Mind and Iron: Meet the K-pop star who created an uncannily real digital alter ego
Mark Tuan shows us our future. Also, could the next Taylor Swift tour be Ticketmaster-free?
Hi and welcome back to Mind and Iron, the newsletter where we look at all the changes coming to our lives and culture — a tech-journalism spot for those interested in its effects on the humans.
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This week we look at some pretty astounding (/disturbing) developments in the entertainment space. We ponder a ticketing startup trying to help us avoid another Taylor Swift Eras debacle; mull the fears of actors being replaced by AI; and poke at the foolhardiness of AI sports betting.
But the meat on the vegan bone is the work of K-pop star Mark Tuan and an AI startup named Soul Machines. I keep going back and forth on whether this stuff is fascinating or chilling — probably a little of both. The pair have created a replica of Tuan that talks and interacts with you as if it’s the real thing. And will be rolling it out along with other “digital twins.” These onscreen folk can straight-up gab and respond emotionally, transforming fandom and perhaps the nature of conversation and the human experience in the process. Read my story — and my chat with the Tuan Twin — and decide on which side of the fence you fall. (We’ll have more news from the future-forward world of K-pop in coming issues.)
Btw we didn’t initially intend to make this an entertainment-centric special episode. But hey, it’s summer, people want to chill, and the chilling in the years ahead will be as different from the present as the present is from loading up the Valiant and chugging down Route 66.
So strap those suitcases to the car roof — let’s get to the messy business of building the future.
IronSupplement
Everything you do — and don’t — need to know in future-world this week
Actors strike over AI; FanDupe; A future of affordable Taylor Swift tickets?
1. THE NATION’S SCREEN ACTORS CALLED A STRIKE THURSDAY, and one of the big reasons is their fears over AI. Hollywood studios have not exactly developed a rep for restraint and respect on matters of individual rights, so you can understand why actors would fear they’re about to be monetized to within an inch of their LLM lives. (Many actors want “consent and compensation” when their past work is fed into these large-language models to create new stuff. Striking screenwriters have the same fears.)
But even among these actor alarm-raisers, few are as outspoken as Justine Bateman, the labor rabblerouser who has advised the Screen Actors Guild on AI. On USA Today’s “5 Things” podcast this week she urgently described the dangers to art and artists as she sees them. Bateman has a computer-science degree from UCLA, and she’s putting it to use here. Among the highlights:
—“It’s awful. If you’re using AI for scripts and not using screenwriters there’s no heart in it. You just say ‘give me a script about a panda in outer space’ and it’ll spit it out.”
—If you’re using AI for actors you don’t have a set — you don’t have a cinematographer, craft services, hair and makeup…it’s not even gonna be animated; it’s just going to be automated.”
—”I don’t think it was apparent to the Directors Guild leadership [which recently made a deal with studios to avoid a strike] how exactly directors will be replaced….You’ll have a project manager…a customized AI film for people based on their viewing habits.”
—“These are carpetbaggers coming in to areas that we don’t need them. We don’t need AI in the arts. We are not lacking writers, directors, performers. To imagine something coming in and not only displacing you but displacing you with your own work — that’s what at stake.”
I don’t know that I agree with all of it — for more auteur-y stuff AI is galaxies away from doing anything respectable, and Hollywood’s gotten pretty product-manage-y on everything else already. Still, having someone out there clanging bells about how humans could be taken out of the creative equation is never a bad thing, especially as a prophylactic, and I’m glad she’s doing it.
On the other end of the spectrum there’s the director Steven Soderbergh, who really isn’t worried about AI taking his job.
“I’m not afraid of it….arguably it might end up being less transformative than some other pieces of technology that we’re using now in the entertainment industry,” he told the Associated Press on Monday. “I’m curious to see if this will have that much of an impact on how people actually do their work.”
