Geoff Thatcher on How AI is Revolutionizing Storytelling

Welcome to another exciting episode of Data Driven. Today, we have a truly unique guest, legendary theme park experience creator, Jeff Thatcher. With decades of expertise under his belt, Jeff has crafted groundbreaking exhibitions worldwide, from immersive museum tours to innovative AI enhanced live experiences. In this episode, we'll dive into how Jeff is blending creativity with cutting edge technology to create stories that don't just entertain but also connect emotionally.

From talking paintings to college football heroics, Jeff's work shows how AI isn't just a tool, it's a bridge to imagination. And a quick note for parents, while we don't use any profanity, there's a discussion about Saint Nick that might not align with what the little ones believe. So fasten your seatbelts for an episode that redefines storytelling in the age of AI. Well, hello, and welcome back to Driven, the podcast where we explore the emergent fields of data science, artificial

intelligence, and, of course, data engineering. With me this time, is my most favoritest data engineer in the world, Andy Leonard. How's it going, Andy? It's going pretty well, Frank. How are you? Good. Good. Good. We're recording this just before Thanksgiving, which is gonna be what I like to call the time of madness. Because 2 of my 2 of my kids have birthdays in December and, obviously yeah. But today, I'm excited. I really have an interesting guest here. And he is, he's been

told to me by his PR person. We had a little bit of banter about this in the, in in the thing. But I would say it's true. Legendary theme park experience creator, Jeff Thatcher. And for the last 4 decades, Jeff has been pushing the boundaries of live experiences.

With his company, Creative Principles, Jeff has designed ground beak breaking, exhibitions around the world from, doing some work with the largest zoo in the United Arab Emirates to designing something that is called a mobile reverse vending machines, that managed to gather 13,000 donations in one season to creating an immersive tour at the, Ozark Ozark Historic Mill and more. But now Jeff is exploring the many ways that artificial intelligence can elevate the live experience and designs.

That could mean museum visitors forming an emotional connection with a holocaust victim or, visitors forming a relationship with an indentured field worker. Individuals could ask these characters or museum subjects questions, that a curator never would have thought of, and receive thoughtful detailed answers thanks to the power of

AI. So welcome to the show, Jeff. I'm definitely, very curious about this, and I also like the the your your description of let's not let the fun police ruin AI because I can totally see that happening. Amen, brother. So so tell us about You know, I was just so it was funny. I was just watching all the people complain about the new Coca Cola, holiday magic commercial that was produced in AI. And everybody's all this backlash about using artificial intelligence to create

this commercial. And I'm like, wait a second. Don't they know that Santa Claus is fake? And you're complaining about using artificial intelligence to create a commercial about someone that's not real? Or talking polar bears? What's the problem? Right. Right. It's all fake. It's okay. We love it. It's storytelling. It's alright. You know? It's okay to believe in the magic. But how can you complain about using artificial intelligence to create something that's in and of itself not

real. So and Oh, that's a good point. And if they you know, it's one of those things where if Coca Cola hadn't done something kinda cutting edge, they would have been just labeled another big company that's not using AI and being cutting edge. Right? Like, it's kinda like the they're in a no win situation with I'm starting I'm starting to think honestly that we should just stop calling things AI because, like, we

just opened. And, you know, listen, I'm not trying to, like, overstate it. We actually did our research on this because, you know, if you look at AI in live experiences or AI in museums or attractions, the very first use of it was in 2017 in Brazil where IB IBM and Ogilvy with Watson went down to Brazil, and they allowed people to actually talk to paintings and ask paintings, you know, these paintings as artwork. You could ask the

artwork a question. You know? I remember that. I remember there was a Salvador Dali. Yeah. Well, that's that's a different project. That's a that's a different project. Okay. Yeah. That's a different one. So 2017 was in Brazil with Watson. And then Salvador Dali was 2019 in Saint Petersburg, Florida, the saint the Salvador Dali Museum, where you can actually talk And they updated again, I think, in 2021, where you can

actually talk to Salvador Dali. And then there was the Shoah Foundation did a AI experience where you could actually talk and ask, you know, like personal questions of Holocaust survivors, like, you know, how do you still have joy? And what was it like when you were a kid? And, you know, just you could ask it anything. Like one one

of these Holocaust survivors, you could ask him or her anything you wanted. And then the National World War 2 Museum did this something very similar to the show a foundation where you could, you know, talk to a USO dancer and talk to a pilot and just ask them questions. But what we did at the College Football Hall of Fame in 2024 was we actually made the guest the star of the experience. And no one had ever done that before Where, you

know, the guest comes in. You know, they they stand at a kiosk. Their their picture is taken 5 times. They answer questions like, Frank, what's your favorite football team? College football team. That was not a rhetorical question. I actually wanna know. Oh, I actually don't follow college football, so I'll, I don't know. Fordham Rams. I'll give a shout out to you. Rams. There you go. What about you, Andy? Do you have a favorite college football team? Sure. We'll go with the Virginia Tech

Hokies. There you go. The Hokies. And then you ask what the least favorite team is. Most people say Alabama or Ohio State or one of the big ones, but, you know, your least favorite team. And and then, you know, you know, what what do you what kind of football food do you like? And how do people describe your personality? So it kinda gets your coaching. So, yeah, basically, you know, the kiosk asks you a bunch of questions. You upload your pictures. It all goes up into the cloud, all processes.

And then as you go to 19 different exhibits around the hall of fame, you become part of the exhibition. So when you go, for example, to the coaches exhibit, and there there's an actual coaches exhibit that talks about, you know, Lavelle Edwards and Lou Paterno and all these great coaches and Newt Rockne. You get to actually there's a creates a mini mockumentary about your life as the best coach that never was. When you go to

the cheerleading exhibit, you see That's really cool. Yeah. When you see the TCU cheerleading outfit, you see the, you know, Notre Dame mascot, you you then become you get to pose with your favorite team's mascot. You get to see yourself in a cheerleading outfit. You get to see yourself in the weight room. You get to see yourself as a flyover pilot. You get to see yourself posing with the Heisman. You get to see yourself in the exhibition. And, honestly, it's never been done before.

