289 - its about ai again 🤖🎵➿
ai thoughtstarters, but mainly The Story.
Hey there, !
I write too much so I just wanna do two thought starters and leave it at that today. Both AI related, and both things I'm thinking about.
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Why can't Spotify's AI get better? - I feel like I've only got 3-ish daylist modes: a) soul / r&b, b) lo-fi korean bedroom pop and c) laufey. But, I've noticed that these same sorts of daylists rarely change because I keep listening to the same 'old school soul r&b monday afternoon' daylists and thus I never really come across anything new. Luckily, or unluckily, I find new songs because of doomscrolling trending audio...so recently it's been this chinese rapper 攬佬SKAI ISYOURGOD, which has unlocked the 'chinese taiwanese rap' daylist.
But really, relying on AI to find things just doesn't seem to be The Way. Recycling and regurgitating what you've listened to back at you means fewer ways to find new things to love. Sure, it's just music, but more broadly though - isn't this going to create a human centipede of AI discovery -> human engages with it -> doesn't go anywhere else -> listens / watches the same stuff -> AI 'discovery'? I feel like we're going to look back at this time as 'BC' and 'AD' ('Before ChatGPT' and 'After DeepSeek')...forevermore, our AI is going to be mining through cultural amber to try and find diamonds that turn out to be just really polished turds.
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Curators, creators, and consumers - related to the above, I initially thought that creators could have outsized impact in such an economy - as the less creators and the more consumers you have in the market, the more power a creator might have in moving it. But then...because there's also a problem in the discovery of new things (mainly due to the deluge of information online), perhaps it's more about the curators of the internet that are more important. Prospectors sifting through the river of the internet to find gold - they're the ones who should be able to amplify initial signals of cool content, sort through the noise, and help to jolt the algorithm out of its spiral. Kind of like...influencers. DAMN IT.
Gen Z, and perhaps Gen Alpha, might find it harder to sort through the deluge and navigate a sense of 'taste', because everything they consume is going to be tinged with the yucky flavour of AI. How unfortunate that that might already be part of their perception of reality! Then again, new content always needs to be there too, to be chosen from, so a healthy balance between them both is necessary I guess.
EDIT: While writing this I found this great article (use 12ft.io to un-paywall)...ah damn, there's no original thought is there - The New Generation of Online Culture Curators | The New Yorker.
Chat soon :)
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📋Today's Question
Reserve time routed to comms: 10%
What do you want to do?: Help Jimmy repair the power lines and get your computer back online.
Well well well...let's see what happens :D
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"Alright, first things first - we gotta survive. Shelter, water, food - y'all know the drill."
Sayla groans, "Okayy..."
"Sayla, you'll need to do a little scouting of the area as Jimmy and I get the power back online to get the computers back online. Check in on the comms, see if you can find a water source, and just keep in contact, yeah?"
"Got it!" Her neon pink scrunchie bobs up and down as she fiddles with her time suit to shift and morph it until it gives her an astronaut-like enclosure.
"Never know what's out there, hey?" Sayla says with a wink, and hops out of the airlock with a fshhhhh.
"Jimmy, let's get the power back online," you walk out through the corridor off to the engine and storage rooms, with Jimmy in tow. "What's the situation?"
Jimmy checks off his fingers, "Life support on generators, onboard computers down, navigation down, comms might be down but depends on what Sayla can do, rations fine, a few time anomalies in the storage room, but nothing major."
"My paintings?"
"Intact, don't worry. Maybe aged a few years here and there - plus minus 10 years I guess. Can't even see the difference."
"Hmph - maybe to you."
Jimmy laughs, "All right Cap'n - let me get the spare pipes and wiring out, and lets see if we can't fix up this mess, huh? I got a meal at Tony's with your name on it."
You both come up to the giant rip in the side of the ship, with a thin forcefield separating you from the outside air. A bunch of dirt and leaves are littered in the wiring, somehow having snuck through the forcefield, with the remnants of a burnt, massive branch dragging alongside th eship. The panels seem like an easy fix, but the punctured pipes look like they're leaking fluid - whether it's oil, water, or lubrication is anyone's guess.
"Alright, let me go check engine and see if I can get some other diagnostics," you say to Jimmy. He grunts a reply as he rummages around in the storeroom.
You walk back out into the engine room, a stark, uniformly-lit room with a great metal sphere surrounded by control panels. The sphere radiates a warm, yellowy glow, the time drive and energy core seemingly intact and working. A rainbow of lights blink back at you from the panels - these ones less aggressive, and less life-saving, than when you escaped from the vortex. At this moment, the screens are blank.
"All right Cap'n, computers should be coming back online! Give it a minute."
"Boys, come in."
"Go for it, Sayla."
"Looks like the comms array has taken a big hit - we didn't get enough time into it, so we've just got enough to listen in broadcasts planetside."
