Derek Thompson

They have an instinct, the instinct is represented by a sound of the piano or the guitar or voice, then they have taste, they judge the sound, and then they adopt or they change or they keep going.

But it seems like the world that you're describing is a world in which writing music is more like being an editor, more like being a manager, because you are creating something that then you're feeding into a system that you can evaluate at a distance, evaluate almost as if it's someone else's work, which is so interesting to do, and then incorporate the output from that AI partnership to pull back into your own work.

But it seems like the world that you're describing is a world in which writing music is more like being an editor, more like being a manager, because you are creating something that then you're feeding into a system that you can evaluate at a distance, evaluate almost as if it's someone else's work, which is so interesting to do, and then incorporate the output from that AI partnership to pull back into your own work.

But it seems like the world that you're describing is a world in which writing music is more like being an editor, more like being a manager, because you are creating something that then you're feeding into a system that you can evaluate at a distance, evaluate almost as if it's someone else's work, which is so interesting to do, and then incorporate the output from that AI partnership to pull back into your own work.

Do you see this as changing in some real good, bad, meaningful ways the process of writing music?

Do you see this as changing in some real good, bad, meaningful ways the process of writing music?

Do you see this as changing in some real good, bad, meaningful ways the process of writing music?

What I really liked about that answer is that you're holding on the table two possibilities for the future that really pull us in different directions. One is that these tools are simply too weird for artists to feel comfortable using. As you said, writing music is not like writing paragraphs. Nobody thinks, today certainly, that spellcheck intrudes on the authenticity of essay writing.

What I really liked about that answer is that you're holding on the table two possibilities for the future that really pull us in different directions. One is that these tools are simply too weird for artists to feel comfortable using. As you said, writing music is not like writing paragraphs. Nobody thinks, today certainly, that spellcheck intrudes on the authenticity of essay writing.

What I really liked about that answer is that you're holding on the table two possibilities for the future that really pull us in different directions. One is that these tools are simply too weird for artists to feel comfortable using. As you said, writing music is not like writing paragraphs. Nobody thinks, today certainly, that spellcheck intrudes on the authenticity of essay writing.

Nobody thinks that. But working with AI to write music does, in a small or maybe even enormous way, feel like an unwelcome intrusion to some people. an unwelcome intrusion into a process of creativity that feels to the artist like it's meant to be in the space of for humans only. I think that is absolutely a possible future.

Nobody thinks that. But working with AI to write music does, in a small or maybe even enormous way, feel like an unwelcome intrusion to some people. an unwelcome intrusion into a process of creativity that feels to the artist like it's meant to be in the space of for humans only. I think that is absolutely a possible future.

Nobody thinks that. But working with AI to write music does, in a small or maybe even enormous way, feel like an unwelcome intrusion to some people. an unwelcome intrusion into a process of creativity that feels to the artist like it's meant to be in the space of for humans only. I think that is absolutely a possible future.

But there's another possible future where these tools, because they're so good at the small tasks that you've specified, at finishing incomplete work, at filling out

But there's another possible future where these tools, because they're so good at the small tasks that you've specified, at finishing incomplete work, at filling out

But there's another possible future where these tools, because they're so good at the small tasks that you've specified, at finishing incomplete work, at filling out

unfilled out ideas will be ingrained in the music writing habits of young people today, and we'll see AI move into the world of music not because a bunch of 40 and 50 year olds suddenly adopt it, but rather because they'll be demographically replaced by musicians who today are only 15 or even five years old. And that's where I want to close is taking that possibility seriously.

unfilled out ideas will be ingrained in the music writing habits of young people today, and we'll see AI move into the world of music not because a bunch of 40 and 50 year olds suddenly adopt it, but rather because they'll be demographically replaced by musicians who today are only 15 or even five years old. And that's where I want to close is taking that possibility seriously.

unfilled out ideas will be ingrained in the music writing habits of young people today, and we'll see AI move into the world of music not because a bunch of 40 and 50 year olds suddenly adopt it, but rather because they'll be demographically replaced by musicians who today are only 15 or even five years old. And that's where I want to close is taking that possibility seriously.

I'm very persuaded by this idea that is sometimes called stuck culture theory, which says that something's happened in the last few decades in film, in celebrity, maybe to a certain extent in music, where cultural progress feels more frozen than it used to be. And it's like the one factoid that I always go back to lean on here is that in 1996, when