But our challenge has been that everybody just is like, oh, yeah. AI. Whatever. You know? You know what I mean? Because it's like because, you know, we actually had a reporter from Wired come in, and she was like, man, you guys totally undersold this. And we're like, no. We really didn't. We told you exactly what it was, but we have this this filter over us with AI where so many people are talking about it, and so much of it is hype. And so much of it is beyond

hype. It's unbelievable. Like, I was just looking at the new, oh, it's a Google thing where it turns anything into a podcast. Like Notebook l m, actually. Yes. Thank you. Notebook l m. Talking about that, before you joined. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Right? So you so you have these two issues going on. You have one where every single company in the world is

labeling what they're doing as AI, and it's not really true. And then you've got the other hand where people are talking about and doing things that are groundbreaking with AI, like we did at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta. And everybody's like, whatever. You know what I mean? Because they

don't interesting dichotomy. You're right. Like, I I now that you pointed out, like, you know, the whole thing of, like, you know, people do not realize that, like, you know, obviously, there are no polar bears looking, you know, cracking open, you know, glass bottles of Coca Cola with their, you know, with their paws. But, like, you know, that was CGI. Why was that, like, you know, praised and became a cultural icon? And then this

is, you know, universally panned. Now I will say from from from looking at it, there are scenes in there where it definitely looks uncanny valley when you have the people, but that's to be expected right now. You know, you know, I am not a data

scientist like Andy. Right? I I when it comes to programming, I'm I'm not a, you know, I'm not an AI expert. I don't consider I mean, I use AI, the groundbreaking work with AI, but the people that did the programming and did the heavy engineering prompting were a great partner in New Zealand called Hypercinema. But I have to say, what what we always forget with new technology is that it's really about the story. It's about telling a

great story, especially on the creative side. You know, I mean, you know, people clients sometimes will will like, oh, what if people say this was a waste of money? Like, you know, like, oh, I'm not I'm not sure we could spend you know, $2,000,000 on an LED tower in a lobby because then they'll say, oh, you're just wasting money. And I say, well, it's it's just like the movies. How often do you walk out of a movie and say, well, that was a big waste of money and time And it's bad. You never say

that when you walk out of a great movie. You never walk out of a great movie and say, oh, that was a waste of time and money because it was a great story. But when you walk out of Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, you're like, yeah, the effects were great, but what a waste of time. What a waste of money. Right? Because it was it was. It wasn't a great story. So, you know and technology, specmology. You know, it's like people forget. I mean, animatronics,

we think are amazing, and we think Walt Disney invented them. That's not true. They're actually invented Marie Antoinette and the Silver Swan. 17th century, 18th century, we were making animatronics. The holographic experiences that you see at Disney and Universal Studios and all these things. The 19th century Pepper's ghost that was invented in the UK by an illusionist.

3 d is great, and the new liminal space 3 d LED screen is amazing because it gives you 10 times more projection and 10 times more depth of field and it's better on the sides. So, you know, technology keeps improving. But, you know, 3 d has been around since, what, the 19 forties. It's but how many of us have seen really lousy 3 d movies or 4 d cinema or 5 d cinema or there's actually a theater in China that says it's a 14 d cinema which is just ridiculous and

stupid. Right. But I know 14 d. But it all is about, are you just gonna use it to tell what what are you gonna do with it? Right? What are you gonna do with that technology? What are you gonna do with that data? You guys talk about data. Right? Right. How often do people take data and just do horrible things with it? You know, how do people take it? You gotta tell a great story. You gotta use it in a way that puts people in

the story. And, you know, the analogy that we use all the time is I I don't know how if you guys are into theme parks, but, you know, most of us have been to a theme park where they have the old time photo studio in the western themed land, right, where you go in and you put on the cowboy hat and the boots and the vest and the gun and your wife or your girlfriend, sometimes she's a salon girl. If you wanna be more stereotypical or she'll be

a cowgirl. Hopefully, they're not there at the same time. Well, hopefully, you're posing together. Right? Yeah. But, you know. Oh, I see. Yeah. Definitely. With with your spouse or and or your yes. Okay. So you're, you know, you're posing in this you're posing in this, you know, you're posing in this outfit.

Right? And it's fun, and it's an experience to do that. Well, what we've done at the College Football Hall of Fame is essentially allow any guest to pose as a football player, as a coach, as a cheerleader, as a marching band, as a historic fan in the 19 twenties, as a historic fan in the 19 eighties, as a flyover pilot. But we've done that for 764 different teams. Now if you were to actually go acquire 764 football uniforms for all sizes, different genders. And then the same thing for

cheerleading costumes, uniforms, marching band uniforms. The warehouse would be the size of that warehouse in Indiana Jones. Right? There's a lost ark at the end of the movie. It's totally impossible. So all we did with AI is something that we've been doing forever in the theme park industry, which was we put you in the story. We immersed you in the story. We've just been able to do it with AI with the scale and personalization that's not

possible anywhere else. And that truly is as a experience designer as a storyteller. That's what excites me about AI is being able to tell great stories and to put people in the story. And I have to tell you that is something that isn't fake. That is something that is very real. When you see

someone walk onto the football field, it's like the College Football Hall of Fame has this massive football field at the the finale experience. Right? Well, it's not a complete it's like about the size of a of a basketball court. Right? But it's a football field. Right? It's got the green grass and it's got a big jumbotron at the end of it and it's got a goalpost and you go in there and you go into the football field to actually, you know, play football, like throw, catch, kick and things like

that. But when you see people walking in to that football field and they see a video play of themselves, it's a recruiting hype video with them in a uniform that comes over and says, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Andy Lender to the Ohio State Buckeyes. You know, you know, we're really excited about Andy's potential as a wide receiver for, you know, when they see them,

their reaction is not fake. Their reaction is real. Their reaction is to put their hands in the sky, to pump their fists, because now they're part of their favorite team. They're part of their college football experience. They are seeing themselves in the story. And when you see yourself in the story, it feels very real to you. And so that, to me,

is the exciting part about AI is in the future. You know, when you start seeing this, the video tools that are coming from Meta and, you know, you know, OpenAI and everything else coming down the road. I believe that you and I, that everyone, all the guests, all the consumers will demand to be part of the story because if they're not, it just won't feel the same. So when you go ride Pirates of the Caribbean in a decade, you'll be in the ride. You'll be actually

