The Ben Mulroney Show - David Usher Shares a Practical Guide to Using AI Safely

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

On today's episode of "The Ben Mulroney Show," Ben welcomes David Usher, an AI and creativity keynote speaker, multi-platinum artist, best-selling author and founder of Reimagine AI. David shares the "5 Questions to Ask About AI," a practical look at how we can use AI safely. https://www.davidusher.com/ Watch David explain his 5 tips here: https://lnkd.in/p/gp8xV2d4 If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠   Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Standard messaging and data rates may apply. Very proud to be reunited with David Usher, who is the best-selling author, multi-platinamartist, keynote speaker, and the founder of Reimagined AI. And I'm getting in the sense, David, over the course of this conversation, that we need voices like yours in this conversation about the evolution of AI because you present, I don't know if it's intentional, but it might be the

effect, as the conscience that these developers need as they move us towards, as you said, superintelligence. Well, I think not just my voice, but we need a lot more voices to talk about where we want this technology to go, because it really is a radical. If we really do get to superintelligence, it's a radical change in all of our lives for all of our kids' lives. And everything that's coming out of the big labs now, the big AI company says that they're not doing enough for safety. But also, one of the main things is that the roadmap that we're building on towards superintelligence isn't the only one. It is not inevitable that we have to build that. We can really choose what we want to build. And I think that there are many different

things we could build instead. Well, we'll get to that in a moment. But tell me, how do you use AI in your everyday life? I mean, I use it in the company all the time. We're building different applications. We're building applications for seniors and Alzheimer's patients in health care. We're doing a lot with memory. Our project called Second Echo, which is about a new way to reimagine and save your memories. But in my own life, I use it every day.

As someone that runs a company, you know, I come from the arts. So my business acumen for things like, you know, S-O-W-W. or LOIs, it's not the best. But now you can be as good as anybody else because if you know how to use AI and use it well, you can be very fast and efficient with those kind of tools. So you talked before about the types of things we could build in an ideal world.

What role does AI play in society? I think that we need vertical specific models rather than going after just generalized super intelligence. I mean, as you were saying, we don't need AI in your toaster, your fridge, You don't need to slap AI into everything. If you're doing deep cancer research, you don't need your model to also understand Youngian philosophy. We can make our models vertical specific and much more safe because of that.

I just think that there needs to be a lot more thought on that. No, you're absolutely right. I was involved with a company that just went public. And it's an AI model that was trained exclusively on about 60 years of mental health research knowledge and information so that it can offer up an AI agent specific for big companies where individuals might need to talk to somebody, anyone, and in order to down, to help with anxiety and stress, burnout. and if for any reason the AI identifies a red flag, then it gets sent to a human being. But it keeps those costs down. It allows people access to mental health resources without breaking the bank. And it's a bridge between where that person is and where they need to go.

I mean, AI can be used in so many ways that are really useful to us and very valuable to us. But we have to be thoughtful about it. That's all. I mean, we just have to be thoughtful about where we want. want to use it and where we don't want to use it. For myself personally, I make music with my human friends because that's fun. And I like that. But some people make music with artificial intelligence as well. And it can be used in many different ways. It's just going to one thing it is going to do is going to really disrupt a lot of business models. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I got really scared

when I heard some of these people involved with AI saying the future of AI is like a public utility where you'll be charged for what you use. And there's some logic to it, but they were explaining as if it was an electric company. And the problem I see with that is the digital divide that we're still dealing with in terms of broadband access, the exact same thing is going to happen, but on a herculean level, much bigger scale,

where there are going to be people who can access, leverage and benefit from AI, and then for those it is simply out of reach. 100%. I mean, I mean, if you look at what Elon Musk is saying, he's not talking about universal basic income or UBI. He's talking about universal high income, which just, I mean, that's some sort of future fantasy. We need to focus on how the technology can be useful to people right now without all of the dangers, without all of the downside. So I'm very focused on how we should build now and what the future should be of what we build in the future.

Yeah. So is there anything that you're bullocked? Sean in terms of what's being built now? You know, I think the fact that that token prices are coming down, that tokens, you know, tokens are basically becoming like the commodity. And we're seeing a race to the bottom. As the Chinese open weight models are more readily available and more hostable on Canadian sovereign servers, we can make better sovereign. I'm really bullish on Canadian sovereign AI as well, companies like Cohere and other companies

like that. Because I really, really think that it's very important that we have control of our own artificial intelligence. So it can't be, you know, tariffed out of us. Yeah. Well, we saw the future. I think something happened in France when America wanted some sort of information that was on some French servers, but it was, it was American companies. And so they decided to pull out entirely from their contracts with them. And fortunately for them, they had the infrastructure and the software that they needed. We're not there yet, but it's nice to know that it's on the roadmap and they're working towards it. Yeah, they definitely have laws on the books, things like Law 25 and PIPA.

Those are things that are, you know, every company is supposed to be moving towards, if you're dealing with sensitive information like health or legal, we're supposed to have Canadian hosting and a Canadian stack. It's really hard to do now because some of the best models are American. But we're getting there quickly. Yeah. Yeah. But I heard that the cost that you and I are paying for AI is nowhere close to what the real cost is.

Never mind the environmental cost that we can talk about at a later date. But they are selling it to us at a loss right now, like so many new technologies where you get hooked on the service. And once you do, the prices start going up fairly quickly. It's hard to know. It's hard. I mean, I think that they are subsidizing the pricing because they're moving towards IPO in the next, you know, six to 12 months. But at the same time, we're watching, you know, we're watching pricing on the open weight

models is, you know, sometimes a hundred times less than the American frontier models. Now, I'm not sure if that's because they're actually less or China is just dumping in tokens basically to undermine the American economy. I don't know which it is, but I, I, actually see it as a commodity that will slowly become like any other commodity. The prices will dump up lower and lower. Well, listen, I've always known you as a creative person. The fact that you're thinking about this is really important.

So I kind of want to bring this back to where I started with my daughter. What would you tell my daughter about the role that AI can play in the creative space? I heard somebody say the rule that somebody should use in every industry is the 2060, 20 rule. where you start by doing 20% of the work, then you give it to AI for 60%, and then you come back and close the loop with an additional 20% of the work. Is that something that could apply in the creative space?

It could apply, but that's not the... That for myself, when I'm thinking of that creative space, whether it's art or music specifically, I don't think that way. I think that there's going to be the rise of human spaces. I think we're going to start to see people that really want to experience human art, whether that's music or visual art, whatever it is. And it's not going to be only about the product itself, what is created, but it's going to be

about the human that lives around that product. It's going to be more about the human themselves and the person that made that product. And that's going to become very, very valuable. Chess is a great example, right? Chess is a game that people thought that when computers could beat humans at chess, that chess would go away. but the reality is chess has never been bigger because humans want to play with humans and I think that's the same for the other art

so that's what I would tell her. And you're right because the fact is we're living in a world where we know we are going to build something that can beat us at everything and so there's no challenge there anymore and there's not a failure to lose to a machine and so you're right

there's going to be something remarkable to appreciate a human achievement and human, the culture that we create and the art that we create. I think you're right. I think the stark relief between the digital world, the AI world, and the magic that is that creative spark that only a human can have is going to make what you just said, all the more valuable. David Usher, if people want to hear more about reimagined AI and they want to hear more

about what you're saying on this matter, how can they find it? You can go to David Usher.com or reimagined. Hey, thank you very much, my friend. I hope to catch up with you again soon. Thanks, Ben. Take care.