Favoriting Techtonic with Mark Hurst: Playlist from June 1, 2020 Favoriting

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Conversations with creators and thinkers who are charting the way forward in a tech-saturated society. Tech, community, video games, and whatever else is next.

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Favoriting June 1, 2020: Ryan Walsh, discussing the OpenAI Jukebox

Listen to this show: Pop-up listen Pop-up player!

Ryan Walsh on <a href="https://twitter.com/JahHills/status/1262918187030581248" target="_blank">Twitter</a> (May 19)
Ryan Walsh on Twitter (May 19)
Favoriting
Ryan Walsh on Twitter (May 19)

Tonight: Ryan Walsh, discussing the OpenAI Jukebox

About Ryan Walsh:

• Article: Do Electric Songwriters Dream Of Human Muses? (by Ryan Walsh in Stereogum, May 13): "On OpenAI JukeBox, human creativity, and the future of AI-generated music."

• Book: Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, now in paperback

• Band: Hallelujah the Hills and their new album I'm You

• Twitter: @jahhills

• Blog: Ryan H. Walsh - Tumblr

OpenAI Jukebox:

OpenAI Jukebox

Jukebox sample explorer

Soundcloud account

Tech news:

Facebook Executives Shut Down Efforts to Make the Site Less Divisive (WSJ, May 26)

The algorithmic amplifier fueling corruption in Silicon Valley, my own take on Twitter and Facebook (May 29)

- - -

YOU CAN STILL DONATE TO WFMU if you want to show support for Techtonic. Thanks.

Check out techtonic.fm for recent Techtonic interviews and Little Slice of Tech Pie segments.

PODCAST: Subscribe to the Techtonic podcast

Artist Track Images Approx. start time
  Ryan Walsh discusses OpenAI Jukebox and how AI-generated music could affect working musicians.
Tomaš Dvořák  Game Boy Tune   Favoriting
Favoriting
 
  Mark's intro  
Favoriting
 
  Interview with Ryan Walsh, Part 1  
Favoriting
0:05:31 (Pop-up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Rock, in the style of Elvis Presley   Favoriting   0:11:24 (Pop-up)
  Interview with Ryan Walsh, Part 2  
Favoriting
0:20:07 (Pop-up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Dream Pop, in the style of Marissa Nadler   Favoriting   0:20:34 (Pop-up)
  Quiz Time  
Favoriting
0:34:06 (Pop-up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Pop, in the style of The Beatles   Favoriting   0:35:02 (Pop-up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Erasure   Favoriting   0:36:11 (Pop-up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Ella Fitzgerald   Favoriting   0:37:07 (Pop-up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Queen   Favoriting   0:38:02 (Pop-up)
  Mark's comments after the interview  
Favoriting
0:43:01 (Pop-up)
Governor Andrew Cuomo  Press conference excerpt   Favoriting   0:52:03 (Pop-up)
Hallelujah the Hills  Folk Music is Insane   Favoriting
Favoriting
0:53:02 (Pop-up)


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Listener comments!

Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:00pm
ultradamno:

Mark! Techt-I-Ficial Intelligentsia
  6:01pm
David in London:

Hello one and all. Tech me up please Mr Hurst.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:01pm
Handy Haversack:

Mark! Techyon drives!

Ultradamno, David, good to see you both.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:02pm
Webhamster Henry:

Hi Mark + Friends.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:02pm
chresti:

Hi Mark and techtonidactyls!
  6:02pm
JakeGould:

Hey!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:02pm
Bas NL:

Hello Mark! TechtonAIcs!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:02pm
ultradamno:

Hiya Handy
  6:02pm
David in London:

Hey Handy. Read about your epic jaunt today - sounds very much like mine last week.

Hi Ultradamno.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:02pm
Ken From Hyde Park:

Mark! Techtomorphs!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:03pm
Handy Haversack:

I was thinking just that, David!
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:03pm
WR:

I'm on board with this.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:03pm
Webhamster Henry:

There's supposedly a Strike of some sort at Facebook tomorrow.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:03pm
listener james from westwood:

Evening, Mark and all!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:04pm
ultradamno:

Hiya DiL!
  6:04pm
Dave Miss:

Hello all. We’re almost 1/2 way thru this year.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:04pm
JohnEBGood:

Your show is awesome.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:04pm
Webhamster Henry:

Tonight's show ties in with Scott's show from a few weeks ago.
  6:04pm
JakeGould:

@WebhamsterHenry: It was today and it was a “virtual walkout”… Meh… www.cnbc.com...
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:04pm
Mark Hurst:

Hi all, thanks for joining in!
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:05pm
Mark Hurst:

@JohnEBGood thanks
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:05pm
Webhamster Henry:

@JakeGould dates - so hard to find on articles!
  6:05pm
kevlicki:

Hi everyone!
What a time the new upside down world is!
Plenty of surveillance happening rn! Tuning in to “escape” from the world
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:07pm
Webhamster Henry:

Most if not all AI Jukebox tunes are limited to 1 minute.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:08pm
Webhamster Henry:

I use Open AI's Transformer / GPT-2 a whole lot.
  6:09pm
kevlicki:

DHS drones are being used over Minneapolis for surveillance purposes

https://gizmodo.com/customs-and-border-protection-flew-a-predator-surveilla-1843758034
  6:11pm
JakeGould:

@WebhamsterHenry: The “virtual walkout” reads like such bullshit. People who worked from home just didn’t work from home and all many of them did is change their avatars or post fist emojis next to black hearts. If one were really conspiracy theorist this is such a sad effort one can almost imagine this as some way for Facebook to attempt to force all protesting online; thus making this all clean and easy.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:12pm
Mark Hurst:

Links to OpenAI Jukebox, and Ryan's Stereogum article, are all in the links section at left.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:12pm
Handy Haversack:

We're not far from the 34th St. heliport here, but the helicopter sounds have been pretty constant for the last few hours out here.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:15pm
listener james from westwood:

Oh you gotta pull the plug on that Elvis Skynet thing. Kill it before it taps into NORAD.
  6:15pm
Peter from Dover NJ:

That fake Elvis song wouldn't fool anyone with a brain and an affinity for music. Scary how AI cobbled the song together though.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:15pm
Webhamster Henry:

talktotranformer.com
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:15pm
dale:

i dug faux elvis - or felvis if you will.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:15pm
ultradamno:

Let us live i.ytimg.com...
  6:16pm
JakeGould:

@ListenerJames: That Elvis AI will want to go on a road trip and visit Nixon.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:16pm
Webhamster Henry:

ahem... talktotransformer.com
  6:18pm
JakeGould:

@WebamsterHenry: Tyat will really revolutionize click-bait websites.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:18pm
Webhamster Henry:

Like Botnik, the huge amount of GPT2 generated content - which is not so bad -has humans editing it to get good examples.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:19pm
Bas NL:

@WH I just entered: I'm listening to Techtonic because..
  6:20pm
sim:

I believe the Elvis lyrics say more about the technologists who trained the AI, than the AI itself.
Avatar 6:21pm
Cp304:

Good evening peoples.. Mark I just got a chance to say I love the show
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:23pm
dale:

why does it all have to sound like it's recorded on cassette over the shortwave?
  6:23pm
JakeGould:

I just entered: “Why was George Floyd killed? And what can be done to stop attacks on black people like that.”

And one line in the AI generated text victim-blamed him: “If something had been done years ago to stop him from having such a life.” ibb.co...

Way to go A.I.!
  6:24pm
David in London:

They all come out sounding like Charles Manson songs.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:24pm
Webhamster Henry:

The OpenAI site has the technical paper on the AI Jukebox.Some of its possibilities and sound quality is based on the limitations of the technique it uses to present the sound to the AI, which is 3 bands of CELP -like encoding to pull the bandwidth really far down, and also it can't correlate too far inthe past.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:24pm
Mark Hurst:

@Cp304 thanks!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:25pm
Webhamster Henry:

CELP - is like the encoding used for phones. Code-excited linear prediction.
  6:26pm
Peter from Dover NJ:

@JakeGould 6:23. Wow, just wow.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:26pm
Webhamster Henry:

The paper mentions other sone based machine learning, like that used by Mel-net, which is way better sounding, but would take way more resources to encode the same amount of data used by the Jukebox.
  6:27pm
sim:

The project seems to be an example of Searle's Chinese Room.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:27pm
dale:

i'd like to hear the real artist record the a.i. version.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:27pm
Webhamster Henry:

GPT-2 was trained on reddit responses, and there's a definite creepy libertarian spin to its responses if you don't feed it a lot af initial text.
  6:28pm
sim:

Artists (and everyone) could live fine on UBI and universal health care.
  6:28pm
RyanHWalsh:

Hi everyone, I'm Ryan. Mark was nice enough to interview me for the show tonight. Thanks for listening and reading!
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:29pm
Mark Hurst:

Hi Ryan! Thanks for joining in! Really enjoyed our interview.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:29pm
Webhamster Henry:

@dale, well, there is the Songularity from Botik, another former Techtonic guest. botnik.org...
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:30pm
Webhamster Henry:

AI doesn't ned to take over the world. Just taking over the stock market will do plenty of damage.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:30pm
Mark Hurst:

Thanks, Webham. Here's Botnik - AI-inspired music - on Techtonic October 8, 2018: www.wfmu.org...
  6:30pm
sim:

AI is the hammer. We are the nails.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:31pm
WR:

So performers will need protect their sound & styles, not just their compositions. Slippery slope but what alternatives.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:31pm
Ken From Hyde Park:

What it the AI were trained with WFMU comments board text?
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:32pm
ultradamno:

I'm sure Robo Pan Alley could come up with as good Selena Gomez or Demi Lovato songs as they do...
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:32pm
dale:

henry - are those actually the artists? morrisey sounds like a peanuts version of morrisey.
  6:32pm
kevlicki:

I’d like to read his piece. So much of why I like bands is their participation in social life and politics. What would the AI Godspeed you black emperor or Fugazi’s politics and Indy spirit actually be?!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:32pm
Webhamster Henry:

@Ken/HydePark it's not that hard. And I might actually do it.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:32pm
Mark Hurst:

@kevlicki it's a great read. Linked up at left - the Stereogum piece.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:33pm
Bas NL:

Thanks Ryan!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:33pm
Webhamster Henry:

@dale the lyrics come from processing artist's songs, but the music and production was done by humans.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:34pm
Handy Haversack:

Good guest. Solid talk. Some nightmare hellscapes are cultural -- though there might be some physical discomfort as well. Consult your AI to learn more!
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:34pm
dale:

dug into a couple more - i see it's kind of a ktel production done in the style of.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:36pm
Megaroni:

Good to hear you back on your show Mark!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:36pm
Webhamster Henry:

There's a similar effort to fake visual art and photography. Newer versions of Photo editing software is pretty good at synthesizing matching textures to clean up bad details in pictures.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:37pm
dale:

beach boys
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:37pm
Mark Hurst:

Let's see some guesses
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:37pm
melinda:

hi everyone
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:37pm
Mark Hurst:

@Megaroni thanks! Glad you're with us
Avatar 6:38pm
Carmichael:

Fun Fun Fun
Avatar 6:38pm
Cp304:

Peggy sue?
Avatar 6:38pm
Cp304:

Who let the dogs out?
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:38pm
Your Ace From Exchange Place:

It does sound like the Beach Boys, but being played backwards.
Avatar 6:38pm
Fredericks:

Early Beatles
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:38pm
dale:

prince? simply red?
Avatar 6:39pm
Fredericks:

#2
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:39pm
dale:

ella.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:39pm
listener james from westwood:

"Is it a cosplay
Aw, ship me a shot"
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:39pm
Webhamster Henry:

Ella!
Avatar 6:39pm
Fredericks:

Billie Holiday
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:39pm
WR:

3 Ella's Fitzgerald
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:40pm
diciassette:

I second Ella for 3
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:40pm
Your Ace From Exchange Place:

Ella.
Avatar 6:40pm
Carmichael:

Love
Avatar 6:40pm
Fredericks:

Probably right about Ella.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:40pm
dale:

georoge michael.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:40pm
Ken From Hyde Park:

David Bowie
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:40pm
listener james from westwood:

Imagine Dragons?
  6:40pm
Dave Miss:

Joel Osteen
Avatar 6:40pm
Fredericks:

Queen
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:40pm
Bas NL:

Queen?
Avatar 6:40pm
Carmichael:

The Communards
  6:40pm
David in London:

This must be Don Felder.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:41pm
WR:

#1 I thought Queen for the first few bars than not
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:41pm
Handy Haversack:

Coldplay?
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:41pm
dale:

oh -queen. interesting.
  6:41pm
David in London:

Last one was Queen I reckon.
Avatar 6:41pm
Cp304:

4 Robert williams
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:42pm
WR:

Good guess dale
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:42pm
dale:

let's play this game every week!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:42pm
ultradamno:

I wouldn't be able to guess Erasure if you played Erasure.
Avatar 6:42pm
northguineahills:

0/4!
Avatar 6:42pm
Fredericks:

I got 2 1/2
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:42pm
Handy Haversack:

1/4!
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:42pm
WR:

+1 ultradamno.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:42pm
Ken From Hyde Park:

Can Clay Pigeon use this game for Wake 'n' Bake?
Avatar 6:43pm
Carmichael:

O-fer ....
  6:43pm
queems:

i thought it was pronounced “kyle”
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:43pm
listener james from westwood:

How is ol' Grimey?
  6:43pm
David in London:

Someone, somewhere is making AI pastiches of Erasure. Just meditate on that for a while until its full horrible meaning becomes apparent.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:44pm
Mark Hurst:

@Fredericks I think you won! Nice work
Avatar 6:44pm
Fredericks:

Those CGI eyes that Mark posted look similar to Zuckerberg's peepers.
Avatar 6:44pm
Fredericks:

Thanks, Mark! Send me some Vaporware.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:45pm
Webhamster Henry:

The AI Jukebox has lots and lots and lots of bands represented.
Avatar 6:45pm
northguineahills:

I'd like to here its take on Beck...
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:46pm
Webhamster Henry:

When I do audio synth experiments, my go-to band is the Shaggs.
  6:47pm
sim:

"Police brutality has increased, video recording of it has." Will Smith.
Avatar 6:47pm
Fredericks:

I am not very familiar with Erasure. After reading David's comment and I don't think I'll be changing that situation.
  6:47pm
sim:

*brutality has not
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:47pm
lukavino:

just seeing this now, so gotta catch the archive, but reading Astral Weeks now and it’s incredible.
  6:48pm
Peter from Dover NJ:

Mark, thank you for not saying his name.
  6:49pm
sim:

Erasure did great Abba covers. Also, they did the soundtrack to [as] Robot Unicorn app/game.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:49pm
ultradamno:

John Oliver on the looting/shooting line: "It is truly astounding how Donald Trump has managed to live 74 years with a remedial understanding of spelling, grammar, geography, science, civics, nutrition and child development and yet he's the fucking Library of Alexandria when it comes to racist maxims of the 20th century."
  6:49pm
JakeGould:

“Warning: Explicit Lyrics”
  6:50pm
queems:

mark zuckerburg is AI
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:51pm
ultradamno:

He's just 74? It seems like he's been alive for 74 years in just the last 3
  6:51pm
David in London:

“The future Mr Gittes, the future.”
Avatar 6:51pm
Fredericks:

So, billionaires are hoarders. How do you free someone from their monetary obsession?
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:53pm
ultradamno:

Having him on Twitter has been (Garrett Morris voice) very, very good for Twitter.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:53pm
melinda:

@Fredericks yeah, I think of it as money hoarding too.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:53pm
Ken From Hyde Park:

... Forget Facebook, Toss Twitter ...
  6:53pm
RyanHWalsh:

@lukavino wow I love hearing that! enjoy!
  6:53pm
sim:

@Fredericks. Chimps will share bananas unless you give them a pile of bananas that they couldn't eat before they spoil. Then they fight off the other chimps.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:54pm
Handy Haversack:

Thanks, Mark!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:54pm
Bas NL:

Thanks Mark! Bye all!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:54pm
listener james from westwood:

Thanks, Mark!

@Fredericks: The French called it "the national razor."
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:54pm
chresti:

Thanks Mark!
  6:54pm
David in London:

Thanks Mark, great show.
  6:54pm
JakeGould:

Says what you will about rich people who collect art or live like rich people, but at least they use their money to fund museums and art institutions and foundations that attempt to redistribute their wealth. Laugh if you will, but when was the last time you heard of any tech billionaire truly support the arts on a public level. Maybe Paul Allen from Microsoft or Peter Norton in various roles but that’s old school money.

These new dot com rich kids only do “cool” things.
Avatar 6:55pm
Fredericks:

Is that true, Sim?
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:55pm
WR:

Wow. Cuomo said that.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:55pm
Mark Hurst:

Thanks, everyone, appreciate you tuning in today. Thanks again to Ryan Walsh for being with us.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:56pm
ultradamno:

Journalist on MSNBC are more interested in assigning specific blame (why you can't watch it for 30 seconds without hearing antifa or anarchist) off little to no direct evidence for fires and violence than on those exact fact Cuomo just laid out.
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:57pm
WR:

Thank you Mark. Thank you.
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 6:58pm
Ken From Hyde Park:

Thanks, Mark & Ryan & bots. Our assignment is what, now? Send a brief voice recording of an appropriate pandemic quarantine activity / movie / book?
Avatar 6:58pm
Fredericks:

Thanks for the show, Mark. Compelling and fun.
Avatar 6:59pm
Cp304:

Good stuff
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:59pm
Mark Hurst:

@KfHP send me a sound file of your pandemic-viewing recommendation, TV or movie
Avatar Swag For Life Member 6:59pm
Mark Hurst:

@WR @Fredericks @cp304 thanks!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 7:00pm
Webhamster Henry:

Thanks Mark! I'll send you something!
Avatar 🤖 Swag For Life Member 7:00pm
Ken From Hyde Park:

Gotcha, Mark. Thanks!
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