Rock the Machine: Why We’re Taking Over Sound City This Holiday Season 🎸🤖

On December 18, we’re doing something a little unusual for an AI lab.

We’re taking over the legendary Sound City Studio in Los Angeles and filling it with guitars, saxophones, drums, rebels, and a very loud question:

Who gets to own the future of creativity – machines and monopolies, or the people who actually make the art? 🎤🔥​

This isn’t just a holiday party. It’s a live, breathing town hall with a backbeat. 🥁

How we got here ✈️🏛️

Over the last year, Kwaai has been invited into rooms where AI policy, personal data, and the future of work are being debated. UN halls, academic conferences, standards bodies – places where every sentence is carefully scripted.​​

Those rooms matter.

But so does the other side of this story:

• The songwriter whose catalog is quietly scraped into a model. 🎼

• The actor whose face and voice are cloned into “synthetic” performances. 🎭

• The ordinary person whose life is turned into data exhaust without consent. 👤💽​

These people don’t get invited to the policy table. They get an updated terms‑of‑service.

Kwaai was founded to change that equation – to build personal AI that answers to its owner, not to a platform. To prove that AI can be open, accountable, and human‑aligned. 🤝🧠​

But you can’t defend culture from a spreadsheet. Sometimes, you have to pick up a guitar. 🎸

Why Sound City? Why now? 📍🎬

Sound City is not just a room with good acoustics. It’s where albums were cut that changed how whole generations felt about themselves and the world. Its story was powerful enough that Dave Grohl made a feature documentary about it.​

When Sound City offered us the sound stage for a night, we realized:

If Big Tech is going to use AI to vacuum up the world’s music, images, and words, then the right place to draw a line is in a studio that has actually made history. 🚫🧹🤖​

So on December 18, we’re convening:

• Scott Page – saxophonist for Pink Floyd and Toto 🎷

• Stephen Perkins – drummer for Jane’s Addiction 🥁

• Norwood Fisher – bassist for Fishbone 🎸

• Derek Day – vocalist and guitarist who has toured with Mötley Crüe 🎙️

• Ted Cohen – former EMI senior executive and digital‑music pioneer, as MC and moderator 🎧​

We’ll start in the green‑screen sound stage – an intimate room inside Sound City – with this all‑star band. Then Ted will moderate a conversation about what it actually means to “rock the machine” when the machine has gone off the rails. 🎛️🚂​

And at some point in the night, a surprise headliner will walk onstage to join the band, crank out classics, and lend their voice to this cause. 🔥🤘

You can guess who. Or you can be in the room.

What “Rock the Machine” really means ⚙️🎵

“Rock the Machine” is not anti‑technology.

Kwaai builds AI. Every day. Our teams work on:

• Open‑source Personal AI Operating Systems that individuals can run for themselves. 💻

• Privacy‑preserving search, including homomorphic encryption for RAG systems that never expose your data. 🔐

• Governance, contracts, and certification that give workers and creators real leverage, not just slogans. 📜​​

The problem is not AI as such.

The problem is AI concentrated in a few hands, trained on everyone else’s lives and labor, with the presumption that consent is optional and royalties are obsolete. 🏦🧠​

To “rock the machine” is to push that system off its default trajectory – not by nostalgia or denial, but by building a credible alternative:

• AI owned by people, not platforms. 👥

• Models that are transparent, inspectable, and forkable. 🔍

• Artist and worker rights designed in at the technical layer, not bolted on after the lawsuits. 🎨⚖️​

That’s why this party exists. To make that alternative visible, audible, and tangible – in a place the industry already respects. 🎶🏛️

Why you should be there 🎟️

If you:

• Work in music, film, or media and are uneasy about “synthetic everything.” 🎬

• Build AI and want it to serve people, not just shareholders. 👨‍💻👩‍💻

• Care about your kids’ ability to own their own data, likeness, and livelihood. 👧📱

…then this night is for you.

You’ll get:

• A VIP‑style evening at Sound City with an all‑star band, a surprise headliner, food truck, hosted bar, and off‑street parking. 🍔🍸🚗

• A front‑row seat to an honest conversation about AI, art, and power – with people who’ve actually lived through multiple waves of disruption. 🎤⚡

• A chance to meet the community behind Kwaai – developers, artists, policy thinkers, and citizens building open, people‑centered AI together. 🌐🤝​

And yes, your ticket supports Kwaai’s work as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit AI lab, building Personal AI as open infrastructure, not a walled garden. 🧱➡️🌳​

A simple ask 🙏

If this resonates with you, do one of three things:

1. Grab a ticket: 🎫
   Join us on December 18 at Sound City for Rock the Machine – A Holiday Party the Algorithm Couldn’t Predict. (Luma link)

2. Share this with someone in your world: 🔁
   A musician. An actor. A developer. A journalist. Someone who should not be on the sidelines of this conversation.

3. Show up for the longer journey: 🛤️
   Visit kwaai.ai, learn what we’re building, and consider joining a workgroup or supporting the lab.​

History doesn’t just happen in UN chambers and conference rooms.

Sometimes, it happens when a few hundred people pack into a studio, turn the amps up, and decide that the future of creativity is worth fighting for. 🔊✊

On December 18 at Sound City, we’re going to Rock the Machine.
I hope you’ll be in the room.