Discovered: Mar 19, 2026 15:14 (UTC) ME:: tl;dr-ing: Be Chopin :-) Play the “AI aelomelodicon”. Being a force for good is your goal not rejection of “AI”. “AI” doesn’t get it. It just “plays” :-) Make the money off the fads or something :-) ; Bruce Sterling:: Mar, 2026:: Whatever Happens to Music Will Happen to AI ¦ Medium

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And his response was: “Heck yeah, I can play it. Because I’m Chopin and I can play anything.” And he did play the aelomelodicon, and he paid his rent and groceries, and when the startup collapsed and fell down, he was in some better place far away.

When it comes to AI, I suspect that this is still the proper approach. “The Chopin Method,” you might call it.

Now, Chopin might have said: “I’m a great artiste, and I don’t want to soil my fingers on your nasty machine which is some kind of ugly joke.” But that’s not the Chopin Method. Instead, you do the gig and you pocket the cash, because your intention is to make the scene in Paris, the City of Lights. Rejecting machinery is not your goal: mastery of music is your goal.

…

So to conclude my speech here, somehow, this too shall pass. AI is a fad, but not merely a fad. You can’t merely wait for it to blow over, and imagine that things will be as they were. A lot of it will blow over, but also a lot of things will be blown flat by it. Important matters, customs, infrastructures, cherished ways of life, gone with the wind and never replaced.

Sometimes, you have to sing the blues. When the levee breaks, mama, you’ve got to move. To sing the blues, that activity doesn’t repair or rebuild the levee. But it’s not nothing. Because it’s the blues.

It’s music as a universal language. It’s not shameful to live in an era when music is mechanized. First, it has already happened. Second, the new systems are not just “machines” any more. Third, they don’t actually get it. They just play it, and for whatever that’s worth, that will happen to everybody.

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