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This has been the pitched playbook for decades. (Metamates!) I'm increasingly convinced its driven by a specific generation of tech entrepreneurs who cut their teeth while reading ca. 1980s science fiction.

I could see chat apps becoming dominant in Slack-oriented workplaces. But, like, chatting with an AI to play a song is objectively worse than using Spotify. Dynamically-created music sounds nice until one considers the social context in which non-filler music is heard.



The thing it reminds me of is those old Silicon Graphics greybeards that were smug about how they were creating tools for people that created wealth when those other system providers "just" created tools for people tracking wealth.

There's a whole bizarre subculture in computing that fails to recognize what it is about computers that people actually find valuable.


It's because Zuck can't own a pane of glass. He's locked out of the smartphone duopoly.

Everyone wants the next device category. They covet it. Every other company tries to will it into existence.


Chatting with an AI to play a song whose title you know, sure.

Getting an AI to play "that song that goes hmm hmmm hmmm hmmm ... uh, it was in some commercials when I was a kid" tho


> Getting an AI to play "that song that goes hmm hmmm hmmm hmmm ... uh, it was in some commercials when I was a kid" tho

Absolutely. The point is this is a specialised and occasional use case. You don't want to have to go through a chat bot every time you want to play a particular song just because sometimes you might hum at it.

The closest we've come to a widely-adopted AR interface are AirPods. Critically, however, they work by mimicing how someone would speak to a real human by them.


more abstract than that, "I'm throwing a wedding/funeral/startup IPO/Halloween/birthday party for a whatever year old and need appropriate music". Or, without knowing specific bands, "I want to hear some 80's metal music". "more cowbell!"


You don't need AI for this, Spotify has, like, infinite playlists.

Also their playlists are made by real people (mostly...), so they don't completely suck ass.


Playlists aren't interactive though. I can't say "like this but with less guitar".

Also, following the Beatport top 100 tech house playlist, and hearing how many tracks aren't actually tech house makes me wonder about who makes that particular playlist.


I don't know, I don't buy that this is a use case that matters enough to sway anyone.

That's how I feel about a lot of AI stuff.

Like... It's neat. It's a fun novelty. It makes a good party trick. It's the software equivalent of a knick knack.

Like 90% of the pixel AI features. There's some good ones in there, sure, but most of them you play around with for a day and then forget exist.


Okay so you're at the party, and you do a cool party trick, and then that cute stranger you've been eyeing all night finally comes over to talk to you. Why's it need to be more than that?


Because we're pouring trillions of dollars into that.

This isn't me making a cute little website in my free time. This is thousands of developers, super computers out the wazoo, and a huge chunk of the western economy.

Like, a snowglobe is cute. They don't do much, but they're cute. I'd buy one for ten dollars.

I would not buy a snowglobe for 10 million dollars.




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