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

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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.

Mondays 6 - 7pm (EDT) | On WFMU (Info) | 91.1, 90.1, 91.9 FM & wfmu.org
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Options June 1, 2020: Ryan Walsh, discussing the OpenAI Jukebox

Listen to this show: MP3 - 128K |  Pop‑up player!

Ryan Walsh on Twitter (May 19)
Options
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   Options
Options
 
  Mark's intro  
Options
 
  Interview with Ryan Walsh, Part 1  
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0:05:31 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Rock, in the style of Elvis Presley   Options   0:11:24 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
  Interview with Ryan Walsh, Part 2  
Options
0:20:07 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Dream Pop, in the style of Marissa Nadler   Options   0:20:34 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
  Quiz Time  
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0:34:06 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Pop, in the style of The Beatles   Options   0:35:02 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Erasure   Options   0:36:11 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Ella Fitzgerald   Options   0:37:07 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
OpenAI Jukebox  Queen   Options   0:38:02 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
  Mark's comments after the interview  
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0:43:01 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
Governor Andrew Cuomo  Press conference excerpt   Options   0:52:03 (MP3 | Pop‑up)
Hallelujah the Hills  Folk Music is Insane   Options
Options
0:53:02 (MP3 | 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!
Avatar 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 ♥ 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.
Avatar 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
Avatar 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 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...
Avatar 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
Avatar 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 6:23pm dale:

why does it all have to sound like it's recorded on cassette over the shortwave?
Avatar 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 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 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 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 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 Swag For Life Member ♥ 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 6:38pm dale:

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

#2
Avatar 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 Swag For Life Member ♥ 6:40pm Carmichael:

Love
Avatar ♥ 6:40pm Fredericks:

Probably right about Ella.
Avatar 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 Swag For Life Member ♥ 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 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 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 Swag For Life Member ♥ 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."
Avatar 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.
Avatar 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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