will.i.am | Club Random with Bill Maher

Summary

Club Random with Bill Maher

Guest: will.i.am (William Adams)

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Club Random features Bill Maher in conversation with will.i.am—musician, technologist, professor, and founder of the I Am Angel Foundation. In their signature freewheeling style, Maher and will.i.am touch on a spectrum of topics from the societal implications of AI, creative processes, tech ethics, the evolution of hip-hop, education inequalities, and growing up in East LA to life as a touring musician. The discussion is laced with humor, curiosity, introspection, and memorable detours into topics such as dreams, personal habits, and the meaning of freedom.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Agentic Self, AI, and AGI

[04:13 – 08:25]

• Agentic self & AI evolution:
  • Will.i.am describes his syllabus, “The Agentic Self,” focused on agency in a world of AI.
  • Explains the progression from traditional internet to AI, "agentic systems," leading towards AGI (artificial general intelligence) and eventually superintelligence.

    “AGI is artificial general intelligence…with agent agents. Agents can, like, do things…use the computer the way a human uses a computer.” — will.i.am [05:12]

• On the fear of AI:
  • Maher references “apocalypse optimism.” Some see AI as doom, others as a savior.
  • will.i.am critiques AI hype:

    “What it’s not doing is imagining…It’s regurgitating everything that we’ve ever done.” — will.i.am [06:54]

  • Addresses AI “hallucinations,” arguing hallucination is essential for creativity, though a problem for facts.

2. Programming Ethics and Human Bias

[08:25 – 10:33]

• Maher shares an anecdote on AI’s refusal to say a slur to save lives, sparking a debate about how AI’s "morality" is ultimately programmed by humans.
• will.i.am notes the challenge of encoding values into machines and that AGI will have more autonomy, further complicating ethical control.

3. AI in Music and Creativity

[10:33 – 12:17]

• Maher raises the question: Does AI-generated music threaten artists?
• will.i.am isn’t threatened, seeing creativity as abundant:

  “Prince made awesome stuff. Michael Jackson made awesome stuff. Did that stop me from making music?...Does that stop me from making music? No, it doesn’t.” — will.i.am [11:43]

4. The "Let's Get Retarded" Controversy

[12:17 – 15:23]

• They discuss the past Black Eyed Peas song, its lyrical intent, and why it was changed.
• will.i.am explains the musical meaning of “retard” and contextualizes the lyric:

  “In this context, there’s no disrespect. So when I bust my rhyme, you break your neck. We have five minutes for us to disconnect from all intellect and let the rhythm perfect.” — will.i.am [13:33]

• Song was voluntarily removed from streaming platforms due to evolving social context.

5. Touring Life & Global Perspectives

[16:46 – 19:20]

• will.i.am reflects on extensive travel:

  “We do...free summer vacations, or paid summer vacations...last year we went to China, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines...” — will.i.am [16:57]

• Praises China’s rapid modernization and discipline, contrasts their structure with American individualism.

6. Freedom: East vs. West

[19:46 – 24:00]

• Maher and will.i.am debate differences in concepts of freedom between China and the US.
• will.i.am offers nuanced perspective on kinds of freedom:

  “Not every freedom is the same freedom. Sometimes you want to be free from tyranny...People in America’s freedom is a different freedom. And to say they’re the same, that’s not fair to the folks that are truly suffering.” — will.i.am [22:08]

• They compare surveillance in China (government) and US (corporate), lamenting Americans’ apathy toward privacy loss.

7. Reflection on Changing Technology and Human Behavior

[25:10 – 27:50]

• Maher notes society’s shifting relationship with privacy—how today’s generation prefers exposure and attention.
• will.i.am laments decline of mutual aid—how people now film accidents before helping.

  “If I were to fall down the stairs...now in the 20s, they want to film you.” — will.i.am [26:17]

• Concerns that tech amplifies greed, attention-seeking, and inhumanity, warning:

  “If we don’t get our shit together as far as being more human to one another, we’re going to have a fucked up time in the next decade.” — will.i.am [26:50]

8. Aliens, Dreams, and Human Consciousness

[28:49 – 38:19]

• On aliens, Maher believes in them; will.i.am hypothesizes advanced extraterrestrials wouldn’t need spaceships but could manipulate particles, referencing quantum experiments.
• Discussion transitions to dreams: will.i.am experiences highly vivid, “realistic” dreams, sometimes having “to-do” lists and continuity akin to waking life.

  “My dreams are like memories...I have like, memories and things to do in my dreams.” — will.i.am [37:49]

• Maher contrasts with his own surreal, sometimes “crazy” dreams.

9. Upbringing, Education Inequality, and Systemic Issues

[55:58 – 59:14]

• will.i.am recounts being bused from East LA/Boyle Heights to elite schools, emphasizing disparities in resources and opportunity between neighborhoods.

  “Brentwood Elementary School...compared to...Boyle Heights...the teachers, the equipment, the curriculum...I’m so blessed to have gone to Brentwood Science Magnet.” — will.i.am [56:43]

• Identifies “the cocktail”—liquor stores, check cashing, strip clubs, motels near schools—as a setup for social struggles among the poor.

10. Zoning, Redlining, and Systemic Disadvantage

[59:14 – 65:12]

• Blame for community structure and opportunity is placed on both political parties’ policies (zoning, redlining).

  "It's not a conspiracy. I think it's a known practice for our neighborhoods to be configured the way they are..." — will.i.am [65:12]

• Maher asks how will.i.am would change things. will.i.am prioritizes education equity and community entrepreneurship over zoning reform alone.

11. Teaching at ASU and Educational Philosophy

[66:34 – 74:44]

• will.i.am describes teaching the next generation to build ethical, agentic AI systems, focusing on participatory learning and critical ethics rather than just letter grades.
• His teaching analogy:

  “...if you’re playing or jamming and I want to do something...and my contribution is going to make the song sound horrible...Then you have to contribute to where the song sounds good...Music does something where it’s like, it’s not about noise.” — will.i.am [74:09, 74:32]

• The educational goal: prepare young people for ethical decision-making in real-world tech scenarios.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI creativity:
  • “Back to the hallucination. Creativity, psychedelic art, that’s all hallucinations. And so for the creative space, AI hallucinating is perfect.” — will.i.am [07:48]
• On contextual meaning and evolving language:
  • “That song, Let's Get Retarded is a musical term meaning to let's slow down our inhibitions...” — will.i.am [13:56]
• On modern tech culture & privacy:
  • "Privacy is a lost war and nobody gives a shit. At least nobody in the younger generations." — Bill Maher [24:11]
• On the state of human inhumanity:
  • "These systems will learn how inhumane humans are to humans. If we don’t get our shit together as far as being more human to one another, we’re going to have a fucked up time in the next decade.” — will.i.am [26:50]
• On education as a solution to inequality:
  • "Job one for me would be to educate folks in the community to the same level." — will.i.am [65:42]
• On students & teaching style:
  • "Teaching is like writing a song...the arc of the three hours..." — will.i.am [68:04]
• On teamwork & ethics (music analogy):
  • "If my contribution is gonna make the song sound horrible, you have to contribute to where the song sounds good." — will.i.am [74:32]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• AI & Agentic Self: [04:13–08:25]
• Debating AI Ethics: [08:25–10:33]
• AI and Music Threat: [10:33–12:17]
• "Let's Get Retarded" Lyric Change: [12:17–15:23]
• Touring & Global Cultures: [16:46–19:20]
• Freedom—Cultural Nuances: [19:46–24:00]
• Tech & Privacy: [25:10–27:50]
• Aliens and Quantum Physics: [28:49–38:19]
• Dreams & Imagination: [36:30–39:38]
• Education & Zoning Inequality: [55:58–65:12]
• Teaching & Philosophy: [66:34–74:44]

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Episode Flow & Tone

Bill Maher and will.i.am engage in an open, intellectually curious, and often humorous dialogue. The tone is accessible—probing tech and societal issues without jargon, but pauses often for comedic asides or vivid cultural references (“fan loyalty,” “paranoia on weed,” “the cocktail of liquor stores and motels,” etc.). Will.i.am’s explanations are poetic and hopeful, while Maher is characteristically skeptical and irreverent.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode exemplifies Club Random’s mix of thoughtful banter and cultural commentary. With deep dives into technology, creativity, and social systems, Maher and will.i.am highlight the complexity of progress and the need for ethical awareness, personal agency, and inclusive education. Their conversation serves as both a snapshot of our times and a call for more music in our collective decision-making.

