Making human music in an AI world
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Walk with the verdict, the flexi podcast of music apps you play on your phone with your mouth. I mean, there appears, and I admit union station in washington, D. C.

It's like four fifty four in the morning. Now I am on way waiting in new york to go do some planning meetings with a bunch of other verge folks. I've been at the verge for like two and a half years now and they're a bunch of coworkers that i've just never met in person.

Weird post pandemic university we live in, but i'm going to go make someone to one person. This is the third and last episode in our many series about the future of music. We've talked about tracks, star and tiktok.

We ve talked about auto tune. And today i'm talking with a stanford professor named go wrong. Go is fascinating.

He's been in the music world for a long time, but he's also an academic. He's also a former entrepreneur who built a company called smile that you might have heard of. He's just been in the music world thinking about that suffer a really long time.

So I wanted to talk to him about A I and about virtual reality and about what that means to make music. Now in a world where increasingly, technology, media, it's all parts of this process, we had a really fun conversation. It's not at all what I expected IT, but I really enjoyed IT and I expect you well too. All that is coming up in just a sec, but literally the train is best. Leave is the verge cast way back.

Support for the verge cast is brought to you by new song kicks. Hey, the nisson kick is undergone a complete transformation, emerging as the cv size cross over redefined for urban adventures, with a striking new exterior and a fully revamped interior boasting premium peaches.

The kicks experience has been totally enhances to help you Better navigate city life, and the reimagine non kicks is outfitted with intelligent all wheel drift so you can keep going rain or shine. Learn more at W W W dot miss on U S. A dot com slash twenty twenty five dash cakes. Intelligent wheel drive cannot prevent collision or provide enhance traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions.

Welcome back. Let's get into my conversation with ga wong. I wanted to talk to go because he sited a really unusual place in the music flash technology universe.

A bunch years ago, he covered the company called meal, which is still around you metaphor bit. They make a bunch of really popular music base. Aps one is a cariole APP called, I think, smile, that's still really popular.

There's also one called magic piano, which is kind of like guitar hero or beats saber, but it's for playing piano. Girl also wrote a whole programing language called chuck, which lets you write code that outputs as music. It's very cool and kind of wild to watch someone work with.

He's now been at stanford for a long time, also teaching in the center for computer research in music and acoustics, which is a very cool thing that I just learned exist. He's also written a book about design. He's been teaching about music and technology for years.

And in his free time, he's also the conductor of stanford laptop orchestra, which is exactly what that sounds like. It's a bunch of students on stage using their laptops and other gadgets to make music, Frankly, that you've never heard before. Here is just a glimpse of what that sounds like.

That sound, if you can imagine, IT is being made by gr himself, who is standing on stage holding a glove, connected those laptop and it's changing the sound as he moved his hand in space. That's wild. You should watch IT.

Their concerts are very cool. I wanted to talk to go about the future music because I figured he would just see IT all from an unusual perspective. He makes music.

He teaches about music. He's a programmer and an engineer, both for phone and by training. He started companies before. He's seen kind of all sides of this, and I figured he'd have cool ideas about how we make music, how we can interact with computers to make music, and probably would have some like meet new A I apps that he was into that we might talk about. Our conversation went really differently from that, and IT went really differently in a way that I really love.

Actually, what we are not talking about more than anything was what that means to be creative in a time when everything is being optimized and simplified and made more convenient and more efficient and more engaging. Absolutely everywhere you look. This is much more philosophical than a lot of the stuff we talk about on the show.

But I really like the way he talks about what that means to be human and be yourself among all of this technology. And I hope you enjoy IT too. So this just dive to start with.

I ask you to try and frame the way he sees the words a little bit. One thing I can say a few times in interviews and self is that he makes computer music. But it's twenty twenty four, right? Pretty much all music is made with and on computers. So what does gos version of computer music look like now? And how did he get so obsessed that in the first place.

since I was a small child, I had a fascination with computers, probably throw video games. Actually, I also, in the first time I saw a vision game, I think I was seven or eight in beijing. You know, I not seen a computer to that point.

All thing is a big deal. When we ve got a nine color television. You know, this is in the the early eighties in china, in the first time, I when my mom, nothing took me to an arcade, a video game marked. I don't know if listeners still know what those are.