in the ride with Jack Sparrow. You'll be one of the pirates on the ride. You'll see yourself in the ride. And it'll be very interesting to see if the same thing happens in Hollywood, where, no, I actually wanna be in the movie. I I, you know, when, you know, when I go watch in 10 years, you know, imagine redoing Rudy with AI. And when the Notre Dame coach, Dan Devine, is giving

that great pep talk in the locker room, you know? And I just love that scene, you know, where he's like in there at the locker room and Rudy's in there and all the other players around it. And he's like, he's like, gentlemen, this is our house. And no one, and I mean no one comes into our house and pushes us around. But in the future, you could be one of the players kneeling next to Rudy. That could be me. I could totally see that. I mean, you kinda get

glimpses of that now. Right? I mean, there's a lot of music generation. Right? Like, I could easily see where I want I'm having a bad day. I need some inspirational songs that speak to me, and I want it in the style of pit bull. And I want this type of, like, you know, this type of song about what I'm working on. Yeah. Right? Yeah. You can kinda do that now with with a tool like YuDio. And there's 100 of them. Right? Like but, you know, the whole idea of, you know, pop music where

everyone listens to the same thing. I mean, it's, you know, it might just be customized, like, not just a customized playlist, but customized songs on your playlist. Like, it's not it's not that outrageous. I mean, like, when you say that, I'm like, I could see that being a thing. Right? Because Yeah. Yeah. Cinema is a 100 ish years old. I mean, it's time for you know, it's it's due for disruption of some sort right now. You know, we you know, I don't and if and

and literally sorry. I've just got get passionate about this. No, please. I love Scott Wiener if senator Scott Wiener of California would have been alive in 1910 or whatever it was, you know what I mean? He would have been saying, oh, yes. This silent cinema, we need to make sure it's safe for everyone. You know what I mean? Right. Right. Right. Right. Let's kill this silent cinema industry before it even gets off the ground because, you know, it needs to

be safe for everyone. It's On police. Right? The you know, I mean, just just let us tell stories. Let us use this technology to tell stories. And, you know, listen, there's there is a danger. I'll give you a very real example that happened to us 3 weeks ago with music. So 3 weeks ago and I know, this is just a a podcast. You're not gonna see this. But so Well, they may. Oh, so this

so we were we we had a a a small gig. It was a 2 day consulting project with the the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, which is 5 minutes outside of Yosemite National Park in in the Sierra Nevada Forest. Right? Mhmm. And it's a a logging train, and guests get to ride on it and go through the forest and come back in. It's a great train, great people. And they they they brought us in to say, hey. Would you look at look at our operation and just

give us some advice and give us some tips? And it was like, you know, it was we had a great time. Right? And they they gave us this book, The Whistle Blow Knows More, as part of our research. Now if I would

have just gone into AI, gone into ChachiPT or whatever Gemini and just said, hey, could you please summarize the book, Whistleblows No More by Hank Johnston? I would have learned about it, but I wouldn't have gotten the inspiration Right. That I needed to really tell a great story. You still have to, as a creator, and I think the same is true as a researcher, right, or as a data scientist, you still have to

do the hard work and read between the lines. Because if you simply rely on AI to summarize something for you, you will lose the inspiration. Because in this book, You know, I started going through the pages and I'm going through it and I'm looking at it. And of course, I didn't have time in 2 days to read everything, but I was skimming through it. Right. And as I was skimming through the pages, I found a poem. Called The Whistle Blows No

More. Right? And it's a a really powerful poem that talks about essentially the whistles stopping because the logging industry ended after clearcutting 35,000 acres, you know what I mean, around the around the Sierra Nevadas. They, you know, they the Great Depression was hitting. They saw the writing on the wall, and they, you know, they shut it down and completely liquidated everything and sold everything for

scrap. Wow. Including the 54 mile log flume that went from the Sierra Nevadas down to Madera, California. This is just amazing, the things that happened. And now when you're there and you look at the mill pond, it's just so beautiful and pristine. It's kind of hard to believe that the whole thing was clear cut, and was just a major industrial operation in 1931. And of course, I can't find the poem right now. But just in skimming through it, I found this wonderful poem. And

so we took that poem. And we took it into A. I. And we created a song out of it. Oh, very cool. A folk song. Right. And then we played the folk song, for the owner of the railroad. She got a tear in her eye. Wow. You know? And, and this was even before version 4 of Suno came out, which was pretty amazing. Version 4

came out a couple days ago. But but so, you know, when it comes to AI, and I believe this is true with any technology, you have to be very careful and guard yourself that you still have the discipline to do the research and to do the legwork and to do the hard work to get the inspiration you need to tell a powerful story. But then you can use that AI. You can use that technology. Because, honestly, it was a 2 day consulting project. I would have never had time, money, or resources

Right. To compose a folk song based on this poem in that amount of time. Yeah. So the automation is you you you were just relying on the automation that has gotten I and I'd I'd say it's gotten mixed reviews. I think there are a number of people who look at stuff and kinda focus on the things that where AI misses. You know, and it does. It it misses the hallucinations and the things like that. Mhmm. And they kinda build their narrative, off of that. And we find that across all sorts of

fields. I mean, I I see that in data warehousing, and and, you know, before AI even showed up. But it's it's amazing to to not just we get to see you, and we do have video, by the way, that we do post, that people can see you as well. But people don't need to see you to hear it in your in your voice, Jeff, your your passion for what you're talking about. And that passion is really, about telling the story and delighting your consulting clients, and you found a way to automate

some of that using AI. And it's that's, like, excitement on the excitement of the normal passion that you bring to your job. And I think that's awesome. But I like that. I like I like I like the idea that where you're going with this is that, you know, the time no one I'm not a musical person, really, so I'm not gonna compose a song. But I can't. I'm not a musical person either. I have no idea how to compose a song. Use AI to adjust it and create songs

based on things that I like as a listener. Right? So if you watch any of my live streams, the intro song that sings, you know, Frank's World on the stream and all that, that that kinda like that, you know, Europop or late nineties, early 2000 type of thing. That's AI. Right? I never would have had that. I just would have used some kind of stock thing or whatever or or or sound effects. So the ability to do that, the ability to to to kind of also tie it to a much larger

story, I brought tears to that ladies eye. I think that's very, very powerful. I think I think when you get down to it, that these are gonna become storytelling tools that, you know, now we look at it as controversial. But in maybe 10 years, it'll just be just part of the toolkit. You know? Yeah. But but the other point that I think is just as important is if I wouldn't have actually thumbed through the real book. Yes. Yeah. And actually, you know, taking the time to look at

it and to read it, I would have missed that poem. Because if I would have just said, hey, ChatJPT, can you summarize The Whistle Blows No More by Hank Johnson? It wouldn't have told me about the poem. No. I wouldn't have got it. And, you know, you know, again, it's not just about AI. One of my, I'm gonna probably nerd out on you guys a little bit, which is kind of ironic since you are both nerdy data scientists, but but I'm fascinated by the NASA report about the