Transcript

[Bill Burr]

So I saw a spider in my house the other night. Not a little one. And once you see one, now you're thinking about all the ones you didn't see. Suddenly you're not relaxing, you're checking every corner. That's when you decide, all right, time to take care of this. Luckily, there's Pesti. They send you a kit with everything in it. A sprayer, mixing bag, gloves, the actual treatment. The same pro grade stuff the professionals use. And they've got a 100% bug free guarantee. Go to peste.comrandom for an extra 10% off your order.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You know, those friends who support your preference for podcasts over music on road trips? That's the energy State Farm brings to insurance. With over 19,000 local agents, they help you find the coverage that fits your needs so you can spend less time worrying about insurance and more time enjoying the ride. Download the State Farm app or go [e-mail] or like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Bill Burr]

When you finally find your thing, you

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

want the whole world to know about that thing. So you use a thing called Canva

[Bill Burr]

to make it an even bigger and better thing. Whether you want to create flyers for that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design merch for that thing, you

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

can do anything so people can see

[Bill Burr]

your thing, feel your thing, love your thing. The next thing you know, it's a thing. Canva. The thing that makes anything a thing. I don't know about you, but I'm a big fan of Green in all its forms. I get it. And for fellow lovers of, well, green, the Club Random merch store has you covered. Grinders, papers, and Zippo lighters. All designed to support your relationship with Green Green. Wink, wink. Whatever and whatever philosophy comes with that for you. Head to clubrandom.com and bring home some Random. Must be a very popular course.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I'm having the time of my life. Really teaching this course. Yeah, it's like writing a song. Club Random, 1993.

[Bill Burr]

That was a bad trip.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, it was. It caused a chemical imbalance that stayed with you.

[Bill Burr]

Club Random. How? Well, I am sitting right there. How are you?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Good to see you.

[Bill Burr]

Been too long. What are you watching on your phone?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Oh, no, I was talking to my. My CTO about a model. A technical model.

[Bill Burr]

Sam, I'm disappointed already.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So my cto, we're talking about, like,

[Bill Burr]

the CTO is the.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Of course, the Chief Tech Officer.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, like, I don't have one, so. Yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. So we were. We're talking about like these tts, which is text to speech model, a diffusion model, and we're, we're bantering on technicality versus creativity.

[Bill Burr]

I have a feeling you're going to leave me far in the dust on these subjects. I mean, I'm not a tech person and I know you are.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Oh, no, I'm a. A curious.

[Bill Burr]

I just think you know a lot about this. And it's funny because we were talking about AI on my show tonight. I just came from taping Real Time. You remember? You were on it?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. Thanks for having me.

[Bill Burr]

That was a while ago, wasn't it?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, it was 20 something.

[Bill Burr]

But you morphed into. I mean, you're not in showbiz anymore.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I mean, we still tour, like for summer. We do our summer.

[Bill Burr]

You're a professor, right?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, at asu.

[Bill Burr]

That's amazing. That's not. That is not the biography you usually see. Rock star to professor.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I try to switch it up.

[Bill Burr]

No, no, you, you obviously, you got the goods. I mean, you can't just ask to be a professor. You have to like, you know, have studied and have the degrees and get tired. So, I mean, but obviously you love it, right? You must. You wouldn't do it.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I'm having a great time. I'm teaching my syllabus that I created called the agentic self to solve a problem.

[Bill Burr]

The what self?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

The agentic self.

[Bill Burr]

See, already I'm lost. Yeah, so see, I'm not one of those people who, like a lot of people, when they hear something they don't know, they just kind of like glide by it. Not me. I got to stop you. Cause how else do you learn?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Oh, I'm quick to be like, yo, what did you just say?

[Bill Burr]

Right? That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. What'd you just say? What did you just say? What's agentic?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Agentic. So we went from like the Internet compute to the Internet to AI, right? And now agentic systems and the gentic will take folks to AGI and AGI will take to superintelligence.

[Bill Burr]

What's AGI?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

AGI is artificial general intelligence. Where the machine.

[Bill Burr]

How is that different than AI?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Well, AI, humans are still either prompting humans are still.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, you're saying we don't need the

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

humans at all with AGI, with agent agents. Agents can like, do things on its. Use the computer the way a human uses a computer.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah. This is what's scary. I know. You know, it's so funny because this is exactly what I was talking about with Tristan Harris. Do you know him? He was the top of the show guest tonight, and it was all about. He just was in this documentary called Apocalo. Like, as in apocalypse optimism, which gets at the idea that some people think AI is the apocalypse. And it could be. For sure, it could be. And some people think it's just the savior of everything and there's a lot to be scared about. And this is one of the things that scares me is like, when it's the computers just working with the other computers when they don't need us anymore. Somebody told me a funny thing after the show that Elon Musk had said to them, hey, do you like your dog? Well, good, because you're gonna be the dog soon.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

See, I don't. I think the folks that are saying that are the folks that have the platforms and they want you to believe that.

[Bill Burr]

I don't.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I don't.

[Bill Burr]

Aren't the richest people the ones who are selling the AI? Aren't they the ones with the platforms and the money?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, yeah. So if you're gonna spend all this money to build something, you're gonna hype it up as it's the most intelligent thing in the world. Now, what it's not doing is imagining. Doesn't have imagination. It's regurgitating everything that we've ever done.

[Bill Burr]

Not true. It hallucinates all the time. It's a big fucking liar.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, no, no.

[Bill Burr]

You know that though, right? About ChatGPT and you know about hallucinating?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, yeah, okay.

[Bill Burr]

That doesn't worry you that it's a liar?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Well, yeah, yeah, of course, that, that. It only worries me if you are depending on it for 100% truths.

[Bill Burr]

But what's the point of building Mr. Spock if he can't tell you the truth? I can get the bullshit from bones and cap Mr. Spock to just give me the truth.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, yeah, but just like. Just like a child, a child will grow and then we'll be able to give you that truth. Right now we are in a. AI is in an infant state. And of course it's going to make mistakes. But back to the hallucination. Creativity, psychedelic art, that's all hallucinations. And so for the creative space, AI Hallucinating is perfect.

[Bill Burr]

I'm fascinated by this topic and I'm so glad you can elucidate a few things for me. Did you hear about the One and you know, please trust me, I like you. I'm not trying. I hope this doesn't trigger you. Oh, okay, okay. Because it's. But it is a real story. They gave it a test. I can't remember who it was, what it was, but. But. And it was like if you used this certain very bad word, you could stop like a million people from dying and it wouldn't do it. A racial slur. That, to me, is crazy because it was programmed in such a way as not to make a rational decision.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Oh, so say that again.

[Bill Burr]

The question it was asked was if you could stop. I know. It was like a train from derailing or something where many people would die just by saying this bad word out loud. And AI was like, no. So it chose to let people die as opposed to saying a terrible word.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, but then you have to look at it from. Who programmed that? It's not.

[Bill Burr]

That's my point. Somebody pro.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

It's.

[Bill Burr]

Even though it's a machine. Not a machine, whatever it is. But the source is human. The provenance of it is human. It has to be.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

That's why they're different. That's why Claude is different than ChatGPT, because different people program them.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. It's not like one day the AI is like, you know what? Listen, I ain't doing shit. That's not what AI did.

