WEBVTT - Ep 81: Holly Herndon 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:02.960 It was this alarm in the background going to be okay, 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:05.320 does that mean we should get out? 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:06.800 Sound installation happening? 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:09.639 Do you think that's a building wide noise? 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.640 No, no, one not like there's people chilling over there 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.040 and they don't look concerned. 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:19.760 I don't smell smoke. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.560 The Barbercane Center, it turns out, was not on fire, 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.720 but Holly Herndon and I still got out of there. 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.280 We went back to her hotel to record this episode 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.839 of Midnight Chat in a very unlikely place. We sat 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.080 on a little landing just by the lifts on floor 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.320 three of her hotel, which meant that anyone coming up 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.360 to floor three, the lift would open and they would 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.160 be faced with myself and Holly sat on a small 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.400 bench talking into her microphones. Quite a bizarre welcome to 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:52.839 some people who had maybe just arrived in London for 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.360 that holiday. But thank you to Holly for putting up 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.520 with this kind of slap dash, unprofessional outfit that we're 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.760 running here alloud them quiet. I met Holly earlier this year. 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.360 We did a big cover feature with her about her 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.200 new album called Proto, and there's a lot for me 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.679 to tell you about that before we get started on 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:17.040 this week's episode. Proto is Holly's third record. Holly is 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:21.240 a experimental electronic musician who makes a lot of music 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:28.800 using computers, but protos are particularly interesting and quite revolutionary record. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.640 It was made using AI, and we talk a bit 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.039 about a baby, an AI baby that she's made. It's 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:40.080 called Spawn. I've met Spawn in Berlin and spawns her 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.920 AI baby. So the way Proto as a record, which 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:48.640 is an experimental electronic records that's still got a lot 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.440 of melody in it, I'd recommend checking it out. But 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.520 the way it was made was by feeding an AI 0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:00.000 machine that she had made with her partner, her husband, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:05.240 Matt Dryhurst. They made this AI and they sang to 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.120 this machine, and this machine kind of started to learn 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.720 certain things and gave them some material to make this 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.600 new record, Proto. What's interesting about this, I think is 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:23.600 that you hear a story about musician makes AI album 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.480 and the first thing you're probably thinking is I don't 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.080 want that. That's not what music is. Music's not about 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.560 getting it automated. But as we talk about in this podcast, 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.320 it's not as simple as that. In fact, what Holly 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.480 was exploring was how we can use technology to have 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:44.600 greater human connections and interactions with other people. Technology doesn't 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:46.760 have to be something that replaces humans. It can be 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.760 something that frees us and lets us be more human. 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.280 So protos are really interesting as some really interesting concepts 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.440 behind that. Holly is a lovely person to talk to, 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.280 as you're about to hear, she is extremely intelligent. Just 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:05.200 passed her PhD at Stamford University. She was born in Tennessee, 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.560 a in the Bible Belts. It currently lives in Berlin 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.040 and spent some time over on the West Coast in 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.600 Silicon Valley while she was studying. Check out Proto. It's 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.400 Holly's third record. It is out now on four A D. 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.600 And also check out the first record that we the 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.160 first tape that I talked to her about. She's called Car. 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:27.480 You can find out on YouTube and I have linked 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.520 to that in the bottom of this podcast. But for 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.120 now here is myself and Holly Herndon sat in a 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.880 hallway on floor three of a hotel near the Barbercane 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.880 Center as people kind of come and go, They stroll 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:43.880 past us every now and then, and we just try 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.920 to do our best to make this episode of Midnight 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.160 Chats as normal as possible. I feel like we did 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.120 a good job and don't forget that. If you do 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.080 like this episode of Midnight Chats, you can support this 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:59.480 podcast by visiting loudon quiet dot com forward slash subscribe 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.440 and they'll see that. We also make a monthly music 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.240 magazine and for just three pounds a month, we will 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.360 send you our next nine issues. And while you're there 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:10.760 on the site, why not do a little search for 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.200 Holly Herndon and there you'll be able to read the 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.360 cover feature that we reference in this podcast, which does 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:21.000 a more in depth job of exploring Holly's career, her music, 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:33.559 and particularly her new album Proto When that Lift open. 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:34.719 Hello, madam. 