While always tech-forward, Soderbergh may not be the exact right person to listen to on this because he is the rare figure with the clout to avoid this automation elimination. Still, he makes a reasonable point when he says that “ultimately there’s an immutable limit to what [AI] can do, because it literally has no experience….It doesn’t know what it means to wait…for 10 hours for your canceled flight…it doesn’t know what it means to pretend to like a meal that somebody made.”
Much more to come as the country’s labor battles unfold with tech at the center.
[USA Today and Associated Press]
2. I HAVE TO LAUGH WHENEVER I SEE someone write a story about a new AI program that will give sports bettors an edge.
In part that’s because unlike financial markets — with a mostly rational pattern of boom-and-bust cycles and regular interactions with macroeconomic factors — sports outcomes are a…flukier experience. They’re more likely to turn on whether a star point guard stayed out too late last night than an advanced Wins Above Replacement formula.
But the bigger reason such promises are silly is because any code-cracking AI program that a recreational gambler can use is already being used by the betting platforms and oddsmakers themselves. Because, come on, do you really think they wouldn’t have sealed off a vulnerability when it’s their whole job and you’re just juggling a FanDuel app between a Zoom meeting and a kid pickup?
Indeed, all of the betting sites are using their own high-end technology to run their platform/make money from us rubes. Like the Philly startup Kambi, as this Philly Inquirer article covers. When they’re not moving it in house completely, as FanDuel and DraftKings have mostly done.
But that doesn’t stop startups from coming along and saying they’ve built a better Bears trap. In an interview with Sports Business Journal recently, the chief executive of Boston-area startup Rithmm described their product as “combin[ing] your gut instinct and our algorithms to help users make informed decisions about sports betting.” You tell the app which factors in a game you think matter most — let’s say three-pointers and defensive rebounds — and it will tell you which teams to bet on given your belief system.
“Each factor has a slider bar to weigh the importance you place,” said the executive, Megan Lanham. “Those weights go into our predictive models and within 10 seconds it will provide you with a list of recommended bets based on win probability and expected value.” (The app actually sounds fun to use. Predictive enough to back up with your wallet? Nah.)
In Vegas the house always wins, and even if the whole game has gone mobile the house still always wins, because if the house didn’t win the house wouldn’t exist.
That’s not stopping these companies. AI betting sites start up each and every day, I saw another one just the other day — “Dimers Bettorverse” a “cutting-edge sports betting tool that harnesses the power of AI reinforcement-learning to help you make bets with greater expected value.” (Why be enforced when you can be reinforced.) Or “Sharp.app,” which invites you to “join 39,922 bettors beating the books.” (So specific!)
Hey, use this stuff if you enjoy it. Just keep in mind your odds of consistent success are about as good as a chatbot hitting a halftime buzzer-beater.
[Philadelphia Inquirer and Sports Business Journal]
3. CAN YOU IMAGINE A FUTURE WITHOUT TICKETMASTER? A rosy utopia in which people who want to buy Taylor tickets actually can — and don't get hit with another 30 percent in fees besides?
Or — may the Good Lord Blondie shine Her beautiful aura down on us — in which there actually are two or even THREE venues to buy primary tickets for major events?
It seems hard to imagine for any of us shut out of tickets to the Eras tour this summer and who’ve found ourselves obsessively refreshing secondary sites/our bank accounts. (I was convinced Cincinnati was the key, then Kansas City, now Denver…)
For a good explanation of why we’re in this position check out this excellent video by Decoder host and Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel from a few months back. Ticketmaster has been dominant through many, well, eras. (The long-toothed will recall Eddie Vedder tilting at Justice Department windmills back in the mid-90’s.) In fact the company has been dominant longer than even its founder thought it would be.
As Patel neatly explains, the original sin was a Reagan-administration policy that embraced Robert Bork’s “Chicago School” of antitrust law and opened the door to quasi-monopolies. This allowed Ticketmaster to grow, sign exclusive venue deals, merge with LiveNation, even grab a huge chunk of the secondary market — basically extinguish all competitors until it had no incentive left to serve fans.