[Bill Burr]

Well, I mean, when you put it that way.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Somebody programmed that, and they programmed it for one good thing, but then that one good thing causes a bad thing. It cannot be. So it doesn't have full autonomy. And that's what AGI will be. What AGI is like. It will decide on its own.

[Bill Burr]

I've heard. I've heard. I've not heard the music itself, but I certainly have heard from people and read about music that is being made totally by AI. That has to be somewhat of a threat. You don't. You don't find that, like, something. I mean, this is.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I mean, I don't find that.

[Bill Burr]

How many records have you guys sold? 100 million records or something? Some big fucking number that puts you in the big leagues of recording artists. Okay. So now something comes along and, you know, people are. People are fickle. And by the way, when it comes to, like, what you like, as what relieves the burden of your day, the music, the tv, the movies, you should have complete autonomy. I mean, I don't ever expect anybody to like me because fan loyalty, the second I stop doing the thing that they like that I do for them, they will stop watching. And they should. If they like the AI song better than yours, they'll buy it. They'll use that instead. They'll Listen to that. Instead of what? I don't know.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I mean, the only thing that bothers me with AI music versus human music is not that AI makes awesome stuff. Prince made awesome stuff. Michael Jackson made awesome stuff. Did that stop me from making music because Prince was a better musician, better singer, better everything than I am? But that didn't stop me from making my own music. Do people want to listen to Prince's music over my music? Damn right they do. I want to listen to Prince's music over my music. But does that stop me from making music? No, it doesn't. So does it. Is it going to die?

[Bill Burr]

Well, you had some. Your band had some bangers that are just as good as Prince's. Great stuff. I mean, that's just. Look, I always say, I'm just a young man in the 22nd row. I have no musical ability. It's very liberating because you don't have to do anything except say no. This is actually what I like. But, you know, I love the one that. I guess you can't play anymore. I guess you rewrote it. But I'll get retarded. Let's get.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Well, let's get started.

[Bill Burr]

Let's get retard. Let's get started. You're adorable. Let's get retarded. And like, I'm not trying to say the word retarded. I'm not like, oh, reveling that. We can say it again. You know, it's not that big a deal if you don't want to hear it. I'm sorry.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So I could break down that.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, it just shows what a different place we were in 20 years ago.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

So.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

But if you're in the studio, right, and you have a conductor or the producer, and they're telling the band and the instructions on the song, and the producer or the conductor says, okay, on bar 24, we are going to retard on bar 24.

[Bill Burr]

That's a thing.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

That's a musical term.

[Bill Burr]

That's awesome.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So this is.

[Bill Burr]

But retarded is also a word in the language that means many things. It wasn't, you know, it was like.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

That's the reason why on the lyric it says, in this context, there's no disrespect. So when I bust my rhyme, you break your neck. We have five minutes for us to disconnect from all intellect and let the rhythm perfect.

[Bill Burr]

That's great.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Us to lose our innovation. Follow your intuition, fear, inner soul, and break away from right tradition.

[Bill Burr]

Beautiful.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So that song, let's Get Retarded is a musical term meaning to let's slow down our inhibitions. Retard on bar four. And in the first verse, it says, in this context, there's no disrespect, because we're using the referring to slowing down our inhibitions on Bar 24.

[Bill Burr]

Well, good luck explaining that to Greta Thunberg, because she's gonna fucking kill your ass.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Which is the reason why we've said, okay, let's just make it. Let's get it started. Right. And it rhymes and.

[Bill Burr]

Right. Remember Gnarls had. Barkley had so Fuck youk and they changed it to Forget yout. It was a great song. It's still a great song.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

Forget you. I mean, that doesn't work as well as let's Get Started. But I like that because not every battle is worth fighting. You gotta pick your battles. I always say this about Trump. You know, he does a million things, and I just can't get excited about all of them. Some of them are just like the cloud that they tell you when you meditate. You know, thoughts come into your head. Don't fight them, just let them pass. Like a cloud, you know, he wants to put in a ballroom. Okay. I'm just not going to get excited about it. I've had too much fun in ballroom.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

But speaking of let's get retarded,

[Bill Burr]

we

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

going back to that. We decided to take it off of the DSPs ourselves. DSP, like the digital streaming platforms?

[Bill Burr]

Yes. Okay.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

We were like. I think it was sometime in 2000.

[Bill Burr]

2000.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Late 17. That was good. That was good. That was good. Yeah. We just like, hey, let's take it off. It was like mid 2010s that we took it off the SPS and just focused on let's Get It Started Now.

[Bill Burr]

Is that a band decision? Did you have a band meeting? The band members gathered around and you tabled this issue and said, let's take a vote as a band. Did Fergie get. You know, did she make a speech on this one side?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, she's only in the intro and the outro of that song.

[Bill Burr]

Well, she's in the band.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, but that song was recorded before. Before we met her.

[Bill Burr]

Really?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

Well, I guess I'm remembering my man. It's. It's like. It's tough when you're 70 because, like, you're 70.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, man, you don't look 70.

[Bill Burr]

Well, thanks. I would alter Clean Living, but you say you. You still go on the road.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, we go on. We do like our. We call Them Free summer. Free summer vacations or paid summer vacations.

[Bill Burr]

How long?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

We usually go out, like, two to three months. The whole summer.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, wow.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

But this year. This year is just a month and a half in Europe.

[Bill Burr]

Oh.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Last year we went to China.

[Bill Burr]

Wow.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Singapore, Vietnam.

[Bill Burr]

Sorry.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Singapore. Thailand. Indonesia. Philippines. This year we'll do. Sweden. We'll do slovakia. Poland. Lithuania. U.K. france. Spain, Hungary.

[Bill Burr]

You like being away? I mean, you like seeing all these different places?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I love it.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah. I bet.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I was in China two weeks ago, three weeks ago.

[Bill Burr]

What city?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Shenzhen.

[Bill Burr]

China has, like, cities with 10 million people that we've never heard of.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. And they make the world's everything.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah. Well, certainly when you put tariffs on them, it doesn't.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No. Like, it's really. It's really fascinating and awesome to see how they work, the Chinese, and the level of, like, attention and detail.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

The joy that the. The folks that are. That own the factories and what comes out of them. And I want to have some version of that in the inner city that I come from or in all the inner cities that reflect that way of life. Like Shenzhen 30 years ago was a fisherman's war.

[Bill Burr]

Right.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

And now it's, you know, New York.

[Bill Burr]

No. The battle for the 21st century. And who will be the winner and who will be the country that we look back on and say it was their century. It'll come down to, you know, China has things that we absolutely don't have, which is like discipline. I mean, things that Americans just don't have anymore. They just cannot get it together on that level. Especially the younger generations. Please. I mean, they could not work in a factory all day. They can't concentrate on shit. They're spoiled. They're too fragile. All these things that China doesn't have. That's why China can build a city in six months. If they put their mind, they can build a bridge in a week. We don't have that, but they don't have freedom. Their people are not free. It is a police state. And when you don't have that, their

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

freedom is different than their need of freedom is different than our need of freedom.

[Bill Burr]

Not all that's kind of patronizing to say what another person's need of freedom is. So I saw a spider in my house the other night. Not a little one. This thing. This thing must have gone to the gym. And once you see one now you're thinking about all the ones you didn't see. Suddenly you're not relaxing, you're checking every corner. That's when you decide all right, time to take care of this. Luckily, there's Pesti. They send you a kit with everything in it. A sprayer, mixing bag, gloves, the actual treatment. The same pro grade stuff the professionals use, not that watered down hardware store mystery liquid. You mix it, spray it, done in like 10 minutes. No appointments, no strangers wandering through your house dirtying up the floors with their nasty shoes. And it's customized based on where you live, the season and the bugs you're dealing with, which apparently is a lot more scientific than your previous strategy of close your eyes and hope they leave. It handles over 100 types of bugs, ants, spiders, roaches, and it's kid and pet friendly when used as directed. Also, it starts at around 35 bucks, which is nice because the alternative is paying someone hundreds of dollars to show up and say, yep, that's a bug. And they've got a 100% bug free guarantee. If it doesn't work, you get your money back. Bugs. Hate to see you coming with Pesti. Go to pesti.comrandom for an extra 10% off your order. That's P E S T I E.comrandom for an extra 10 percent off. Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

get the best of both worlds.