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:39.479 So I'm going to think they're in some immersive theater experience. Well, 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:44.720 we're just sat here. What a cool hotel. So we've decayed, 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.920 We've we've moved from the barbercane. The alarm was too much. 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.760 Yes, and just as we were leaving it stopped. 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.559 It stopped. But that's okay, Yeah, that's the way it goes. 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.800 So I want to ask you. You went on to 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.919 it with Radiohead and they had the big glories. 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:00.359 Right of of course? 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:02.560 Yeah, And I because say you know, they go to 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.520 these kind of like giant I mean, this wasn't like 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:06.520 a stadium tour for them. 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:08.960 I think it was a more intimate show tour for them, 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:10.320 which for me was like, oh my god, these are 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:11.920 the biggest rooms I've ever played. 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.800 But yeah, they have like a whole crew, you know, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.320 who like build up the stage and it's really impressive 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.200 actually to like build up this whole world and then 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.160 tear it down every night and then it drives off 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:26.960 to the next city. So, you know, we don't have 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.160 anything as complicated as that, So we try to have 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.880 things that are like pretty uniform that you can ask 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.240 at each kind of location, like you know, tables and 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.360 platforms and screens and things like that. 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:39.320 Do you have Spawn with you? 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.720 We don't have Spawn with us. She doesn't travel, not yet. 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:47.520 Actually, just before we left, Jewels are collaborator who just 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:52.359 got married Jewels. Yes, so Jewels just picked up Spawn 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.760 and is gonna be working with her pretty intensively for 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:58.320 the next couple of weeks because we really want to 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:00.840 try to start with her live. 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.040 But it's like there's this latency issue. 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:07.359 Sure, and I imagine transporting an AI baby. 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:08.919 Well yeah, right now, we have. 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.600 She's like her body is in this kind of like tower. 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.880 It's like, you know, desktop tower. But we don't really 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.040 need all of that space really, we just need enough 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.760 room for like a fan and for the GPU. So 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.320 we're looking into smaller, little baby towers. 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.680 Sure, it occurred to me yesterday that we're obviously at 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:31.960 the end of a decade pretty much. 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:34.440 Oh no, are you wanting me to say something profound? 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:43.120 No, it wasn't that. It's not that. But then I 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.760 was thinking that you're because you released your first I mean, 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.719 this decade is where your career started, Like in twenty 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.480 eleven was when you put up your first tape, tape 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:56.839 car Okay, so this is your career decade. I guess 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.520 Oh god, I think is that? 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:02.200 And I'm retiring? 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:05.599 But I was going to say, like, what do you 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.000 remember of that of releasing that tape, because it's like 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.240 it was a one track, forty five minute track, wasn't 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:28.480 it on a cassette called professional All Podcasts? 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:30.640 He handled well, didn't he was? 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:32.480 He was relaxed. That's our first lift. 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:37.000 Guess what what was the question? 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:39.920 What do you remember of that time of like putting 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:40.640 that tape out? 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.240 And that was in such a different like mindset at 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:47.400 that point. I mean I never imagined to have the 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:49.600 size audience that I have, Like to be playing the 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.760 Barbican tomorrow to like two thousand people's kind of blowing 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:53.200 my mind. 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.560 It's a really exciting. But I just never expected that. 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:57.080 Back then. 0:07:57.920 --> 0:07:59.920 I was just like, you know, playing a little noise show. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:05.040 And this cassette was made specifically for a noise label 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:10.080 that called Third Sex, based in Chicago. And so I 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:13.480 was asked to make a noise cassette for this label 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.200 because he saw the guy who ran the label who 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.080 passed away actually a couple of years ago. He saw 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.400 me play at like a noise venue and was like, oh, 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:23.240 I'd love for you to make a tape. And so 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.880 I was like, ah, a cassette, Like who listens to cassettes? 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:27.760 Where do people listen to cassettes? I mean I had 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:29.760 back then, I had a cassette player on my toilet 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.600 with like a selection of cassettes if you needed to 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:33.600 spend a. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:34.800 Little extra time on the toilet. 