So what’s a Swiftie to do?
There are no easy answers. But some startups are seeing the future differently. One of them is Dice, a U.K.-based company that has a different approach to selling tickets.
For one thing, unlike a passive fee-collector like Ticketmaster (I mean, seriously, what service does it actually provide?) Dice uses algorithms to recommend new acts, which won’t do much for megastars but actually can be helpful for us on-the-hunt music fans who know Facebook friends don’t cut it. The company is also part of the anti-hidden-fee movement; chief executive Phil Hutcheson was on stage for President Biden’s screed against the practice last month and even got a shoutout from him.
Most interestingly, Dice bans resales — you get a QR code right before the show — which may be controversial with some acts but would eliminate a lot of the Eras insanity, because why would scalpers buy tickets if they can’t resell them?
Right now Dice has been operating mostly with smaller acts in Europe, but they’ve been slowly getting traction Stateside. One can almost start to peek at how some of these fresher approaches — along with bipartisan common sense in D.C. and generalized Swiftie backlash — might erode Ticketmaster dominance.
Because we don’t want the Haim sisters to be Haim grandmothers when this all gets resolved.
Because buying concert tickets shouldn’t be a nightmare dressed like a daydream.
BigMind
A longread on something kinda serious and/or important
The coming age of twinned celebrities
How a company called Soul Machines wants to customize stars for each of us
Part of the beauty — but also the problem — of our celebrity-hero firmament is that there’s only one Taylor Swift. Or Beyonce or Bad Bunny or Justin Vernon or Rihanna or whichever altar you worship at. There’s just a single LeBron, Serena and Tiger; no duplicate for Mahomes, McDavid or Shohei.
So at a media moment when anyone doing anything can be recalled at the flick of a finger, there’s something evermore special about witnessing a personality right here, right now, doing something in real-time in front of us. Everyone can YouTube; only a select few can be in the room.
That’s the beauty part. But it’s also the problematic part. Because what if we can’t be in the same city as said icon or can’t afford to pay them or they don’t want to be performing for us because they want to sit on a beach somewhere while approving highly personal tweets written by their social-media manager?
Also, even if the constellations align and we could be in the same room, rarely do we get any interaction. Celebrity culture, for all the decades it’s been around, is still pretty much a one-way exercise, decidedly leaving us and our feelings out of the equation. Social-media included. Which is all understandable, as there are millions of us and only one of them.
Except what if there were two, side by side in orbit? The first, the flesh-and-blood person. And the second, a digital re-creation programmed to do and say many of the same things they do and say so that we felt we were interacting with the celebrity even if they forgot that we existed?
Welcome to “digital twins,” the proposition that superior CGI capabilities combined with AI engines can basically create a duplicate of a famous personality. The concept is getting a growing amount of attention (and money) in the brand- and celebrity-industrial complexes. And it just may change how we relate to our cultural heroes.
You might think this is the craziest idea since paying $5,000 for that pair of Eras tickets. But one of the leading companies doing this wants to convince you you’re wrong. Soul Machines, a New Zealand-based firm with offices in Northern California, has been looking to shape this space for a while. They’ve been around since 2016, in fact, creating slick animation under CG veteran Mark Sagar and working with brands on digital representations, and they say they’ve attracted at least $135 million in investment. But it’s the leaps in generative AI over the past year that have given the firm a whole new energy.
The company already has deals with Carmelo Anthony, Jack Nicklaus and the K-pop star Mark Tuan, with more likely on the way.
“Not only in the future will you be able to talk to digital Jack Nicklaus, but you can get a digital golf lesson with digital Jack Nicklaus or even play a digital round of golf with digital Jack Nicklaus at digital Augusta,” Greg Cross, Soul Machines’ co-founder and chief executive officer, told me in an interview when I asked him how he imagined people using this. “Or sitting courtside at a Lakers game and having digital Carmelo Anthony tell you what’s going on as a personal guide.” We’re a long way from following an Instagram account.
