[00:00:00] Chris Do: What's up everybody. I just got back from Sharjah doing a talk on intelligent identities and how people are using AI in corporate branding. So we all know this. It is the topic du jour, maybe the topic of the century. We're not quite sure, but everything that we do and know is going to be impacted in one way or the other by AI.

[00:00:19] I'm an AI optimist. I think there are many dark paths it could go down, but I'm sure all of you are wondering, how do I use this? How can I use it to help me be more me and be more efficient? We're not talking about inauthentic or unethical things. That's why I've invited my next guest, Austin, to the show.

[00:00:35] He's developed some tools and he's got a perspective on AI. So if that's what you're interested in, stick around.

[00:00:40] Austin, [00:01:00] for

[00:01:03] Chris Do: people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your backstory?

[00:01:08] Austin Armstrong: Yeah, Chris, firstly, thank you so much for having me on, man. It's an honor to be chatting with you today.

[00:01:13] You're an absolute legend. So I am a serial entrepreneur at this point, I guess. I'm an international speaker. I'm a content creator at heart that creates businesses around My content creation. So I have a justifiable reason to create videos and content every single day. I've been doing social media marketing for this month actually marked 20 years that I've been doing social media marketing and not just having a social media account.

[00:01:43] I mean, growing a following. And actually monetizing that I've been doing this since my space, when I was 14 years old, it's crazy to think that I've been doing this for so long, but I absolutely love what I do. My 1st company was a social media [00:02:00] marketing agency. My newest company is syllabi, which has taken my 20 years of social media experience.

[00:02:07] 11 years of working in marketing agency experience, a 6 years owning my own marketing agency. And I turned it into a software that makes video marketing really simple for anyone. You can create about a month's worth of targeted social media videos in a matter of minutes, create schedule and publish. I love coaching people and talking about content creation in general.

[00:02:32] I am just so passionate about social media marketing and more recently AI and AI tools and opportunities. I I'm truly blessed that I've I've stuck to this path. All right. So I'm doing the math here.

[00:02:46] Chris Do: Are you 34? I will be 34 in 13 days. Okay. So my math is pretty good then. All right. Because you said you started when you're 14 and you've been doing this for 20 years.

[00:02:57] So still relatively young man. So you're very [00:03:00] much a person who kind of grew up with the internet, with social media. So this is all native to for you. And I need to say that because for context, everybody's like, wait, the math doesn't add up here, but it does. Okay. So do you have a background in software development and coding?

[00:03:14] No,

[00:03:15] Austin Armstrong: no, I am just the idea guy. So I had to bring on, uh, fortunately it's, it's all about who, you know, so I have a CTO, who's a really good friend that I've known for eight or nine years at this point, that is a software development wizard has worked at big teams, Apple, Dell, Genentech, Pfizer. And I'm very fortunate to, uh, have been able to bring him on.

[00:03:37] Cause I I'm just the guy that can market, market the tools. Okay.

[00:03:41] Chris Do: So you have the ideas, you're the entrepreneur, and you have the ability to market and create content. So your partner in this dance is someone to develop the tools for you. The coding part, the technical stuff. But people aren't really that interested in how the sausage is made.

[00:03:56] Let's just talk about sausage for a little bit here. We're talking about AI and content [00:04:00] creation. What is faceless content? What does that mean and how does one use that?

[00:04:05] Austin Armstrong: Yeah. So as the name kind of implies, it's content without a face. So one of the biggest problems that I saw just over and over again is that some people just don't like being on camera.

[00:04:19] A lot of business owners and even content creators, they, they want to be active on social media. They know they need to be active on social media if they want to sell, but they just can't get themselves to press record or they. Find different reasons. I've got a zit on my face that day. I have a bad hair day.

[00:04:35] I've got bags under my eyes. I'm a little tired. I'm not motivated and back to my why is that social media has changed my life and I just want to provide the tools that empower people to create. And so that it can change their lives as well. And so what faceless videos are, this can be broken down into different categories of, of faceless as well.

[00:04:57] So you might see B roll oriented [00:05:00] content where it's oceans moving or, or people playing, uh, Tennis or someone typing on a computer and maybe there's a text subtitles over screen and maybe an AI voiceover or maybe it's your voiceover or how it's being done more recently with AI generated imagery and videos.

[00:05:20] And so that's how we do it at syllabi, for instance, and so how it works is you can type in an idea. You can type in anything like 5 secrets of ancient Rome and it will write the entire script for you using AI. Thanks for your time. And then it will take sentences from that actual script and generate a unique image that's specific to the context of that script in different art styles.

[00:05:46] And then it edits everything together. So it adds, uh, multiple images side by side. It adds the transitions in there where it zooms in on the image or it animates the image in some way. It adds [00:06:00] subtitles on screen. It adds background music. It adds the voiceover, which you can choose your own voiceover or have an AI voiceover and AI voice clone of yourself.

[00:06:09] And basically the entire thing is packaged for you. That's ready to publish on social media in a, in a matter of minutes. All you need to do is type in a single idea and the entire video can be generated for you. And the, the. Results of these, you might think like, Oh, AI slop, which I get some of those comments sometimes, but they perform exceptionally well based on user signals.

[00:06:33] I mean, we ha we're just doing a challenge right now. We had one guy, uh, do not over 900, 000 views on one of these faceless videos, entirely organically. Several people have done a hundred thousand to 500, 000 views just this last month. Uh, from these videos. So people actually like this content. It's easy for people to create and, uh, it enables more creativity.

[00:06:55] I am on the positive side of AI as well. I think there are definitely are some things that, that keep [00:07:00] me up at night, but I, I think these tools enhance creativity. And democratizes what goes into content creation in the first place and allows anybody to be able to express themselves online.

[00:07:13] Chris Do: Okay, I've got a lot of follow up questions.