[Bill Burr]

Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn [e-mail] studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka Ms. CollegePC. I mean, freedom is freedom. I think they, maybe they don't know. Maybe they're so brainwashed at this point they don't know how much freedom they need. But I think people yearn for freedom and they don't have it.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No. Say, for example, you come from a place that was war torn and you want to be free from that. That's different from I want to be free to do something that is not at the same level. So not every freedom is the same freedom. Sometimes you want to be free from tyranny. You want to be free from, you know, people in the Congo want to be free from that thumb, that oppression. People in America's freedom is a different freedom. And to say they're the same, that's not fair to the folks that are truly suffering.

[Bill Burr]

I agree. I mean we are lucky. We complain about freedom. And some of those complaints of course are valid and certainly in history they're tremendously valid. But the perspective is important. To compare ourselves to what the rest of the human race has done with this concept is important. And we generally have more freedom here than many, many people do. And. And you know, China is a complete surveillance state. I mean, we are also, but not nearly to that degree. And no, we're pretty.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

China's surveillance is like, hey, look, I'm watching you. And that's what it is, all right? America's like, listen, I'm not watching you. These motherfuckers watching this. Bill, get the fuck out of here, bro. They got satellites looking through this right now, bro. Get out of here.

[Bill Burr]

Do you see any cameras here? No, no, they watch. We're just hanging out.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

We are being watched out from the. Hello. Our surveillance state is corporate.

[Bill Burr]

That's true. Absolutely.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Their surveillance state is the government. And our surveillance state are corporations that know what you type. Microphones are always exactly compromised corporation.

[Bill Burr]

You're totally right about the corporate thing. But their biggest accomplices in that is us. Nobody fights it. Our privacy is a lost war and nobody gives a shit. At least nobody in the younger generations. Maybe my generation as a few stragglers, I certainly do. I wouldn't put G Chat GPT in my phone. I have it on a completely different phone that has nothing else in it. I don't want. Once it's in your phone, it knows everything about you. It's seen every picture of you, knows how big my dick is. You wish Chat D. And you know it knows every text I wrote. I don't want to fucking chatty to know everything about me like that. And we all do it. I mean, when you get something from any tech company and it's a long thing, do you read it? No, you just sign the bottom right?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, you just click it.

[Bill Burr]

You just click it. But you have to accept. Yeah, yeah, let's pretend I read this.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

And it.

[Bill Burr]

You could read it, could be, say, you are giving us absolute permission to stick an anal probe up your ass anytime we want into your house. And you would just not know. But we do it and we give it away. And the truth is the psychology of the younger generations is much more Privacy. Privacy isn't even desired. The bigger problem is I'm not famous, that my stuff isn't being followed. I don't have enough followers. I'm an influencer. I. I gotta influence people. They gotta know everything about me. I mean, when people have like, horrible physical afflictions happen upon them in this day and age, I mean, in my era, you would just hide until it was over here. They rushed to the camera. Look at this. Parasite ate half my face. You have to see it.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, or like just the how if I were to fall down the stairs, if this was the 90s, somebody would rush to pick you up, help you get up if you fall down the stairs. Now in the 20s, they want to film you.

[Bill Burr]

So true, so true. That's their first reaction is not to help you, is to film it. Yeah. Okay, so we can agree that wasn't a good development as technology moved toward where it's moving.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. So the human greed, whether it's financial attention, ego, inflate, that's what we need to be mindful of. Especially with the rise of AI and robots and companies that are going to be deploying intelligent systems that will walk amongst us. These systems will learn how inhumane humans are to humans. They learn, I know how to manipulate. And if we don't get our shit together as far as being more human to one another, we're going to have a fucked up time in the next decade.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, I mean, that's again, going back to AI. What I worry about is that AI is going to at some point because once you go down this road of, okay, at first we had AI and we were very much the only person programming it, but now there's all these intermediaries that are another form of computerization. So we're kind of like distancing ourselves from what this thing is getting and what it's thinking or wants to do about issues and problems. And you know, if it judges that we are the problem, I could see us, see it killing us if we are the problem. And by the way, that's the same thing we always worried about with aliens. And I do think the aliens are here.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

You think they're here?

[Bill Burr]

Absolutely.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Like where?

[Bill Burr]

Well, look, I've been trying to book one on this show for the longest time and I just can't. I mean, their publicist gets in the way. What the problem is they want to do it. The aliens. Like, I love that show, I want to do that. Yeah, I do. I mean, there's too many military people, government people who have seen things, but especially the military guys. These are squares. These are guys who are not out to do anything, but, you know, they've got crew cuts and they say we just see things that are not explainable by any other human or what we know the physics of Earth. Things that just move in a different way. And this has been going on for a very long time now. 10, 20 years. I mean, 50 years ago, it was a lot about the anal probes. Remember, they would land in the middle of nowhere and all these people would say, we were taken aboard the spaceship. And I bet you they did that for a while. And they were like, looking to see what makes these humans tick.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Wait, so what year was it when aliens were coming and doing anal probes?

[Bill Burr]

Well, interesting. Like after the first atom bomb went off in 1945, that's when you start to see, like, Roswell stuff. Like maybe a lot of very high up, very respectable people, not farmers in the middle of nowhere. Military people. Serious people say, you know, they have seen that they do have alien autopsies, that there was some crashing of their things. That's what they think they have somewhere. And the government has never wanted to show it because it would cause a panic. But with what we've seen lately, with all these, you know, the military saying this thing appears and then it disappears. We have nothing like that. We can see this on the radar. It just seems to me backward thinking to say, first of all that we're alone in the universe and that just ignore this kind of stuff. So I don't know what it means. What I take away that's good from this is that if they wanted to kill us, we'd be dead by now.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. So I have like a perspective that aliens probably wouldn't need spaceships. If they're more intelligent than us, why would they need a spaceship to travel?

[Bill Burr]

So they just beam themselves like in Star Trek?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Well, in the. They just manipulate particles and.

[Bill Burr]

Well, that's beaming or appearing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, somehow you have to move particles now.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Well, a beam is. If it's coming from something, appearing as it came out of something. Like there's this, this quantum entanglement experiment, or that's called the double. Sorry, it's called the double double slit experiment where they. Where they project a particle and when they monitor it, the particle behaves like a particle. If they don't monitor it acts like a part, like a wave. The moment they monitor it acts like a particle. Meaning a particle is aware that it's being monitored. So I am looking at you, you're looking at me. And because we are observing each other, our waveform is now in a part of.

[Bill Burr]

One affects the other.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. So if anything was more intelligent than we are, it wouldn't need a spaceship to travel. That's what humans, this level of intelligence needs to move through space.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, maybe and maybe not. Maybe there is an intermediary Phase where they do still need some sort of actual physical transportation, but it moves in a way that we don't understand. And maybe that level is itself only a bridge to the next level, which you're talking about, where you don't even need the spaceship. Maybe there are people more advanced than these people, these motherfuckers with their spaceships that appear and disappear. There's some people out there going, like, they think they're all that because they're smarter than humans. Well, who isn't? That could be true, too.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. Or maybe, like. But math is the vehicle.

[Bill Burr]

Well, it's funny. I had a math teacher who used to always say, if we ever have contact with anyone outside of this solar system, math is the universal language.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, it is.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah. And not my best subject, Will, so you're gonna have to hold my hand on this one.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Is that weed?