Columbia shuttle disaster. Mhmm. Because in that in that report, it says that the endemic use of and I'm I'm paraphrasing, but the endemic use of PowerPoint. No. Yeah. It's right. Led to the engineers not understanding the importance of what was being said. Because if you if you actually write a report, if you actually, as an engineer, write a report and make somebody read that report, you can't miss what's between the lines because you read all the lines. Right? It is there, and it

would be stated very, very clearly. You know what I mean? You know, this is a danger. You know what I mean? And this needs to be addressed. Well, people put the engineers were were going straight to the PowerPoint, skipping the writing part. Mhmm. Right. And going and we've all been guilty of that. Right? Of, oh, I have a presentation due. And you just build the presentation at PowerPoint rather than doing the harder work of actually writing it yourself. And then once you have it

written, translated into a PowerPoint. But the actual committee that studied that shuttle Columbia tragic loss that cost, I don't know, was it 7 lives or something. Right? They blamed, and I'm quoting, it was the endemic use of PowerPoint by the engineers. And we have to be careful. We have to watch ourselves as creatives that we don't lose our edge and lose our creativity through the endemic use of AI. We we have to make sure we still do

the hard work. And again, I recently watched a talk about AI from actually one of my, we'll call it a spiritual leader, somebody in my church, and we don't you're gonna get the details of it, but, and they talked about, you know, yes, use AI, but don't let it act upon you. Make sure you're using it. Make sure it doesn't use you. Right? Right. Because Yeah. We can let it use us. We can let it, you know, because it's like, where does

that inspiration come from? Right? I mean, if you believe in inspiration. I believe in inspiration. I do. And I believe that, you know, not to get spiritual on you guys, but I believe that God inspires us. I do. Yeah. And I believe we get inspiration. And I believe he cares about our work. Right? In the same way he cares about a farmer, you know, providing food for his family. I I think he cares about our work. And and so I believe in inspiration.

I believe in that spark, that light that comes. Mhmm. Right? And and, you know, this this guy that gave this talk was amazing. He basically said at the end of it, he said, always remember, it is an algorithm. It does not like you. It does not care about you. It doesn't even know you exist. Right? Yeah. It's a tool. That's powerful. You know? And I personally hate hate hate hate hate hate all the branding around AI because it's all humanistic. I hate what Open Eye Eye is doing with, like, oh,

hey. How's I tell that stupid chatty p t whatever I have the upgraded one or whatever all the time. Would you please stop asking me questions? Would you please shut up? Would you please stop referring like, I want it to be like Star Trek. Computer. You know what I mean? Tell me this, and then it shuts up. Right? Don't act like a human on I don't want you you are an algorithm. You are a tool. Right.

Right? I don't wanna treat you like a human being. We already live in a society where people treat their pets like human beings, and they shouldn't. Right? Sorry. But I don't wanna offend anybody here. It's sort of controversial. But, you know My dogs won't hear it. I'm on headphones. Well, listen. I'm sure you love your dogs. Right? But hopefully not as much as your children. Right? No. It's Yeah. Right? You

know? I mean, we have a sickness in our country, in our world where we we personify things that should not be personified, and AI should not be personified. It shouldn't. It's a tool. And so dangerous to personify these things. It is. What was the was it 2 years ago now? There was some guy who was saying that, he was he was fired from Google, but he was saying that he was dealing with a sentient. He said that he thought it was Ascension. It was alive, and it was like, not really.

I mean, it was just It's an algorithm. It's Mac. Yeah. Well, if you asked it, like, why are you and even some of the transcripts of the conversations while they you could be led down the path thinking it was alive, it would say, I'm sad because I can't go to the pub with my friends or something like that. Like, it's a computer. It doesn't go to the pub

with your friends. Right? Yeah. And for someone that would say to me, like, oh, well, you're using AI to generate emotions in a live experience, like a museum or a show. I'm like, I use theatrical lighting to create emotion. I use I use music to create emotion. I use all kinds of tricks and scenery that are fake to create emotion. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's a tool.

To me, AI is a tool like animatronics and Pepper's ghost and theatrical lighting and music and everything else. It's a tool to basically create to tell to tell a great story. But it is important that that story is a human story and and a powerful story that's that's, you know, and there are good stories and

bad stories, and they're great storytellers and lousy storytellers. So and it's not easy to tell a great story, but it's important Well, I always like to use the example of when you're using AI, it's kind of like, you know, the Aliens, the the second movie. Yeah. Arguably, the last good Aliens movie, but that's Oh, 100% agree with you on that one. Alright. Good. And, you know, we're at the end where she has the, the exoskeleton. Right? Yeah. The exoskeleton was

originally built to lift heavy things. Right? But, you know, it's kind of like, that's how I see AI. Right? Like, without a person in there, it's it's it's just a tool. Right? It's just this lump of metal in robotics. But, like, with a person in there, that person could do more, whether it's, you know, create a song out of a poem that never really existed or you know, but but there still has to be a person driving it. And without without a person driving it, it's it's it comes across as very

mechanical. It does. And in fact, I think and again, I'm not you know, things are moving so fast with AI, but I I believe there was some research done in Japan about 6 to 12 months ago where they had, the AI write a haiku, and they had people write a haiku, and then they had people and AI collaborate to create a haiku. And it was the the writing that was generated by a combination of both that scored the highest among consumers.

