AI gives us superpowers, but what if we still need human intervention to thrive?
I happened to look Perfect pitch (2012) the other evening with my wife. Now this is a funny movie. And Adam Devine is a comedy treasure.
All joking aside, there’s a part of the film where aspiring musician Beca (Anna Kendrick) volunteers at the campus radio station. There, she works alongside Jesse (Skylar Astin), another student with big musical aspirations. They mostly hang out among stacks of records, serving as college DJs.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a dramatized version of a school radio station. “Saved By the Bell” offered a similar storyline when Zack Morris and the gang took over Tiger Beat from Bayside High School.
Why are we talking about this?
For a simple reason. Late at night I laugh with Perfect pitch“Look, just so you know, I’m not a real nerd. I also happen to be a super fan of close-up magic.”) I had an epiphany: technology isn’t just disrupting industries whole. , making “essential” products obsolete. (Most phones now come with cameras and calculators, once sold on their own.) No, technology is changing our relationships with each other. Specifically, technology is transforming activities we once did collectively (DJing together in a sound booth) and making them solitary endeavors.
Here’s another example: I grew up loving the Doors. I must have seen the 1991 Oliver Stones biopic of the same name a hundred times. Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison is simply brilliant. He even sings all the Lizard King songs.
Here’s the point: several iconic scenes from The doors features the band, recording engineers, session musicians and groupies hanging in the studio as they produce iconic tracks such as “The Soft Parade.” Similarly, there are many scenes of groups of people collectively making music in other recent biopics, like Love and Mercy And Elvis.
In a word, these scenes make the creative act seem fun.
Now comes AI and all that goes out the window. You no longer need a group of people to create music. You can do everything yourself.
All you need is a computer.
With a computer, a human can harness AI to appropriate the musical styles of Drake and The Weeknd to produce “Heart on My Sleeve,” the pop song “created” by Ghostwriter and submitted for Grammy consideration. A person armed with a computer can also use AI to overwrite Hank Williams singing NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton,” producing what’s called “Hanksta Rap.”
Additionally, a person using AI may appear musically gifted.
How? According to BBC News, via the Boomy 2018 app, “You choose from a number of genres, click “create song” and the AI will compose one for you in less than 30 seconds. It quickly selects the key, chords and melody of the song. And from there you can then refine your song. You can do things like add or remove instruments, change the tempo, adjust volumes, add echoes, make everything brighter or softer, and lay down vocals.
Certainly, the article makes it clear that the output quality can be poor. This often sounds like “computer generated.” But remember: we’re talking about five year old software…before ChatGPT. Hell, we might as well talk about the “Mad Men” era – it feels like a long time ago, in the technological years.
The fact is that Boomy and many other AI music generation apps like Splice, Trymusicflow, and Jamahook now put everyday people in the creative driver’s seat. They give us unprecedented capabilities. (Just imagine telling Jim Morrison in 1966 at the Whiskey a Go Go that a day will come when, thanks to technology, anyone can sound like him singing any song they want.)
To begin developing the powers we possess today, we would do well to consult Marshall McLuhan. Like us, McLuhan lived through a time of considerable technological upheaval. In the mid-20th century, the Canadian philosopher struggled to understand the rise of global mass media transmitted electronically via new televisions, telephones and video cameras.
Frankly, he often felt overwhelmed by such technology.
There seemed to be no precedent for people to enjoy the moment. Then he remembered a short story by Edgar Allan Poe called “A descent into the Maelstrom.” The story involves three fishermen suddenly sucked into a whirlpool while at sea. This vortex almost defies words, it’s so terrifying. And although the narrator is a competent sailor, he finds himself unable to save himself.
This situation, thought McLuhan was analogous to the world he found himself in. All around him were people unable to handle so much change so quickly. It upended everything that had happened before, demolishing reality.
Still, McLuhan found a way to enjoy his moment. He suggested that we might learn something from the narrator’s approach to survival. After seeing his companions perish, the sailor decides to learn from their mistakes.
In “Footprints in the Sands of Crime” (1946), McLuhan writes: “The sailor in his story The Maelstrom is at first paralyzed with horror. But in his very paralysis another fascination arises, a power of detached observation which becomes a scientific interest in the action of the strom. And it provides a means of escape.
McLuhan elaborates further in “The Mechanical Bride» (1951): “Poe’s sailor saved himself by studying the action of the whirlwind and cooperating with it. The present book also makes little attempt to grapple with the very considerable currents and pressures established around us today by the mechanical agencies of press, radio, cinema and advertising. It attempts to place the reader at the center of the revolving table created by these cases, where they can observe the action taking place and in which everyone is involved.
Interpreting McLuhan’s observations written nearly 75 years ago gives us a chance to confront our own unprecedented moment. Like the sage of mass media, we find ourselves adrift contemplating deep fakes, generative AI, virtual influencers, AI companions, chatbots, and so many existing cultural artifacts that would have been gibberish to the time when our greatest fear was the Y2K collapse.
But as another 1960s vocal impresario sang, “the beat goes on.” Post-COVID, here we are in 2023, ensconced in our home offices, surrounded by our endless screens and so many new gadgets and apps. Whether it’s building a website or bringing a new product to market, we can do what once took entire organizations, alone.
But what if we still need the human touch to thrive?
In this case, we can still turn to technology, but with a twist. Consider how Ashley Schaer empowers its customers. As a “split COO,” she gives small businesses an edge unattainable just a few years ago, before collaborative software allowed solopreneurs to go it alone.
“The C-suite arrangement exists in part, so the CEO doesn’t need to be an expert on every topic,” says Schaer. “They are responsible for the entire organization, but rely on a COO and other senior leaders to manage the areas in which they are weak. Today’s solopreneurs can achieve the same results without massive offices or a cadre of highly paid executives. It all comes down to finding an expert partner.
COOs are notoriously left-brained thinkers – number-crunchers, practical and detail-oriented – and Schaer is no exception. “Think of me as Roy Disney to his brother Walt Disney
SAY
Zooming out, the inner Luddite in many of us is sometimes tempted to throw up our hands in disgust at our brave new world in which teenagers spend hours and hours on TikTok – or at the very idea of ‘OnlyFans, a pornographic subscription site that often feels like a little more than a mashup of 20th sex hotlines of the century, mixed with a video component and a pinch of interactivity on social networks.
But as with so many things…even deadly maelstroms– there is a glimmer of hope to be found. Without our technology tools, I wouldn’t be posting this article on my laptop in a Seattle airport before my flight. Nor could I upload it so that you, dear reader, can enjoy the content wherever you are.
Despite these positive aspects, I come back to this idea that technology breeds loneliness. Coworking conduits such as We work aimed to allay these concerns. Ditto for network mixers where the laptop class can come out from behind their keyboards for some good old face time.
But is it enough?
That remains to be seen. For now, I won’t stop rewatching old movies remembering how we used to come together in wonder. The arrow of time always points in one direction. We cannot change this. Nor can we stop the inexorable march of technology. However, I hope that as we embrace our new powers and productivity, we will remember what is worth it: each other.
You and me.