit in his class from 2006, 7, 8, 9. Whenever Black Eyed Peas would tour Boston, I would go to sit in the MIT lab.”
Now will.i.am is teaching himself, as a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University and loving it - although his mum had to help him conquer his nerves. Recalling how he would keep people waiting and quickly call his mum for a pep talk, he says: “She's like, 'What are you so nervous about?’ I'm like, ‘what's going to happen if there's a smarty pants, somebody that's an expert?’ She says 'you're supposed to share the stage, right?’ I'm like, ‘yeah.’ She says, 'well, that's what you do in class.’”
Will.i.am teaches a 15 week accredited university course called 'The Agentic Self,’ which focuses on empowering students to build personalised, ethical AI personas reflecting human values and needs. He says: “Agentic self is telling people to ask, 'Who are you in this new world that we're living? How much of you are you going to give to the machine? What do you hold sacred? What do you want to do with the machine?”
Will.i.am, who got his first record deal aged 17, tells The Mishal Husain podcast that he is fascinated by, rather than frightened by AI and feels that the way it works and his own methods have a lot in common. Describing how he samples all sorts of songs when he is making music, he says: “AI is just like the world's biggest sampler. It samples everything.”
While AI’s sampling abilities give it access to a vast repertoire, Will.i.am still feels this is no competition for the human brain. He gives his own song, Where is the Love? as an example of music that stands the test of time. He says: “We wrote it after 9/11. Then the song came out a couple of months after the Iraq War. It's a prescription for reflection every time there's human error. We could sing Where Is The Love? to ourselves to make sure we're on the right path. AI is great. It's fast. But human sweat, we’ve got to value that just as much.”
The new series of The Voice starts on 22 August at 7pm on ITV and will be available to stream on ITVX.
