The Uncanny Valley and The Love of Money
I have always loved technology. In fact, when I was in elementary school (specifically, the fifth grade in the analog-age years of 1967-68 😳) I created line drawings of designs for inventions that I would turn in to my teacher for comments. Being an incredibly good sport, she would write things like: “Great idea, but how would this be practical?”
In truth, such things as practicality never concerned me. It was the dream, the adventure, the possibilities, the simple imagining of something that had yet to be created…THAT was the thing for li’l Stevie. I didn’t know it then, but I was a stone-cold devotee of George Bernard Shaw:
You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’
George Bernard Shaw: Back to Methuselah (Part 1, Act 1)
My fellow young dreamers and I imagined a future that would include things that were around us everyday thanks to TV adventures like Star Trek, Lost in Space, and Saturday reruns of the old Buster Crabbe movie serials of the 1930s such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.
Ray guns, private space ships, flying cars, robots, communicators, teleporters, interplanetary travel via warp drive …of course all of these things would be part of the Twenty First Century. Even cartoons like The Jetsons had things like that!
Yes, we made it to the moon in the 1960s and 70s (I watched every moment of every launch from Mercury through Apollo as well as every second of every lunar mission… (of course I did!) and yes, in the late Twentieth and into the early Twenty First, every home had a color TV, Star Trek made it to the big screen and blew up as an industry unto itself, Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas took up the Flash Gordon-style mantle, and even Lost in Space (more or less) had a movie and a streaming series!
But alas, we left the moon and only now (2026) are we seriously considering a return visit, no personal ray guns, space ships or flying cars (that being said, after spending lots of time exploring the roads and highways of the U.S. over the years, I am actually quite glad that these drivers are NOT airborne…you dig?), and the aliens have still not revealed themselves or invited us to join any galactic federations.
Not the Twenty First I imagined back when I was drawing up miraculous machines. But at least we got computers, and the all powerful smart phone. I don’t dig how these devices have taken over society and undermined critical thinking and socialization, but the advantages are many. Kinda like fire… it can be used to cook, warm, sustain, or kill. Depends on who’s using it.
Speaking of fire… how ’bout this AI. (Artificial Intelligence) stuff? THAT and its inevitable association with financial greed is where the title of this wee treatise comes in to play.
Dig…
First of all, all of us dreamers (I’m including the great sci-fi masters here along with us fans and all the scientists) failed to include the most human element of all in our predictions… the love of MONEY. Yep, apparently the almighty dollar trumps all aspects of exploration, responsible progress, prudence, caution, altruism, and morality.
DAYUM. that sounds harsh, don’t it? Sadly, it ain’t wrong.
I believe that this applies to artificial intelligence as well. There are many impossibly brilliant and well-meaning creative folk at the heart of this wave of progress who have now lit the fire to the fuse for the powder keg that is the great singularity. (howz THAT for a mixed-era set of analogies?) In other words, we are no longer advancing linearly as in “Can you believe this new shiny thing that came into being this year?” Rather, we are in the exponential realm of “WHOA! That didn’t exist last week, and did you hear about that sparkly new thing that showed up this morning?”
…don’t want to really scare you, but it was alarming how many people I talked to who are highly placed people in AI who have retreats that are sort of ‘bug out’ houses, to which they could flee if it all hits the fan.
James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, told the Washington Post
WHOA! Did you read that quote? The one right above this sentence? Yikes! Truly, I do NOT like the way that sounds.
Ok then, let’s reign it in to just the arts. Personally, I have been using ChatGPT as a super-speed development tool that helps me with learning software like Sibelius, Logic Pro, and Riverside, launching hardware, and trouble shooting computers. Essentially it streamlines the kind of stuff I used to pay for that hired a very hard to understand tech person in a foreign country who used a cheap microphone with seemingly hundreds of other folks talking loudly around them. Lots of bread involved with those cats, and LOTS of stress.
