Brian Eno On Artificial Intelligence – “You Have To Close Off All The Avenues Towards Mediocrity”


The video captures a discussion between music pioneer Brian Eno and actor, author, and comedian Stephen Fry discussing their thoughts on artificial intelligence, genital warts and more.

The discussion comes from an industry event focusing on AI-based customer service,

But artificial intelligence is suddenly everywhere and its THE technology of the day. It’s made Nvidia – a company that makes processors used for artificial intelligence applications – the most valuable company in the world. And it’s already become ubiquitous in our everyday lives, for better or worse.

In the world of music, the rise of AI is both fascinating and infuriating.

There are already interesting musical applications of AI, especially where it’s used to empower musicians. But it’s also already clear that tremendous effort is being put into using AI to replace musicians and artists. And it’s already happening.

Darth Vader with a synthesizer’ is an example of the AI-generated imagery that’s becoming unavoidable.

Darth Vader with a synthesizer’ is an example of the AI-generated imagery that’s becoming unavoidable.

You can’t do a Google search without getting AI-generated images in your results. And, on services like Spotify, AI-generated music is already showing up in playlists. This is likely to get worse, because services can avoid paying artists royalties by playing more AI-generated songs.

Fry and Eno don’t get too deep into discussing AI-generated music, but the discussion covers a lot of topics relevant to musicians.

One interesting topic that they discuss is how most of the major technology innovations of our lifetimes have had a ‘honeymoon phase’, where the technology is seen as utopian, before we start to understand the true social impact. Fry discusses his initial wide-eyed wonder at the possibilities of Facebook, and how it’s been replaced with a much more skeptical view of the platform and its impact.

It seems that Generative AI art and music may not get much of a honeymoon phase, as it’s already infuriating to many!

Watch the video, and lets us know your thoughts on the sudden rise of AI and it’s impact on the arts.


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