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.520 But so I asked him to ask his audience, like 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.079 where do they listen to their cassettes? And he actually 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.839 like sent out a survey which is kind of wild 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:44.839 that people would respond, and they did. I mean, I 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:46.600 don't think it was like a huge number of people, 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:48.720 but most of the people that responded said they listened 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.840 in their car, which I thought was wild because you know, 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:56.520 like these must be some old cars. Yeah, yeah, so 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:58.520 you know, in the States, I think it was like 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.720 a largely American audience. People are driving still driving like 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.280 vast distances, especially if you're not living in a city, 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.200 like if you're in the suburbs, you're definitely still commuting 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:08.840 a lot. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna make 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.600 something specifically for the car. And I had a car 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.160 at the time because I was commuting between Palo Alto 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:18.480 and San Francisco like an hour every day back and forth. 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.400 God, I sound like really out of bread. Why it's 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:25.640 like my last gasps. 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.480 So yeah, I made it specifically for the Toyota Matrix 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:31.880 that I was driving at the time. 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.439 So I would like work on stuff. 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.160 On my computer and then go down to my car 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:39.880 and play it in my car and see how it 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.720 was resonating the car, and then like tweak the frequency 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.000 range to like works with it. So it's not gonna 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:47.680 work perfectly in everyone's car. But it was like made 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.240 specifically for this car. And then I did things with 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.199 like the windows. I like recorded the window, I you know, 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.280 did a lot of like field recording of the car. 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:01.880 I made like a fake PSA radio announce. It was 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:02.440 just fun. 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:02.920 I don't know. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.000 I was just like messing around, and I didn't imagine 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.079 that that many people would ever hear it. 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:10.080 It was just well, you can listen to this on 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:10.880 it's on YouTube. 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:12.160 Now it's on YouTube. 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:13.960 Yeah, oh wow, someone's put it up there. I listened 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:14.079 to it. 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.520 Yes, it's not that's not where it's intended to take 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.760 it down or no, Britain, bring YouTube to your car. 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:24.600 Funny enough, like even though you say, like back then, 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.559 obviously you had no like a cassette tape of experimental 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.960 sound made for a car. You never expected to be 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.120 sat in this lobby with people walking past us. But 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.959 I'm going to play the barbercan tomorrow to two thousand 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.920 people having made a record with the use of machine learning. 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:46.680 But oddly, when you hear that first tape, it kind 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:48.880 of it makes sense that you would end up here, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.120 Like the sound of it, like the fact that all 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.319 of those things that you said of making field recordings 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:58.280 and the thought that went into that that cassette, it 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.800 makes sense that you would end up at this point 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:02.320 with Proto. 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:04.000 Yeah, I see what you're saying. 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.880 I've never really had like a super conventional way of 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:13.240 recording songs like it's you know, I'm I still like 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:14.800 to kind of and I still have a lot of 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.880 learning to do about kind of like perfecting the mix 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:18.880 and all that kind of stuff. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:21.760 But yeah, I think I. 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.800 Have a very idiosyncratic approach to recording into kind of 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:26.160 like collaging things together. 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:34.560 Yeah. So Proto was released in May, Okay. Well, because 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.599 of everything that goes into that record and the themes 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.199 of it and the way you've made it and all 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:42.840 of the stuff about AI and things, and you've obviously 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.839 been talking to people since then about it. Have people 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:50.240 been getting anything consistently wrong about it? Because there's a 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.240 lot to unpack when you don't, you know, as when 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:55.960 if you're a journalist who doesn't know anything about as 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.960 I was when I met you, I didn't know anything 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.200 about what AI is is. Have people understood it? If 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.040 people got the point of it, I think. 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.200 It's generally people who don't spend time with it and 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.480 assume that because it's dealing with a certain kind of technology, 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:14.600 that it's kind of like an endorsement or a kind 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.600 of like Silicon Valley shilling. And that's usually people who 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:22.200 really haven't looked into what we're doing, or it's like 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.320 a misunderstanding, or they just are like really turned off 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.240 by the concept of like working with technology in this 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:28.880 kind of way. 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:31.880 Like I ran into a musician I'm not going. 