They've seen them in movie. Is that the very yes.

there's more places where you go and you put like coins into and you can play games and there's these giant machines, arcade machines. And as the first I saw like a video game and something about the pixel, I think really kind of draw me in not unlike a mouth to a flame. I guess it's not entirely like a bad analogy, but I and I think ever since then, i've been faster ed with these computers.

But I think over time, I think i've really come to love computers and computer science as a discipline. But perhaps in a strange way, i'll try to explain that. Um so all my degrees aren't in computer science.

My, my, my my best of science isn't C S. My P D is computer science. And in some ways i'm kind of a strange computer scientists.

But I think I say strange because I I tend to build things that with computers that nobody quite ask for, and that solves no problems that seem to exist. For example, uh, okra, right? This is something that was designed back in two thousand and eight, uh, for for the iphone. And you mean, so I can play a little here, something here, this.

Some holding my phone as I like a sandwich and I am blowing into the microphone located at the bottom. The phone and amusing multi touches control the pitch and vibrator is controlled by the chill of the phone. So i'm barely even seeing the the screen are, but you know it's a kind of a physical thing. So someone try to predal duty with this.

For example. So that's me blowing literally into my thank you very as me literally blown into my iphone and into a korea. And this is an APP that I would say he took a lot of, you know, IT took software engineering, software design, interaction design, signal processing all the sound is generated live on the phone um using you know the sound parson written in the programing language truck which is was my dissertation at princeton in which i'm still developing right like twenty 3 actually twenty some years later i'm still working on and myself in a large team of people in a community。 People work on t explain .

what chock is just rock for people who know.

So chuck is one of these tools that have been talked about. So chuck is a programming language for music sentences um and your writing code to generate sound, but also the write code to kind of either to algorithms, ally, figure out or generate the kind of the music this come in next or it's actually could be mapped from human interaction, in this case in okinawa, man interaction, human computer interaction.

And I am using my physical interactions to actually control the sound is happening. And so is a lot time. This is a mixture of the two. Where is there is some amount of automation.

But also like it's really trying to also figure out what is an interesting way to kind of put human interaction into the loop of the things that were building. Again, nobody asked for self. No problems that exists. And I think in a way that is kind of been the a running through line, if you will, for my students tonight in in my research group, is that we we think about engineering, we think about technology, we think about what kind of problems can we solve with this. And while, yes, prom solving is something that we we is humans need to do, and am i'm interested doing myself, I also feel like as an engineer, we can build things that isn't always motivated by kind of a practical use utility.

Tell me how you go through that as kind of a creative process. I think I spend a lot of my time talking to engineers and developers and stuff who say you you know, some of them have you just said and then they they like small, small leap to. And now I make B2B dat abase man agement sof tware and or lik e.

And so I made yet another A I chatbot, right? And I think there there is this easy way to work backwards from, like, okay, what is the problem I can solve that will help people? H, and I think using technology in service of going the other way and saying, like what what can I just make is just such an interesting in different kind of creative process and curse how you, especially you, you have to teach this stuff to students. Have you refined the process of how to do this? Suffer people?

yeah. And I I used this. I've rote a whole book about A A artful design technology in search of the sublime. And it's really this this idea of looking at tool building as as engineers, but also as critical engineers, you know, critical two builders.

And the critical part is really has to do the question, why are you even doing this thing right? Why did I design our korea? And I wasn't because lake, I went on and figure out what do people need, you know, like, hey, David, would you need? And you're like, what I need to blown to my phone.

I need a fluid APP.

I need a fluid APP. And also in the same map, I need to people to listen to other people around the world blown to their phones. That's missing.

That's a deficit. No, that did not happen. And so IT wasn't really kind of this traditional idea, at least traditional.

Now we think of engineering, we think of this, is like, okay, what is the need? What's the problem? State the problem. And so we can find a solution. This is not need based design, at least in that sense.

