In our life when art takes a leap forward in technology, musicians figure it out first. After writing off social media as currently useless, YouTube seems to be getting some really great scifi music covers. Goes to show that you don’t know it all. Particularly Tina Guo. Not sure yet if this is an Apple feature on garage band or what, but if anyone is old enough to remember Kenny G and all that 90s elevator music, this feels like the actual AI $$$ door that’s about to open.
Which brings us to a particular point, it is the backgrounds and not the costumes or performers that seem to be getting the upgrade. You could see restaurants embracing a projector version of this for tours and given Europe, Asia, and Africa's joint music history of busking, it seems like a soft technology space upgrade on walls. You have to wonder if some technology company will create an app or feature like karaoke, but for ai generated custom walls. Normally, you’d put down German techno clubs leading the charge, but haven’t seen any investors pouring into the mix.
A cynical person might point out that European media seems full of war propaganda and busy trying to recruit more foot soldiers and drone operators in Ukraine and it gives politicians a way to do it without sending kids home in body bags immediately. AI robot videos look fake, but the drones don’t. Most museum boards have military grants or funding so it’s perfectly possible for NATO or the European banking cartel to see AI coffee shops as a way to scoop up drone operators for Ukraine summer offensives as flying air patrol units as social media revenue implodes. Death baristas? Generation Z has grown up playing video games. Set-up training in empty commercial buildings for drones while shipping off migrant troops after the US May census? Europe has a very long history of using paid soldiers in their continental land wars as cannon fodder going back thousands of years to Roman times. This gives them both.
We’d personally prefer if the political class seemed more interested in space instead of starting WWIII, but so far no such luck. The answer might be both space and military drone projects long-term? Many WW II technologies had a second commercial life in the 50s. We'll have to wait and see. The art money starting point remains the same: instrumental music.
You have to wonder if some tech people will use the coffee shop walls as field tests for midJourney futuristic AI art phone aps with pre-loaded worlds? Can't you see some clever team building an Apple wall lens to go with their garage band editing software? With a touch of the button, you could travel the world from song to song.