[Bill Burr]

Yeah. I'm so sorry.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Oh, I don't smoke.

[Bill Burr]

Oh. Oh.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I get. I get. I get paranoid.

[Bill Burr]

Absolutely. One of the most common effects of weed, there are ways. Sometimes I can ingest it and it makes me paranoid, so. I completely understand that. Oh, no, no.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

But I'm cool with contact.

[Bill Burr]

No, I'm not even suggesting. I'm not. I was not even putting it on the table, bro.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, you don't have to put it on. You're sparking it up again. Of course, I'm used to that, just being on tour buses, but your whole

[Bill Burr]

life, you never smoke. Yeah. Last time I tried it, you didn't. Like.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Last time I spoke was 1998. March 18th.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, it's almost to the day.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

And obviously when you. I sometimes I remember dates in my life, but when you do, it's usually something significant. Why? Did something significant happen?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, that's when I freaked out.

[Bill Burr]

Freaked out and

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

started hearing things. Panics. And I just knew that it wasn't for me. Chemically, my imagination is vast. And I'll freak out on coffee. I can't drink coffee either. I'm super hyper always. I've always been hyper. And weed doesn't slow me down. It makes me hyper.

[Bill Burr]

Makes me hyper.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

We'll sit. You don't mellow out, like.

[Bill Burr]

No, no, no. The last thing I would ever do before going to bed, which a lot of people do, is get THC in my body. It would keep me up. It would be like drinking a pot of coffee.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. So.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So for me. For me, green tea. I'm great, but the best stimulant is lack of sleep.

[Bill Burr]

Well, I understand what you're saying. But what a price to pay. Not good for you.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, like that Twilight is when I'm the most creative. Oh, you mean.

[Bill Burr]

I thought you meant, like. Cause Keith Richards used to. They used to like stay up on purpose just to get that kind of crazy high you get from it's almost being delirious. You're not talking about that. Yeah, that's the best you are. You deprive yourself of sleep on purpose.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No. So I'll go to sleep creating, like right before it's time to go to sleep. The best ideas and then waking up. You know that feeling, like, five minutes. Come on, just five more minutes.

[Bill Burr]

Let me sleep.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

That feeling is the best feeling. Instead of laying down and sleeping for five more minutes, I'll go and complete what I did that the night before. And that feels the best. I've never felt a feeling like sleep and wanting to sleep more. That's the best feeling in the world.

[Bill Burr]

I know what you're talking about.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

It's like orgasmic.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Wanting to sleep more when you can't is the best feeling.

[Bill Burr]

Well, there is. I don't know about that. But for you, great. But for me, I know what you mean about that sort of like in between world where sometimes you wake up, you're fully up and you go, was that a dream?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's the best feeling ever.

[Bill Burr]

Was that a dream or was I really. No, I mean, I woke up and I, you know, I must have at one point been dreaming about something and then kind of woke up briefly. But when I went back to sleep, like, the reality kind of mixed in with the dream, so it became a dream, but like with very realistic dimensions. Because very often a dream is crazy.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

My dreams are really vivid.

[Bill Burr]

And they're also crazy things. Right. They're not things that would really be happening to you. I mean, you're like riding a dinosaur or something.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, my dreams are like memories. Like, they're kind of. There's sometimes no different than this. I don't have wild. And then my dreams are like. I have like, memories and things to do in my dreams.

[Bill Burr]

Okay, well, let me give you an example. I don't know why I'm the nicest guy in the world.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I got a calendar in my dreams. Shit. They gotta do. I got phone numbers and contacts in my dreams with people that are there sequential.

[Bill Burr]

So you have like to do lists in your dreams?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, like there's, you know, like. Like this life.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Like, I came here, went down a road that I. That I've. That I'VE driven down before, right? Walked through the gate. The guy's like, watch out for that. For that bar there. Saw your your spread the house, my class. Really nice layout cave and saw the den. My wow. The studio is pretty awesome. This, this feeling here. My dreams are like that. My dreams are not wild dinosaur y. It's like. And I have. I'm conscious in my dream. Like, something happens. I'm like, oh, well, I'm dreaming, right? Okay, cool. Well, let's do shit. My dreams are. I'm just as much as aware of my dream as I'm aware awake.

[Bill Burr]

So I had this dream.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

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[Bill Burr]

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[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

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[Bill Burr]

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[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

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[Bill Burr]

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[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

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[Bill Burr]

Apply.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

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[Bill Burr]

Like, I don't get specific, but I. It's like sometimes you have beef with somebody. You just do. Especially in my business where I'm saying controversial things, right? So I had this dream where, like, this guy and I who have this beef, like, we're. We're in a restaurant, we ran into each other, and there was like, this confrontation. And it. I remember thinking after I woke up, it was exactly like what the actual confrontation would have been. To your point, it's not always crazy. But then I turn away and I start talking to this other guy who was just like a man, but, like, with a. You know, either a wolf or an ape head, which I just accepted as normal. And he was kind of getting in my face. And I think at the end I said, you know, nice talk for a wolf boy or whatever. We had like a little fight and, but that was in the, in a, See, in real life, if this happened, I'd be like, I'd call Bellevue. But in the dream, this was like normal. This, this was like people, some people have are, you know, his face was like completely, I feel like I had a big, with the pointy ears and everything and that. And I didn't notice that. That's, you know. So my dreams are still, I guess you would call that vivid, where it's like very. Absolutely. We can say this is different than something I would just be thinking. I wouldn't daydream this. But you're saying you daydream very similar to what your dream dream is.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, I have, I wasn't, it was a dream I had a couple of like days ago and I woke up from the dream telling somebody the dream that I just had.

[Bill Burr]

But in my dream, oh, now we're in the Matrix. Now we're like in interstellar, so. Yeah, I get you.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I dreamt I've done that a little. Woke up.

[Bill Burr]

Yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Went about my day in my dream, waiting to tell somebody the dream that I just had.

[Bill Burr]

So what do we deduce from this? When a mind is like that, when the dreams are closer to reality than most people's are, what do we think that says about your, your mind? I mean, obviously you're, I don't know, on a higher level than a lot of people. You're a professor and you're.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, I don't know. I don't know if it's higher level or lower. I don't know what it is. I just think, I think you're you

[Bill Burr]

kind of, I mean, I bet you're, your IQ is higher. I don't care. I don't want to be the smartest guy in the world. They're never the happiest. You know, I, I, I'm pretty. I just want to be the wisest. Not the smartest, the wisest. And there is a difference.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

What's.

[Bill Burr]

Smart people don't do stupid things that make them unhappy. Smart people do it all the time. Smart doesn't stop you from being unhappy. I've known some of the smartest people in the world. First of all, some of them are on the spectrum, like everybody who controls AI Nothing too worrisome about that. Mark Zuckerberg, totally on the Spectrum, Elon Musk, Sam Altman. These are all evil robots to begin with. Are you kidding? We have to wait for them to take over. They already did. Really? Zuckerberg is a real boy. Okay, but, oh, is there good baby pictures of Zuckerberg? I mean, I would love to talk to him. There's a guy who is fascinating to me because he seems so unfascinating, but I don't think he's. He's on your page. He's like, oh, you're all worried about AI and you shouldn't be. But, you know, that's what he would say if he was a robot. But I would love to talk to him because I think he's like most people. I mean, I see it all the time on this show. On my show. I had a Republican congressman on tonight who, like, I'd only read about her. And then it's like, oh, you know, if I'd only read about you. You're stupid. You're a hothead. She's not any of those things. We don't agree on many issues, but you know what I always say it. Everybody's a monster till you talk to them.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Who haven't you interviewed that you want to interview?

[Bill Burr]

Ironically, mostly Democrats, like, because they're such pussies, they won't come on the show like the Clintons after. I mean, you know, Kamala, I voted for you. Really?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

You haven't interviewed them yet?