So why was this designed? This is what some people actually might call, you know, for perhaps lack of a Better word, value. Space design and valley by design is saying, well, you don't design out of a necessarily a clear present practical need, but out of something you just, you really deeply as a person believe in. And so for something like occuring, perhaps for lot of other tools that my student and I build, perhaps one of the values that core values that we are trying to speak to in this design is just simply up music making is good and that's the belief music making does a person good. And its not about of getting to a product necessarily, but about actually the process of playing and sometimes and often learning an instrument not unlike learning to play like A A well made, perhaps chAllenging in video game because there's a is a great satisfaction in that if the game is well made, IT does not matter this difficult fact, you might appreciate the difficulty because then you once you feel like you're learning the system, you really can then express yourself using the system and then the chAllenge and then unable to overcome the chAllenges, eventually of the game becomes hugely gratified.

Okay, has that started to feel like A I don't know, dying phenomenon to you? The idea that in in this world of incredible convenience and efficiency, where everything is available to, you know, with all with a push of a button, or like a plugged in in an APP, that doing something just for a service, the joy and pleasure and slog of doing IT is worthwhile like that, that almost feels like A A sort of beautiful, deeply an acronym way of looking world right now.

Well, unfortunately, IT is IT feels in acronym IT feels like it's out of time. It's not something that you know in this convenience driven, optimization driven, competition driven fabric of a society we live in. Um IT is feels deeply in chronic ti C2Build thi ngs tha t are pla yful, that are interesting for their own sake.

Um but at the same time, I feel like it's what makes us us and I don't I don't mean just building things. I mean anything I think that you feel like makes you you whatever that may be, I like to least offer the possibility that IT actually is something that is that you you want to to do and you and you care to do. In fact, you would probably forgo a lot of practical needs in order to do.

It's like a passionate hobby. And the haggard hobby is usually not about getting to the result, is not about optimization, right? And so I think this gets to this idea that, yeah while this idea of building things for its own sake or doing things for own sake is feels like it's out of fashion, but it's also not in the sense I think we actually still do these things that just usually not an engineering context.

You know, for example, when people cook for themselves because they enjoy cooking, there's a deep joy gone to the pantry, walk up, find the wrong ingredients and make a massive things as you concoct a dish. And that dish does not taste different because, you know, because you made IT right IT IT does IT has to, especially you someone that enjoys cooking. And I think tools are are no different.

And I think the danger of being in in, I think in in a world or society where the things, the tools we make, our only about optimization, only about convenience, only about reducing the cost of labor, is that we actually in in those tools, those tools can actually alienate us from who we actually are because, you know, well, let's let let's go back to music again. Let's put let's stop music in A I right um yeah today we have A I that can produce really impressive images, video, music well, that's a that's a tRicky word to use. Even songs are tRicky words to use like you know what is the song but lets for intense to say A I can generate quote and quote songs and with just a projets, it's like this, this almost a little thing that people thought they always wanted, which is, if I have a musical idea in my mind, I just want the thing realized.

Would that be great? You and I don't be press, I don't have any music education never taking time, but I just want this idea realized my head IT. Wouldn't that be great? And in a way, ai does that somewhat today.

But then I think the question lies, what is, what does that mean? And, you know, and I will draw another knowledge here, and this is something that I call, I guess it's kind of the bubble gun effect. And what do I mean by that? right? So to ever two gum, David, sure.

yeah. okay. So when .

you chew a piece of gum, when first pop the government chewing gum, a bobble gump.

right? How do you feel? It's great. delicious.

Yes, IT pops. It's like the taste great. How long do you usually do that piece of gun?

I mean, IT depends on the gun, but some, some somewhere between like ten seconds and three minutes and then and then it's over. And when it's over.

what do you do with that piece of gun?

Uh, throw IT away. And do you after that.

how much do you think about that particular .

piece of gun, never for one second ever again?

okay. So I think that's an allergy i'm trying to draw here, is that yes, maybe it's so easy that I can go to a general A I system and say, render me an image of barney the dinosaur withdrawing cash from A A T M, but only broke ly is coming out. I think actually A I would change if out today would do a rather impressive job.

Yeah that seems like, wow yeah, yeah that's IT. And I may go and share this, my friend, and be like, he check out I look what I made and I think there's there's actually the social function of that. Then more likely than that, i'd probably be like, great on the next thing.

Yeah, that took all of three minutes, five minutes, the time our politics, a two or piece of gun, whatever. Think about that thing again, maybe a bit more than the piece of gun I discarded. And I think that's what I mean by bubble communication. In fact, IT is kind of almost the in the limit of the the this kind of push of automation and unquestioned pushed automation to basically try to reduce the cost of labour down to zero in like every case we possibly can, right?

