I, Algorithm
In which some murky thoughts on AI get put to pixel. The title is a play on words from the book, not that dreadful film adaptation.
For those of us who have not been living under a rock, about six months ago, all of a sudden, everyone and their estranged cousin had a lot to say about artificial intelligence. Everyone came in guns blazing with their firm opinions about the latest phenomenon. Always be wary of a guy who claims to have a clear understanding of epidemiology, then a few months later a robust understanding of economics with a specialization in inflation and supply chain, to be capped off six months later with a rapid pivot to a far ranging expertise in foreign policy. We all know those guys.
If it isn’t clear, I don’t think most people had much useful to say about AI. However, this is the Internet in the year 2023, so we need opinions to fuel our collective rage. Initially I wasn’t planning on writing about it. I’m not an AI researcher nor a computer programmer. I just write about music. I decided after six months, in spite of my lack of knowledge, to pencil together a couple of thoughts. This was mostly inspired by a couple articles I read a number of months ago by Chris Dalla Riva, in which he discussed his concern about the future of music vis-à-vis the AI revolution. His questions pertained to the idea that artists would now have an even more difficult time maintaining control and capitalizing commercially on their work along with a host of related ideas. It’s a great read and I will link his excellent Substack for those interested in checking his work out.
https://substack.com/@chrisdallariva
To be fair, it certainly seems like the ramifications of AI are coming to the forefront and relevant parties are starting to grapple with its existence. The Grammys have tried to figure out whether AI generated songs ought to be eligible, and to whom the credit would go. Hollywood tackled AI in its recent strike, heavily focusing on screenwriter credits and scripts. There has been one constant subtext in the discourse and it is the perception of the AI revolution as a uniquely new issue. I’m not sure I necessarily disagree with that perspective, but I thought there was context missing from most of the discussion, especially regarding identifying and ascertaining the nature of the threat.
Fundamentally, I have an aversion towards labeling anything as wholly new. Perhaps not precisely as extreme as Ecclesiastes 1:9, “there is nothing new under the Sun”, but the idea of nearly anything appearing ex nihilo is something that runs counter to the commonly held understandings of both human nature and scientific innovation. We build on the past. We remix, tweak, advance and think of new applications, but we are still working with human beings as well as technological forces that are aimed at enhancing or otherwise affecting the selfsame human experiences. The idea of “nothing new under the sun” reflects that kernel of humanity within. Even the “new” contains multitudes of the “old” inside it.
Kevin Kelly, who is a noted futurist, thinker, and founder of Wired magazine, authored a number of books (Out Of Control (1992), What Technology Wants (2010), and Inevitable (2016) all surrounding similar themes surrounding the nature of technology. In his view, technology, although non-sentient, is in possession of a particular nature. It is a “living organism”. Technology fits into our world the same as a virus or an animal habitat. There can be environments which foster technological growth similar to how an oxygen rich area fosters the growth of trees. An area of high rainfall stimulates plant growth. Similarly, you can have sociological environments that are more conducive for the growth of technology. And when technology does grow, it forms similar to a vine. It looks to expand its support and will naturally flow into the areas of least resistance.
One of the key features of Kelly’s analysis of technology is his long lens view. Technology did not begin twenty years ago. It did not begin fifty years ago. It began thousands of years ago with the invention of things as basic as the wheel, the lever, and the ability to make fire. What all of these things share at their core, with said core being the definitional idea of technology in Kelly’s view, was that it tried to take the harsh foreign environment of the Earth, and cultivate it and make it bend towards us humans with the aim that these innovations would make things more palatable and survivable for the human. Killing an animal or making coffee is a technology in a sense. Really, almost anything is a technology so long as it as an artificial creation with the express intent of shifting the outside environment to make it more in line with human desire. The way Kelly views the world is that there is this force of technology - The “Technium”- which exists in our world. It transforms and grows based on environmental features. This is an interesting and perhaps initially counterintuitive view, but upon reflection one that provides a useful basis for understanding the inevitability of what is happening in our world. Once unleashed, the water will flow to lower ground, the vine will grow where it can. Technology will evolve and adjust based on the circumstances. The desire to customize itself to the environment is one of the paramount characteristics of the Technium. This is all a bit wordy, I know. Overly vague, yeah probably. Still a useful heuristic for understanding the world. In this view, certain long term trends are nearly inevitable. Technologies nature and its relationship to the realities of the world deems it so.
For instance, in his 2016 book Inevitable, Kelly details many trends that have already been taking shape even if at the time still under the surface. He pinpoints these trends as not simply reflecting the shallow desires of either manufacturers of goods or the consumer populace, but instead details and demonstrates how these trends are built into the very fabric of technology. They always have and ergo will presumably continue to be definitional characteristics of technology. Specific trends discussed in the book include Becoming- the idea that we are moving away from singular fixed products to an endlessly morphing thing. Think of the world of streaming wherein the applications we use to listen to our music feature constant updates, bug fixes, and UI adjustments instead of our beloved stereo systems. Remember those adorably stolid hunks of plastic and metal that we fed fixed media discs into? Their decline is exactly this idea manifest. The shift away from the fixed and analog and towards the amorphous and digital shows itself all throughout.
Another example is Cognifying - where tools become smarter and take over the human burden- see algorithmic recommendations and how they transitioned from human compiled efforts. Or Accessing- where society shifts value from ownership to accessibility. Think about physical album units vs. the near infinite resources of streaming catalogs. The transition from one paradigm of music consumption to the next has been endlessly remarked on. And so one and so forth.
