Post

If nothing else AI is making clear that there are people all around us for whom writing, art, and music are not communion with another mind, but just - wallpaper. Just pleasant things to look at. They think AI is conscious because they have no actual grasp of what it is to encounter another mind.

"With AI you'll never have to listen to music you don't like again!" is basically the musical equivalent of a sex doll. Like bots that only say yes and are never unavailable. It's absolute solipsism.

It's the whole 'nobody is allowed to feel any sort of discomfort ever' thing translated to music. (I still remember the first time I heard 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and it literally *frightened* me.)

What hotel was playing such a banger?

Little hotel in Bank Place in Melbourne. I was working there (I was a porter, but a small hotel that means you do a little bit of everything). We only had a couple of CDs, including a generic classical mix album. So several times in a shift you'd hear this thing:

Can't imagine what the guests thought. It's not exactly Tony Bennett is it

Ai will fracture art. There will be two 'arts'. The Kennedy Centre is the example. The right are demanding a seat at the table. 'Art by threat'. These are the early days.

that's being overly generous, I think. there will not be a "fracture", because the people who want to force their vision via AI are not interested in producing art. they just want a megaphone, and people broadly don't want to engage with what they produce.

AI won't "fracture" art any more than content farms and corporate memphis and every other soulless attempt to monetize sheer Output already did.