Technological Singularity and the music biz. (long, detailed opinion content)

[Beck]

 

Originally Posted by MrKnobs

But fingers (iPhone, computer, guitar, etc) should not be in the middle of that, there needs to be a direct connection.

It's coming, I'm very sure.

 

For many people its already here. Its called Schizophrenia.

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

Originally Posted by MrKnobs

But fingers (iPhone, computer, guitar, etc) should not be in the middle of that, there needs to be a direct connection.

 

Bull{censored}. Fingers are the key to the individualization of the creative process. The very shape of my finger will impart a different tone on my same guitar/amp setup than yours will. Eliminate the fingers, and you might as well just have a machine making the music and eliminate the middleman (i.e., a human) entirely.

[3shiftgtr]

 

Originally Posted by Jeff da Weasel

Bull{censored}. Fingers are the key to the individualization of the creative process. The very shape of my finger will impart a different tone on my same guitar/amp setup than yours will. Eliminate the fingers, and you might as well just have a machine making the music and eliminate the middleman (i.e., a human) entirely.

 

Not sayin this is good or bad, but.....

....what if whatever sounds you hear in your head, were instantly manifested on an instrument(s)? Instantly.

Eliminates the "Maaaaaannnn....if I could just play what I hear."

When Adaptive, Hybrid and Inductive reasoning and learning is aided by imbedded-in-the-thought-process computers, then the ability to manifest to an instrument any 'sound thought' is included. The control of the instrument issue is bypassed.

The issue goes way beyond how you use your fingers.

[Jeff da Weasel]

Originally Posted by 3shiftgtr

Not sayin this is good or bad, but.....

....what if whatever sounds you hear in your head, were instantly manifested on an instrument(s)? Instantly.

I would shoot myself in the head.

[3shiftgtr]

 

Originally Posted by Jeff da Weasel

I would shoot myself in the head.

 

I hear ya!

What is scary tho, is that it literally is right around the corner. The tech is here now, it's mostly just a matter of time.

Our kids and our kids kids have some pretty big decisions to make.

[Temple of Light]

The only question worth asking or answering in regards to this concept/inevitability is,

of what value is the human body?

Everything else is moot if followed to it's logical conclusion.

[Temple of Light]

This is why the 1% seek to enslave and destroy you.

[MrKnobs]

 

Originally Posted by Jeff da Weasel

Bull{censored}. Fingers are the key to the individualization of the creative process. The very shape of my finger will impart a different tone on my same guitar/amp setup than yours will. Eliminate the fingers, and you might as well just have a machine making the music and eliminate the middleman (i.e., a human) entirely.

 

They're simply how you do it now. You don't think brains are individual? They're the biggest key to individualization of the creative process. The timing is coming, and fairly soon, when you'll just be able to think every nuance of the music. Some will think it better than others.

Terry D.

[techristian]

 

Originally Posted by Ernest Buckley

Just my opinion, I have no data to back this up...

I think as long as music is a stream to make $$$, someone will eventually figure out a way to make people pay. Someone will eventually create a code that will self-write itself on the spot, making it impenetrable.

Music/information/digital data will all possess this code so you have no other option but to purchase a key to unlock that code. Once that code is tied to your digital device, it will write itself a new one making it impossible to "share" that music/info/digital data.

If I had the passion for that sort of thing, I would start writing that kind of self writing software.... someone else will have to reap the billions of $$$

 

Funny that you mention a KEY. I wrote this article more than 10 years ago. Check it out.

MP3 KEYS IN THE OS

[3shiftgtr]

 

Originally Posted by techristian

Funny that you mention a KEY. I wrote this article more than 10 years ago. Check it out.

MP3 KEYS IN THE OS

 

Hey tech...seriously....send that to moses avalon....droop in on his blog....you should get some traction with it....he's been fighting the freetards and looking for a clear and concise discourse on it....

[Jeff da Weasel]

Originally Posted by MrKnobs

They're simply how you do it now. You don't think brains are individual?