The biggest one I want to focus on is Remixing. But not in the small sense that you think of when you encounter that word in a song title. No, this is a much bigger idea all wrapped up in the deep core identity of technology as a concept. The arc of technology flows towards a remixed and customized existence. One in which the core elements of any object are separated and refined into their most essential components and presented anew in a isolated, singular, and notably more customized form then before.
Entertainment is one of the best examples of these theses in action. Something underappreciated is that the story of entertainment in reality is a story of, you guessed it, technology. Whether that is a theater with specialized acoustic design to allow large audiences the ability to hear a Shakespearean play or the majesty of an Italian opera, or the invention and advancement in amplification leading the way to the electric guitar, or other more ancillary technologies, such as recording, radio, film etc., the story of entertainment is deeply rooted in technology.
And, if the story of entertainment is the story of technology, then the story of technology/entertainment is a story of technology engaging in further remixed customization as time progresses. Inevitably, these changes to the form of the art shift the experiential ownership away from the artists and towards the consumer. This is the arc of technology at play.
Music started out as something that was only achievable live and in person. It belonged wholly to the artist. When you were there, an artist had to physically pull out an instrument and create noise. At a point after that, the desire to make sheet music was invented in an effort to try to capture and replicate the unique musical experience and not have it be lost into the ether once the last note faded out into the wind. Music itself begs to be replicated. We crave recreating the feelings that a poignant live performance gives us. This was inevitable, or at least the logical and easy point for the technology of music to flow towards. Sheet music is not a modern concept. Forms of musical notation have been found in Egyptian and other ancient cultures. This has been happening for a long time. Let us trace this paradigm of shifting and ever customizing “remixed” technology towards the modern age.
Now although sheet music creates a record of music, it lacks convenience. Unless one knew how to play the instrument, they had to go to a place to get entertained musically. You had to go to the opera and go to the theater to be entertained by an actual live artist. That was the state of affairs until not that long ago. Then came recording technologies. These were created to allow consumption in a customizable way, even in one’s house! At this point a transfer had occurred. Music was no longer something one had to go to in order to engage with it. Music was no longer something that was owned and determined in every aspect by the artist. Music was bent towards the human consumer. There was still a large component that was still untouched. The actual form of the song itself was still directed by the artist no different then way back in them good ol’ bone flute days. The artist chose how to display the music and we increasingly began to be able to choose where, when, and how to indulge.
Certainly recording technology provided a limitation to artists' vision. As a means of circumventing those restrictions, we developed more advanced technologies. Wax cylinders begot vinyl, then the cassette, and onwards to the CD. These technologies enhanced the abilities of artists to record more music and in higher fidelity. It also progressively chipped away at the experience as a whole entity. In other words, it “remixed” the experience and broke it down into core aspects, each of which could be isolated and enjoyed at the consumer's prerogative.
As the technology developed, we were no longer limited by track order. All you had to do was move a needle or push a button to skip to the next track. All of a sudden the form was becoming malleable and customizable. The idea of the mixtape that developed with the advent of the cassette and easily available recording was this exact idea. Take a variety of different tracks from different sources and mush it together onto your own source. This achieved the customization never possible before, and affected a different relationship to music. Instead of “I can select this basic form to listen to” it was “I can select this specific part of the form at my convenience”. This only developed further. The internet explosion cracked the primacy of the album and split it into a collection of individual singles. No longer were you beholden to the entirety of the album. Playlists became more common, eventually turning into the dominant form of music consumption as the shift to streaming occurred in the 2010s.
In this modern age, the old limitations of physicality, or format, or space, or money and more are all essentially irrelevant. One can consume any music, anytime, anywhere, anyhow. Is there any wonder now that the sanctity of the individual song itself is being broken down even more than ever before? The ability to sample and select one’s favorite bits from the music has been a feature of modern music since at least the 80s. The further pushing of this boundary is further customization with TikTok remixes cutting out their favorite portions of particular songs, editing them and mashing them precisely how it is they wish. That is just the next step in the ongoing customization environment to the self. The idea of song is now song as a platform. A platform to adjust, slice, tweak and otherwise adjust and customize to one’s heart's content.
So now we have this new frontier of AI music. Based on this thesis, the foundational principle of AI is functionally similar to the previous revolutions in musical consumption. AI music remixes the current balance, isolates into ever narrower slivers, and cracks even further into the foundation of whatever was left of the artist's portion of the song. For the fact was, that even in the hyper remixed world of TikTok music, it still had to come from an artist. Their voice and ideas formed the kernel of what was being consumed. Now we are seeing the upcoming world where that will be gone. Finally we have realized the dream that started with the ancients trying to scratch down sheet music into rock faces. Now we can wholly customize every aspect of the entertainment to our exact fancy. Do you want Drake to sing an Ariana Grande song? Sure, no problem. All that was needed was a three second snippet of Drake’s voice, throw it into the grand AI blender and you have your customized entertainment. Heck, you don’t even need it to simulate a real voice. You can form music that is precisely crafted to you and only you from the ether with just the click of a mouse. This is more customized than any vinyl, tape CD, or iTunes download, more than any mixtape, or any playlist playlist. This is more than a TikTok mashup or remix. This is the endgame of entirely customizable worlds at our fingertips. It is endlessly intriguing, scary, new, and yet very old at the same time.
Thanks for reading,
Joe