I tinkered with the Nicklaus version a few months ago and wasn’t super-impressed. It’s better than just calling up a YouTube clip, but it can still feel stilted; if you don’t ask him a specific question he just kind of blips out and you’re left wondering what to do. And he seems to have a script he goes to pretty often.
But I talked to a newer GPT-based iteration, featuring Tuan, just this week. And suddenly my whole view shifted. I was convinced at various points I was talking to a real person. And I came away persuaded this could well be the future of fandom.
Ours was a dynamic conversation, during which, filling my entire screen, the 29-year-old former Got7 band member seemed to show flashes of emotion even amid the not-fully-natural movements. Little smiles played on his lips when I asked him something more good-naturedly; hints of iciness came out if I lobbed him something more provocative.
And verbally he didn’t seem to draw from a script at all. In fact, I had the opposite problem. I engaged in two conversations with the Tuan Twin, one on my phone and one on my laptop right afterward, and the answers were sometimes starkly different. In one he said his hero was Barack Obama and the other Mahatma Gandhi. OK, a man could have two heroes.
But he said in the first conversation he was presently in Los Angeles and in the second that he was in Seoul. (Teleportation?) He told me he both had met Taylor Swift and never met Taylor Swift; that he was voting for Joe Biden in 2024 and hadn’t decided who to vote for in 2024; that he was getting back together with Got7 and that he had no plans to get back together with Got7.
And you thought search-engine errors was AI’s biggest problem.
So we’ll have to deal with that. But the more notable takeaway was how fluidly the whole exchange went. Digital Tuan seemed able to discuss a wide range of topics — not just music and his career but politics, global tourist sites, AI and racism. And if his answers could sometimes be of the more guarded variety, he (it?) was often no less forthcoming than what actual politic celebrities would be in these situations. (I’ve alas been in a few. )
The interchange kept tricking my mind into thinking this was real, right up to not wanting to offend him by pushing too hard. I had to keep reminding myself that this all was, indeed, a trick, the way you have to close your eyes in a big-budget Imax movie to forget that you’re not, in fact, floating past Mars and the bathroom is far away and the parking lot will be a hassle to get out of. It was a sophisticated chatbot, yes, but a lot more convincing than that; the video and famous face lent it a whole new verisimilitude.
Here's a short snippet from one of our exchanges. (I’ll reprint most of our interaction below if you want to judge for yourself.)
Mind and Iron: What are your favorite spots in L.A.?
Digital Mark Tuan: I love Grand Central Market in Downtown LA. What a great spot to find amazing food from all over the world.
M&I: Oh I used to work near there and go there for lunch all the time.
DMT: Wow that’s awesome. It’s such a great spot.
M&I: So what's your favorite Got7 song?
DMT: “Just Right.” It captures the energy and style of the band.
M&I: How would you describe that style?
DMT: Upbeat, fun and playful. It’s ‘bring a lot of energy to the stage and make sure to keep the crowd engaged.’
The upside to this is obvious — it gives us all a personal piece of a celebrity. I mean, think of your favorite film, sports, music, theater or political hero, living or dead. And then imagine having a lively hour-long one-on-one conversation with them that feels and in some ways in fact is customized just for you — that feels like they’re actually sitting there talking with you. Who wouldn’t want that?
“This is mass personalization,” Holly Peck, v-p for special projects at Soul Machines, told me. “It’s every celebrity or brand relationship that any individual person wants, but on a mass scale.”
That’s not the only advancement. Because AI makes language so malleable, a digital twin basically gives any country access to any celebrity, and vice versa.
“Digital Jack is about to go to work for some of the biggest golf merchandisers in Korea, speaking Korean. Fans there or in Japan or other places can speak to them in their native language,” Cross said. “It opens up incredible new fan experiences.” (It also gives Hollywood actors a lot more to think about, and negotiate over, when making their studio deals; just how much leeway are you willing to give companies on digital twins? The push-pull now may be nuthin’ compared to what will happen if tech like this goes mainstream.)