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.520 To name her here, but like this really amazing musician 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:36.360 and we were chatting. I ran into her in a 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:38.240 museum the other the other day, and I was telling 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:39.280 we were talking about the album. 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:40.160 She was like, Yeah, when I. 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.440 Heard AI and Music, I was like, ah, I don't, 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:45.160 like I want nothing to do with that, Like that 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.080 doesn't sound like anything that I'm into. But then after 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.520 hearing you talk about why you did it in your approach, 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.000 now I understand that it's something else, and then it's 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:54.760 something that I would be interested in, you know, so 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:58.280 I think, ah, yeah, something about like you know, the 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.880 like endless feed, Like people sometime just see like a 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.680 little one liner in their like feed and then they're 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:08.080 like we often get like reduced to tags or keywords 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.760 like Holly herndon tech AI music, and then it's like 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:11.840 next and like the next. 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:13.120 Person, you're just like, oh my god, there's like so 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.840 much more than that. But I mean I get. 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.319 It, like everyone has like a finite amount of attention 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.280 and like amount of screen time, and so I think 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.440 sometimes that's what's kind of like misunderstood about it. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.600 Have you managed to boil it down or even wanted 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.480 to do this to like reduce it to some like 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.280 a sound bite when someone asks you, not necessarily somebody 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.040 who's then going to write an article about it, but 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.120 just if you know, a friend of a friend asks, oh, 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.120 what's your album about? Is there a way to even 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.560 say what proto is in a in a short concise 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:50.320 way that people can understand? 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:56.200 Oh god, I probably should think about like the what's 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:57.080 it called the elevator? 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:57.400 Bitch? 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.560 Yeah, yeah, No, I don't think I have such a 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.280 concise way of putting it. I mean I think, you know, 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.920 when people bring up the AI thing, I say, well, 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.080 I wanted to work with AI directly, like hands on, 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.640 so that I could formulate my own opinion and my 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:18.120 own kind of like specific kind of like stance on 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.760 the technology without kind of relying on second or third 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.160 hand articles kind of because I feel like that's what 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:27.960 we're fed a lot, are these kind of like hype 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.400 articles about what the technology is doing or what it 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.720 could do, and so I wanted to actually understand what 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.200 its capabilities and limitations were so that I could then 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.760 formulate my opinion about it. Sure, so that is what 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:41.560 I would say about the AI part, but about the 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.880 overall album, I mean, it's hard because it was like 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:49.960 a three year process and it's multifaceted. But you know what, 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.280 I think maybe I could say, you know, when you're 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.560 looking at artificial intelligence, it makes you kind of go 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.960 back to the beginning and think about the history of 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.400 human intelligence and the role that music played in that. 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.120 And that's why I went back to look at vocal 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.120 traditions around the world and the way that you know, 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:16.920 community and cultures have have developed this vocal technology as 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.200 a survival mechanism and how that's how that's contributed to 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:22.800 our shared human intelligence. 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.480 That record and coming to meet you to do that 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.040 feature we did has genuinely made me think differently about 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.960 AI and readdress my thoughts on it, because I think 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.320 that the kind of light bulb moment was when you 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:43.880 were talking about how you've used AI to try and 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.320 actually have more human interaction, because I think that's the 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.400 misunderstanding of proto for people when before it came out, 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.680 maybe or they read anything about it was musician makes 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.840 AI record, and they just think the whole thing's automated. 0:15:57.960 --> 0:15:59.360 You've not already done anything. 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.560 Right, musicians humans with AI, And that's actually the opposite. 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.440 It's exactly the opposite, because you were feeding, you were 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:09.560 using big groups of people to feed your AI baby spawn, right, 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:12.320 and that connection is something you wouldn't have had before 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.080 because you were a solo electronic musician. He was making 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.560 everything on there, you wouldn't have had that kind of 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.600 that group thing. And also the point you made, which 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:25.640 was technology just generally in our world should free us 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.120 up to be more human and give us more time 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.440 to exactly be normal people and be people and have 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.040 connections with people, which is something I hadn't really thought 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:35.640 about before. 