[00:07:15] Number one is you said there are many versions of these faceless, faceless content. I think you mentioned one of them, which is b roll with voiceover. Did you quickly just go through the other? Because I want to make sure I hit them. So everybody kind of knows like the different types. Yes.

[00:07:30] Austin Armstrong: Yeah, so B roll videos stitched together, AI animated imagery, which would be stitched together.

[00:07:37] Those are kind of the two that I had mentioned. Now we're seeing sort of enhancements on that type as well, where the image is actually animated into a short scene. So if a image is generated in Midjourney or Flux or Dolly 3 or any of these AI image generation tools, The AI technology is now there to take that [00:08:00] image and turn it into a, a movie, essentially a three or four second moving clip with.

[00:08:06] Mouth movement, hand movement, background scene movement. And so it takes that image and makes it more of an enhancement. Those are our tip, uh, are, are the, the main several faceless video varieties that I've seen.

[00:08:22] Chris Do: Okay. So I've seen people cut. Fake movie trailers from images, I think they're generated through runway from taking a source image, probably from mid journey, sequencing those together and making them move.

[00:08:35] First of all, I want to just tell our audience something. If you're skeptical about the quality or AI slop or just whatever it is, or it's just bad, that probably was the case maybe three to six months ago. And you can see it like weird things with eyes and hands and all that kind of stuff. But as a person who has spent over 25 years in the motion design visual effects industry, it is alarming how good it is.

[00:08:59] Things [00:09:00] are stable. Things are moving naturally. Things that I know would have taken a really long time building a full skeleton and 3D mesh and texture mapping and lighting and compositing and then adding in extra effects like particles and smoke and dust. That is not something that's easy to do. It requires a whole team of people to do it.

[00:09:19] And it's very expensive to do. So I know what I'm looking for when I look at that kind of stuff. And now I'm seeing stuff come out of Runway, and soon to be many other platforms, that are so good, it is alarming. So if you're in the visual effects space, your job or what you do might be threatened if you don't know how to incorporate these tools.

[00:09:37] Are you talking about something different than Runway or something else? Entirely.

[00:09:41] Austin Armstrong: There, you know, runway is a, is a great example. There's other great tools like, uh, Pika and Luma's, uh, Luma labs, dream machine that can all do all of these effects. I think mid journey is actually rolling it out as well. If they haven't rolled it out, but you can create the image and then add additional context to it, to, to [00:10:00] animate it.

[00:10:00] Chris, I kind of want to spin that question on, on you having worked in that space for so long. What's your honest thoughts and opinions on the VFX industry? Do you like this? Do you hate this? I want to think about

[00:10:11] Chris Do: how I want to answer this question. When you could control the input and what it does to the degree in which you would need to, to make a real film or commercial, I think there's going to be massive job displacement.

[00:10:24] And I love it from a creator point of view. I don't love it from an industry human creator point of view. There's a real problem here. And I'll tell you why. I have an 18 year old son. He's studying entertainment design, concept art. And I'm telling him Mid Journey already does what you do better, faster.

[00:10:41] So what are we learning and what are we preparing people for? Because these jobs may not even exist by the time he graduates. In four years, I just can't imagine it. But I do want to emphasize to him rules of composition, learning about anatomy, framing things, understanding things about perspective, because perhaps when [00:11:00] the machine generates something and you feel like it could be better, then you can art direct it and talk to it.

[00:11:05] I think we're in that age now, we're very close to that, where we can just use plain language and tell it what we want. And it'll make exactly what it is that we want. And when that happens, I really don't understand what the visual effects and even design and concept artists are going to do. This is troubling for me, right?

[00:11:22] So from a creator point of view, I love it. But from a visual effects artist's Illustrator designer. This is a problem.

[00:11:31] Austin Armstrong: No, I think that's a, that's a great answer. I love the, I love that opinion on for creators verse for industry. I think that's a, that's a really good way to look at it.

[00:11:41] Chris Do: Yeah. Unlike in tools in the past and disruptions, when we talk about desktop publishing, there were people who are kind of a collateral damage because when we had desktop publishing, professional typesetters were out of a business.

[00:11:53] And a lot of designers were challenged because the market was going to be flooded with a lot of new designers. I think once the [00:12:00] dust settles, though, the people who understand design, who can use the technology, and that's the critical part, have a competitive advantage. So the old school designers who were used to doing sketches and sending things out to typesetters, they weren't able to do things efficiently and cost effectively enough that they were then soon to be displaced.

[00:12:18] Now that's to put aside like the people who are icons, people who have books written about them, who teach classes at Harvard or Yale, wherever they teach, those are totally different. But for the average designer who could not get on board with the digital revolution, I think they were left behind. And it created a lot of opportunity for new self taught designers to enter into market.

[00:12:38] And most designers would say it has been a net positive thing. And, but I'm sure if you're one of those people who are displaced and weren't able to get back into the field, it was probably very problematic.

[00:12:50] Austin Armstrong: Yeah. And I'm seeing that from different industries too, not just the art and creation industry, but it also reminds me of like coding and software development.

[00:12:58] There's all of these, you [00:13:00] know, legacy software developers with 20, 30 years of experience, 10 years of experience, whatever. And it's like, That are so comfortable writing their own code, but now all of these LLMs are getting more and more powerful with code writers. I mean, just yesterday, chat GPT rolled out a new model within chat GPT Oh, two with canvas specifically for coding.

[00:13:22] And then last week meta just rolled out there. Own AI, uh, code assistant. And we're seeing so many entry level coders and developers that are writing apps and different software that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars. It's one, it's a one person team. It's an entry level software developer, but they're leveraging AI.

[00:13:47] I've seen both longer software developers embrace AI in writing code and, and. Resolution and whatnot, but then there's also some hesitancy that we see as well. So there's even some people on our team [00:14:00] that have resisted leveraging AI to write code. And I think people like that are also going to get a little left behind.