Well, there there's a there's an argument inside of that. I think that that you hear a lot with kind of anything creative, which is the the process matters, right, that that with the the provenance of something and where I came from, the story of the thing and the the person who made IT that stuff is, is sort of indelibly connected to the thing in a way that you don't always understand even.

But yes, matters in some ways that is very hard to quantify and that is very hard to talk about in some ways that the matters. Um and I really buy that promise but I also what I wonder that about A I is if what A I is going to create is like some entirely other thing that like maybe what we want from a ee is not to make songs that sounds like Taylor swift, but something that sounds completely different. And this is part of why I think your work is so interesting.

And why cares about how you are thinking about in using A I like you've made a career out of making computers, make noises that they are not supposed to make and and and and I think what that is ultimately make is something different, right? Like you're you're not writing code to make Taylor swift songs. You're you're making something else. And I feel like if you approach A I as that kind of tool, both to sort of bended tear will would also to try to figure out, like what sound IT makes.

I guess my general life philosophy can be summed up, or listen, aspirations that there should be room for that too OK. And I mean this in in a way like what I mean my dad is, I think about this in in terms of music. I think about terms of actually like people in a society, their shoppy room for that too, as long as the thing is not like harmful, dangerous, but also IT also means that I guess the you know, it's really what i'm trying to says that should be a pluralism. We should have room to to have capacity to have a palisse of a foil of what out to a values, history, social in tack, I would be my notion of what part of what if is civil is highly might have but also one may be a necessary condition for humans to be able to like flourish no is is this idea to have a capacity for pluralism um and so yeah in that sense I think there's room to think about how can can we explore U C, A, I, to explore the realm of untapped sounds. But how we do that, first of all, I think, is really important because he does go back to what you're saying about the meaning that we described to things that we might call art.

Alright, we got to take a break, and then we have lots more to talk about.

Be right back.

Support for the verge cast is brought to you by nissan kicks. Hey, the kissing kicks is undergone a complete transformation, emerging as the city size cross over redefined for urban adventures, with a striking new exterior and a fully revamped interior boasting premium peaches. The kicks experience has been totally enhances to help you Better navigate city life.

And the reimagine non kicks is outfitted with intelligent all wheel drift so you can keep going rain or shine. Learn more A W W W that need on U S. A dot com slash twenty twenty five dash cakes intelligent wheel drive cannot prevent collision or provide enhances traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions.

Right back. So to go back to the idea of computer music, one of the thing's guy has talked a lot about over the years is the idea of finding new ways to interacts with technology and computers like that glove. I mentioned at the beginning that a new way of using a computer, if you'd bow IT all the way down and the way he thinks about IT, is more explicit, playful and more exploratory.

Instead of just trying to like figure out how to use an APP most effectively to get worked done, it's just a totally different approach to all of this stuff. But that can be a hard shift to pull off, I think, to go from trying to learn how to use the technology to figuring out what's possible with IT. But that shift, that transition is, I think, what god does all day with his students.

So I asked about, I saw something that that you have either wrote or said about your music and a eye class where one of your goals was to teach them how to play with A I. We don't talk about A I that way. What does that look like? What does that look like to play with these kinds of systems?

Well, then what is look like? You ask my tunes, for example, to build interactive tools with a um that they can deploy into their very lives, but also often would involve human interaction. Um my sons have built instruments that basically track the opening, closing of your hand to to generate singing sound. And turning your hand changes the pitch of the sound. Opening, closing your hand kind of articulates the sound.

You can do that with a prompt based system right now, right, right? That's not what that's about. But this means you need to on go to the process of learning how to use that instrument. And another one is is it's it's playful, mean, that's playful and its interactive. Another playful one is only things made thing called other is if if it's it's a computer vision system that basically been trained to classify between like to recognize a secretive look and a place like the chess selective music. And when IT detects IT.

