I am a music lover. A good music lover. I love all kind of music, and I have just 2 criteria – either I love it or I do not.
Tom Petty & he Heartbreakers 2002 album “The Last DJ” has been a mark for me in a lot of ways. Even now, 24 years later I am writing this post, on the topic of Artificial Intelligence (hence the AI Remix). I am still remembering reading some of the first reviews of the release – how poetic could it be to use in such a twisted sense that I have chosen it ? The decision I will leave to you.
The premise (aka preambule)
Modern LLMs are capable of generating amazing content on-demand, reading and analyzing the existing content, they are able to mix and match your request intent by producing very high quality content.
True. Been there and done that. My Claude & CoPilot code results make me really happy. Gemini CLI looks well to me as well. I am definitely intriguted by the upcoming Codex version.
But how do they get the content ? Where do they scramble it ? Who produces it in the first place ? Who validates it, who critisizes it ?
Humans.
Some of them are right, some of them are wrong, there is a wisdom of the crowd. There are popular bloggers/vloggers/tiktokers, there are paid content creators, there are indirectly paid content creators (golden fish prize winners), etc …
“There goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say
Hey, hey, hey”
The catch
If AI systems are so incredibly amazing and unbelievably successful, do they even need humans ? Because you know, they will connect all the dots, validate all the content … but hey, where will they get the original ideas ? Some crazy way of using Transactional Replication for some non-designed purpose, for example :) Or for using MDS to control the MDS :D
There is always a well-written documentation! I swear I have given a huge laugh while writing this sentence. I know some great people doing an amazing work on the customer-facing documentation but I know that nobody around them is even capable of appreciating their work. You know, like quoting the classics:
Do not throw pearls to pigs
Well, of course we have AI systems already creating the documentation and apparently, recently Snowflake even laid off all their content writers, substituting them by AI. I do expect all hyperscalers to follow this tendency.
This way we are arriving to the point that AI will produce a content that other AI systems will be consuming. Probably that consumption will turn that kind of documentation into something non-readable by humans. Optimization they will say.
I am not a fan of that scenario.
Is it mathematically possible to produce a better content or get better original ideas ? For sure.
Original idea
What happens when next SQL Server version are released ? Will the symbiose of the original ideas turn into something even more useful ? There is and there will always be a need for a human, originally conceived content. Even if it will serve more times as a training material for the Artificial Intelligence, even if there are just a couple of crazy enthusiasts reading – there might be one or two who will get another original idea from your original idea. The internet gave us a platform and a possibility of the voice – why should it be lost, just because there are fewer direct readers. The original idea is to create more original ideas (think about the concept of leaders creating more leaders).
I see a huge potential for some kid trying a completely unorthodox way of solving a complex problem that simply works like magic, getting inspired after reading some posts or watching some other original ideas.
Imagining something that will allow a new business or even an industry to be built on.
An original idea. An original idea that started with a crazy thought but turned into something very useful and maybe even revolutionary.
Original ideas are the ideas that are discarded by the majority of the people as stupid or unpractical or not even useful, but turn out to be amazing.
Original ideas are what moves the world forward in bigger jumps, instead of incremental improvements taking place the majority of time.
It is hard to guess how original ideas are going to be “guessed” or “analyzed” by AI and if they will be accepted or rejected by humans and by other AIs, but it is not the point. The point of an Infinite Game is in keeping the game alive, or simply to keep on trying. I say there is a reasonable chance that a great original idea is recognized by humans (the end consumers, anyway) easier than by some LLM. The context might be missing, the vibe might be different – too many details to catch. And as a Finite Player in this infinite game, any good human wants to be a contributor and wants their voice to be heard and their ideas to be explored.
The last DJ
Who will be the last human blog writer? Who will be the last original tiktoker/youtuber? Not saying that the person can’t pick up an LLM-generated idea and turn into an amazing point of view, because that’s what the true artists do – they find crazy ideas and explore them.
But who will be the last DJ ? Producing non-marketing content just for the sake of the reader/listener, for their own entertainment. Will that person be of the generation before mine? Will it be someone from my generation ? Will it be someone well after I have left this planet ?
Will it be in the digital form or will it be sitting around a fire ?
The art of story-telling is not going to disappear, but it is going to evolve into some new original idea that I know nothing about. I just wish for more of the original content creators. The kind of the creators that are not crowd pleasers but rather point-makers and story-tellers, mumbling their song or scratching their vinyl even if there is no audience around.
Mixing and remixing are undeniably important arts of the music production. The original idea needs a lot of work, tweaking and pitching, merging and breaking before it joins into something that becomes what we want to consume. Every creation in life is a remix. We base our “original” ideas on the ideas of the others – we do stand on the shoulders of the giants.
Keep in mind that very similar to a barman mixing the drinks, it takes a true connoisseur to recognize the elements that will make a great mix together. The same applies to the great original ideas.
I could have ended with the ever popular “isn’t it ironic?”, but instead I will let you enjoy this:
“And there goes your freedom of choice
There goes the last human voice
There goes the last DJ”