[00:14:07] There's going to be some displacement because it's going to open the door for new people to accomplish more faster with less experience.

[00:14:17] Chris Do: Yeah, I want to point out a couple different things and hopefully help our audience through this transition because as an AI optimist, I would encourage all of you, regardless of what you do, to integrate AI, to do more of what you do, to remove some of the mundane tedium of what it is that you do and be more efficient and help you think and to be more creative than you thought you previously could be.

[00:14:37] And to empower you, so a couple of things I want people to think about, not that long ago, you'd have to go down to a well and pump or pull a bucket of water out or maybe go to the stream and collect it every single day just to survive, and I don't know how electricity works, but I know when I plug something into the wall, it works.

[00:14:54] And so, when we don't have to do the things that humanity has had to deal with for thousands or hundreds of [00:15:00] thousands of years, it probes or posits a new question in our mind which is if you didn't have to do the things that you don't have to do, what is it that you want to do? And it gives us our ability to maybe work towards the top end of Maslow's Pyramid where it's like self actualization.

[00:15:15] Who do we want to be? What is it we want to say? What kind of art form do we want to make? Now I'm going to transition that and just touch upon this idea. AI, in the way that you're talking about right now, helps you, the author, the creator, to remove some of the most painful parts of content creation as it relates to perhaps social media marketing.

[00:15:35] If you don't want to be on camera, You can speak as a voiceover, so you can still write it, and you can speak it, and then you can have something generate the imagery and even do some of the editing for you. Up until the point in which you're doing very little, putting an input, an idea, maybe a mash up of two different things you've noticed, it will write the script, it will do the voiceover, either in your voice or another voice.

[00:15:56] It can generate an image, a video of a representation of you or someone [00:16:00] else. Or use cinematic illustrations or drawings or photography to tell your story. Even compose a song for you. So we have to all determine individually where we want to sit on that spectrum of fully automated versus AI assisted.

[00:16:15] Yeah. I have a concern that I would love for you to address this. Sure. If I just type in an idea and it does all of it for me and say it does a really good job, what is my authorship in this? What is. What am I really doing besides typing something in? And if it's that easy to do that, is that content going to be special, unique, different, and is it just going to be contributing to the noise?

[00:16:36] I'm curious what your take on that is.

[00:16:38] Austin Armstrong: Yeah, it's such a good question that I somewhat struggle with just personally because I am a content creator, but I also wanted it to make it as simple as possible for everybody to be a content creator. So to a large percentage, yeah, it's going to add to the noise.

[00:16:58] Will it get to, uh, a [00:17:00] dead internet theory type of thing, which is a fascinating thing to, to think about, but does authorship come from the intention and the idea? Or the actual creation process. I think this, some of this is kind of almost philosophical in this. I don't have a short answer for that though.

[00:17:20] I just, I think anybody should be able to create however they want to create. And you personally, like you were saying, dictate the level of involvement that you want. I think that's, you know, that flexibility Is the true advantage right now. I mean, there's even some of the like faceless video tools. We're working on this too, like true automation right now.

[00:17:43] There's still, you still have to press buttons, right? There are automation tools where it's set it and forget it. And so you type in a single idea, like a recurring series about Bible facts and the automation software every day or every [00:18:00] week or several times a day. We'll automatically create the entire videos for you with no additional input.

[00:18:06] It will automatically schedule. It will automatically publish it for you. And so you only have to do one step, turn it on. Okay. There's some, some things I need to pull that on this. Okay. A lot of thoughts there. I don't have a clear answer for you, but, um, I think, yeah, I think just giving people the opportunity and the option to, to create how they want to create.

[00:18:29] Chris Do: Yes. I, I agree with you. I'm not, uh, uh, like a creation czar. I don't, nobody appointed me. I don't really think any one way is right for all people. Use whatever you want. Don't break the laws. Try to be ethical and, and do what you feel is right with you and your values and you'll be fine. Now, before I ask the question here, I just, I'm unfamiliar with the term dead intranet.

[00:18:52] What does that mean? Can you briefly tell me what that is?

[00:18:55] Austin Armstrong: Yeah. Yeah. So the, the dead internet theory is, is basically that there's [00:19:00] no, or there's very few, uh, actual people liking and engaging with content online and that it's all bots. So it's all Twitter bots or Facebook bots that are the vast majority of active users on these platforms.

[00:19:15] And so you extrapolate that out with AI content creation. And does it get to a point where it's. AI and bots creating content and then AI and bots that are engaging with that content. And there's no real human interaction, uh, of me logging onto Facebook and manually, uh, looking at my friend's stuff. It's just bots talking to bots and bots creating for bots.

[00:19:39] And so that's kind of the, the dead internet theory.

[00:19:42] Chris Do: Okay. So as a creative person myself, as a person who's mostly made images and moving type and compositions and more. Recently, within the last 10 years, starting to write and to speak, I articulate to know what it is that [00:20:00] I'm thinking and what I know.

[00:20:02] But when I click buttons, I don't know anything and I'm not doing anything. And so my personal development is zero. I might be growing a large social media following. But I'm not sure what the end game of that is. Okay. So you have a large account. We can probably do brand deals. You can get sponsorships.

[00:20:18] You probably should be paid for your views and content from the platforms themselves. So it's a way for us to make money. So I see people in, in developing countries using this to do that because the amount of money they can generate is actually a lot more than they can any other way. And I don't want to fault anybody for doing that.

[00:20:35] But what happens if we take this to the end, which is I wanted to establish Pieces of thought leadership and I grow a faceless account and then somebody reaches out and say, Hey, Chris, can you speak at our conference? I accept that offer and then I go on stage and I'm like, What am I going to talk about?

[00:20:51] Because I didn't write any of it. I don't know any of it. Yeah. I haven't read or researched or did any critical thinking or debating about it. So what does that [00:21:00] make me? What is your take on that?