And that's all IT does. It's like by the emission of the creator of authorities like this .

is such as this .

is so dumb and yet it's really it's playful. It's in in the definition, play is actually something that is not about the outcome, it's about the process, right, right? Because if you're like i'm playing, but if you're work about the outcome that can be produced, well, that's more let's work. I know if you need to walk away from activity with the product of welcome that we usually call that work, but play is almost exactly the opposite of that.

right? There's there's a difference I hadn't really thought about there between thinking about these technologies, A I otherwise, as tools versus thinking about the most instruments. And I think we talk about A I, in particular as a, as a tool, right? IT IT is a hammer and your job is to go final als and and that's that's woods for and we don't necessarily know what all the nails are and that's the explorer ory face, but you're looking for nails, uh, but what you're describing, something very different, which is like here, is a thing with a set of capabilities that I can do a bunch of things. And where all of the interesting stuff lies is figuring out what to do with those things and how they mix together, and new, unexpected combinations of those capabilities that turns into something which is so different from, I have a hammer that hits nails, and I have to find more nails.

I find more nails. Yeah, let's let's put in this way, let's say we d make a then diagram, which means that draw circle, and that circle represents the the sets of things that with the A I is potentially good at doing. What would be good at doing after another circle.

It's call that a set of things that humans do want to do and are perhaps can be good at doing, like ping pong, we're making music or or not in the vent diagrams that lets stall issue circles. But that's also their intersection, nic. So there is a region where it's in basically in space words in both circles.

It's a stuff that humans are good doing. N A, I. We good at doing. I feel like we're kind of automatically and almost unquestionably stuck in that intersection with A I.

Is that worth constantly looking for things that humans already do? And now we just want to have A I do that same. And in fact, the more the the couldn't cte Better me, I can do IT. The more progress, surely that this must be, you know, this sum have called this the turing trap, actually, is this idea that we had been, sit down this path where progress the ee is judged by how a system is to humans, right? And the danger of that is that, that becomes kind of the dominant, improves almost the only way we can imagine of thinking about progress in A I.

But if you go back to the then diagram, there's a whole region what A I could potentially do that is good at doing, that does not intersect with a spheare, the realm of things that humans are good to doing. How do we exploit that? Perhaps far more vast region of what A I can do.

I think that takes exploration, takes play IT, takes imagination. And I think, and often in my courses, what we learn is that actually, when you remove this external obligation to be useful or competitive, and you can simply be yourself and play, you actually produce things that are so different, potentially, arguably, will soon to be different. But probably also like that's gonna be more you more expressive so that in my course i'm trying to help people U A I but to try to explore the unexpired space, but also explore the space where A I and human intersect.

But A I is doing things that humans aren't doing. Humans are doing things that A I aren't doing and its not about a collision or the action overnight but about a kind of like a uh uh uh uh IT critically thought through, but like a like a beneficial amalgamate tion, a union of of two different parts and what I like about that even that's not the way we think of the eyes, is your noting. What I like about that is, you know, IT IT still keeps human creation, and I was a human intention, and also what we might call human wisdom in the loop, you know, and that is that I could just generate, even if it's a new piece of music.

But I don't have, you know, the province is he said of like what this come from was a story behind this um I did not come up with this, but I and I can I do know who said this, but it's been sad by someone is a what the role of art, the idea that art, perhaps, is the thing that humans endeavor to try to understand their emotions. But mostly they fail at that. But that's art. You know, it's the thing we we try mostly fail to try understand ourselves. And so if we we feel like that you know that's what art could be, then yes, the province matters and matters fundamentally um to know what is trying to be communicated, what is trying to be expressed or even more so and you know we think of art as well as like a lens to see things you know, if I if I make piece of heart isn't just saying, hey, this is what I see you know yes, it's part of what the artist probe sees but is also an invitation for the experienced to say, well, if you like, you can look through this lens to and you see the world around. You see yourself and what you make of IT now that that you know a good piece of writing is absolutely that you know a good or any medium I think is is is also a lens what there's film writing, music um and so that requires this, I think the human in the loop um if we buy that definition, the artist thing we do to try to mostly try and fail to understand our own motions .

yeah I will say my my worry with that way of thinking about IT would be that A I in particular runs the risk of kind of undermining that because if you think about A I is sort of the like lowest common denominator of all of its training data. Uh, what you're getting is basically this mush of all of its inputs that is kind of gonna give you mush back and it's gonna give everyone the same kind of mush and we end them in this way OK. You have this collaborator that has incredible access to incredible amount information. But I like that actually not useful in some of the ways that you're talking about, that maybe having access to every song ever made is actually a hindrance, ts, to making great new songs instead of just making the same kinds of songs that are the average of every other song ever made before.