That doesn't surprise me at all. No. I was gonna say the same reaction.

Yeah. The collaboration the collaborative, aspect of it is, I think, the strength. I think it's you know, when you use an LLM to draft an outline of some topic, and then you take it from there or vice versa. You draft an outline and you hand it to the LLM and say, you know, can you flesh this out?

Fill in the blanks. And I I've done both. I've had, you know, 5 minutes I needed to respond to a consulting client, and I've written 4 sentences because I knew it needed to be longer than this, and it needed some finesse. I I'm an engineer, and it shows. So I've handed it to the LLM and said, hey. Make this, you know, nice. Make this sound way nicer and expand it. And a couple of times when I've done that, it's been so good.

I just copied and pasted it and sent it to the client. Now at the same time, I've handed, you know, code, you know, in one language. It's to translate this to another language. And, it was my first exercise that I that I did that with it. I thought it worked because it didn't fail. And I learned a very important lesson from that that not failing is not the same as succeeding. Mhmm. The code compiled, and it executed, but it did not do what I wanted it to do. It looked like

it did, but it didn't. So the creative aspect of it, though, I'm I'm fascinated to to hear you talk about, you know, how you can do that. And it the story you told specifically about, not having the resources or the time to, you know, to turn that that poem into a song, that's such an accelerator. And that's where I keep hearing the stories over and over again, whether it's in language, whether it's in art.

It just keeps repeating itself that people are able, through percussive prompting, you know, you just keep beating on it until it gives you the answer that you want or need. But because it can do so much so fast, it can fail 3 or 4 times before it gives you the song or the paragraphs or or what have you because it it is an accelerator. So

There's no doubt. And, you know, I I was having a healthy debate with the chair of the illustration department of the Savannah College of Art and Design, and 2 of our kids went to SCAD, and we live here in Savannah. You know, and and her initial reaction was, oh, AI is gonna take my job. And I said, no. I said, it'll take your job if you don't learn AI. Right. But, you know, our designers and illustrators, we're a family creative firm, so they're

my daughters are illustrators and designers. They use they're using it today. We're designing our Christmas card. Nice. Now, the ultimate design of the Christmas card is definitely gonna have a human touch. It was written by my son and I, who's our creative writer. So we we wrote it. And we wrote it without the help of AI. We did. We just wrote it ourselves. And then, what we

didn't do and probably should have is pumped it back into AI and said, hey. Would you analyze this as a Christmas card and offer any suggested edits? Right? Because that that is one benefit of AI is you can get an instant critic on your work. Yep. And, but, you know, we did a couple of you know, as as the writers in the firm, we did a couple of we did some creative direction and some mood boards of what we wanted the Christmas card to be like, but then we gave it to our designer and illustrator.

And, you know, and then she ran with it. And, you know Jeez. And she did use AI as part of it, but, you know, she added her own little,

you know, touch to it from an illustrator perspective. And, again, you know, I feel like a broken record here, but I keep emphasizing, you know, illustrators, you know, over the last, you know, probably 15 years, they've been doing something called a mash up, where they don't actually like, if they need to put a rock in an illustration and concept art, they don't actually draw the rock. They go to Google and say rock. You know what I mean? Images. They grab a rock they like, put it in, paint

over it, fundamentally transform it from a copyright perspective. They fundamentally transform it, and then they're fine. Right? You know, I I loved a couple of things. That's one that you just said, and then I'll go back to something you mentioned earlier. I love that your family is working with you. That that's a huge blessing, and I know because my mine work with me. And you mentioned earlier about that. Nice, isn't it? It is. And then you mentioned earlier about the spiritual aspect of that.

Both Frank and I are believers, so we we track. You know, we we get what you're saying, and that all kinda ties together. And my my children are older than Frank. So Frank's getting there. They've he's got a teenager, a couple of teenagers, I think. No. I have a preteen. Preteen? A teenager, preteen, and a toddler. And so mine are a toddler. Oh my goodness. I'm a glider. There you go. Yeah. And so I've got 2 children from my first marriage, and they are

the moms of my grandkids. And then I've got 3 children from my second marriage, and they the youngest one is now 17. So I've kinda done the the family, almost the family 2 point o thing, but, it's super cool because there's they never say things like half brother, half sister, or anything. Like, they're all brother, sister. And they they mostly get along. They're different. I mean, gosh, they're 2 sets. You know, they in in between themselves, you know, same

mom and dad, they they don't always get along either. But it's it's fascinating to to see what I'll say this about it. I think the spiritual, dimension that you bring to it brings a purpose beyond just something. I don't wanna, I don't wanna poo poo it, but I also wanna make the distinction. It's like if you're just in this for doing money, for making money, it's not the same as if you're in it for fulfilling some purpose beyond money. Do you wanna make money? Well, yeah, you kinda got to. But

is it all about the money? No. And the best and I would say the people who make probably the most money in general, you know, 80 20 rule applies, are the people who are driven by passion, driven by some purpose that's beyond that. And I know that's true of me, and I know, you know, I know it's true of Frank. It sounds like there's that dimension, in your life and work as well. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. Or I'm sorry. I should I should say amen. Yeah. There you go.

Well, I I think that there's an interesting thing here because I think one of the things that I think has shocked a lot of people it's been about 2 years since chat gpt was released. Right? I think almost to the week almost to the day, but definitely to the week. Mhmm. And I think that there was a certain smugness in the creative class that prior to generative AI, that they would have been the last jobs on earth. Right? Like, the most ridiculous things you'll ever have heard Mhmm. Would never

be replaced. And then suddenly, I think 2 years ago, you haven't had this big bag moment of, oh, wait a minute. You know? And I when I say creative class, I don't No. It's just artists. Oh, no. There are people that are very worried in the creative class for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's it's one of those things where, you know, the whole idea of, like, you know, the low skilled jobs will be

automated away first. Right? That was that was the the the mantra of of kinda AI people up until about 2 years ago this week. But I think it really shook people to the core to what does it mean to be human. Right? Because no one's really figured that. No one really has a good solid mathematical foundation of what does it mean to be creative? What does it mean to be human? Right? I think. Right? This is just

