Leverage this limited resource in the post-AI world
Today Google announced Lyria as a generative AI model for music. The internet was filled with comments about how this was the end of music creators. My take was different. A new demand for a “limited resource” looks to be increasing as tech and AI automates more and more tasks: a demand for human connection.
Earlier this year I saw a performance of Yo-Yo Ma that changed my relationship to music. It was incredible to be sitting in a hall of 3,000 other people and a mere human sitting before us, his only tool a 300 year old cello. Just by moving his bow across a string without any aid of electronics, every seat in the concert hall would shake and you could see the audience as people became increasingly captivated and emotionally invested in what was happening before them.
There’s a video somewhere where Yo-Yo said he used to strive to have the perfect performance, until one day he was in the middle of a performance that was going perfectly and was bored. That day he decided to devote his craft to making human connections.
While it’s in vogue to ponder how AI is coming for every job, I think it is important to step back and realize that humans will always desire to have connections with other humans.
If you are worried about AI taking or replacing your job (writing, software engineer, designer, etc), that might possibly be true, but now would be the time to invest in your unique ability as a human being to make connections with other people and use that as your leverage in the AI future.