Well, it's I mean, the what you're saying is that still is exactly square in that region of the intersection. That's still i'm still in the middle of the world, right? That's really the revenue that diagram. That's that's kind of where we are in a way that's like artists.

All the artists I know generally don't want A I to maybe they want help to do part of their work, but they don't want A I to do the work in the moment that core writing part is actually done. For me, the activity sees to be like an activity is just like a check box. And what meaning I might derive from the activity is time consuming as activity may be, is I think, as you articulated, is the worries that I would be lost.

You know that that that meaning and the meaning of doing that activity may be lost. And I think IT is this way of thinking that I think that we're talking about is very much counter to the prevalent thinking in AI, which is I I unfortunate I I D says unquestioning, uncritical, like a race for optimization, race to like for aid, out form humans without asking, what do we really want from that? And when is that actually good and when is that not good?

Okay, we have to take one more break. And then we're going to talk about where everything is headed from. Here will be right back.

Support for the verge cast is brought to you by nissan kicks. Hey, the kissing kicks is undergone a complete transformation, emerging as the city size cross over redefined for urban adventures, with a striking new exterior and a fully revamped interior boasting premium peaches.

The kicks experience has been totally enhanced to help you Better navigate city life, and the reimagine non kicks outfitted with intelligent wheel drought so you can keep going rain shine. Learn more at W W W that needs on U S. A 点 com slash twenty twenty five dash intelligent wheel cannot prevent collision or provide enhances traction in all conditions。 Always monitor traffic and weather conditions.

Or back. I don't know if i'm saying this now to warn you or to get you excited or maybe a little but IT. But things in this conversation about to get pretty heady until now, we've been talking a lot about what you might call capital, a art oft that is explicit, creative, done for the sake of creativity.

I think that stuff encounters one set of issues as relocated A I in the future of technology. But then all the way on the other side of the spectrum you have, like navigating government bureaucracy and filling out forms, one thing god mentioned me was figuring out the health care system, terrific use of A I, right? I think that's the kind of stuff that almost everyone would be sacked to turn over to some kind of machine.

There are tough questions about whether those machines are good enough to be trusted, how we can rely on them, how they fit into businesses, all that. But in general, that feels like a good use of technology. And then there is this whole messy middle, where is stuffing? I don't know.

Writing emails. There is something meaningly human about writing an email to your team at work. But all these A I tools are promising to write that email for you. But then on the other side there, A I tools saying theyll summarized IT for you.

And at some point it's like, what are we even doing here? Are there any humans in this loop anymore at all? So maybe the three part of the spectrum here are art, life and nonsense. We're happy to give up nonsense to technology, were reluctant to give up our, and I guess it's case by case on life.

So how do we draw the lines between those things though? And how do we decide where it's worth outsourcing and offloading and embracing AI and where we shouldn't? And then maybe most importantly, how do we protect the stuff that's worth protecting on that spectrum? That is the next question I asked, go on. He answered by talking about email.

So this is actually the other thing that maybe we don't think about. Like, first, I don't. For me, I remember the first time I used in email.

I was one of first got to college in nineteen ninety six. This is a university, and I got an email account and I else like, oh, dying. This is so convenient and I wrote my dad, it's like, dad, i'm ready.

Email, I don't have anything to say. I do not email, okay, bye. IT was like an email with no purpose except say, I it's so funder email.

I don't know anyone today who was like, email is so fun. No, I know. No, this is, that was about nineteen ninety six for me, now twenty twenty four.

Like and also details not something I do my job without, right? In fact, this interview was set up through email. In fact, I imagine you probably, like me, are are in a data by emails and on like, yes, unfortunately.

So I think that was fun and useful and convenient IT to begin with because of that convenience. You know you think like, oh, it's a labor saving thing and IT was for email. But because that labor was saved and we are all using IT, we've all save that labor. Sadly, it's like, oh, we have more time to do well nor work like between now and say when you first use the email, do you feel like your work has gone any lighter or any easier? No, no, I don't either know .

all of the studies on this are so alarming that it's like you go back and everybody is like, oh, due to all the increased efficiencies, were all going to work for like six hours a week and yeah, I do the job you all used to do in six hours a week and now I have forty eight .

hours of stuff yeah and maybe it's like almost like and me there are so many different reasons why that is not like yet like, oh, no. If we apply that analogy to A I in this email today is like, if A I does save us more time on the email, just do you think that out this gives us more time to, actually, I don't know, live our lives to make our cook, be with our family, you know, outside?