You punch the wall and swear. No comms meant we were stranded, for now.
"Dammit, okay. What are you hearing?"
"It's a little robotic and noisy at the moment - once our computer's back online, we might be able to filter out and work out where we are."
Jimmy yells out from behind, "Sorry Cap'n - thought the rations were okay, but looks like our food took the brunt of the vortex - a lot of it is RANK." The smell wafts out into the air.
"YUCK! Chuck it out, Jimmy!"
"Okay, I'm off to go find some water, or whatever passes for it here," Sayla radioes in. "If not, I'll set up the moisture capture and we'll go from there."
"Roger - go ahead."
The screens in front of you blink to life. With an expert tap-tap-click, you run diagnostics and tell the computer to run analysis on time, location, and atmosphere.
"Good job Jimmy!"
"No worries Cap'n, panels next for the hull, and then we get re-wiring and patch jobs in the other stuff." A cacophony of sounds starts as Jimmy gets into the repairs.
The screen jumps to life and outputs the following:
LOCATION: North Korea
TIME: [ERROR: TimeNotFound]
ATMOSPHERE: Pre-nuclear air detected - suitable for human consumption. 75% Nitrogen, 22% Oxygen - within safe levels. Slightly higher trace elements of nobles, but within safe ranges.
MAP: See below
The topographical map of the mountain ranges around you scan out from 1 - 5km, with you situated in dense forest for quite a while. There seem to be roads to the north-east, and a trainline that runs parallel. The west seems to follow a river. South, there are more mountain ranges and flashing signs which...well, when the computer says 'Danger!' you kind of trust it.
ESTIMATED TIME: Possible solutions: 1995, 2146, ???
"Jimmy, I think the purp has pushed us into a weird region of time..."
"Eh, Cap'n?" Some hammering pauses as Jimmy makes his way back to the engine room. He whistles when he sees the results, and radioes out to Sayla.
"Hey, looks like the purp has made us a bit wonky - you find the river yet?"
"Yes it's in sight...but the chatter on the radio is getting very interesting - I think you might want to hear it Cap'n."
You turn on the onboard pa system and bring up the comms chatter. It starts in clipped Korean, but is quickly translated, into noisty and distorted, but still understandable, English:
"...extraction and evacuation protocols in effect. I repeat. Do not resist. Your ship has entered a no-go zone for the Glorious Korean Republic, and will be be reclaimed. All existing captures to be redirected to Facility 717 for asset harvest and chronological quarantine. Foreign debris is property of the Eternal Vanguard. Do not resist."
A second, garbled voice cuts in momentarily with some creaks and shotus in the background - ‘Report: Hull 028… not a ghost. Still active… still resisting…’
A third voice cuts in, "Sector 33 - new crash, relatively new and intact. Three survivors. Bravo team to action - with caution. Assigned Hull 035 - exterminate and reclaim for the Eternal Vanguard."
A fourth, much more lethal sounding gravelly voice, "We're on it. 15 to engage."
"That's us, isn't it?" Jimmy says, looking at you.
"Very likely. Can we engage stealth?"
"Shit - there's a lot of damage...it's going to be a tight 15!"
"Do it quicker - we don't have much time. Make it ugly if you have to," you run to the storeroom and fling open the armory cabinet. "Sayla! We need to buy some time for Jimmy to fix our stealth system! These guys sound like they mean business."
You hear water sloshing in the background as Sayla replies, "Roger, Cap'n! But...how?"
"Agh...let me think!"
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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攬佬SKAI ISYOURGOD - just to expand from before, this guys raps in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka and English, and blends it so seamlessly. The way he samples and builds beats reminds me of how I felt listening to Kanye for the first time because the production creates such a great vibe. Might be difficult if you don't understand the language, but then again, I don't know Mandarin and I dig the beats. Thank you Instagram Reels For You Tab!
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Cowboy Bebop - I don't watch much anime, but wow this one is right up my alley, especially where I am in my life. It's a really inventive anime that came out in 2000; a space western that dives right into the genre and melds them together seamlessly, following a group of bounty hunters as they go and try to eke their living from the wide expanse of the galaxy. I've been getting into this era of Japanese animation and the ideas are all so...fresh? Even though it's from ages ago...they were just built different I guess. It's a bit slow in terms of plot, but it's stylish, it's musical, it's deliberate with its characters, and they all are flawed in very interesting ways. Highly recommended. Half hour episodes, 26 episodes - easy to smash out :D
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Owls in Towels - exactly what it says on the tin
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Movies: I spent a year trying to figure out the weirdest mistake in recent Hollywood history. I succeeded. - apparently I really like reading bird content? Someone goes to try and find out what bird trill is in the 2000 Charlie's Angel movie. Fun ensues.
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Experts discover how zebra stripes work to thwart horsefly attacks - I guess I'm just likin' animals this week. QR codes on horses maybe coming in the future?