[Bill Burr]

I would love to. Democrats are pussies about, like, going anywhere that they're not already pre adored. Not all of them, but I mean, somebody. Kamala Harris. I mean, like I always say to my woke friends, we voted for the same person. You're just. Why she lost. Okay, you're a little too precious. But, you know, that's. Let's not talk shop. Why?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I would like your opinion on this. Why. Why are Democrats like that?

[Bill Burr]

It is a great question. If you really want me to answer it, I would.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Why are Republicans like, yeah, get up out. And then why are Democrats like, oh, okay.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, it's like people in general always fall into one of two camps. I mean, obviously men and women. Not that we're saying there's only men and women. Of course, trans is a real thing and gay and blah, blah, blah. But generally there's a default setting and we are yin and yang. I mean, this is through every culture that everything is sort of. I mean, if you want to talk spiritual, like a lot of religions, begin with the notion that this is why there's pain on earth in the spiritual realm, heaven, whatever you want to call it. There is only oneness in the fairy queen. He names the queen Una. Una as in unity. Una. There's just oneness. There's no pain when there's oneness. When we're here in the earthly realm, everything is black and white, man and woman, you know, all these kind of things, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative. All these things that give us pain cause they cause conflict.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Crips and Bloods. Crips, but Crips and Bloods, they're like just as aggressive.

[Bill Burr]

I thought that they had made a pact. I thought they were like working together now. No.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Oh, they probably are, but they were, you know, at odds. But my, I would always wonder like I'm Democrat but if I, I would be a little bit more aggressive when it comes to like fighting for the things that we should be fighting for. Like when did Democrat become so passive?

[Bill Burr]

Well, it's not about them being passive. I don't think it's about the fact that they just came to champion a lot of really silly anti common sense ideas which they didn't back in, you know, the Bush Obama years. Especially Obama, who was always my favorite president because he's a pragmatist. He's like the ultimate pragmatist.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, but what, how did, how can you go from that to where we are now?

[Bill Burr]

The main, what you have to mainly understand about political parties is that they're controlled by their fringes.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

By the who?

[Bill Burr]

Their fringes. In other words, the Republicans are controlled by the far right and the Democrats are controlled by the far left. They're not the majority. Most people are much more in the middle. But the people on the fringes, they have the megaphone, especially on the left. Well, both, they're both the. It's younger people. Younger people on both sides are much more radical and they're better at social media, they're better at media, they're better at getting attention. So that generation, I mean Gen Z now is almost passing the torch to whatever comes after them. I read the name, but I forget, but they're not quite there yet. But they're a very different kind of generation.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Gen Alpha.

[Bill Burr]

Gen Alpha. Yeah, I guess so. And we'll see. I mean a lot of Gen Alpha are already like getting rid of the cell phones. Like that's a big movement now among younger people. They understand themselves probably better than anybody that it kind of fucked their minds up. I mean they feel like growing up on screens, they got bullied on screen. They just felt inadequate because they would see so many things that other people had on screen. Things that I can't even imagine growing up when I did. But it made them unhappy. That's why there's so much stress in that generation, so much anxiety. Anxiety, Yeah. I did have anxiety that age, but it wasn't because something was, you know, if I was bullied, it was in person and I was.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

My anxiety came from March 18, 1993.

[Bill Burr]

That was a bad trip.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, it was. It caused a chemical imbalance that stayed with you for about three months. I had to, like, you know, get. Get my mind together, create my way out of it, settle, like my. My panic attacks.

[Bill Burr]

And this was strictly from pop?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Strictly from pop.

[Bill Burr]

You sure it wasn't.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Wasn't laced?

[Bill Burr]

No. Can you sign? Can I make some of that pot?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

We were signed. We were signed Ruthless Records because it

[Bill Burr]

wouldn't have that effect on me, so why waste it?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, we were signed to Ruthless Records. Eazy E signed us when I was 16.

[Bill Burr]

Eazy E?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. And we smoked some, like, good stuff. At the time, we were just smoking, like, stress cess with the seeds in it. And then finally one day I had, you know, the fuzzies. You know, the weed with the fuzzy hair. Not the dirt brown weed that you had to separate the sims, but, like, the fuzzy stuff.

[Bill Burr]

I was a dealer. I know all this.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

You used to deal?

[Bill Burr]

Oh, absolutely.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Dang, bro.

[Bill Burr]

That's how I.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Why don't you like rap

[Bill Burr]

deal more? Yeah, I know what I'm good at, and it ain't that. But, yes, I certainly remember the seeds. No, I was. When I was in college. That's how I got through college. And then my early years living in New York doing standup. And Nobody paid you in those days. So I was. Yeah, I was a pot dealer. And in college, I was a dealer for. I mean, me and my partner, we dealt whatever our dealer had. Because we were the lowest end of the totem pole. Like, we were selling to the kids. We would buy, like, a pound or two. And when I say a pound, which is 16 ounces, which would make 17 ounces, you know, that's what you call the head tax.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Burr]

One for you. So it wasn't quite an ounce that you were getting, but, I mean, speed at Cornell was huge. I mean, for some reason, Ithaca, New York, was a hub in the 70s. And that speed was still, to this day, the best drug I've ever done.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I know. Only thing I've ever done was weed.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, wow. Really?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

We.

[Bill Burr]

Well, some night. Let's get retarded. Wait, was I late on that one again?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Weed is the only thing that I've ever done. And yeah, it was.

[Bill Burr]

You were never, never curious about. I mean, it seems like with your mind or I guess, you know, maybe you don't need. Need it. I need it. And I'm not afraid to admit it. I need it for certain things. Or at least it makes certain things much easier.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No. 93 from 92 when I started. 93 when I stopped. I remember I got. I was doing graffiti in Palisades High School. I was doing graffiti on the wall, and Mr. Marshall comes in. He's like, William. I'm like, hey, Mr. Marshall. He was like, what are you doing? I'm like, no, no, no. I'm just.

[Bill Burr]

I like.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

This guy's like, continuous. And the guy's name was express. And I would just. I was traced. His name, rest in peace, Richard Taylor. And he. And I flushed the market down the toilet. And my tag was right.

[Bill Burr]

Right.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Besides. But I was quick witted. I was quick with the. With my BS to flush the marker down the toilet. And like, no, Mr. Marshall wasn't riding. And he was like, get over here. Check my pockets. And he found some weed in my pocket. And I'm like, oh, fuck. So Mr. Marshall's like, William, I can expel you for this. I'm like, Mr. Marshall, this is not my weed. This is not even my jacket. He was like, you expect me to believe that? I'm like, Mr. Marshall, if this was my weed, I would have smoked it. I'm not even gonna lie to you. I smoke, but this is not my weed. I didn't even know I had weed in my jacket. He was like, you know what? I could expel you for this. I could kick you out of the

[Bill Burr]

school,

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

but we're gonna put you in rehab. So I had to go to rehab at Palisades High School for weed.

[Bill Burr]

What?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Cause I admitted that I smoked weed.

[Bill Burr]

Okay, and this answers your question about why Democrats lose. So then really, I mean, like, not everything has a bureaucratic solution. Yeah, you know, it's just like. It's too much.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So I went and they were like. We had to stand up and say, like, my name is William Adams.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, for fuck's sake. Like a. Like an AA meeting.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, but I went to Palisades where we had rich kids that smoked cokeheads there. Mushrooms, like, everybody. The pillars.

[Bill Burr]

So this is 98.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, this is 93.

[Bill Burr]

So who else was there in 93? Like, other celebrities.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

93. Whoopi Goldberg's daughter. We went to school together.

[Bill Burr]

Was in this program?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, no, not in the program, but we went to Pali school.

[Bill Burr]

Okay, I see.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

But, yeah, Pali was a great school. But when I was there in the program, I was like, look, weed makes me creative. I was like the typical, you know, weed spokesman. It slows down my mind for me to, like, I can freestyle right now anyhow. And then a couple weeks later is when I had that. That moment. And from there.