Very much so. And very much capable of imitation, which is the basis for nearly everything you do. Your language, movements, thought patterns, all derive from humanity's amazing ability to experience something and then perform it themselves. But my skills of adding vibrato to a note, or the shape of my vocal chords as I enunciate a sound, are physical tasks that through both genetic luck of the draw and years of practice make my sound -- good, bad, or otherwise -- inimitable.

Taking that away shouldn't be viewed as a positive step. As soon as this place becomes a world of drone beings who can't be differentiated from one another, I am outta here.

[Philter]

I think talk of technological singularity simultaneously over- and under- estimates human intelligence and consciousness. It over-estimates our ability to achieve that level of design, and under- estimates the actual challenge of programming something that approaches self-awareness and self-interest. Processing speed has little or no bearing on willful actions guided by self-interest and self-motivation.

[Folder]

 

Originally Posted by MikeRivers

Come visit the wilds of Falls Gulch, where, if my purchase is $14.93 and I hand the cashier $15.03, more often than not the cashier has to fumble and hands me a nickel and two pennies before I remind him that my change should be a dime. Then he gives me three more pennies.

It's why more often than not I'll use a credit card, even for purchases under a dollar.

 

How about when something costs $4.97. You give them a five and they close the register without giving you your three cents back. Then when you say you owe me three cents, they look at you like you're cheapskate. For me it's the principle of the matter.

When I got my first job at Arby's many years ago we were taught that the customer is always right and if you couldn't make correct change then the business eats the difference. Many people don't seem to think that way anymore where I live.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Originally Posted by Philter

I think talk of technological singularity simultaneously over- and under- estimates human intelligence and consciousness. It over-estimates our ability to achieve that level of design, and under- estimates the actual challenge of programming something that approaches self-awareness and self-interest. Processing speed has little or no bearing on willful actions guided by self-interest and self-motivation.

 

I believe it's more that the adherents believe that processing speed would boost or enhance human intelligence but is hardly the end game...and same with nanotechnology, biotechnology, and other technological enhances. It's more that it would enhance/amplify human intelligence.

That said, I think you're probably right about the over and estimating aspect, but that would be a guess on my part since I don't work in these fields. I mean, reading Wired, newspaper articles, and other magazine articles only gets me so far.

[Philter]

 

Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli

I believe it's more that the adherents believe that processing speed would boost or enhance human intelligence but is hardly the end game...and same with nanotechnology, biotechnology, and other technological enhances. It's more that it would enhance/amplify human intelligence.

That said, I think you're probably right about the over and estimating aspect, but that would be a guess on my part since I don't work in these fields. I mean, reading Wired, newspaper articles, and other magazine articles only gets me so far.

 

I would be more willing to agree that processing speed helps boost human intelligence, but that's very different, because we're still talking about human intelligence and not independent artificial intelligence. I'm more inclined to see advances in computing as the inevitable evolution of human intelligence than as any sort of move towards independent artificial thinking.

And really I think there are limits to how much we can even improve on organic human intelligence... brings me back to Clarke's law about how at some point, sufficiently advanced technology is perceived of as magic by most people.

[Jimbroni]

 

Originally Posted by Folder

How about when something costs $4.97. You give them a five and they close the register without giving you your three cents back. Then when you say you owe me three cents, they look at you like you're cheapskate. For me it's the principle of the matter.

When I got my first job at Arby's many years ago we were taught that the customer is always right and if you couldn't make correct change then the business eats the difference. Many people don't seem to think that way anymore where I live.

 

How about this for an intelligent fact? Its costs more to handle those 3 pennies than they are worth. It goes both ways. When something costs 5.03, they charge 5 even. Its not because people are cheap or can't count, its because the penny costs more than a penny simply to handle. Many store are rounding up or down and simply refuse to deal with pennies, and that form of currency will gone shortly. Has very to do with the conversation, but IJS.

[MrKnobs]

 

Originally Posted by Jeff da Weasel

Very much so. And very much capable of imitation, which is the basis for nearly everything you do. Your language, movements, thought patterns, all derive from humanity's amazing ability to experience something and then perform it themselves. But my skills of adding vibrato to a note, or the shape of my vocal chords as I enunciate a sound, are physical tasks that through both genetic luck of the draw and years of practice make my sound -- good, bad, or otherwise -- inimitable.