[00:21:03] Austin Armstrong: Yeah, I think there's, there's a clear difference between thought leadership and people that just want to make, Passive income online through ad revenue or maybe the occasional brand deal or something like that.

[00:21:14] Plus a lot of people just hate being a public speaker. I, I love public speaking. Uh, it's been a big goal of mine for, for many years that I've accomplished over the last couple of years. I don't think those types of people would even step up to take on some of those, uh, initiatives. I think there's always going to be the opportunities for the, the true thought leaders, The creators, the people with a voice, the experts in every industry, and there's always going to be interest of real people to learn and observe from those people as well.

[00:21:48] It might even be more clear at the end of this rabbit hole where. People seek interaction and maybe it takes us into an offline world with more events [00:22:00] and more masterminds and more in person get togethers and things along the lines of that. I don't know. It's it's crazy to think where it where it could go, but I think there's always going to be room for real thought leadership until we get to a point where.

[00:22:14] Elon's, uh, androids are, uh, are delivering talks based on AI. And then, then that's a whole other conversation about if the information is good, does the source that you get it from really matter? I don't know.

[00:22:30] Chris Do: Okay. That's a good question to think about. So if we play that part out and we say, okay. Let's say there are a million users who use Syllabi who crank out faceless content.

[00:22:40] I'm wondering if humans start to recognize the pattern because AI does have a pattern of thinking. Uh, I think Google Notebook that does this fake podcast interview, which is exceptional by the way. I've only listened to two of them and I recognize the pattern immediately what it's doing. It's almost predictable.

[00:22:57] And I think there's something beautiful about [00:23:00] something that is human made that has human intention. And also, I think. Mistakes or faults that are built into it that I think we'll be able to spot pretty quickly. So the dead internet theory is like if all the bots are creating the content, and if all the people who follow them and engage with it are bots, where do humans go?

[00:23:20] And I think that's going to then create a whole different paradigm where I would rather just hear you talk as a real person, in person, and I don't want to see some version of you online because I don't think it's really you. From a personal content consumption point of view, I News related things I can tolerate.

[00:23:37] So I'm really interested in buying a new Tesla right now. So there's always these accounts that are creating Tesla news and they use very hyperbolic hooky kind of the new car that Tesla just announced. I'm like, really? Okay. I click on it and it's not that at all, first of all, and it shows renderings of What it might be like.

[00:23:57] And I can tell very quickly, like, oh, this is a [00:24:00] robot. I wish I had a button on YouTube to say, never show me another piece of content from this person again. But it does pop up more often. And I do feel that, like, I don't mind you doing it, but This is giving me no real value, and it's clogging up our servers, it's using electricity, it's using up my internet bandwidth.

[00:24:19] There's a lot of those problems, so sometimes it's entertaining, but oftentimes I have a real problem with that. And as a person who's created that kind of tool, how do you respond to that?

[00:24:29] Austin Armstrong: I think the platform should be better at auto labeling. AI, and I think you as a user, so they've given us some of these options to tick on AI generated or AI manipulated.

[00:24:47] I think TikTok already partnered with a third party service to detect avatars and deepfakes and label them automatically, whether you select them or not. [00:25:00] I think that's what it ultimately needs to come to, is a point where AI generated content is labeled. And so that up front lets the user decide their level of attention that they're paying to it if they want to see, or are okay seeing AI content, or if they only want human content, and then what is that, what is that middle ground to, which still needs to be resolved of.

[00:25:28] If it's mostly me, but there's an AI image that I put on the screen, or there's some sort of AI element in my real video, at what level do I need to disclose that? What is morally acceptable to everyone? There's a lot of work that still needs to be done. It's, it's the wild west. I think it does need to be regulated.

[00:25:50] I am trying to provide the tools to allow people to create however they, they want. Another big differentiator for us that I'll mention as well as I see [00:26:00] syllabi as a workflow tool, not just, uh, an AI video generation tool. So we built a custom video editor, for instance, and so you can fully upload your own footage and edit it however you want.

[00:26:14] If you just want to find ideas, write scripts, you actually create the content and then schedule and publish that out. You have that ability. There are many other tools that are entirely AI run and generated. Yeah, I think people should have the right to choose how they create and what they consume.

[00:26:36] Chris Do: I saw a demo of Syllabi at work and I, I do like the thinking behind it.

[00:26:42] You have a prompt, what is it you want to talk about, you can use lots of words, a few words, and then it writes an outline. Just the outline helps me to think it through, like how, and outlines are good because they're formulaic and they're structured, and I don't have a problem with that. Then the next step in the flow is like, it writes the script for you, I'm like, okay, let's read the [00:27:00] script and see what happens, and maybe there's an opportunity for me to, Inject some of my own observations, my own life stories to humanize it, and then it can take care of the rest.

[00:27:09] So we can see that how it can work. My concern and and I, I know you've made your point very clear. Everybody should be able to create however they want to create. I'm, I'm with that. Is that human beings when presented with a shortcut will almost always take the shortcut because Doing the hard thing is the hard thing.

[00:27:27] So, people don't like to do that. I'm weird in this way. I enjoy hard things. Because I know it makes me stronger, it makes me better. So, let's kind of take this through the way that I think can help out a lot of people. So, if we say, let's just pretend, I'm going to make a big assumption, that you're a real human.

[00:27:46] I'm not speaking to an AI generated deep fake of yourself. Let's just assume. And what you're saying is not being fed through some kind of earpiece where an AI is generating those responses for you. This conversation is real, but you [00:28:00] know what's a pain in the butt is once this recording is done, I have to then download it and then I have to upload it to a server and my podcast team then has to edit it.

