About this conversation
Can AI replace you? Steven Potaczek has lived every side of that question: Billboard Top 40 songwriter, producer with placements on Parks and Recreation and New Girl, and now Founding Director of the Commercial Music program at Samford University. His answer is the most hopeful one you will hear. Machines can average what already exists, but they cannot live, grieve, or love, and the cracks in your story are the raw material of your art. A conversation about craft, courage, wabi-sabi, the power of yet, and why the age of AI may be the beginning of a creative renaissance. Steven's book, Fear Not, Creative, arrives October 1st. Pre-order it now, or email Steven through his website for a signed copy.
In this conversation
- 00:00Welcome and introduction
- 01:24The lifeguard's basement studio
- 04:19Parks and Recreation and New Girl
- 06:07From touring to teaching
- 07:55Why he wrote Fear Not, Creative
- 10:19Does a lifetime of skill still matter?
- 13:39The apology poem: what AI can never do
- 16:17Frida Kahlo and the power of scars
- 19:35The cracks are the raw material
- 21:03Wabi-sabi: beauty in imperfection
- 22:45You will never know how amazing you can be
- 26:57When the camera came for the painters
- 30:04The drum machine lesson
- 33:42The case for a creative renaissance
- 36:16Excellence is the new scarcity
- 40:02Stepping off the burnout wheel
- 42:14Do not let anything steal the joy
- 43:51Keep the channel open
- 44:54Studio, family, classroom: the photo tour
- 47:15Fear Not, Creative arrives October 1st
- 49:20The power of yet
- 52:31Die empty and the rapid fire
- 55:02Just start
- 56:03I'm proud of myself
