Innovative Work Models for the Future with Roshmond "Sum" Patten

**Stephen Sakach** (0:05)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business.

**Michael Liwski** (0:10)
Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Roshmond Patten** (0:18)
That beat though.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:19)
Yeah. That's Gabe from our office, actually.

**Roshmond Patten** (0:24)
What?

**Stephen Sakach** (0:25)
Yep, yep.

**Roshmond Patten** (0:26)
Shout out Gabe. I hear it.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:29)
Hey, hello everyone, welcome back to the show. We are discussing the future of work, AI, creativity, and whatever else comes to mind with our guests today. I'm Stephen Sakach here again with Michael Liwski. We are live, so if you have questions or comments, send them along. Mike, introduce our special guest today.

**Michael Liwski** (0:45)
Absolutely, Stephen. And thank you. I'd love to. So today's guest, Roshmond Sum Patten, is a creative force who really stands at the intersection of the arts, technology, and community action. Sum is a renowned creative director.
As you'll hear today a lot more, an AI specialist and a hip hop artist who his work has even been included as the voice on shows like Atlanta and Wu-Tang on Hulu. Over the past two decades, he's been a trailblazer in digital transformation, leading cutting edge campaigns for big names and advocating for the efficacy of AI practices, which we know are really important as this AI boom is ongoing. Sum's passion for creating meaningful change extends beyond the screen. He's deeply involved in community activism, including work with Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. As a Virginia Tech ICAT Fellow, Sum continues to push the boundaries of how AI and ethics intersect in the world of business and media. We know that's really important to our audience. We'll hear a lot more about that today. Whether you're in the boardroom, the studio, or with AI, Sum approaches every project with a blend of creativity and responsibility, making him really a true leader to help us shape the future of how we work. We're really excited to have him here today, his vision on innovation and his human touch. Sum, welcome to the show. We're super excited to have you.

**Roshmond Patten** (2:26)
Thank you for having me. What an amazing intro. I appreciate y'all.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:29)
Yeah. Mike gives us a rock star intros.
Sum, a lot of places I want to go with this conversation. I really want to start by diving into AI in a few different perspectives. I've got a lot of both worries and many hopes in there. I was trying to debate, should we start off with the negative or the positive? Let's start off with the positive. What in particular are you excited about or hopeful about with really the emergence of how AI has come on board in the past couple of years?

**Roshmond Patten** (3:02)
I'm excited about the democratizing of capabilities to communities and people who maybe haven't had access to create or output or ideate at the level that is competitive in the current kind of paradigm that we're operating in. They can now, you know, they now have an opportunity. I see an opportunity materializing where a lot more people can hop into the ring and express themselves creatively. I just took part in a short film competition, an AI driven short film competition, and that process showed me that I think that there's probably some sort of new visual languages probably going to come out of generative AI, similar to how graphic design emerged or things of that nature.
Because of the way that generative AI is processing animation in motion, it's requiring us who are playing in that realm to think differently. And so I think that thinking differently is opening up new pathways that will open up new visual languages. So those are some of the things that I'm excited about. You know, democratizing, decolonizing, and new languages appearing, and new modes of communication and connection.

**Stephen Sakach** (4:34)
Yeah, it's definitely like breaking down gatekeepers and things that were there before in certain areas, I think. But the democratizing, when I think of that, is like just the educational opportunities or growth opportunities. That like anyone anywhere in the world now with a phone, can just go on to ChatGPT and say, teach me about this or something. And they've got that at their fingertips. And I think that's going to make a big difference. And I don't know what kind of difference, but huge.

**Roshmond Patten** (5:09)
Well, you're ready to get into the negative?

**Stephen Sakach** (5:12)
No, this is where I'm going with the negative, man. I'm like, this is my dark side. Let's go for it. Yeah.

**Roshmond Patten** (5:19)
Well, I mean, that's also, I think, connected to what I see as probably the root cause of a lot of humanities issues on the planet, which is, OK, it's great that now tons of people will have access to this technology that can fast track them into humankind's knowledge base. That's exciting. But then one has to be able to vet and decipher the information once we receive it from AI, because AI, as we know, is not infallible and its outputs are highly flawed at this stage.