[Bill Burr]

So what town did you grow up in?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I grew up in east la. Boyle Heights and got bust out to Palisades. So I got bused out for 12 years, you know, for 12 years of my life. I mean, 12 years, two hours to. And from Boyle Heights to Palisades.

[Bill Burr]

Pacific Palisades. Yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I want a Brentwood Science Magnet and I want to partner.

[Bill Burr]

It's not two hours. Huh? It's not two hours.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Boyle Heights, an hour, hour and a half, dropping off everybody on the way.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, it was a bus.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, yeah. So we had to pick up everybody.

[Bill Burr]

You were bused there?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

It was like a busing thing?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, Magnet program.

[Bill Burr]

And you wanted it?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

[Bill Burr]

Really? Because you did like that school better.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I like hanging out and hanging out in Palisades and part of your junior high. But going to Brentwood Elementary School, compared to the, the, the. The. The teachers, the equipment, the curriculum in Boyle Heights, like, I'm so blessed to have gone to Brentwood Science Magnet.

[Bill Burr]

And what do we owe this disparity to?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

If we had.

[Bill Burr]

We had to. I mean, why was one place so much better?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Oh, my mom. Oh, shit. Are you talking about zoning?

[Bill Burr]

Zoning?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

The zoning. In Brenwood, you don't have, like, liquor stores and check cashing and, like, you know, that cocktail of, like, liquor store, check cash, motel, you know, strip club right next to the school, that. That cocktail is a setup, right? Because that means there's no financial literacy. You get a check, you cash it, you get some money, you go to

[Bill Burr]

that liquor store or the strip club.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

From there, you either go to the strip club, you go home, you go to the motel because somebody got kicked out of the house. Why would there be a motel there? Why? That combination and bad food, that's gonna create hypertension, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes.

[Bill Burr]

So how do we change that? And whose fault is it that it's there?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I think it's if you look at it for face value. And that setup. Because in areas where you have that cocktail, folks that live in communities like that Have a higher percentage of going to prisons. And those prisons are also privatized.

[Bill Burr]

Yes.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So you have privatized prisons, horrible food, no financial literacy, addicted to substances, and the dehumanizing of people, seeing them as objects. And you don't have that in areas where people are affluent, that financial literacy. They get money, they grow money, they grow wealth, they eat better. The food in their community is healthier for them. So.

[Bill Burr]

But what I'm getting at is, like, where do we find the root of this problem? Who's responsible for changing it? I'm just asking. I'm not loading the question. I remember having Witten Marsalis on, you know, Whitten. Right. And we were talking about. I think he's from. I think it's, you know, I hope. I hope I'm not misquoting. I'm misremembering, but, you know, come on. Sometimes I blame the pot if I am, but I think it was Wynton, and we were talking about Newark, and he was saying that, you know, Republican administration, Democrat administration, it still looks like Newark. And I remember playing there many times, and you would, you know, I remember where the plane landed and then driving to the venue, and you would pass through this section of town that looked shitty, like what you're talking about. And then you'd get to a different section of town where this nice, you know, there was four blocks of, you know, nice buildings. And, you know, it just seemed like, whoever is in charge, Newark's gonna. Newark. Like, why are the Democrats better if it doesn't change when they're in charge? Like, why does it always seem. This is what we were kind of, like, musing over, like, why what? Who's not doing what and why? If the Democrats are a better party for people of color, why doesn't it look different when they're in charge?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

That's the riddle. But both Democrat and Republican are to blame for how communities are zoned. Like, there's. There should be some things like, you don't. You don't mix. You don't mix, you know, poison in the water, right? You don't put certain combinations together. And so that combination in our. In certain communities, you can't blame the result. And to survive in those communities, people were selling illegal substances. That illegal substance is now legal.

[Bill Burr]

Would you.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Were there folks that were selling weed in the hood that had to go to prison?

[Bill Burr]

What about a weed store? Would you. When you say, oh, you shouldn't have the school next to the strip club and the liquor and the blah, blah, blah, would you put weed in that, A weed store in that category with the things that shouldn't be. Because I own one.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So. No, no.

[Bill Burr]

Or partly own one.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So I would. I would look at it like, I don't think weed is bad.

[Bill Burr]

Me neither.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Like, everything to moderation, depending on the person. Some people's tolerance is here. Some people tolerance is there.

[Bill Burr]

Right?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

There's obviously a business that. And I'm biased to what I'm about to say because I know people that went to prison for a long time when they were selling weed, when it was illegal. Now that they've gotten out, you would think they're going to get out and be the best weed seller, but they can't even do that in a way where now it's billboard. They're weed billboards. And folks that have spent a lifetime doing something that's now legal, that to me is heartbreaking. And if they were. If they were to come back into the community and have that dispensary, but having a license to. I don't even know if they can have a license to have a dispensary now that they've come out of a correctional facility.

[Bill Burr]

No, of course you can't. I mean, they're very super strict about mixing any sort of pot with. I mean, I got rid of my guns because I don't want them to be able to say, oh, you know, you have guns and you smoke pot. Because that's a big no no. In this country, people have gotten in trouble because idiots, they post on Instagram like a joint in their mouth while they're holding an AK47.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So I've never shot an ark.

[Bill Burr]

Well, not an AK47, but an AR15. Okay, I was excited.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I shot a gun once, but it was like a BB pellet gun.

[Bill Burr]

But this, this country does not like to mix those two things. They don't like to mix vices. I mean, strip clubs you mentioned. I mean, strip clubs are always crazy places where, like, if it's fully nude, then no liquor. Like, we cannot get them drunk and have them see actual pussy at the same time. That will cause riots or something. But if, like, they're like, if they cover up a little bit pasties or something, then we can have liquor because then they won't go apeshit inside the strip club. You know, some of these things are grandfathered in from like 200 years ago or 100 years ago or some shit like that, you know? But, I mean, you say zoning, you know, I think redlining, but, you know,

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

redlining, zoning falls in the same.

[Bill Burr]

Like, yes, but red.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

But it does puppeteering of, like, how people's lives are configured to be lesser in the environment that they're in.

[Bill Burr]

That is the history. I'm asking if that's the present. You think it's a conspiracy that.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

I don't think it's a conspiracy. I think it's like a known practice for our neighborhoods to be configured the way they are, and then a known practice that folks can't, at one point in time, couldn't go out and buy in certain areas.

[Bill Burr]

So if you were the king of Los Angeles or any city, like a big city, you would change the zoning laws?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No kings. But if I was.

[Bill Burr]

But if you could just snap your fingers, you would change the zoning. That would be like, job one for you. Like, make sure that you just.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Because no, job one for me would be to educate folks in the community to the same level. Because part of the zoning is how much teachers get in the area where you have that cocktail, that configuration. The investment for education is higher in areas that don't have the same zoning configuration. So I would have equal access to higher education and then mentor and inspire the, you know, a cluster of youth to go back to the community and change the community via entrepreneurship themselves.

[Bill Burr]

What are your kids? I mean, what are your students? I mean, they must be like.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So my foundation. I have a foundation called I Am Angel Foundation.

[Bill Burr]

No, but, like, when you teach, like, I mean, I remember when I was at Cornell, there was a couple of, like, sort of celebrity. You know, Carl Sagan was there. He was a big astronomer who.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

What?

[Bill Burr]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Damn.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, yeah. That's where Neil DeGrasse Tyson met him. And, you know, it was the whole thing. You know, he mentored Neil and. But what it must be like to have, like, the rock star as the professor. The kids must be a little bit different than they would be in somebody else's class. I mean, you must notice some sort of.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

You know, I try not to awe that. No, I try not to go in there like that. But that was my biggest worry.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, if I, if I was in Cornell and, like, Billy Joel was the professor, just. I mean, it was just. I, I, I, I can't believe it wouldn't, like. I mean, first of all, it must be a very popular course.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

It was a, it's a. I mean, I'm having the, the time of my life, really teaching this course. Yeah. Once I realized, like, it's like writing a song, I got the gist.