me. And one of the things that people could would always point to whether it was, you know, weaving machines in the 1800 or, you know, factory assembly lines in the 1900 and, you know, whatever we have going now in terms of automation, was the idea that, well, a machine can never be creative. And I think 2 years ago, I think we're still struggling to get our head around that. Right? And then when you start throwing in other things

like, well, you know, the notion of sentience. Right? The notion of a consciousness and things like that, then it really gets muddled. And again like you said before with our prevalence to anthropomorphize things and certainly I think today's culture generally that's really muddied the waters in terms of what what does what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be creative? And what does it mean? And I think you're you're seeing people kind of go into 2 camps or maybe more

than 2. But the 2 obvious ones are extremes on the spectrum of I'm never touching AI. If you use AI, it's cheating versus there's people that use AI, but don't have any soul to it. Right? Like the example of you actually reading the book. Right? Yeah. I've have AI. I'm guilty of it. I have AI. I have no book l m. I'll give it a PDF. It summarizes like a 300 page book for me. I can listen while picking up the little one from daycare. I can listen

to their summary of the book. I've done it just as an experiment. And there and there's as much value in that as reading cliff notes of of mice and men. And I I mean, here's the thing. I mean, this is you know, at the time, I didn't realize it was a sign that I actually had a career in writing and and and, you know, storytelling, but I would show up at my high school on the day morning of the paper was due that day, and I would sit and I'd interview my classmates about the book report

that was due. And I'd quickly write up a 2 page report on yellow notepad because we didn't have typewriters and, you know, that stuff. And it's and I turned it in and get a, you know, a b, whatever. And I didn't care. It's a long story, but I didn't really have a parent that was caring about my grades, and so I didn't care about grades. And you know what I mean? So Mhmm. You know, I would just interview people. Did I get less out of that as a human

being? Absolutely. You know what I mean? Yeah. Every cliff note I I I didn't read this is true story. I didn't read one book in high school. Oh, wow. Not one book. Am I a better person because of that? No. I probably should. I should have read books, but you know what I mean? But you know, and and that and that is the worry. But you know, going back to your point, I think there's another reason why the creative class are so worried. And it's because AI democratizes creativity. I believe

that every single person is creative. You guys are engineers, but I think you're creative. I think every every child is creative in our public education system pounds it out of them. Our culture pounds creativity out of children. Right? They're right here. Yeah. Everybody is creative. Everyone.

Right? And what AI allows us to do is to if you have an idea, you can then now use AI to bring that idea to life, and that scares people who have been the gatekeepers of that creativity it scares people who write music and produce produce music that I can create a folk song without them it scares it scares writers right That a CEO can write a book without their help. And and and I believe it should actually to me, AI will have in the long term this kind of

sifting effect. And I'll give you one example because I've never been a fan of the brand consultants who make 1,000,000 of dollars coming up with brand purpose, mission, and vision Because I just think it's so obvious. Right? I I I like really you paid $1,000,000 for that? For somebody to come in and tell you what your purpose and your mission and vision is? You know what I mean? And then they're so long winded that it's very difficult for people to make

decisions. I I am into simplicity when it comes to storytelling. Right? The best stories are just a few words long. Again, I had nothing to do with it. But at Animal Kingdom, the story there or the theme there is the intrinsic value of nature. Very simple. Mhmm. If that's the story, then

and if you and if you stay true to that story, then all decisions become relatively easy. You know, and the guy that was the imagineer over at Joe Rodey talks about it. He's like, okay, you have a door in a zoo theme park about the intrinsic value of nature. Is that is the door steel or is it wood? Wood. Obviously. Right? You know? It allows you to make decisions if you keep it simple. I think when you when you, make

things complicated with all this brand mission vision stuff, it's amazing. But but you can go into chat gpt now, and you could basically say, hey, could you give me the mission vision of the I mean, this, you know, this train, for example, did not have a brand position and and brand purpose and mission and vision. I just asked ChatGPT to do it for us, and it it nailed it. It nailed it. Wow. So if you are if you are a creative in a industry that is a bunch of already, and again, bias

here. I think a lot of brand consulting is smoke and mirrors and just stupid and ridiculous, but they convince people to pay them a lot of money to do it. So if you're in an industry where, you know, it's a bunch of smoke and mirrors, well, you're exposed, and AI is gonna expose you. There's there's there's just ignore the man behind the curtain, so to speak moment. Exactly. Exactly. So listen, if you're not good, if you're not talented, I mean, you can

certainly try to use AI to, you know, beef up your talents. But the bottom line is, it is gonna have a sifting effect. Because I think if one creative firm is only using AI to generate ideas and another firm is using their own inspiration and sparks with AI to enhance those inspirations, very human inspirations and sparks. I believe the latter agency is gonna win. Yeah. Just like the haikus. Just like the haikus. So, I think it will have you know, that kind of effect on the industry. And,

again, it will also and this is totally true. We have no idea where it's gonna take us. We can guess. Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite story about technology not, you know, not really knowing where it's gonna take us is I worked on the Iron Bridge, Iron Bridge in the UK, Coalbrookdale. It's where the blast furnace was invented. Like the coke fired blast furnace, right? Was in Iron Bridge, UK. And Abraham Darby, and this was I think, oh I'm gonna get it wrong, like 1807 I think. Or maybe it was

in 7th, so I can't. I'm getting to get the date wrong. But it was Abraham Darby and all he was trying to do was make a cheaper iron pot. That's it. He was simply trying to find a better way to make an iron pot. Yeah. That's it. That's all he was trying to do was make an iron pot. Invented the blast furnace, and then because of that blast furnace, they were able to make, steam engines because the iron. Right? You because you couldn't make a steam engine without, you know,

without the ability to make it with iron. You know? So iron bridges, iron buildings, iron, you know, you know, iron steam engines, railroads, everything in the industrial revolution was born out of that blast furnace. And all the guy was trying to do was make a better pot. So, you know, we always we never know exactly where this technology is going to take us. That's true. I mean, we have prognosticators who think they know. And I Yeah. Think I know in certain areas where

it's gonna take us. But at the bottom line, I don't know exactly where it's gonna take us because somebody, some human being is gonna come up with some really creative way to use AI that none of us have thought of. Well, let me go back to, like, the nineties. Right? Like, where, when the Internet was first kinda starting to become of its own, like, the the graphical browser was new. Who would

have thought that would have replaced going to the mall? Who would have thought that you'd be able to, you know, interact with people on a device like this? Right? It just didn't seem possible. Right? And it just that had all these let alone you know, what's the joke about, I mentioned in the last episode where it was like, don't talk to strangers. Don't get it. Don't talk to strangers on the Internet, and don't get into strange people's cars. And what do you do when you call an Uber? You

do exactly that. So true. So true. Yeah. Well, the potential is I I agree with you, Jeff. The potential is just limitless. And like you, I'm kind of kinda waiting to see what all comes of this. And we get to interview lots of guests, doing work, or some of them doing work on the literal cutting edge. We've actually had a few guests that were CEOs, of companies, and they said, you can't release this until we send you an email saying that you can't, because they were telling us basically Oh, yeah.