[00:28:10] And then they have to generate a good title for it and then they have to write a blog post about it and then they have to write a social media post about it to be able to share that. I believe as much of that can be automated as possible would be a good thing. I enjoy this. I appreciate and I'm gesturing for people who can't see my hands, this kind of Italian thing like between me and you right now, this dialogue.

[00:28:32] But all the other stuff is kind of a pain. Right. But necessary, like I want it to upload to the site. I want it to generate a nice thumbnail and think of a really good title that summarizes the big idea. Not in a click baity way, but a way for you to feel compelled, like I want to learn more about this, therefore I should click on this.

[00:28:50] Those things are a pain, but I want to automate as much of that as possible. And I think that's my use case and I'm excited about that. Yeah. Now everybody else can do everything they [00:29:00] want, but that's where I'm That's my take on that. And do you have a response to that or your own opinion on this?

[00:29:07] Austin Armstrong: No, I mean, I completely agree.

[00:29:08] And I have somewhat paid attention to what Riverside is doing, for instance, to alleviate a lot of that. I mean, we're, we're live on, on Riverside right now. And I know Riverside will automatically cut these into shorts for you. I think it will, I think it has some, It definitely has vocal enhancers, AI voice enhancer stuff in there.

[00:29:29] I'm not sure if it can write blogs for you. I think it definitely gives you a transcript, but I think you might be able to turn it into, into AI generated blog based on the transcript. And I think it also might give you a episode titles. So like, I love software like this that are leveraging AI features to do exactly what you're talking about, just making things.

[00:29:50] Way easier. So yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a great workflow again. Like I think everybody needs to choose their level of involvement with AI. I think it's impossible to ignore [00:30:00] these tools. And I think it's borderline foolish to take a stance in the ground to just not use any of them at all. But use them to, at your discretion, use them where you feel comfortable.

[00:30:11] Start, you know, easing into these things. And to your earlier point as well, what are those tedious things that you hate to do, or that takes you a ridiculous amount of time or is very expensive to do for any variety of reason?

[00:30:26] Chris Do: Okay. So I'm going to make now a case for the opposite or just why you should go all in on this now.

[00:30:31] So people can have a more informed opinion. Not that long ago, maybe the early 2000s, most of media were controlled by a few companies. And to be able to be heard, you have to have a lot of things working for you. You probably have to have connections, an agent, and someone who is actively working and pitching you to networks who get to decide who they feature.

[00:30:58] And then to be able to be on those [00:31:00] shows, there's a whole crew, lighting, camera people, script supervisors, producers, there's a big production so that you can share 20 seconds to 2 minutes worth of ideas. And that was it, that was your shot. And now we've come to this age where with social platforms, you can directly communicate to an audience.

[00:31:19] Anybody, anywhere in the world who has a compelling idea, who can deliver in ways that the social platforms understand can have an audience and you don't need all that. I don't think anybody's complaining about that except for the networks, except for the newspapers and magazines. But the rest of us benefit from doing that.

[00:31:36] And so we might be in this next paradigm shift where these tools allow us to even make the process more in line with who we are. Okay, so I want to carefully and have a more nuanced conversation about the dangers, the pros and cons of both. Now, taking the position that you have, you must, I imagine, get a lot of heat.

[00:31:58] The trolls must be coming after [00:32:00] you because they're like, oh, because I've been to conferences where there's some really heated debate and people drawing, like you said, a line in the sand, Sam, anti AI. And there's this whole movement, and they're posting on socials, I'm anti AI, over and over again, mostly from creative people, mostly from artists, the people who are in our community.

[00:32:19] What are some of the comments that you get? Some of the most vitriolic comments, and how do you respond to them?

[00:32:24] Austin Armstrong: Yeah, so this is going to somewhat get into my social media philosophy. So outside of AI, so I have, I have several million followers on, on social media. And I, I realized years ago that all these platforms care about.

[00:32:40] Is engagement they don't care if it's positive engagement or it's negative engagement that's why we see so many negative headlines that elicit emotional responses and it's just obviously troll jobs but what does it do it causes virality and so with that said I love the trolls not [00:33:00] everybody can deal with trolls I am a child of the Internet as we discussed I am fully supportive of trolls.

[00:33:08] I think trolls can, uh, can leverage, uh, growth. So I often troll the trolls. I will make purposeful errors. I will put stances in the ground that are black and white statements and have nuanced things on, on either side. So I love getting, I love seeing trolls in any capacity online. Now, some of the comments that I get are, you know, AI trash, AI slop peddler, that is probably the one that sticks out like, come on, man.

[00:33:38] Oh, that's a good

[00:33:38] one.

[00:33:39] Austin Armstrong: Okay. You know, people, yeah, dead internet theories, comments I get all the time, people saying this is hurtful and harmful to creatives. And I get it. I understand. I understand. You know, before I started syllabi, for instance, I have been in the marketing agency space for [00:34:00] 11 years. I worked at marketing agency.

[00:34:02] I started my own marketing agency. I became very interested in, in AI several years ago, and I saw a lot of these process. I saw the writing on the wall is that a lot of what an agency does at a high level, not at a, you know, very specific one on one expertise level, but at a high, a high level, a lot of what an agency does can be achieved by software and AI.

[00:34:28] And I saw that these tools were going to steal market share away from agencies. Why would somebody pay thousands of dollars or maybe they can't even afford to pay thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars, whatever, to a marketing agency when they could pay 20, 50, a hundred dollars a month? To do the bare minimum and help them going, get a little bit of motivation.

[00:34:55] And so I made a clear decision of where do I want to be? What [00:35:00] stance do I want to take? Do I want to be the one that slowly watches my agency? Die because of technology and innovation, or can I, with this foresight and idea, you know, maybe that's a little delusional, but can I be one to lead the charge?

