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The innovator's estate serves as part entrepreneurial hub, part deluxe accommodation, and part showcase for tomorrow's technology. Such residences dot the landscape of Silicon Valley, occupied by startup pioneers and futurists. The grandest I’ve visited sits in one of the Bay Area's wealthiest neighborhoods, one of the Bay Area’s wealthiest enclaves. Interior, polished marble shines underneath affixed pictures of technology luminaries; in the gardens, stones are arranged in precise circular patterns and water features sparkle past the greenery.

It was a sunny June afternoon, and I visited alongside my production partner to record interviews for a feature about the collision of machine learning and orchestral composition in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

We moved so quickly from talking about how AI could help the creative industries to hearing, quite casually, how easily it could replace every role within them

All professional creatives, the message delivered brightly, might eventually work just for pleasure. No offense was intended. No jest involved. Pure truth. There's a particular point in the program when we hear the producer's interjection. She suddenly cuts in, disturbed: “So AI’s going to get rid of my profession?” The moment is short. Instinctive. Yet it transforms the atmosphere.

When we started producing the documentary, I was as curious as anyone. “The cat’s out of the bag,” I said lightly. It appeared the pragmatic comment. The innovation was present. Preferable to engage rather than dismiss.

When I connected with my collaborator afterward, she recalled the exchange distinctly. “The shift occurred suddenly,” she observed, “from considering assistance possibilities cultural sectors to hearing, rather matter-of-factly, how simply it might displace every role within them. The tone was friendly, encouraging, implying I ought to feel enthusiastic.”

That interaction seems to be the pivotal moment: a tiny, genuine expression of puzzlement, when the conversation stopped being theoretical toward tangible impact.

They wanted to make us redundant.

This occurred in summer. It’s now October, and following a season focused on significant performance series, I've reflected upon a different type of estate: the group's historic show at a famous venue. A quarter of a million people during multiple evenings, displaying fire instead of screens. Among the final massive group performances preceding technological revolution. Prior to online platforms and music digitization. Before mobile phones. Before the quiet rearranging of culture via unseen digital systems.

What followed afterward was incremental but revolutionary: a transition from possession to availability. Playlists replaced albums, not assembled by musicians but by software, made to melt into whatever else we were doing. Something to work to, shop to, background for screen time. It seemed we were witnessing the future of music. Maybe that was true.

That is why I hesitated when, well after completing the documentary, I discovered an innovative cultural program. It's an innovative project by a prestigious arts organization exploring how the arts might “interact” with AI. This originates from an organization I value, run by people I respect and admire: one that has long supported me alongside numerous artists. It’s presented as a bold, forward-looking conversation connecting innovation and artistry: the dawn of an intriguing cooperative relationship. Yet what stands out in the announcement isn't the included content, but what appears to be missing.

There’s no mention about ethical concerns, of training data, about permission, regarding ecological impact, or professional considerations. Little recognition exists that this technology now threatens to render creators plus their artistry the organization has supported, along with the entire employment network, primarily obsolete.

The approach, similar to what we encountered at that tech residence, stays persistently optimistic. “Machine learning is established,” an artistic leader declared in recent comments. “Either we ignore reality or ride the wave.”

Except that few people I interview in San Francisco – where such systems are developed, produced and distributed – is riding a wave. Accepting change implies yielding to momentum. Innovators oppose that approach. They're working to master the forces, to change basic principles.

I'm not suggesting we dismiss artificial intelligence. Yet my initial statement, “the technology is unleashed”, now feels like its own kind of moral laziness, as though principles disappear the moment something new arrives. After a summer inside the machine, it's disturbing to observe major institutions treat AI like atomic energy for the arts: impressive, lucrative, already leaking harm, yet remarkably unaccompanied by cautions.

It’s unsettling to watch major institutions treat AI like atomic energy for the arts

Developments occur rapidly within technology circles that our documentary already feels like a historical artefact, a postcard from the last moment before the future stopped asking for permission. That afternoon in the hacker mansion, featuring arranged stones, brightness and tranquility, seems suspended currently: the pause preceding fast advancement.

When I listen back, I notice the mood transforming. The hesitation after the query, my uneasy laughter. This represents anxiety, of humanity maintaining position.

If the iconic show marked the conclusion of pre-digital collective performance, possibly this small exchange we documented signals the anxious pause before systems generate autonomously.