Trade secrets. And so hearing that, that's, of course, that's that's cool and shiny from a podcast perspective. Don't get me wrong. We, you know, certainly love it when that happens. I I love hearing people talk about very pragmatic, very practical, very applied, things because and it you know, I wasn't always an engineer. I started as a farmer. And, you know, grew up on a a small farm, not too far from where I live now. I live in Farmville, Virginia. And, I mean, you mentioned Savannah.

Beautiful, beautiful place there. Yeah. Very pretty there. I I lived in Jacksonville for a few years, and, we would often drive from from Jack's back up to Virginia where the rest of our family was. And we'd come through Savannah. We'd jump off and go through and see just just drive through. We didn't I mean, I think there was the is that where the fountain of youth is attraction in Savannah? That's Saint Augustine. Saint oh,

okay. Saint Augustine. There's there's something like that there. I've I've There's a there's a fancy there's a nearly nice fountain in the middle of town, if memory serves. Maybe that's where we left. Forsyth, yeah. Forsyth Park has a beautiful fountain. Yeah. So we'd stop there. But just

it was just relaxing to get off of this, you know, more efficient, if you wanna call it that, highway and and drive through this town very slow, you know, slow way down, quarter or third of the speed. And just it was just so peaceful just, you know, driving through there and and getting that, I don't know, a renewal of the soul almost because, you know, it's a long drive, from Jacksonville to Virginia.

And I just the the application of the I guess it's instead of humanizing AI, and I'm kinda changing the subject here midway, but instead of humanizing or or, you know, doing the anthropomorphic thing, letting it enhance our work, letting it assist us in being creative, letting letting it help improve our life and work and efficiency and just the amount of work, you know, we're able to crank out on this. That's I think that's more of a thing. Is

is it gonna cost people jobs? I I agree with you, although I hadn't heard it characterized that way before that if you're phoning it in, you're faking it and, you know, mail and then sending out invoices, then maybe, probably. As as it gets better. I mean, there's no doubt it will take I mean, but here's the thing. That's that's life. I mean, my first job was at the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News Newspaper Agency. It was a joint operating

agreement company, the newspaper agency in Salt Lake City, Utah. That was my first job. And and I remember there were, you know and then I and then I went to the Hamilton Journal News. And at the Hamilton Journal News, they weren't advances, the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News. At the Hamilton Journal News, we still had a union shop where somebody who was a union, right, a union employee would paste up the newspaper on big pay stub boards,

like the headlines, the pictures. You know, and I'd stand there with my and I still have it actually on the shelf, my pica and points wheel, you know, to to to crop pictures. And, you know, and I'd stand there with the union member, and I was not allowed to touch that pay stub board because I was not in the union. Right? If I tried to move Wow. If I tried to put my finger on that board and move it, you know, a point or a pika this way or just you know,

I was yelled at. Right? I mean Wow. And then they would take that they take that big pay stub board, and they would take it into the next room, and they would photograph it. Right? And then they would, you know, after they photograph it, they'd add, you know, the the acetate to it, and they take it and and print the newspaper from it. Right? Wow. That was a very real thing. That was my my first career out of college was in journalism. And, those jobs are gone. Yeah. Never to come back. Never.

You know? And that's okay. You know what I mean? Because some jobs come up. I mean, the Exactly. The college football the college football hall of fame job we did. Right? We had over a 100 people working on it, like, a 112 people working on it. Right? And we probably had at at one point, probably about 15 people doing prompting. Right? Oh, wow. It it's work. It's a lot of work. And the creativity, you know, there's a lot of creativity that goes into prompting a

lot. And I have to tell you. And there's a lot of failure. One thing that we've learned that was not even possible was AI is not ready to do face painting and body painting of fans in a college football. It's just not ready. We tried it. Oh, my gosh. We've spent so much time trying to get the prompts right to do body paint and face paint, and it just didn't work. It just didn't work. And then this was probably from a a nerdy perspective. What you guys might appreciate the most.

How do you come up with the right colors for 764 different college football teams when you can't use hex codes, can't use pms colors, you have to accurately describe in English the difference between Clemson's orange, the University of Tennessee's orange, Auburn's orange, Florida's orange, and the University of Texas is orange. And if you put burnt orange for Texas, you get somebody on you get someone charred coming at you get you get, like, on

fire, like flame charred. Oh, man. Look at the little girl about the burnt If you put pumpkin orange for Clemson, you'll get a hallucination where the person's holding a pumpkin wearing a marching band uniform. Right. So how do you describe accurately in English 764 different colors? That in and of itself was a huge challenge that human beings solved. The computers didn't solve that. Right? AI did not solve that. We had to solve that issue. Wow. So there's a lot of work. Do you end up

do using hex codes? I'm curious. Oh, no. No. You can't use hex codes with AI. No. We we we had to come up with a solution using English to describe the colors that would match accurately. Doubt. What

we ended up doing is we created a library of colors. And then and then we would say, okay, this orange works for these 3 teams. This orange works for this one team. This orange works for these 2 teams. This blue works for these 4 teams. This purple works for this. So we literally created a you know, so it's not perfect, but it's it's it's close enough that we you know, nobody's gonna be yelling at us for, like, you got my

orange wrong. Right? But we we literally just we created essentially a color wheel in AI, and then we then matched. And there were a few outliers where it was like, oh, you know, there were some where it was like they had a custom color just for them. But most of the colors, we were able to apply it to, you know, as, you know, a certain number of teams. And so that that's that's essentially how we solve that problem. But then there were there were other problems as well. So