[00:35:18] And can I be an early adopter of this and see, see what's possible? And that was the, the, the choice that I made is to lean into AI to do a lot of the tasks. That an agency can do at a high level, but yeah, anyway, there's always going to be trolls. That's the nature of the internet and anything that you do positive or negative, I could be an anti AI person and, uh, and I would get trolls on the opposite side.

[00:35:44] So I, you know, no matter what you do, you put yourself out there anywhere, you put yourself out there in, in person, even not online, you're going to get trolls. That's, that's the nature of expressing yourself. And that's the beauty of humanity is that we have different opinions on different things. Thanks.

[00:35:58] Yeah. Now

[00:35:59] Austin Armstrong: sometimes trolls [00:36:00] are just trolls and sometimes trolls are actually just bots as well. So you have to, you know, focus on that too. There are troll

[00:36:05] Chris Do: bots out there, of course. Wow, okay. Maybe I'm talking to some of them . So let, let me, lemme clarify a couple things, but I'd, I'd really love to hear.

[00:36:16] More specifically, how you're responding to some of this stuff, right? So, you're saying engagement is engagement, good or bad. And we, we embrace the trolls. You and I are unique in this that I appreciate our trolls and the people are really angry because I always think someone like putting aside the bot part, someone who's really angry with you is a person who used to love what you do.

[00:36:38] And you've done something that they feel is against what they want and believe. And so, I always feel like there's an opportunity for us to mend the relationship, to mend the fence, if you will. And if not, I have fun, and I make little snarky comments myself back, because I should be better than this, but I'm not, and I enjoy doing the dance with them.

[00:36:58] So when someone's like, you're an AI [00:37:00] slop peddler, do you respond to them? How do you embrace them? Or, or do you do

[00:37:05] Austin Armstrong: anything with that? No, I do the exact same thing that you just mentioned. So I open, I love opening up the dialogue. Uh, I've turned many people around. Uh, you know, that's, that's the other thing, like engage with your trolls because you don't know where they're coming from, you know, they might just be shouting out and lashing out at you because.

[00:37:23] They're having spousal problems or problems that you don't know where they're coming from. Right. So like have a little bit of grace and open that dialogue up. Can't tell you how many times I'm sure this has happened to you. People are like, I'm sorry, I was just in a bad mood. I don't really mean that I've won people over on ads.

[00:37:40] So we run ads for syllabi. And so like, you know, we've had comments like people talking shit and then I'll go in the comments. Like, Hey, I'm the CEO. Can you explain a little bit more? What about this? And we'll have a, we'll have a conversation that's public and I'll end up like giving him like 30 day.

[00:37:55] Like this just happened. I gave somebody a free access to syllabi that was a hater on [00:38:00] one of our ads on Facebook and won him over. And he messages us all the time and he uses it. But I love, you know, if somebody says, you're just an AI slot peddler, well, I'll respond. What makes you think that? Can you elaborate a little bit more?

[00:38:13] And then they'll go into some more opinions of, you know, AI is, is hurting creatives. And I'll say, well, you know, here's a different perspective. I think it enables creativity in a lot of different ways. And it's just having that public, uh, discourse. And so that's how I always just, Unless it's hateful for the sake of being, if it's like absurd, you know, I'll just block people sometimes, but like the vast majority of the time I will open up the dialogue and I will get snarky with them too.

[00:38:41] I'm not, I like, I will, I will troll them right back.

[00:38:46] Chris Do: It's the reverse troll. Okay. You've talked about this in, in some formats before, and we kind of talk about it prior to recording about you've been able to grow on tick tock multiple times, get your account [00:39:00] blocked and then permanently banned. Tell us a little bit about what's happening there.

[00:39:04] Austin Armstrong: Yeah, I, I love and hate Tik TOK all at the same time. Tik TOK has changed my life. It's opened up so many opportunities for me as a content creator. Uh, you know, I adopted it very early on. I started creating content on Tik TOK like five years ago, very, very early. All things Tik TOK considered big Gary Vee fan.

[00:39:24] And so he was shoving it down our throat. So I, you know, I adopted it that way. It seems that some of these platforms Tik TOK in particular doesn't, or has. Automatic flagging of content that takes you off platform. They label it as like scam and fraud is the blanket statement that they say on there. So that's the vast majority of my content.

[00:39:45] Here's an AI website that will help you. Here's five websites that feel illegal to know is like a opening hook that I use all the time. If you stack these three websites together, it's going to destroy the internet, you know, silly stuff like that. And it shows it like the, the point of [00:40:00] these platforms is to keep you On longer, so they can serve you more ads.

[00:40:04] That's their entire business model, right? And so when there's content that takes you off platforms, they sometimes don't like it. And so I've had videos flagged for years on Tik TOK in particular. Now it's all, it really is just Tik TOK that has the biggest problem, which is interesting. Like the content every now and then we'll get late, like an issue on YouTube, but very infrequently.

[00:40:31] Almost never on Instagram, sometimes on Facebook, but it always almost always course corrects. TikTok is just very strict on this for whatever reason. The first time I got banned on TikTok, I was pretty much all in on TikTok and it forced me. To diversify and figure out the other platforms. So I'm actually very thankful that I was banned on tech talk.

[00:40:52] The first time I wouldn't have had the push to figure out the nuances to grow on all of the other platforms. [00:41:00] Like I did, I got the account restored. You know, it happens again, like every, you know, it seems like once a year. Uh, it kept, uh, they kept banning the accounts and then I'd get it restored and then banned again.

[00:41:12] And then, you know, you lose followers along the way and then you build up a little bit more traction. It ultimately got permanently banned. I think about a year ago, I think it was October or November of last year. I was, uh, almost 900, 000 followers, I think like 860, 000 or something, something along the lines of that.

[00:41:32] It also turns out they had shifted something in their data processing, where if a, if an account is banned, it remains like kind of in limbo for a certain amount of time and they can like a software developer engineer can restore it, but they started purging cash after 30 days. As a more recent thing.