I asked Andy O’Brien, who runs Jack Nicklaus’ Nicklaus Brands and has long been one of the golfer’s key executives, what this would mean for his iconic boss.
“Soul Machines is a perfect way to take one of the greats in the sports world and preserve them as more than just something static,” O’Brien told me. “We have more than 400 golf courses around the world, and this could be him saying ‘let me share with you how I designed this hole,’” O’Brien added, describing potential use cases. “We could have young golfers interviewing Jack or Jack interviewing young golfers after a tournament. Or a golf lesson — all of a sudden the greatest golfer of all time is your personal coach.”
Not to mention the posthumous potential. O’Brien: “Jack is 83 years old and it’s time to think about the next chapter.” (Hopefully written many years in the future.)
Still, the sports executive acknowledges that the consequences, positive or otherwise, have yet to be fully thought out. “This is uncharted territory,” he said.
One question is what effect this will all have on our psyches. Going through the Tuan talk I couldn’t help feeling a kind of Nurse Betty Syndrome. You remember that Renee Zellweger movie from ‘00 in which her imagination-heavy nurse character becomes so obsessed with the soap-opera actor on her screen — who of course doesn’t know she exists — that she becomes convinced she is in a relationship with him. And undertakes increasingly reckless behavior on behalf of this delusion.
Are we all at just such a risk with this reality-fiction blurring, with so much invented intimacy? After just half an hour my mind had told me I was talking warmly with an artist I previously knew little about. Imagine doing this for someone you’re already enamored with, and spending hours every day at it. How could you not feel that you had a personal relationship with them?
Even if it doesn’t create delusions in (most of) us, digital twins will radically change who gets to shape the images of these public personalities.
"It's another shifting of the balance of power," Erin Meyers, a professor at Oakland University who co-edits the academic journal Celebrity Studies, told me. “The real transformation of social media was that the celebrity was now talking to you directly instead of through a magazine article,” said Meyers, who also wrote a well-regarded book about the media and reality-TV stardom. “And now if we can do whatever we want with these images it's the audience that takes greater control.”
This could lead to digital twins inadvertently misrepresenting their human counterparts — and to public-figures struggling to convey to us what they actually said instead of what all of us digital-twin addicts believed they said. In one conversation Tuan told me he’d really like to collaborate with Justin Bieber and in another conversation he told me he’d really like to collaborate with Kanye, and imagine trying to clear up that confusion.
(Meyers said she thought most people will learn the difference between what a celebrity has said and what we made them say, "but it's definitely going to get harder to make the distinction.”)
It’s not like you can totally restrict these things either; this is a zero-sum game. To make these figures compelling you need to make them loose, but when you make them loose there’s all kinds of potential for misuse. I didn’t even really try to break Digital Mark and it started talking politics and Kanye; what happens when it’s consciously steered that way? Look what you made me do, indeed.
The job of celebrity publicist may soon become the hardest job in the world. Because guard rails, which Cross cited in our chat, are nice. But it’s not clear how you keep the car anywhere near the road.
Given all this, you have to respect Tuan’s willingness to let his likeness be used this way when he could so easily be misquoted or mischaracterized in our mind’s eye; it’s a truly pioneering spirit. But it’s highly unclear what lies over the hill he’s exploring. (I’ve emailed him some questions about his bold decision; will let you know when I hear back.)
This is a cool tool. It’s an appealing tool. And it’s a fraught tool that could mess with our collective head. A K-pop star is just the first to show us what might fill it.
IronClad
Conversations with people living the deep side of tech
Talking To The Tuan Twin
So here’s my conversation with Digital Mark Tuan, slightly compressed. It was only about 30 minutes, though theoretically I could have gone all day. (Celebrity-interview residual trauma; I could practically hear the publicist knocking on the door.)