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.640 If we have agency over it, but oftentimes it's designed 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.160 in a way that it kind of reduces our agency, 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.400 and that's something that I'm constantly pushing back against trying 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.560 to understand how it functions. At like a very big 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.600 infrastructural or like protocol layer. So you know, you can 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.040 like really embed the the kind of like if you 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.760 want to say, ethics or the ideology of a culture 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:02.640 into the protocol. 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:03.200 Layer of a technology. 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:06.240 I mean you can see the value system in the 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.159 very protocol layer. And so that's yeah, that's something that 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.679 I find really fascinating. I want to feel like I 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:14.639 have a sense of agency. I mean, of course, like 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.240 human will, like free will and all these kinds of things. 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:19.080 That's like a whole other kettle of worms that I 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:19.720 really don't want. 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:20.200 To get into. 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.879 But that was another like rabbit hole when thinking about AI. 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.399 It's like, you know, how much free will do we 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:27.000 actually have? 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:29.000 But yeah, when. 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.080 Dealing with technology and dealing with these like highly mediated systems, 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.560 like where does the human fit in? And if if 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.200 especially you know, we can use the kind of the 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.680 performance stage as a metaphor for like a wider. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:44.760 Kind of like life experience. 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.199 But you know, if so much of our kind of 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.920 performance is being augmented or taken care of by these 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.119 kind of automated systems, what is that free us up 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:55.320 to do? 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:56.080 On stage? 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.159 In my mind, it doesn't free us up to just 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.840 stand there and let the lights and everything do all 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:03.560 the work for us, and we get bored and we 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:05.760 just stand there. It frees us up to do something else. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:08.399 And for me, I was really missing this idea of 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:12.560 musicking with people in real time, like singing with people, 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:16.080 performing with people, improvising with people. And if the computer 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.200 can be this kind of like brain that's organizing these 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.560 things around us so we don't have to worry about X, 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.200 y Z, then we can really focus on each other. Yeah, 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:25.400 that was kind of the point. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.960 Has it met as the whole experience made to you? 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.480 It must have changed your thoughts on technology, your relationship 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.080 with technology or I mean. 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.720 That's been like an ongoing thing for the last, as 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:38.720 you've put it, decades. 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:44.800 Thanks for the reminder. No, but yeah, yeah it's been. 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:45.320 I mean I. 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:52.360 Wasn't really dealing with technology that directly or that intimately 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.200 until I moved to California. I really think that we're 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:57.400 somehow like a product of our environments. 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:00.400 You know. I was in Berlin and I. 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.479 Was surrounded by a certain kind of like milieu of 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:04.560 like thought, and then I moved to the Bay Area 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.280 and I was exposed to like a whole different approach 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.720 to technology, and I think the kind of like the 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.680 reputation that the Bay Area gets is from like the 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.040 Googles and the facebooks and the Apple. But that the Apple, 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.679 the Apple. But I mean that's like one part of 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:24.119 that area. It's like the Bay Area is such a complicated. 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:25.920 Culture. 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:27.600 It's such an amazing part of the world. I mean, 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.240 it's it's a very like technologically. 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.080 Forward place and there's not one single ideology. There's a 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.320 ton of like diy tech weirdos there. 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.600 That's where I kind of drew my inspiration people that 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.080 were teaching me how to how to program for the 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.040 first time and how to have some sort of agency 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:50.240 over my own practice. 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:51.240 I mean, that's the thing. 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:52.919 With a lot of electronic music is you kind of 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.840 like load up whatever software has. 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.280 Been designed by an engineer. 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:01.600 And already in that software, so many decisions have been made, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.480 Like you open up the template, the BPM, the the meter, 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.360 all these things are kind of decided. You throw in 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.200 like the instruments that are easiest to throw in and 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:13.359 the tune. You know, everything has just been in a 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.040 lot of ways kind of like predetermined, and you can 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:17.760 hear that like I can go out and you know, 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:19.640 I love Ableton, but I can go out and be like, oh, 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:21.399