Artificial Idiocy
By Cosmic Cairns on July 4, 2026 12:10 am
I had kind of intended to write a more traditional song with vocals this week, but shortly before sitting down to record I had an unpleasant confrontation with a relative who is a drug-addict with anger issues, among other things. I thought there was a very real chance I might be about to take a punch to the face. Thankfully, it didn't come to that, but it completely threw me out of the mood of wanting to sing some happy melody. I kind of went into this intending to make some heinous noise. Like Metal Machine Music style or something. Once I got started I got more relaxed and went into a bit of a groove, so it ended up being much less abrasive than I thought it might be. It's probably not the greatest thing I've ever done, but considering the circumstances, I mostly liked how it turned out.
The title is a bit of a snarky swipe at the AI that seems to be prevalent these days. I have my thoughts and opinions on it, and I could probably write a lot, but in general, I think it could possibly have some useful applications. That said, I don't trust the motivations or ethical character of a lot of the people who are developing it, I hate how they're shoving it down our throats and insisting it's inevitable so we'd better just accept it, and I have strong doubts about the sustainability and environmental impact of the data centers required to run it. As far as it concerns art and music, I think with further development it could become harder to distinguish its artistic output from that of humans. I don't want to become some sort of bigot against the robots if they actually do develop self-awareness and souls, but I think we're a ways away from that, and for now I don't think AI can produce anything as meaningful as humans. Nor do I want it to. Nor does it need to. Humans are very good at creating art already and we don't need computers to do it for us. Needless to say, no AI was used in the making of this track. All right, end of rant. Hope everyone's summer is going good so far!
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I'm also not a big fan of the current state of AI. Especially what it's doing to music and the arts.