Post by viciousbliss on Dec 6, 2023 19:37:31 GMT -6
What I'm thinking is that we'll see a revolution in home computers to where they have enough power to accurately emulate any piece of hardware, maybe using methods we can't imagine at the moment. The plugins of tomorrow may very well exceed the quality of hardware as well as the functionality. There's quantum computing and a few other emerging things projected to mature in the 2030s. I've read a lot of talk saying that the date of the singularity could happen well before the 2045 date that Kurzweil forecasted. Have you all heard the AI singer Noonoouri? Anna Indiana was also really impressive as everything in her song was AI-crafted. I guess with modern pop being so robotic and formulaic that it's easy for an AI to replicate it. Anna Indiana sounds about 90% there. I'd love to know how they generated the music. Human-created and engineered music may become a genre all on its own. Maybe even to the point where albums come out with certifications stating that they didn't even use a DAW. AI music could create a trend like that where everyone just abandons DAWs. Sorta like how vinyl has made a comeback. People now long for the days of record stores. The experience of camaraderie and discovery. Even if AI can make a perfect 70s album, there could still be a distinct subculture that wants the genuine article.
Famous writers are also selling their song-writing techniques so that companies can use AI to replicate them, right? Wasn't there some unfinished Beatles song that just used an AI to bring it to completion? Most new music may be completely AI-generated by the 2030s. It may not even be mass-released. It'll be your computer generating things for you based on its own analysis of what you like. But the labels have always tried to cheap out on stuff, make it formulaic, and generally decrease risk along with creativity. Maybe the big labels will go extinct at some point. The big companies always push to make stuff obsolete and abandon things when the consumers haven't. During the latter half of the 90s, I always knew that 70s and 80s styled music, movies, shows, and video games would sell a ton if they were brought back. The public didn't demand these things be taken away. Now those brands are among the most popular. You walk down the toy aisle in Walmart and it's like 1982-1993 again. Legacy bands have the big tours. 2D video games can sell a ton like Shovel Knight.
The upside to this all is that a revolution in computing big enough to make hardware obsolete also means 3d-printed houses become the norm and prices fall drastically, the prices of other goods plummet along with costs to make them, pollution is cleaned up and prevented, and we start to see one big medical problem solved after another. This is another reason I decided to look into hardware. Just to have the opportunity to use it and do something while human engineers are still relevant. ChatGPT and GPT4 being this advanced so quick was not something I thought would happen. GPT4 is beating 90% of people on the bar exam. Driving alongside Google self-driving Waymo cars in Phoenix was another thing I did not anticipate happening as early as 2021. They handled the 202 there quite well even though it was often like the asteroid field in Empire Strikes Back.
Here's another angle to consider. The Covid curve. It's been said that 99% of people will have long covid or other lasting damage from repeated infections within 2-3 years. The world population can only sustain repeated infections from this virus for so long before the accumulated damage causes mass disability. The tech to neutralize the virus will probably show up before the tech to cure all the damage. Already something like tens of thousands in the US cannot do their work at the level they once did. With the repeat infections a lot of immune damage can occur, then other viruses and whatnot are more potent. The demand for AI and tech assistance is going to keep going up. Demand for recorded output could start outpacing demand for live shows. I'm sure some of you here have heard the stories of Taylor's eras tour being superspreader events, stories are all over Reddit.
Right now it's a survival of the fittest, kick the can down the road mentality. Countries are taking a reactive approach. They'll wait until the problem cannot be ignored before they attempt anything above the bare minimum that they're doing now. The thing here is that if you're an audio engineer who survives with your ability to work largely intact, you could end up as a minority in the audio community. You'll be a lot more scarce and valuable. End up with hardware given or sold to you at heavily discounted prices by people who can't make use of it anymore. It's a really sad state of affairs to think about. Perhaps new technology will prevent this from happening. By 2025, a lot of people will be on their 10th infection. Even in Congress, Dick Durbin and Nancy Mace caught it three times in one 12-month span. That happened this year. 3 infections a year for years, I don't even want to fathom how awful that will be for people. We'll either have a 2025-2026 year with the problem solved or mitigations will have to be done to prevent people from getting into 15+ infections territory. Things will have to go back to 2020, but necessity would dictate even less physical interaction. Herd Immunity is supposedly not possible with this virus and I don't see any evidence that it's getting less potent.
In this scenario where people are at 10-15 infections, I believe demand for live music drops a lot. Even today, if the public was was not told it's "mild" over and over again, live music demand would be a fraction of what it is. The Jaws mentality is very much alive with the politicians and their big donors. The private companies would have to find ways to stop transmission and people would have to have the willingness to do something themselves at live shows. Maybe a lot of people wouldn't even want to go if they had to take precautions. Some studios allegedly thrived while people stayed home three years ago.