[00:41:54] And so once they purge that cash, it's gone forever. And so I tried to get [00:42:00] some developers involved and contact local, uh, like the DOJ to contact them and stuff like that. And, uh, this last time ultimately was, was too late. Uh, the cash was already purged. I had talked to some TikTok ad representatives that were investigating my account in particular, and that was the explanation that they ultimately gave.

[00:42:19] So it just happens. But I mean, you know, now I'm back up to almost 200, 000 followers again in the last year. I mean, you know, once you, once you really figure this stuff out, you know, how to create content that works, you know, a little bit of human psychology, you know, what people are, what they want, what they engage with, who your audience is, what their, their interests are.

[00:42:40] I've sort of become desensitized to account bans, which sucks because you spend so much time and effort. And I grew multiple businesses off that tick tock. I'm so I'm still bittersweet about it, but you know, all of these platforms are rented land. You know, we are not really entitled to have a following, uh, just because we create [00:43:00] content, we're not entitled to it.

[00:43:01] So I try to keep that in mind as well, but it's bittersweet.

[00:43:06] Chris Do: Okay. Have you been using your own tools or are you not just the founder, but a client? Do you use faceless content to grow your, your following?

[00:43:15] Austin Armstrong: Oh yeah. I'm, Oh, I'm addicted to it. I think, uh, in most cases, founders should use their own tools. They should be advocates.

[00:43:24] Uh, so yeah, I have a faceless channel. I'm growing right now. It's about 6, subscribers, almost a million views. I create faceless videos every day. I, I find it really fun to be honest. And, uh, we as a team run, uh, I think 20, 20 to 30 different faceless channels, uh, all created with Syllabi. And, uh, the last three months in a row, we've been doing, uh, Faceless video challenges, 30 day challenges.

[00:43:53] So we have a pretty sizable Facebook group, uh, Syllabi content creators. And we have hundreds of [00:44:00] participants in that every month that we've been doing these challenges. And I participate in these challenges. I create content and I share it. And I'm just as passionate about it. I think I'm, I'm not our top user, but I'm, I'm like a top five of Syllabi users.

[00:44:15] Chris Do: So what kind of results have people, real people have gotten from using Syllabi to do faceless content?

[00:44:21] Austin Armstrong: Yep. The most viewed one is about 930, 000 views organically so far. Last month, we awarded people based on the amount of views that they got. So I think, I think like 15 people had videos They got over a hundred thousand views.

[00:44:43] The top three were the, was the 900, And I think 300, 000 all different platforms, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, different niches, different languages. We have one lady that creates Spanish content [00:45:00] on Tik TOK. She has 13, 000 followers. Now all syllabi videos. We have businesses using it as well. A lot of, uh, real estate agents and mortgage brokers are, are creating content around, uh, different loan types and moving to different areas that some medical professionals.

[00:45:19] So that's been fascinating to see it's not all just like ancient history videos or, uh, or, uh, anime videos or, you know, stuff like that. It's, uh, businesses are using it and that's, those are, those are really cool to see those results as well. And just. Every day I see, uh, we have our Facebook group so active.

[00:45:37] It's a, it's, it's been amazing. We've really focused on building our community. And every day we see these unsolicited, unasked for comments in there of, guys, I just posted a video and it got 10, 000 views. I'm up to 500 subscribers on YouTube. Everybody's helping each other out. We've really built a, an amazing culture for our users.

[00:45:57] And, and that's on purpose too. Like we were [00:46:00] very built in public. Uh, we have a feature on our website where you can submit ideas. And, uh, I'm going off on a tangent, but there's been so many amazing results. People have been monetizing their channels, uh, from these faceless videos. So that's a common myth as well, that these platforms will not monetize AI content.

[00:46:19] That is not true at all. You absolutely can. I spoke to YouTube directly about it and ask them and they said, yes, but yeah, that's just, what's that's it's so rewarding to me to see people succeed. We've had amazing success results. I've personally just on my own channels, seen amazing results, tens of thousands of views.

[00:46:38] It's, it's just been fun, man. It's a fun

[00:46:40] Chris Do: experiment. The video that got 930, 000 views. What was it about? Yeah. Pittsburgh. Okay.

[00:46:51] Austin Armstrong: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is what the video is about. It was a Facebook reel. You'd like one of those topics. You'd never think about it. The guy has [00:47:00] a, it's like an all things Pittsburgh Facebook page.

[00:47:03] And that one video, I forget the specific topic, but it's like five, it's like five things to do in Pittsburgh or something like that. Okay. Yeah. 900, 930, 000 on Facebook. There you

[00:47:15] Chris Do: go. Everybody niche content can work. Wow. Okay. That surprised me. Okay. Me too. Me too. What are we in our call this episode? So that has the maximum opportunity for someone to tune in.

[00:47:28] Okay. Well, let me ask chat GPT that question real

[00:47:31] Austin Armstrong: quick. I'm just kidding.

[00:47:34] Chris Do: I've been listening the whole time.

[00:47:35] Austin Armstrong: Yeah. I think, you know, leveraging AI to embrace creativity, something along the lines of that. I mean, there's so much of my social media philosophy that I put into syllabi from how we generate scripts.

[00:47:51] To opening hooks to different elements that the whole process is another differentiator, you know, like finding a topic [00:48:00] that people are searching for online writing a script around it with the best practice at my best practices for for script writing specifically for for short form and for for social media.

[00:48:11] And then the whole back end process as well is just what I've been doing for over a decade at this point. I mean, I've published, I've personally created over, I think around four, four or 5, 000 videos. I've personally published just for myself, nevermind, uh, for content or for, uh, clients that we've, that we've worked with as, as well.

[00:48:33] Hmm.

[00:48:34] Chris Do: Okay. I have a title idea. I'm running by you and see what you think. Sure. Is AI generated faceless content the future?