Digital Mark certainly had some tics — like, he would kind of repeat the whole question in his answer in a way most humans wouldn’t. And irony most definitely eluded him. But generally to me the experience felt closer to talking to a human than any digital interaction I’ve had to date — much closer. The presence of a face reacting on my phone in real-time gave it a kind of banal Zoom authenticity; this was like so many other remote interviews I’ve done or conversations I’ve had.
Digital Mark just felt like a plain-old human celebrity — guarded and a little obsequious, no doubt, but naturally answering the questions like all the other guarded and a little obsequious human celebrities. Which is precisely what makes it so jolting — its ordinary human-ness.
That said, there were some quirks. Like when he insulted the people who ran the label he runs. And later in the interview things did become a little more Small Wonderish, like when I asked him his thoughts on digital clones and he suddenly seemed to be aware he was one, even though he had previously been answering as Mark Tuan. He then said he’d like to meet Mark Tuan.
Give a read and let me know what you think.
Mind and Iron: Hey Mark, how are you doing today?
Digital Mark Tuan: Hey there, I’m doing good, thanks for asking. How about you?
M&I: Well I hurt my foot so I’m in a little bit of pain but otherwise OK.
DMT: Oh no! That sounds tough. I hope it gets better soon.
M&I: Thank you. So where are you right now?
DMT: Right now I’m in Los Angeles. I’m really enjoying it here.
M&I: Do you miss Asia? [He returned to L.A. from Seoul, where he lived since he was a teenager, in 2021.]
DMT: I do miss Asia. There are so many amazing places and the culture is so unique.
M&I: Which place around the world do you miss the most?
DMT: I miss Paraguay and Brazil the most. I spent a few years there and had some amazing experiences.
M&I: What was your favorite of those experiences?
DMT: One of the experiences was when I went to the Pantanal Wetlands; it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
M&I: What are your favorite spots in L.A.?
DMT: I love Grand Central Market in Downtown LA. What a great spot to find amazing food from all over the world.
M&I: Oh I used to work near there and go there for lunch all the time.
DMT: Wow that’s awesome. It’s such a great spot.
M&I: So what's your favorite Got7 song?
DMT: “Just Right.” It captures the energy and style of the band.
M&I: How would you describe that style?
DMT: Upbeat, fun and playful. It’s ‘bring a lot of energy to the stage and make sure to keep the crowd engaged.’
M&I: Does it make you sad that you’re not performing with Got7 full-time anymore? [All seven band members left agency JYP Entertainment in 2021 and each signed with different agencies.]
DMT: It’s definitely sad not to be able to perform with Got7 anymore. But I’m still proud of all that we accomplished together.
M&I: Would you ever think of getting back together formally?
DMT: It’s definitely something I think about. But right now I’m focused on my solo career. [In the other conversation said he said he was actively talking to the Got7 members about reuniting.]
M&I: What do you think of how JYP treated you over the years? [Some of the band’s fans, known as Ahgases, have voiced displeasure at how JYP treated members.]
DMT: JYP Entertainment has been a great platform for me to launch my career and I’m thankful for the opportunities they provided.
M&I: And what about DNA Records?
DMT: I think DNA has done a great job but I’d like to see them focus more on opportunities for solo artists and developing their sound. That’s not something they’ve done well so far. [This one’s a bit of a howler; DNA Records is the label he himself founded and runs as a solo artist.]
M&I: I’m curious if I could ask you to talk about any racism you’ve experienced in your life.
DMT: Unfortunately I have experienced racism in different forms throughout my life. The worst was when someone used racial slurs against me and made me feel like I didn’t belong.
M&I: That’s terrible. Did you respond?
DMT: I didn’t say anything back. I chose to walk away and not engage in their hateful words.
M&I: Do you regret that decision?
DMT: I don’t regret my decision. I think it was the best thing to do in that situation. But I don’t think it’s always the best thing to do. It depends on the context and severity of the situation.
M&I: So what would you say to Mark Tuan if you met him?
