A young, white man is sitting at a white desk. In front of him is a light grey DECstation 5000/200 computer and a black microphone. A simple melody plays. He begins tapping out a rhythm on the desk with his hands. As he modifies his tempo, the system responds. He is improvising. The machine is listening.
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ This is the world of machine listening we inhabit today; distributed across prol
Jessica Feldman's essay, "The Problem of the Adjective," describes a further frontier. Affective listening software tunes in to barely perceptable vocal inflections, which are "uncontrollable, unintended, and habitual" -- but for the machine signify the [quote] "emotions, intentions, desires, fears... of the speaker—in short, the soul." Can the machine listen to our soul? Of course not, but what does it hear, what does it do when it tries? And how will we act when confronted with an instrument intent on listening so deeply?
## 2. Rainbow Family
## Rainbow Family
A young, black man is sitting at a white desk. In front of him is a bank of Apple II computers, connected to a trio of Yamaha DX-7 synthesisers, and four performers on stage. A woman playing an upright bass starts strumming out a rhythm and the system responds; then the soprano sax, followed by the rest of the ensemble. They are improvising. The machine is listening. The machine is improvising. They are listening.
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ If Rainbow Family is pedagogy then its lesson is surely that computers, and mach
What would an alternate machine listening system modeled along Lewis' lines be like? The becoming-Rainbow-Family of the world? The world as rainbow family, in which the interdependence of man and machine is acknowledged and embraced, but also rooted in a concern for racial justice and traditions of afro-futurism? How might this idea of multidominance play out at scale, laced through our homes and cities? How would such a world be designed? How compatible would it be with the current regime of pervasive surveillance, data extraction and colonialism, capital accumulation, automation and control? What social relations would a system like this work to facilitate and produce? What would it sound like? And what risks would it too run?
## 3. DARPA improv
## DARPA improv
In this YouTube video, a white woman plays guitar with an Artificial Intelligence. The computer listens and responds. Once again, we find ourselves in a version of Yershov's diagram. It is almost as if she is having a conversation with the AI. She plays, and it listens and responds. She listens to its response and plays some more. This improvised conversation is like the exchange between [video] scientists and aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It might be playful, or maybe antagonistic - we don't and can't know the meaning even if we could participate in the dialog.
Sean Dockray
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