No, I I, I, I would be very not like given like where we are with email. I would I would be very sceptical possibility. I think harvard, what might happen is, unfortunately, with allies in kind of general AI technologies that we might produce, not is email, but like writing that is deemed good enough for certain purpose and now we just need to hire less people to do them yeah for example um and this now turn going back in that creative around like for example, like strictly for A T V show.

You know, I have an uncle who has been in the industry. He lives near l and he he was talking about there was a time when the writing room for A T V show would actually be on set talking to, you know the the the production team that the actors um in in that process actually really got both everyone involved to even be and really figure out what this is about, what each person, each characters actually could be about. IT opens up all kinds of imagination for where things could go.

And then you have the case where, well, now is hard, like a kind of interchangeable room of human writers to write the kind of each abode, in fact, will get, will do the lowest bitter. And then with A, I can can imagine, well, now that labor has been saved, well, we don't need to hire even those interchangeable room of writers. Instead, let's have one person who promised overseas accurately the output of the eyes system.

And the result might not be good, but IT might be good enough yeah, to make entertainment that people will pay for. And I think that's a huge was a huge loss of livelihood, but also a huge cultural loss in terms of the kind of art that is being made is now we have shows that will be like, well, that's entertaining, but is a like entertaining is a minute good. Entertaining doesn't mean it's it's thoughtful or interesting or or you know all of or playful IT just means it's something OK Better than being bored.

Yes, it's something to do. It's content. It's like it's yeah it's used this thread like content word. She's means stuff that you can do and and I think the fears that we d have, we live in a world word.

We have content that is survive often, but that may be supply me never, you know and and that's A A A A world of generic and age of generic. And yes, we a lot of kind of our popular culture is things that are really kind of generic things, right? All the generic things are so made by humans, right?

But like, yeah, humans can do bad work too. That is, were just as bad as anything. Yeah yes.

but at least like, but if we make we have machines to all of that, how do I change the truly, like, supply me the truly expressive things that humans still do? Well, that how I can, I know know how alter, but I can imagine this not altering IT, right? I I think and then on this point of where this intersection with livelihood, you know, I think the fear among a lot of artists, you know, myself included, if I will come myself as an artist, yes, part of that is that is livelihood, but is not only livelihood.

The fear isn't just that we be replaced by a machine, the fears that we be replaced by something that far more generic and far less interesting. But that's a acceptable to they did did the powers that that be because good enough is IT might be good enough to make someone a lot of money. And right, right, that's the larger fear of of now isn't just livelihood lost. That's a huge issue. But livelihood lost in favor of something that's actually more generic and less interesting, that seems like undesirable unlike multiple .

levels that maybe our standards go down far enough, that we don't care anymore.

our standards go down to call. And also that people that motherwish try to is difficult, that IT is to pursue any kind of art, that they may not, may not be room to do that. And yeah, yeah, even if someone wanted to, well.

and I think IT instore kes me that that comes all the way back around to the idea of how to approach these tools, right? Because I think the sort of glass half full version of that future, you just describe this actually, rather than using A I to pull everything down to this lowest common and oman average of everything, we learn to play IT like an instrument, and we learn to use IT to expand that one diagram in this whole universal things that we can do. But we've learn how to do with this tool like that if you if you want to paint like a beautiful future of ai. It's it's that sort of spirit of play that you're describing comes to everyone in all this s of A I right? Like that's that's the hope that the only thing that .

might work that would be nice, he said. I mean, there but there's every reason, unfortunately, to think about the chAllenges to that scenario where everyone, as I told to play one, is just human nature itself, including my own, which is the kind of playfulness were talking about, is actually investment of time and effort.

I am probably lot of frustration and confusion as part of the process of doing anything I think worthwhile that you you derive meaning from. There's a difficile video game, or learning a new thing, or getting Better at an instrument. All of these things come with its it's chander or like basically climbing up to to a mountain is a climbing the mountain in the other change.