Getting back to hardware emulations, I've heard more than one person say that 100% emulation is possible if you have the cpu cycles available. The problem has always been that current computers are nowhere near that. Either way, tech that far exceeds what today's stuff can do will inevitably exist. Making big decisions about anything that's dependent on today's tech is a gamble. Doesn't matter if it's expensive audio hardware or taking out a ton of debt to buy a mansion or some 200k car. We're living in an increasingly complex society where things are in motion more than ever before. It's a lot to try and make sense of and prepare for. There's only hypotheticals, no way to predict with 100% certainty. It's just pretty certain that big changes are on the horizon. For now, we can just try to maximize our skills and knowledge while minimizing the risks we take in spending. Fundamentals are always going to be the most important thing. A 100k hardware chain is probably pretty useless without solid fundamentals.
Famous writers are also selling their song-writing techniques so that companies can use AI to replicate them, right? Wasn't there some unfinished Beatles song that just used an AI to bring it to completion? Most new music may be completely AI-generated by the 2030s. It may not even be mass-released. It'll be your computer generating things for you based on its own analysis of what you like. But the labels have always tried to cheap out on stuff, make it formulaic, and generally decrease risk along with creativity. Maybe the big labels will go extinct at some point. The big companies always push to make stuff obsolete and abandon things when the consumers haven't. During the latter half of the 90s, I always knew that 70s and 80s styled music, movies, shows, and video games would sell a ton if they were brought back. The public didn't demand these things be taken away. Now those brands are among the most popular. You walk down the toy aisle in Walmart and it's like 1982-1993 again. Legacy bands have the big tours. 2D video games can sell a ton like Shovel Knight.
The upside to this all is that a revolution in computing big enough to make hardware obsolete also means 3d-printed houses become the norm and prices fall drastically, the prices of other goods plummet along with costs to make them, pollution is cleaned up and prevented, and we start to see one big medical problem solved after another. This is another reason I decided to look into hardware. Just to have the opportunity to use it and do something while human engineers are still relevant. ChatGPT and GPT4 being this advanced so quick was not something I thought would happen. GPT4 is beating 90% of people on the bar exam. Driving alongside Google self-driving Waymo cars in Phoenix was another thing I did not anticipate happening as early as 2021. They handled the 202 there quite well even though it was often like the asteroid field in Empire Strikes Back.
Here's another angle to consider. The Covid curve. It's been said that 99% of people will have long covid or other lasting damage from repeated infections within 2-3 years. The world population can only sustain repeated infections from this virus for so long before the accumulated damage causes mass disability. The tech to neutralize the virus will probably show up before the tech to cure all the damage. Already something like tens of thousands in the US cannot do their work at the level they once did. With the repeat infections a lot of immune damage can occur, then other viruses and whatnot are more potent. The demand for AI and tech assistance is going to keep going up. Demand for recorded output could start outpacing demand for live shows. I'm sure some of you here have heard the stories of Taylor's eras tour being superspreader events, stories are all over Reddit.
Right now it's a survival of the fittest, kick the can down the road mentality. Countries are taking a reactive approach. They'll wait until the problem cannot be ignored before they attempt anything above the bare minimum that they're doing now. The thing here is that if you're an audio engineer who survives with your ability to work largely intact, you could end up as a minority in the audio community. You'll be a lot more scarce and valuable. End up with hardware given or sold to you at heavily discounted prices by people who can't make use of it anymore. It's a really sad state of affairs to think about. Perhaps new technology will prevent this from happening. By 2025, a lot of people will be on their 10th infection. Even in Congress, Dick Durbin and Nancy Mace caught it three times in one 12-month span. That happened this year. 3 infections a year for years, I don't even want to fathom how awful that will be for people. We'll either have a 2025-2026 year with the problem solved or mitigations will have to be done to prevent people from getting into 15+ infections territory. Things will have to go back to 2020, but necessity would dictate even less physical interaction. Herd Immunity is supposedly not possible with this virus and I don't see any evidence that it's getting less potent.
In this scenario where people are at 10-15 infections, I believe demand for live music drops a lot. Even today, if the public was was not told it's "mild" over and over again, live music demand would be a fraction of what it is. The Jaws mentality is very much alive with the politicians and their big donors. The private companies would have to find ways to stop transmission and people would have to have the willingness to do something themselves at live shows. Maybe a lot of people wouldn't even want to go if they had to take precautions. Some studios allegedly thrived while people stayed home three years ago.
Getting back to hardware emulations, I've heard more than one person say that 100% emulation is possible if you have the cpu cycles available. The problem has always been that current computers are nowhere near that. Either way, tech that far exceeds what today's stuff can do will inevitably exist. Making big decisions about anything that's dependent on today's tech is a gamble. Doesn't matter if it's expensive audio hardware or taking out a ton of debt to buy a mansion or some 200k car. We're living in an increasingly complex society where things are in motion more than ever before. It's a lot to try and make sense of and prepare for. There's only hypotheticals, no way to predict with 100% certainty. It's just pretty certain that big changes are on the horizon. For now, we can just try to maximize our skills and knowledge while minimizing the risks we take in spending. Fundamentals are always going to be the most important thing. A 100k hardware chain is probably pretty useless without solid fundamentals.
