So , back on the subject of technology this week , a lot in the news recently about the use of AI in music , is it a good thing or a bad thing ? but its not just in music , the use of technology is everywhere. This is just my take , not just as someone who makes music , those of you who know me personally are aware i have a former life assessing the economic implications of these things , but those economic implications are really only part of the story .

Technology obviously has great benefits used in the right way but we don't always use things in the best way , in terms of history we are still evolving from the Industrial revolution , machines invented to do the work of humans first started originating roughly 200 years ago on a grand scale and that has obviously had benefits and drawbacks in terms of greater overall economic prosperity but on the other hand individual jobs are replaced by machines in what have been largely manual tasks . The big difference i see now is that we are at a stage where computers can effectively replace cognitive tasks , you can get AI to write a song , point your phone at a plant and it will tell you what that plant is without having to know the answer , and whilst that seems very attractive , in terms of “hey that's made my life easier” there are downsides to that , and not just the replacement of labour , although it has to be said that a person merely keeping an eye on a machine doing the work can be paid less than a person who used to do that task . In my opinion the problem is bigger than that , we give up the ability to think for ourselves , our phone will have the answer , we give up our originality and creativity , its very much like physical exercise if you don't use it you lose it , do you really want to live in a world where we celebrate something that is effectively a facsimile of something else or do you want to live in a world where we still celebrate originality ? The beauty of life is that we are all individuals , similar may be agreeable for a while but eventually it becomes boring .

Tech giants they may be now , but they walk a fine line between creating tools that assist humankind whilst on the other hand potentially devaluing humankind and ultimately the hand that feeds them .Who's going to paint a picture , when we've forgotten how to paint ?