So that one chAllenge that we actually like, you know, we actually we need a supportive environment where we do actually can do that, have the time and to do that um and and have the will in the fire, the motivation to do that. But as we're saying, like life is not getting easier for for for most people, in fact, is kind of getting harder for us people. And I would love for that time line to come to pass.

But it's it's difficult is is increasingly a higher and higher privilege to be able to have time to do things just because you know that that that that the hard part of our reality and it's only going to get harder. For example, like I mentioned, the instrument where you use your hand and computer vision and A I to kind of track the opening, closing, rehm, to seeing that needs a different way to think about A I that needs a different human computer interaction. That is, perhaps nothing.

Get rid of prompt engineering. I'm saying, yes, there should be a room for the other ways of working with A I it's it's interactively released different and actually speaks to all these other dimensions of of who we are, including our bodies or physical bodies. Um but also all the all the things that that that humans are you know, or could be our capacities, they should be more comprehensively considered in and how we do. Unfortunately, I think there's way more evidence to the contrary that A I is not heading in the direction of inclusion. Rather, extraction is, as in how can we extract value from people with this thing is not a tool for human, while being out of over human flourishing is a tool for maximal profit.

which involves removing humans from loops in a possible way. And like you make all of the easy money in this space is at the middle that then iram like there might be other things in other places someday, be like if you want to make a lot of money. Right now, it's at the middle of the diagram, and it's how do I take a job humans used to do and take that away from them.

but you don't ask for this. Now we have this. And if everyone actually use this thing like email, what now, right? They don't think that's a cultural question that requires.

But no, it's it's that's not being considered. And yes, I get having been A A sort of cofounder. I can get that it's never IT starting a business.

A started of running a business is not a easy thing. It's an exceedingly difficult thing. I've been there and yet I think with A I there is an like, an added dimension of of of just social accountability. Because the things you use, you are going to use by people that you are never gna meet, but whose lives that you will affect and influence you affect, not in their lives, you affect their communities and affect their families, their kids. And while you may be like how I survive, even to the next quarterly, think all, yeah, I get IT then there.

But I think there's an added dimension of of, of five, I think, social responsibility to think, what if everyone is not just like, what if the things we made went to ride? It's like, what if things I make actually worth and a lot of people use IT, then what how does I change the very culture were living in? I think the through line in all of these is kind of this this question A A kind of assistance to critically question what we do um and a aesthetic, social, cultural dimension in addition to all the other dimension that I I would to mention in there.

And also another three line is is play an expression? You can we help humans feel tools for people to feel more like themselves? That's I think that play is. And I think if we can do that, i'll take those as Victories.

You know, if someone is playing music for the fun of IT, but inside the room for no, no one, for no one in particular, I think that's a win already. And I think there's things that if we just did IT actually makes us, you know, in a small ways, makes us feel more ourselves. And and that's my I so hold out hope, but if only because hope must be there that we can use.

Technology has a tool for props, above all, for humans to be more themselves, to feel more themselves, to do that, you need to feel included, feel safe, feel free to be yourselves. And I think, feel understood. You know that I think that's that's my hope. That is my gosh, there's so much work to be done in so many chAllenges, and that's not the way that the world is going. But it's it's a thing that I think it's it's worth it's worth working towards.

all right? That is that for the verge cast today. Thank you again to go wrong for being here. And thank you, as always, for listening.

I'll put a whole bunch of links to all the stuff we talked about in the shower notes, the arena APP, all the smell stuff, the laptop orka, some of the funny stuff students have work on for on the us. You should check IT all out. IT is weird.

And I mean that in the best possible way. Also, lots more on all of this stuff, future music and everything else in this series. Verse a com, good website.

We like IT. As always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings or other songs that you think I should learn in that a arena APP is really cool. You can always email at verge, cast at the verge dot com, or call the hotline.

It's six six verge one one. If you have thoughts on anything that gone. And I talk to that today, anything from this whole series, really anything at all, call us, we are hearing from you.

This shows produce by liam James s. Wilpon and argo, as the first test is a verge production and part of the box media podcast network will will be back with your regularly scheduled programing on tuesday and friday. The news just keeps happening, just a lot of news. But I did manage to freeze in a conversation about thirteen century FLorence for tuesday s episode. So down the funding, we will see then rock and all.

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