Research
Around the web
“The opposite of life is not death, it’s the machine.” - Ian McGilchrist
“Art is arguably what most distinguishes humans from the rest of creation. It’s the thing that makes us proudest of ourselves.” - Jonathan Gottschall
“Although interactive consumer devices are typically associated with new choices, connections, and forms of self-expression, they can also function to narrow choices, disconnect, and gain exit from the self.” - Natasha Dow Schüll
“first we shape our tools, then our tools shape us” - Marshall McLuhan
The vocal effects of Daft Punk
Dance music is booming in the US
Mobygratis - free instrumental music for creators
Transforming climate change data into music
As mentioned last week, the UK House of Lords pushed back against the government’s AI plans: tech companies must make clear when copyright-protected content is used. Regardless, the UK government rejected the House of Lords amendment to the new data bill. Concern and/or outright opposition has come from Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Damon Albarn, actors’ union Equity, the BBC, Sebastian Conran, and David Chipperfield. Elton John has told the BBC he was ready to take ministers to court and “fight it all the way”
An AI-generated radio host in Australia went unnoticed for months
Spotify found to be hosting hundreds of fake podcasts marketing prescription drugs
Listening and watching
Things we’re interested in
Ninja Tune has partnered with Reactional Music to explore gaming opportunities. Video example directly below
Spotify and EA Sports announce a partnership
Ghost (Swedish rock band) release new album with Roblox integration
An indie game devoted to heavy metal band Voivod
In 1949, Aldous Huxley wrote to George Orwell: “I feel that the nightmare of 1984 is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World… The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency.”
"What I hear in so many people's anguished LinkedIn posts is a disconnect between the world they thought they were in versus the one they actually are. They sound aghast that the jobs, companies, and industries that were supposed to provide both meaning and security haven't kept up their end of the bargain" - Rosie Spinks
And yet economists believe generative AI is not replacing jobs or hurting wages 🤔
“If you do not become an exceptional talent at what you do, a master, you will face the need for a career change in a matter of months. I am not trying to scare you. I am not talking about your job at Fiverr. I am talking about your ability to stay in your profession in the industry.” - Micha Kaufman, CEO, Fiverr
And at the universities: “AI” is dismantling models of assessment (not entirely a bad thing) while some students describe persistent anxiety about being accused of using “AI.” And it’s not just amongst students. There’s a risk we enter a “classroom AI doom loop.” Open disclosures are essential.
“Cognitive Debt is where you forgo the thinking in order just to get the answers, but have no real idea of why the answers are what they are.” - John V Wilshire
“Speaking of the effects of technology on individuals and society as a whole, Marshall McLuhan wrote that every augmentation is also an amputation… We may end up with at least one generation of people who are like the Eloi in H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, in that they are mental weaklings utterly dependent on technologies that they don’t understand and that they could never rebuild from scratch were they to break down… We might ask ourselves who is really the lapdog in a world full of powerful AIs.” - Neal Stephenson
You have one competitive advantage against AI: your humanity!
The Chicago Sun-Times publish a “Summer Reading List for 2025” that relied on AI to write the article. Multiple books on the list do not exist.
Prompt engineering, creating the perfect string of words to get an AI system to generate a required output, was lauded as an in-demand career in tech and expected to have annual growth rate of nearly 33%. That optimism appears to have been misplaced.
The media-machine singularity is the operating system of our age: ”In the age of language models, the medium is the message — is the machine… We build AI to elevate humanity — to cure, decode, transcend. Yet like all mortal creations, it bends toward what's rewarded: commerce, companionship, cachet. We call this 'progress'— but is it acceleration toward greater civilization, or just a new Facebook? Is OpenAI just another FAANG-shaped god for the ‘new’ era?”
Nando de Freitas, ex-Google DeepMind, now at Microsoft, asks: “AI has generated tons of text, billions of images, video and songs. I feel however it has never generated a song worth listening, a book worth reading or a movie worth watching. Why?"
👉 A new survey reveals most AI projects fail to deliver
“Nobody expects a computer simulation of a hurricane to generate real wind and real rain” - Anil Seth
This guy! His singular contribution to the world was a loneliness engine (there’s never been a lonelier generation)…and now to address the void, a “personalization loop” driven by AI 🤷
Do you trust Mark Zuckerberg to solve your loneliness?
Sorry to be controversial! It's nice to have real, live humans in your life!
“AI mirrors you. You're being sold back to yourself. It will only increase hyper-individualism and isolation.” - Samantha Rose Hill
Related: AI-fuelled spiritual "truth" and ChatGPT induced psychosis and “humans trying to heal that pain with something that hasn’t spoken and will never speak the language of the soul” 👈
“In an era plagued by loneliness, alienation, and a thinning sense of the real, we should be wary of anything that further erodes our capacity for human connection” - Eric Reinhart
Question
How can bibliometric data can be turned into sound?
Closing notes
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Until next week…