Oliver Bown
@olliebown
Professor @UNSW Art&Design. Research: Creative AI, computational creativity, music, IxD, society, evolution. Music: Icarus, Tangents. And: Social justice, equity, cycling, urban planning, 18-19C history. Don't know why I post, mostly notes to self.
Always happy to celebrate a savvy "late adopter". Could be the approach of my uni and my country.
It's a Carib Bean Cocktail! Good work AI! Well spotted @danielwilson.bsky.social.
Elegant data journalism. Not perfectly conclusive but evidence enough of the need to get truckification under control in the US. Similar trends in Australia, and I've seen a few more pickups around the UK this summer. So how do vans compare? www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Why does this exist but I can't find wearable dog ears to help my mum's hearing? She has great hearing aids but gets the best effect by cupping a hand over her ear and facing in your direction. You know about sound, she says, can you design me something to wear that will do this? Wearable dog ears?
It's been 20 years since I last saw George Lewis speak. What an absolute delight, old school ray of light in the new world of AI creativity. Some conversations have been buried in the landslide but they're relevant as ever. Long live GOFAI!
One of these cloud storage services is provided and officially supported by my university. The other two I pay for myself. No prizes for guessing.
MTUK "Sound Investment" report details collapsing investment in UK music tech. We will all have to play tinier violins! musictechnology.uk/sound-invest...
It's hard to imagine a more incompetent tech giant than Microsoft. Where's the ruthless efficiency that unfettered capitalist competition is supposedly adept at bringing about? Where, when, how and WHY are there two copies of OneDrive on my machine?
Woke up to this story. Beautiful. A person asked people why a real Monet (which they pretended was an AI Monet pastiche) was inferior to real Monet works. They received oodles of deep deep analysis. Of course I'm sure some of the commenters were in on the joke.
Those in the know relieved to hear the American tourists are heading South.
I don't believe in jinxes but I was just the other day saying how nice it was not to have any boat troubles in a long while.
Suno's roach motel requires four clicks to escape. In the present consumer rights climate that's respectable, but two clicks is the right number: one to cancel and one to confirm. (Bsky not letting me upload vid).
Making it hard to cancel a subscription is a form of dark design pattern known as a cockroach motel. Here, Canva makes me click 5 times to confirm. That's *relatively* good behaviour (e.g., their GenAI subsidiary Leonardo makes it 9 times!). But we should insist on a world where 2 is 1 too many.
UK far-right AI generated rapper who shall not be named/platformed, asks us to deeply reflect on what England is and where we're headed, to defend our identity, unity and sovereignty. And here we have it (top left). We're all frankly confused about what England/Britain is, but no more than the AI.
Tangents in session because whoops I looked at the new tracks project folder and it's called "Tangents 2021 Tracks". We are not using any of these amps but the biggest cello mic in the world.
I'm gonna call it. The biggest social cost of AI is the amplification of age-old arms races, a hyper-amalgamation of runaway evolutionary peacocking, social display, bullshit jobs and environmental over exploitation. (I hope webcomicname.com is ok with me reposting their phenomenally apt comic).
If you don't know the region of the world where this is happening, think Home and Away.
Last year I got v excited about signing up for the Bobbin Head Cycle Classic. Then I did no training and I got a bit worried. Then they cancelled it last minute do to severe weather*. Then I was entered into a ballot to get a $300 voucher from a cycle store, which I won.