Therefore, I find that this ChatGPT technology is pretty cool …that is until I realize what it takes to run one of those monster data centers behind these AI large language models, and how that effects the environment and economy of the rural zones where they are based. OY! Dig this: The Problem with Data Centers
When we have a look at history, we find some interesting facts:
- The first steam engines were dirty
- The first automobiles were dirty
- The first computers were ineficient
- The first AI data centers are inefficient and dirty
The question isn’t whether the first generation is messy. The question is whether humanity is clever enough to build the second and third generations before the first generation does too much damage.
And the answer? Of course we are clever…but does being clever and doing the right thing make money?
Aye. There’s the rub.
So, yeah… I still dig my ChatGPT, but this deserves much more study and consideration. Aa they say… the jury is out…
Hey, how about that weird portion in the title of this article? Let’s look into THAT…
The Uncanny Valley
A stange but compelling term, eh? Here is the WIKI definition: Uncanny Valley.
I wasn’t even aware of this unsettling concept until I was well into my early obsession with the moderately new AI tool called Suno. This app is essentially a generative AI platform that creates full songs, lyrics, horns, strings, rhythm section, vocals, whatever you want-fully mixed and highly produced …in SECONDS. All it takes is a clever prompt to give it basic parameters and BAM! You have a totally convincing song in ANY style. Yep, even swingin’ hard bop. Crazy! I was HOOKED man. With just a fun prompt such as “hard bop swing with sophisticated chromatic trumpet soloist. 12-bar blues format, piano, bass, drums.” It sounds great. Very high level of production, and excellent sound libraries. I got SO hooked, I was even texting to people in verse as a “finished” studio production rather than typing text. Woo Hoo! I was even thinking of writing jingles and sync license placement tunes for film and streaming. The sky’s the limit man! (thanks for putting up with me during this frenzied period my friends🙏❤️)
Then came…the uncanny valley! My pal Frank Greene had warned me about it, but I did NOT believe… until it hit me. Suddenly every aspect of the songs that this app produced made me feel nauseous! The horn lines that it generated on its own felt “off,” the drum fills became predictable, the vocalists sounded like a small stable of poor sampled souls, and I began to realize some very important truths:
- I was not writing the chord progressions…they were being generated by Suno
- I was not writing the horn lines melodically or rhythmically, that was also the Suno algorithm
- The horns were not voiced by me as per my well-developed preferences… they were whatever Suno had compiled from who knows where
- The vocal melodies were being written by Suno, all I came up with were lyrics and parameters
- In essence…these pieces were NOT written by ME!
Suddenly I was gripped by an epiphany… this Suno music I was “writing” was CRAP! Yes, it was easy and exciting and FAST… but it was CRAP and it was mined from the dead echoes of an Internet recording generated by a human who did not get paid! NOBODY was getting paid except the powers-that-be at Suno. Once again, “the man” was keeping me DOWN! (remember, I am a boomer who came of age in the 1970s.)
So, when it comes to AI generated music, I am OUT. A resounding AWW HEWLL NO! And I am rather mortified that I played along for as long as I did. But since climbing out of the uncanny valley, I have made wonderful strides towards returning to my original analog hand-written composer self. I ultimately still use Sibelius and my ever-growing sound library to realize my music, but I am writing it myself. And that is HUGE, folks. Indeed, I think I am better off overall for having had a wee visit to this cyber canyon of woe. As they say, you don’t know what you got until it’s gone.
And where does this leave me with AI?
- supportive of ChatGPT and most large language models as a controlled tool used responsibly
- very wary of how data centers function and what can be done to improve that concept, if anything
- compeltely against AI-generated music
- ok with AI-generated graphics backgrounds to place a photograph or hand drawn image upon to save time (i.e. the featured image of this post)
- But I am now fully aware of just who is being put out of work and how it is affecting our art and I am treading carefully while being open minded and researching every step fully
Stay tuned folks… we’re just getting started.