Taking that away shouldn't be viewed as a positive step. As soon as this place becomes a world of drone beings who can't be differentiated from one another, I am outta here.

 

This is an interesting argument.

Seems like you're saying our brains mostly copy so differences in our playing come substantially from chance differences in your fingers and vocal cords. If brains imitate, aren't vibratos and vocal stylings in large part imitations too?

My thinking is that when fingers become unnecessary as an interface a few very gifted / talented / whatever you choose to call it exceptional individuals will not simply copy what they have heard but will create new music that has never been heard. This is the same as the present case where fingers and vocal cords are necessary except that new music will be possible that vocal cords and fingers are inherently unable to do.

In a larger sense that reality is already here even though the mind / machine interface is still in its infancy. People making music on computers have been creating music for quite a while that can never realistically be performed without the use of computers. If you want to go back even farther, consider the recent thread here discussing what most of us who record have done from time to time which is to create a guitar solo (or anything else) that can't be played through the use of editing / punching in.

Close your eyes for a moment and see if you can imagine a musical passage that you could never play and have never heard before. This is actually very difficult as we are bombarded by music every day, and, additionally, our hands and throats inform our brains by suggesting familiar patterns of movement that then inform our ideas for melodies and rhythms. It's hard to escape this loop, but the best musicians and composers do this now.

Imagine a future where a young person who is not as entrenched in what he or she has heard for years can simply think a melody or a song or a symphony into existence. The discipline required to play an instrument or sing well actually confines our creativity even as it enables it to be heard.

Terry D.

[MrKnobs]

Just to continue my thought from post #40 (which is unlikely to be read, given 40 is an integral multiple of 20), I'd like to tell a very short story from a show I played long ago, one that has informed me to this day.

I was playing in a pretty successful cover band and one night on stage at a huge meat market type bar (yes, those sort of bars used to have live entertainment back in the day) and to put it plainly I was out of my mind high. I don't even remember what drug I'd taken, this was the 80's and to not do a line of whatever was at the least a social faux pas, at the most labeled you a "narc."

Anyway, we were on stage with our 9 piece band, playing some REO hit du jour, and I was lost in my thoughts as my fingers flawlessly performed the song from muscle memory. I had a solo coming up so as my hands banged out the chords my mind did what it usually does and imagined the solo in my head that I was about to play, the solo on the record. Informing my hands from my mind. (Don't all of you do that?)

But this time I thought about the solo, how simple it was (some pentatonic triplet thing I think) and being high I thought instead of being a human jukebox I'd create something different. Being very high I thought about how confining it was to play in one simple mode so I attempted some polymodal Bartok-esque weirdness that I played with great enthusiasm when the time came.

At the end of the song I could feel my bandmates' glaring at me, except for Mr. Saeto the (jazz) saxophonist who often sat in with us. He was beaming, actually hugged me and said, "Terry, I had never thought of you as a musician until this moment."

There's a very fine line between "wow" and "what the f*ck." But it's essential to cross that line both to discover where it is and then to move it forward. There's going to be a LOT of WTF when the first mind / machine interfaces become available, but eventually the net effect will be WOW for music, generating a musical Renaissance the likes of which the world has never seen before.

Terry D.

[UstadKhanAli]

yUP.

[3shiftgtr]

 

Originally Posted by MrKnobs

In a larger sense that reality is already here even though the mind / machine interface is still in its infancy.

 

I think that that is the key to T.S. A guess, for sure.

And it is a frightening prospect....making a chip interact directly with cognitive function is an extraordinary idea. The concept of humanity will functionally change.

[Jon Gnash]

 

Originally Posted by 3shiftgtr

.. there will be a time when technology and humanity will aid each other in increasing human intelligence capacity.

 

When has that never been true?

In case you don’t know it – you are channeling Ray Kurzweil.

A better question is – what’s gonna happen when the rich folks can afford to genetically modify their child (for perfect pitch – for example), and the poor people can’t?

[Jon Gnash]

Here