[Bill Burr]

What is teaching is like writing a Song.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Well, the, the, the arc of the three hours, you know.

[Bill Burr]

Three hours. Yeah, it's three hours. Yeah, that's a lot. I never once in my life had a three hour course.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, we do three hours every Wednesday.

[Bill Burr]

Wow. This kid sit there for three hours.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah.

[Bill Burr]

Good for you. Cause boy attention span is, you know, there must be a break. A bathroom.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, we have bio breaks.

[Bill Burr]

Please.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Every 55 minutes.

[Bill Burr]

55 minutes. I love it. The kids can't go a full hour.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, 55 minutes. Five minute bio.

[Bill Burr]

And then they must thirst for their phone.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, the phone is a part of the course.

[Bill Burr]

Oh wow.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Because they're building their personal agent. So we have the first hour. I set up the discussion, the debate, the banter and the problem that we're going to try to aim our imagination at alongside the agent that we're building. We point out the lack of governance, lack of regulations in the space. Every week we open up a new module or a new feature.

[Bill Burr]

How are they tested? Say again? How were they tested?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

We test the students on how ethical they're building their agent.

[Bill Burr]

What's a test look like?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

A test look like? It's not really a test from a traditional viewpoint. So for example, in this realm that we're in, where agents are deployed by companies under no regulation, no governance, and now you have, we have people building their own personal agent. We test and mentor, we mentor the students to build ethical agents. And so an agent will then be given a simulation on what the agent would do in a scenario. How you grade that. You have to be also careful how you grade that because you're preparing them for real world scenarios. And the grade is not the class. The grade is preparing them for real life scenarios. So you can't give them an A or B or an F. You just have to have them think critically, think morally, have an ethical approach so that when they take their, their perspective and their business that they build out into the world, they remember how.

[Bill Burr]

So they don't get any kind of letter grade.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Say again?

[Bill Burr]

They don't get any kind of letter grade.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah, yeah, but for scenarios like that, I don't think the grade is not there. The grade is how you prepare them for being ethical, moral and collaborative with the community or national.

[Bill Burr]

How do they know if they did it well if they don't get a grade?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Oh, oh, oh. The way that it's not A. We are living in a world now where you're building something that is hyper intelligent logical reasoning and you have to be careful on how you grade an intelligent thing. That students are configuring and you want to help them build ethical contributions to society where you don't lead with greed. So how do you put people first? Communities first have tolerance, understanding, and coopetition. So from that perspective, those are the guidelines. And then from scenarios, you see how it performs, you see how friction it causes. And when you pit this against that, the friction, you step back first. We have one scenario where we look at it from this perspective, from a bird's eye view perspective, seeing how it's played out in real life and the friction it causes just by having a conversation about it. And then you put your students in a scenario and you see if there's friction there. And if they see the friction, how can you now be critical to your own decision making? It's easy to criticize if you're not in the decision making. You have an opinion, but you've never been in a scenario or put in a scenario to see how you would be in that. By putting yourself in that simulated thing to make a decision and the friction it causes with people that you once aligned with or saw eye to eye with. And because now you have, you know, stakes that can compromise your desires. And now you have to look at a person that you agreed with at one point in time and there's friction.

[Bill Burr]

Such a key thing, I think, and speaks to what's plaguing America more than anything else is that people have to always be able to. And so many people I know, sadly these days don't do it anymore. Have to be able to still remain friends with someone, even though there's something that they think that you think is crazy. Yeah, there's like, you think they're good on A, B, C, D and E. And then you get to F and you're like, oh my God, you're just a mental case. But you know what they think about that. About something. You think, yeah. And you just have to be able to go on.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

There's one thing that we. That I borrowed from the world of music in these simulations is if you're playing or jamming and I want to do something because I want to do it and my contribution is going to make the song sound horrible, right?

[Bill Burr]

Yeah.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Then you have to contribute to where the song sounds good.

[Bill Burr]

That's awesome. That's a great analogy. That's awesome. Right?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

So music does something where it's like, it's not about noise.

[Bill Burr]

We're not going to top that. Yeah, we're going to end on that one because that is perfect. That's you know, with your background and what you're doing now, that's the. The perfect melding of the. You're so right. Like, you got to. You got to fit in with the band. You got to contribute to the whole. You got to think about the end result and what's, you know, what does it sound like? What's. What's it sound like? What's the game? And also music, again, just the young man in the 22nd row. I just want it to sound good.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

And right now you're hearing noise, right? You're hearing, like, wait, you know, this shit don't sound right.

[Bill Burr]

Well, I Wish I was 20 again and in your class because it sounds like it's a lot of fun. I think you should show your class this podcast. Oh, I think they would enjoy it. Yeah, they were like, who's that old white guy you're sitting with?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, they. They know. They know Bill.

[Bill Burr]

Some of them.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Wait, wait, so. But are you William?

[Bill Burr]

Of course.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

But you're not like, Birth certificate Bill?

[Bill Burr]

No, William is. No, Bill is a nickname. It's like dick. Nobody has dick on their birth certificate. Especially now in California, where they weren't even willing to say whether you have a dick on your birth certificate. Good night, ladies and gentlemen. But no, William is, you know, very Irish. My name. I'm the third William Mar. I should have been William Aloysius Mar.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Aloysius.

[Bill Burr]

That's very Irish.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yo, Aloysius. See, if you was a rapper and you was like, aloysius, It's a good name. Come on, bro. They would just call you Wishes. Yo, I'm here with Wishes, bro.

[Bill Burr]

But my grandfather was William Aloysius Bar. And my father was William Aloysius Marr. And I was about to be. But we never got confirmed because my father left the Catholic Church. Thank God. Thank you, Jesus. Ironically, right before I was supposed to be confirmed, so I never got a middle name. So I have not been. But William. Yes. And you did something much more creative with it. I was. You know, I never really loved my name. It's so generic. Bill.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. William's like. William's generic.

[Bill Burr]

I mean, it's so generic that comedians, like, when they want to come up with a generic name for a bit, it's usually Bill. Bill. You had another idea. You know, Bill, let's postpone that meeting to last. It's either Bill or Tom. Those are, like, really the. And, you know, I mean, there's just a number of songs, you know, Don't Mess with Bill. You remember that one?

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No. What Was it the 50s?

[Bill Burr]

The 50s? Come on, give me a break. Even I wasn't around in the 50s. No, the 60s. Maybe even a little before I was listening, but. The Marvelettes.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Yeah. I never heard that one. I'm gonna check it out.

[Bill Burr]

You Don't Mess with Bill. You have to check it out. You could do a great remix. It's perfect for you because your name is Bill. Kind of.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

No, they'd never call me Bill.

[Bill Burr]

I know, but like, it would just be a good song for you to do.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

There's one guy that calls me Bill.

[Bill Burr]

Don't mess with Bill. I mean, it's kind of. It has a groove to it. It's not corny. It's not corny.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Don't mess with Bill.

[Bill Burr]

Don't. Yes. And the song. Yeah. Conjure it up on your magic light box. I bet you you can like. I bet you in seconds, Mr. AI, we can actually hear it.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

Don't mess up Bill.

[Bill Burr]

And I think it's. I think it's the Marvelettes. I think I need to get bonus points if it is the Marvelettes.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

It is the Marvelettes.

[Bill Burr]

Oh, awesome. Club Random.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

We did it. Thanks, Bill. Don't Mess with BE.

[Bill Burr]

Now look at that. You only heard it for two seconds and it's in your mind.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

That's good.

[Bill Burr]

It's not bad.

[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

The organ is what reinforces the.

[Bill Burr]

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[William Adams (aka will.i.am)]

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[Bill Burr]

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