Key Takeaways
- Big tech showcasing AI creativity by abusing instruments is more distracting than inspiring.
- Google’s Gemini AI can identify issues with record players, but let’s see demos without destruction.
- Let’s celebrate human artistry without crushing symbols of achievement as seen at Google I/O.
Just as the zeitgeist had started to move on from Apple’s panned iPad Pro hydraulic press ad, Google came in and attacked something I love deeply. When I saw Rose Yao, the VP of Product Management at Google, take the stage today at Google I/O, I was excited to see she had my own turntable — Audio-Technica LP120X– on a mobile cart in front of her.
Slammed the stylus down on the spinning record so hard the tonearm bounced off the record, flailing through the air as if to ask, ‘Why would you do this to me?’ It was heartbreaking.
Was Google about to announce a new audio tool? But then, it happened. She picked up the perfectly balanced tonearm with the AT-VM95E cartridge installed, hovered it over a spinning 12″ LP, and then slammed the stylus down on the spinning record so hard the tonearm bounced off the record, flailing through the air as if to ask, “Why would you do this to me?” It was heartbreaking.
Big tech keeps using “old tech” to make its points
I’m not actually offended, but I find it more distracting than inspiring
While I understand and share in the excitement of the potential that a tool like generative AI holds in the creative world, can we perhaps show off that potential without crushing instruments, record players, and easels?
Google spent the better part of two hours showing off how AI can create music, art, photography, and even video. While I understand and share in the excitement of the potential that a tool like generative AI holds in the creative world, can we perhaps show off that potential without crushing instruments, record players, and easels? As a side note, I noticed the turntable crushed in the iPad ad was also the Audio-Technica LP120X, but in the rarer silver version. Audio-Technica, what gives?
How I joined the waitlist for Google’s Veo AI video tool
Google’s Veo takes text prompts and turns it into video, and you can sign up for its experimental tool waitlist today.
I love my retro gadgets as much as I love my cutting-edge tech. I use my iPad as often as I do my Yamaha Keyboard, and I listen to my records about as often as I use AI in various applications across my businesses. Must I sacrifice one for the other? There was something deep and fatalistic about that perfectly balanced tonearm bouncing around without a groove to glide through, while Yao used Gemini AI to tell her what was wrong with it. You see the tonearm was balanced, but set to zero grams of tracking force, leaving it to bounce around as if in zero gravity.
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Despite no mention of them at all, Google may have dropped some big hardware news at its IO event. Could we see the return of Google Glass?
Thankfully, and yes impressively enough, Gemini was able to tell Yao exactly what the issue was. It was quick to point out tracking force as one of a few need to know terms when addressing the issue that Yao had created.
For my next trick
The demo I want to see next time
An AI assistant that can interpret what you are asking and what it is seeing on video in real time and then provide useful answers almost immediately is an incredibly impressive feat of engineering, but next time let’s see a demo, or ad campaign that refrains from abusing, crushing, or otherwise destroying symbols of human artistry and achievement. Rose Yao, you are absolutely impressive, but if that record player needs a safe and loving home, I’d be happy to facilitate.
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