What AI Thinks About What I THink

It's interesting to have LLMs analyze your content. Here I had Google NotebookLM analyze all my music writings from August 1997-2024, then I had Anthropic create a "blog post". I think it makes the point that we don't want "bullet-pointed" writing. It's also a bit of a game of telephone where the original content is processed twice. It's always been the case that the more you reshape content, the more transmission loss there is. There always has to be a human in the loop in this new hybridized creative landscape. 

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Pass 3 into Google Notebook:

 

The Future of Sound: Rethinking Music in the Age of AI

Exploring the evolving landscape of musical creation, consumption, and meaning in our digital age

We're living through a profound transformation in how we create, consume, and understand music. The traditional boundaries that once defined musical art are dissolving, replaced by something more fluid, more complex, and arguably more honest about what music has always been: a temporal art form that captures the spirit of its time.

From Music to Musing: A New Taxonomy

Consider this: what we call "music" today might be fundamentally different from what deserved that name thirty years ago. There's an emerging distinction worth exploring between music (compositions focused on melody, harmony, and structure) and musing (contemporary works that incorporate broader cultural elements like social values, fashion, and political context).

Interestingly, this isn't a value judgment. What begins as "musing"—think Nine Inch Nails or Nirvana in their time—can evolve into "music" as it gains historical perspective. The temporal nature of this art form means our understanding of it is always in motion.

This evolution suggests we need new frameworks for understanding sound-based art. Perhaps we need a field of "Musics"—analogous to physics—that can encompass forms of rhythmic, temporal expression that don't fit traditional definitions but still carry cultural and social weight.

The Architecture of Creativity

The creative process itself is undergoing radical change. The most meaningful artistic work seems to emerge from what could be called an "architectural approach"—building frameworks that create space for play, then decorating those structures with intuitive, right-brain experiences.

This approach recognizes a crucial truth: the idea is the easy part. What matters is the sustained engagement, the "flow experience" where the brain becomes absorbed in the process rather than fixated on outcomes. It's about transforming random elements into something solid and logical while remaining open to happy accidents.

Brian Eno's principle rings true here: "go to an extreme and retreat to a more useful position." This creative oscillation between bold experimentation and practical refinement prevents both timidity and overreach.

The AI Paradox

We're witnessing artificial intelligence reshape musical creation in ways both promising and troubling. AI functions as a sophisticated tool—like Autotune before it—that can be applied to almost any musical endeavor. Yet there's something fundamentally different about this tool.

AI music generation reveals itself as curiously "left-brained," functioning more like an advanced search engine than a creative partner. It's dependent on query quality and existing databases rather than imagination. The result can feel like ordering from a menu rather than cooking—efficient, but lacking the essential risk that defines artistic work.

The concern isn't that AI will replace human creativity, but that it might gaslight our creative powers. While AI can produce technically impressive results, it struggles with genuine emotion and original ideas. The "banalization" of conceptual art through algorithmic processes represents a real cultural risk.

Yet there's reason for cautious optimism. AI music might become the new radio—something young musicians play along with, learn from, and eventually transcend. The key is maintaining human agency in the process, using AI as a collaborator rather than a replacement.

The Attention Economy vs. Temporal Art

We're facing a fundamental mismatch between the nature of music and modern consumption patterns. Music is inherently temporal—it unfolds in time, requires sustained attention, demands patience. Our current cultural moment prizes quick engagement: the Instagram like, the TikTok loop, the instant gratification of algorithmic feeds.

This shift helps explain the decline of jazz appreciation and the broader challenges facing complex musical forms. When attention spans shrink, temporal arts suffer. We're trading the profound for the immediate, the transformative for the consumable.

The result is what might be called "aesthetic erosion"—a flattening of artistic experience into easily digestible, algorithm-friendly content. The internet itself has become an instrument, much like recording studios in the 1970s, but one that shapes art toward viral compatibility rather than artistic depth.

Pop Music's Paradox

Perhaps nowhere is this tension more apparent than in pop music, which remains "stupid yet profound." Today's pop is roughly "80% sound"—finding a desirable sonic texture can now serve as the starting point for an entire song. This isn't necessarily degradation; it's evolution.

The commodification of music for marketing purposes doesn't negate its power to create genuine connection. Playlists designed to increase sales can still soundtrack meaningful human experiences. The challenge is maintaining awareness of these dual functions while preserving space for music that prioritizes human need over commercial success.

The Open Source Symphony

Music has always been "open source" in the truest sense. Standards like tunings and notation exist to be modified, tweaked, and reimagined to serve creative objectives. This flexibility represents music's greatest strength: its ability to adapt and incorporate new elements while maintaining connection to its roots.

The goal isn't to preserve some imagined purity of musical form, but to create art that people genuinely need rather than simply desire. This requires embracing both traditional elements (for relatability) and experimental approaches (for growth).

Toward Flexible Identity

The most crucial insight might be this: flexible identity, rather than brand loyalty to oneself, allows for the search of deeper truth. In an era of rapid technological and cultural change, artists need permission to evolve, to abandon signature styles in favor of authentic expression.

This means accepting that we might not have one consistent artistic voice, but rather a series of voices that emerge from different moments, different technologies, different understandings of what art can accomplish.

The Future of Sound

As we navigate this transition, the question isn't whether technology will change music—it already has. The question is whether we can maintain the essential human elements that make music meaningful: emotional risk, genuine connection, the willingness to fail in service of something true.

The future belongs neither to pure human creation nor algorithmic generation, but to hybrid forms that leverage technology while preserving the irreplaceable elements of human creativity. We need artists who can code-switch between different technological tools and aesthetic frameworks while maintaining commitment to authentic expression.

In this emerging landscape, the most radical act might be the most traditional: creating temporal art that demands sustained attention, that unfolds meaning over time, that asks audiences to engage deeply rather than scroll past.

The revolution isn't in the tools we use to make music, but in our willingness to use them in service of something larger than efficiency or virality. The future of sound depends on our ability to remain human while embracing the inhuman capabilities of our new creative partners.