Welcome (?) to AI explication of my last post

Bret Primack took five minutes to upload my essay re Barre Phillips and free improv, and AI produced a human-like discussion, expanding on my points

Thanks to my nearly career-long colleague Bret Primack for an AI-created podcast derived from my post of yesterday (1/6/25) celebrating Barre Phillips and free improvisation. I find it fascinating and scary.

Just to be clear: I don’t know these “voices”. They are digitally generated. The “discussion” is not being held by humans. The two cyber-beings do sound comfortable with each other, though, and engaged with what I wrote about! I’d be flattered if these were college students chewing over my text, impressed with my phrases such as “the findings of artists who've chipped away at implacable silence”, picking up references to Lennie Tristano and Eric Dolphy, marveling at the determination, dedication, self-selection and dry humor I allude to without using such words, adding context, emotion-like responses and interpretations that are not inappropriate. I can imagine “their” “chat” might actually help some people absorb my writing if they read it, and get the essence if they don’t.

It goes without saying I get no funds from Google Notebook, that produced this. I suppose I could try to monetize it. This “couple” banters more attractively than you’d probably find my own vocal delivery of writing which I hadn’t designed for podcasting anyway. But now that it’s here. . .

Bret and I each made big moves into professional jazz journalism back in 1978, as reported in DownBeat, where I ended up editing his dispatches. We’ve been friendly ever since, sharing many enthusiasms (including admiration for Ben Hecht).

Over the decades he’s had remarkable experiences, including his tenure at the pioneering and still unmatched website Jazz Central Station and his achievements as the self-producing Jazz Video Guy. Besides creating candid interviews with immortal saxophonist Sonny Rollins and many stellar musicians, Bret has directed They Shall Not Replace Us, an important documentary on American anti-Semitism circa World War II and today. He insists on truth-telling on Syncopated Justice on Substack.

If AI had been able to create “content” like this podcast — which Bret says took all of five minutes to conjure up, using Google Notebook (which also offers the ability to change the voices (one could be mine) and churn out a videocast with avatars— I don’t know how either he or I would have been able to work as we have over the past 50 years. Oh yes, things change. May there always be need of human endeavor.