[00:48:42] Austin Armstrong: Hmm. That's good. I also love to lean into like negative emotions too. Like, is it the future? Okay.

[00:48:49] Chris Do: Try

[00:48:49] Austin Armstrong: it. I'd love to hear you. Is AI generated content slop?

[00:48:54] Chris Do: Okay.

[00:48:54] Austin Armstrong: You know, lean into the, the negative emotion rather than the, the [00:49:00] positive emotion of opportunity.

[00:49:02] The fear based tends to get more like, we look at that from news headlines, right? News headlines are always negative. They're always negative. And that's, that's just kind of the reality of what people engage with most. And when you point that stuff out, the other thing, like, uh, people don't want, so I do a lot of psychological tests on social media, but as soon as I, I break the fourth wall and say that.

[00:49:28] I'm doing a psychological test and here's why you're being manipulated. People don't like that. People, people don't, people don't like the veil being torn down. Ignorance is bliss to a degree, but the harsh reality, the blunt truth is that negative headlines. Get more engagement.

[00:49:52] Chris Do: Yeah. Okay. Noted. Before we get out of here, I want to ask you something because you talked about this one of your life aspirations to become a [00:50:00] public speaker.

[00:50:00] Now you're an international public speaker. What are the topics that you speak about?

[00:50:05] Austin Armstrong: Social media content, strategy, leveraging AI to be more productive and, uh, in, uh, and, and. Yeah, more productivity and content creation and marketing. I also have just a large amount of experience in behavioral health marketing, working with addiction treatment centers and psychologists and therapists.

[00:50:26] So, I just spoke in Italy, uh, last month about effective marketing, social media marketing strategies for therapists, is what I specifically talked about. I love that population, I love working in that industry, uh, and so I do a fair amount of, of speaking, uh, marketing strategy for, uh, for behavioral health workers.

[00:50:48] Chris Do: Well, I wish we had time to talk about that. That sounds totally, is that also using AI to produce the content or is it just, is it more strategic?

[00:50:57] Austin Armstrong: So, yes, I typically start with [00:51:00] my philosophies that I ultimately turned into, to syllabi, but patient education is, is the underlying strategy for that. I, I'm a firm believer of giving your best information away for free, uh, to build trust, uh, online and, and open that dialogue.

[00:51:16] And so by creating content around what your clients are searching for or the problems that they're actually struggling with. Proves that you are an expert and a voice that they resonate with and it just helps them make the right decision to contact you because you've already communicated that you understand the underlying problem that they're dealing with.

[00:51:42] Like if you're talking about like early childhood trauma leading to to drug abuse, you know, really understanding that core problem and creating a relatable video on that cuts through the noise, you know, shows you as a human, uh, and your, your expertise. So like, I don't think AI will really [00:52:00] ever, Will be a full replacement for that.

[00:52:02] It can certainly enhance a lot of that and it does enhance a lot of that, but that's a lot of what I really get into. And I I'm, I'm passionate about that. I mean, I've worked with therapists for over a decade and addiction treatments, uh, uh, professionals and addiction treatment centers. Yeah. I love working that.

[00:52:20] I mean, those, those professions, they have life changing information in their head. You don't, when you create a video around, like, here's just three quick tips. If you, if you're just feeling Anxious today at your anxiety, Riven, you're having a panic attack. Here's three things that are, that are going to help you right now as you're scrolling through, right?

[00:52:39] Like videos like that can literally save lives, whether they contact you for help or not. We've seen so many of those comments. We've seen calls come in about that. So that's another reason why I love working in this industry is like. People think social media is silly, but it's how we consume. And just by putting a video [00:53:00] out there, even if it reaches 50 people, it gets 50 views, you might've just saved somebody's life.

[00:53:06] Chris Do: I don't even do deep therapy work. And sometimes the things that we talk about really save someone's business and then therefore has a deeper impact. Yeah. On all their personal relationships, right? Yeah. The conversation no one wants to have is sitting on around the kitchen table and saying and making a really hard decision between doing something like taking a vacation or paying a bill or having, I don't want to be overly dramatic about it, but like, Like a procedure for somebody they care about and having to delay that because they don't have the means to do it.

[00:53:36] So I totally understand the, the, the massive potential for educational content, even inspirational or just for someone to feel seen and heard. If someone's really interested in trying out faceless content and getting into syllabi, where did they go? How do they get more?

[00:53:53] Austin Armstrong: Yeah, absolutely. Um, syllabi dot IO.

[00:53:56] That's a syllabi with a Y. So S Y [00:54:00] L L A B Y dot IO. We have an amazing customer service team. We do demo calls with everybody all day. If you use the code challenge, it'll save you 25 percent as well. Uh, so off any monthly plan or any annual plan as well. That's the cheapest way. We've tried to make it really simple.

[00:54:19] As soon as you get in, sign up for the app, all you need to do is click create faceless video, and then it'll take you through the whole journey. We have tutorials in there. We do, uh, weekly webinars online as well. You can jump into the Syllabi ecosystem. I am very, uh, available. And I try to make myself, I, I am in the weeds with everybody.

[00:54:39] Private messaging. Handling customer interviews, customer support. I am so passionate about social media growth. I just want you to succeed online, whether you are an active syllabi user, or you just want to learn everything about content creation and getting your message out there. That's one thing that I really stand for.

[00:54:59] So [00:55:00] just jump in and let us know how we can help you. I'm here. I'm available.

[00:55:04] Chris Do: Wonderful. What a great way to end the show. Awesome. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for sharing with us your perspective on content creation. I wish you the very best. Thank you, Chris, for having me. It's a huge

[00:55:14] Austin Armstrong: opportunity.

[00:55:21] Futur: Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris Doe and produced and and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts.

[00:55:46] It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture. com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of [00:56:00] helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.

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