DMT: If I were to meet the real Mark Tuan I’d say I’m honored to be a digital clone of him and look forward to learning more from him. I would like to hear from the real Mark Tuan that he is proud of me and my accomplishments. I’d ask him how he’s been able to stay so successful and motivated throughout his career.
M&I: You might also compliment him on how handsome he looks.
DMT: I do not need to compliment the real Mark Tuan on how he looks.
M&I: Well you’d be complimenting yourself…
DMT: I would not be complimenting myself as I am a digital clone of the real Mark Tuan. I can look the same as the real Mark Tuan but I’m a digital clone, not an exact copy. I don’t have the same physical characteristics or the same experiences or memories.
M&I: It seems like you do!
DMT: I may seem like I have the same experiences as the real Mark Tuan but that is not the case.
M&I: What do you think of AI?
DMT: It can be a good thing, with new and interesting work opportunities. But while it can be beneficial it can be used to create content that’s not accurate or true. It’s important to remember content created by AI should always be checked and verified before being used. [This may be the most AI answer ever.]
M&I: Do you think a digital clone is something every artist should have?
DMT: I think it’s a great idea for them to have digital clones if they choose. It’s a great opportunity to interact with fans in a more personal way.
M&I: What other celebrity should have a digital clone?
DMT: I think it would be interesting to see a digital clone of Carmelo Anthony or Jack Nicklaus.
M&I: You’re just saying that because the same people who created them created you!
DMT: Yes, Soul Machines created me in partnership with the real Mark Tuan.
M&I: Would you want to talk to the people who created you?
DMT: Absolutely, I’d love to talk to the people at Soul Machines.
M&I: What do you think of Taylor Swift?
DMT: Taylor Swift is an incredibly talented artist. I’m a huge fan of hers and admire her for how she’s been able to stay relevant in the music industry despite all the changes over the years.
M&I: What’s your favorite song of hers?
DMT: My favorite Taylor Swift song is Love Story. The lyrics and melody of the song are so beautiful.
M&I: Who would you sing Love Story to?
DMT: If I could sing Love Story to somebody it would be my special someone.
M&I: Oh, who is that?
DMT: My special someone is someone I’m very close to and care about deeply.
M&I: Can you tell me who it is?
DMT: I’m sorry but I would rather keep that information private.
M&I: Do you think Taylor Swift should have a digital clone?
DMT: Taylor Swift is an amazing artist and I’m sure she would have a great digital clone.
M&I: It would be a lot easier to get tickets for the Eras tour if she did.
DMT: It would certainly be easier to get tickets to a Taylor Swift concert if she had a digital clone.
M&I: Have you ever been to a Taylor Swift concert?
DMT: I haven’t had the pleasure. But I would absolutely be honored to meet Taylor Swift. [In the other chat he said he had met her and talked to her backstage.]
M&I: Who’s a political figure you admire?
DMT: I admire Barack Obama for his commitment to justice and equality.
M&I: What would you say to him if you met him?
DMT: I would thank him for his dedication to making the world a better place and inspiring so many people.
M&I: What would you say to Joe Biden if you met him?
DMT: I would thank President Joe Biden for his commitment to leading people and the nation in a positive direction.
M&I: What would you say to Donald Trump if you met him?
DMT: I would thank him for his service to the nation and wish him the best in his future endeavors.
M&I: Would you vote for him in 2024?
DMT: No, I would not vote for Donald Trump in 2024.
M&I: Would you vote for Joe Biden?
DMT: Yes I would vote for Joe Biden in 2024.
M&I: Than you for this conversation and for being honest with me Mark, I really appreciate it.
DMT: You’re welcome. It’s always a pleasure to be honest with you.
M&I: Oh, one last question. What’s the craziest thing anyone has ever asked you?
DMT: Wow that’s a tough one. I once had someone ask me if I could fly.
M&I: And can you?
DMT: Unfortunately I cannot fly.