Humans and new technology

What was discussed

What prompted the invitation was a YouTube video in which he talked about artists and AI. Rather than pushing AI away, he argued for using it aggressively in production, and for digging deeper into the narrative and context surrounding the work instead. That principle applies not just to music but to every creative field, software included, which is exactly where it connected with the community.

The heart of it was narrative, not output. People do not just consume the finished object; they consume the artist's experience, their creative philosophy, and the conversation that follows the release. The faster AI makes production, the further the human role shifts toward story and context.

Asked whether AI could have invented jazz without humans, he was firm. AI only learns what humanity has already built and delivers results faster; if humans had never created jazz, no prompt would have produced it. At the same time, he rejected the idea that humans create out of nothing. No input, no output. Musician, designer, or developer, everyone is reinterpreting whatever inspired them.

Asked whether AI's limits made him feel threatened, he said he was looking forward to it instead. Whether AI or AGI, nearly everything will eventually become possible; it is only a question of when. But once anyone can produce software or music instantly, the value of any individual output falls, and people start gravitating away from the polished result and toward the human traces in it and the attitude that shows up in a live performance.

So an artist's moat moves away from technique and toward personality, narrative, and character. He said he deliberately limits how much he leans on AI in his own work. On his recent album he used Suno on about three tracks, feeding in parts he and producer Yoshi had played themselves to generate variations, then picking only the pieces he liked and rebuilding from there. He does not hand over creative control, because the process itself is the part he enjoys.

The questions were candid too. To a worker in his forties anxious about falling behind with age, he suggested building up the reserves to keep going and protecting your health, rather than forcing yourself through self-improvement. About himself, he said he was a failed founder who had shut down a label and an LP shop, and that with neither capital nor ideas right now, he simply works hard at what he can do. The last question, about what humans should make in the age of AI, drew an unexpected answer: humans do not need to make anything in particular. They were simply born.