Music of the Day, 23 January 2025

staying off a hype train

It may not seem like it in this space, but I’m open to good-faith discussions on many topics. I’ve been wrong before and I know I’ll be wrong again, so if someone can present good data and a reasonable argument, I’ll consider a different perspective on many things.

But not everything.

And I am beyond exasperated at the hardcore hype of AI, and large language models (LLMs) in particular. So many people are pushing them despite their multiple, well-known flaws—and apparently with little (if any) thought given to how the widescale use of LLMs will affect young people’s development of vital cognitive skills. I recently found a study that rigorously examined that question; its findings justify my concerns.¹

Earlier this week, I listened to a livestream that was billed as helping people adapt to how AI is affecting lots of jobs. Only what it delivered wasn’t that: it was just another car in the hype train. People who were commenting and asking questions about valid concerns got dismissive responses at best. It was quite frustrating.

Thinking about that a bit ago, the title of today’s MotD popped into my mind. At first, I thought I was making it up; but a quick search revealed otherwise.

I’m not sure what Bono had in mind when he wrote “Even Better Than the Real Thing,” but on its face it seems sex-related, which made me laugh when I listened to the song a bit ago. I suppose for some people, robots and/or AI-driven devices might be preferable to humans in that context, but I’d argue long and hard² that they are missing “the real thing” of the activity for most people.³

Sure, being human too often means being messy and imprecise. Our minds haven’t evolved to be purely rational organs, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that languages are similarly fuzzy. I’ll take the spark of individuality and creativity and the risk of misunderstanding in our comms over sterile, inaccurate, and awkward predictively generated text every day.

Oh, yeah: the music. Sorry!

It’s fine. U2 is fine. To be honest, they never garnered a lot of my attention primarily⁴ due to timing: they hit it big when I was in college, when I was focused more on my education and my musical interests had shifted toward harder rock. Hearing their songs on the radio was plenty of exposure for me.

Listening to “Even Better” today for the first time in decades, I like the music more than I expected to. It’s more spirited and the bass is more forward in the mix than I remember their sound being … or maybe that’s my faulty memory. I do have Achtung Baby in my library but have no idea how it got there, and listening to this song hasn’t prompted any curiosity to listen to it.

For those who do like U2 and this song specifically, there’s a music video for it. Much of it is dizzying to watch, which is why I opted against featuring it.

1. which are out of bounds here, but if you’re interested in them, I’m easily found elsewhere online: my website is my first+last name and “.com”; I’m on LinkedIn under the same name

2. pun fully intended

3. but I am not and never will be other people’s sexy-times police

4. and secondarily because they seemed to be propelled by a pretty big hype train themselves