1. Home
  2. music
  3. 196371-139155

I miss scarcity

This is not a complaint. Or, if it is a complaint, it's half-aimed at me. Mostly this is a reflection.

In the old days, I got to know music really well -- in great detail, sonically, musically, reading all the credits, the liner notes, etc. A friend would have an album I didn't, so I'd go to his house to listen. We'd talk about the music. We'd talk about how album sides hung together or didn't. We were thrilled by double albums.

Now, a torrent of information is everywhere. I listen alone, often to a single song, often not listening to anything over and over again.

You will tell me, "That's your choice." I'd half agree. It's like agreeing that "It's my choice not to live off the electrical grid." 

As I read and teach about AI, I am learning that our tools often prioritize speed and information glut. It seems, initially, like a cornucopia but it becomes a wash of "content." I must admit, I'm losing my talent for managing all this content, and I'm losing my love for it. And it's making me into a different person, somewhat, and I am not so sure I want to be that person. End of reflection.

Wizard Conjuring Cosmic Chaos Art Print featuring the drawing Let There be Content by Benjamin Schwartz

hilde45
Post removed 
ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice
9,432 posts
 

@onhwy61 "...a technology that could download the physical, mental and emotional experiences of listening to a piece of music directly into your brain. ..."

That could have some applications in other sensuous pursuits. 

 

kevemaher's avatar
kevemaher
410 posts
 

@ghdprentice 

Hi, could you explain the difference between AI (in all its different implementations) and really good search engines?

ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice
9,432 posts
 

@newbee 

I ended "Who is John Galt." with a period and not a question mark because it was a statement, not a questions... like "So it goes." (Kurt Vonaggut)

ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice
9,432 posts
 

@kevemaher 

This is kind of a short cut but here is how ChatGPT answers the question. 

 

A search engine fetches.
An AI thinks (or at least tries to).

Here’s the shape of the difference:

Search engine:
When you type something into Google, it doesn’t understand your question. It just looks for pages that contain the words you used (plus all kinds of ranking tricks: popularity, links, location, personalization). It’s basically a librarian who says “Here are the shelves where books related to that topic live.” You still have to do the reading, sorting, and understanding yourself.

AI (like me):
When you ask a question here, I don’t go fetch a webpage for you. I take your words, figure out what you mean, and then generate a response by predicting the best continuation of language based on patterns learned from huge amounts of text. I try to explain, summarize, restate, reason, and converse.

So:

Search engine = index of information
AI = model of knowledge relationships

Or in friendlier terms:

Search engine = “Here are 10 links. You figure it out.”
AI = “Here’s the answer, explained in a way that fits how you asked.”

More to discover