Barack Obama: “For elevator music, AI is going to work fine. Music like Bob Dylan or Stevie Wonder, that’s different”::Barack Obama has weighed in on AI’s impact on music creation in a new interview, saying, “For elevator music, AI is going to work fine”.
Do people actually care what Obama has to say about AI? I’m just having a hard time seeing where his skillset overlaps with this topic.
why do i care what obama feels about either of these
But do we really need AI to generate art?
Why can’t AI be used to automate useful work nobody wants to do, instead of being a way for capital to automate skilled labor out of high-paying jobs?
I don’t think it’s really helpful to group a bunch of different technologies under the banner of A.I. but most people aren’t knowledgeable enough to make the distinction between software that can analyze a medical scan to tell me if I have cancer and a fancy chat bot.
Because AI is unpredictable. Which is not a big issue for art, because you can immediately see any flaws and if you can’t, it doesn’t matter.
But for actually useful work, you don’t want to find out that the AI programmer completely made up a few lines of code that are only causing problems when the airplane is flying with a 32° bank angle on a saturday with a prime number for a date.
Was that the Boeing 737 Max issue?
Not exactly, no.
That was the point. Was not even AI but complex systems are complex.
We need a Boomer Music AI then I guess.
Could you even imagine the necessary programming to create a thing like Bobby Zimmerman, a brilliant songwriter that can’t even sing, but made of go of it anyways and is regarded as one of the best singers of the last half of the previous century regardless?
…so I’ve been on a shit load of elevators, and I don’t recall a single one of them having music. For as common a trope as it is, you’d think elevator music would be more common in actual elevators.
It’s not as common as it used to be, but I think the point was kind of that you’re not supposed to notice it?
Look into “muzak” (the style of music. Apparently it’s also a brand according to Google), and some of Brian Eno’s ambient albums like “Music for Airports” (which is definitely a bit more sparse than elevator music, which was often like smooth jazz versions of classic songs), but along similar lines.
I don’t like to think I’m that old, and I 100% remember elevator music.
Edit: was possibly thinking of “musique concrete” rather than muzak.
I love Eno’s ambient music but it’s really distinct from the cheesy musak you’re referring to.
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I mean Obama is not wrong, but I hope the rest of his thoughts are that it will be as good as the artists he quoted as it absolutely will one day. Unsure when as there is an uncanny valley to cross. He did say this right and it was not just a get off my front lawn comment…right?
He’s wrong in the sense that Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder are just as much cultural reflections as they are artists. Popular art and celebrity are effectively inseparable. This is why each generation often doesn’t “get” the popular art of others.
The reality is that there’s nothing stopping an AI from becoming a celebrity, and I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t happened yet. Once that happens, the art it produces will be lauded, and people who are not the direct participants in mainstream popular culture will be confused and in some cases upset or offended by it. And the wheel will continue to turn.
Very good points. Art is in the eye/ear of the beholder sort of thing and our taste is for sure influenced by our culture/generation.