I I have no idea. I I have no idea how to solve that problem, but I would my first thought was, send it an image, like, of a color palette and say, you know, a number, the the colors that you know, there's gotta be some subset of some of the hired you, Andy. Maybe you coulda helped us. I don't know. I I don't know. I don't know if that woulda worked or not, but I had the same issues when I've you know, it it seems like the AIs that I work with and I work with a handful, of LLMs, and I'm

asking it to generate images. And I have the worst, the worst experiences ever with that. Frank, on the other hand, Frank is a naturally gifted graphic artist. He is an artist Thank you. Who went to school, to learn computer programming languages, and he's gotten into AI. And he's the he's the data science person in this team. I credit my parents with that because when they were, like, there were really only a handful of careers, doctor, lawyer, engineer, or, the

military. Yeah. They wanted you to get a real job. That was how it was. Then there were only, like, 3 type 4 types of jobs, doctor, lawyer. And now you're like, look, mom and dad. I'm a podcast host. That's right. Right. Right. Well, when I switched to computer science, when I switched to computer science, that was a big that was a big thing. Because originally, I went to college to be a

chemical engineer. And then I had to convince my parents that this was a legitimate engineering discipline with a monetary upside. And that was, you know, today, you you how could well, okay. Maybe with AI, but, like, maybe programming isn't necessarily have the the the bright future it once did. But, you know, it's hard to imagine, I think, kids today, like, well, how could how could computer science not be considered an engineering discipline? And, you know, the 1990 something, it was not

immediately obvious. Yeah. Yeah. But it's you know, I I have the prompting. I I have just the worst luck, prompting for image type stuff. So I've come up with a couple of hacks to do it, but my number one hack is to email Frank. Email is your own. Message message Frank. I said, Frank, I need something that looks like this. I won't convey this image. And, you know, he's got Frank's Yeah. You know, his his free time is spiky. And so when he

gets the next free time, he thinks of me. He'll he'll build something or send me a song. He's done all my intro videos and all of that stuff, and they're all awesome. But he has that natural gift already, and I don't. I still don't color in the lines. Yeah. You know? It's a so it's not my idea. There's a there's a gift to prompting. There is. There's a talent to it. And, you know, I tell every young person who's in college who asks me for advice, I'm saying, learn learn prompting. Yeah. That's

that's the if you and, again, it's it's a combination of skills. I mean, you know, again, I've I've got Discord popping over here right now on Midjourney as I'm watching, you know, my kids working on our Christmas card. They're coming up with different ideas, and, you know, you know That is so cool. It is cool. I mean, you know, and they'll some ideas, actually. But I mean no. I mean and they'll end up painting, you know, painting over it, you know, and and customizing it to

a certain degree. But that's, you know, that's, you know, that's it's just it's a natural evolution. I I you know, people who are like, oh, again, I get it. We have to guard ourselves. We cannot get lazy, right? We have to make sure that we still Don't be like me in high school. Read the books, Right? Don't don't just go with the the cliff notes. But there again, you know, there's always been ways to cheat. Always. Yeah. Yeah. And Shorten road. Technology makes it easier to cheat, but there's

always been ways to cheat. Always. Sure. I mean, you know, so we just have to make sure that we

don't cheat. We have to have the discipline to actually, you know, read, write, look for that spark of inspiration. And, again, at the end of the day, people ask me all the time, well, oh, what's the secret to your creativity? How come you're so creative? And I think there's a much longer conversation, but I think a lot of it is just about making connections. And it's about having stimulus coming in. It's a simple formula. You guys appreciate formulas. You're computer scientists and math people.

In order to get something out, you have to put something in, right? In order to have an idea come out of your brain, you have to have stimulus come into your brain. So the more stimulus you put in, the better opportunity you have to have great ideas coming out. And if you want a creative company, you know, make sure you surround your employees with a lot of stimulus. And that includes things like food and great design and music

and and encouraging trips. You know what I mean? A lot of our ideas come from simply what we call hashtag research, which is we go places. We see things. We do stuff Because we're in the experience business, and so we want to take part in experiences. We wanna go look at stuff. And so, you know, AI is yet one more point of stimulus that can come in. We just need to be careful that we don't let it, act upon us. We need to be the one that uses it and and commands it to to Yeah. To

work for us rather than have it command us. I love that point. And it's a it's a great I think it's a great summary of of of a lot of the points that we've talked about on the episode. So, Jeff, if people wanna learn more about you personally and your business, where can they find out more about you and the business? Well, thanks, Andy and Frank. It's been great to be on and talking with you. I just love I mean, we could go on for hours and hours talking about this stuff.

Well, it's very inspirational, which is Same. Yeah. It's it's exciting. It really is. I you know, it's it it is. 1 of 1 of the yeah. 1 of the sorry. One last thing. I mean, just just like Okay. You know, like, one of the projects we're working right now is talking to a fire sprinkler. Right? You know, and, you know, but have the sprinkler talk to you about engineering from a fire sprinkler's perspective. But just something like that, you know,

we it's just fun. I mean, do we all have that real time conversation with a Spire sprinkler? Are you kidding me? Or a lithium ion battery to talk about thermal runways. There's so many things you can do with it. Anyway, I digress. If you wanna get a hold of us, honestly, you know, just Google Creative Principles, creativeprinciples.com. LinkedIn's an easy way to find us. You know, Jeff Thatcher with a g. You know, Thatcher like Margaret,

the prime minister. And if you're old enough, you know who she is. But, you know, but that that's the that's the best way to find us. Just find us online. And, yeah. It was great talking. I really appreciate the time. Oh, same. Excellent. Same here. And we'll let the nice British lady finish the show. And that's a wrap for this episode of Data Driven. A massive thank you to Jeff Thatcher for taking us on a journey through the world of immersive experiences and the role AI plays in creating

unforgettable stories. From theme parks to football fields, Jeff reminded us how technology can spark creativity and amplify the human connection when used wisely. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with your network. And as always, stay curious, stay data driven and maybe keep an eye out for where you might show up in your own favourite story someday. Cheers everyone.