Transcript

Brian Eno on AI, Art and What Makes Us Human

From The Ezra Klein Show · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 36 min · 15,287 words · 212 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Brian Eno on AI, Art and What Makes Us Human", an episode of The Ezra Klein Show published October 3, 2025 (1 h 36 min, about 15,287 words). It mentions 26 people, works and ideas, including Brian Eno, Art, Music, Feelings, Music for Airports.

What this episode is about

Brian Eno discusses the intersection of AI, art, and humanity, exploring how his pioneering work in ambient music and generative systems laid the groundwork for today's AI technologies. He reflects on the importance of art in education and society, highlighting insights from his new book, *What Art Does*, and the philosophical implications of creativity in a rapidly evolving world.

Key takeaways

  • Brian Eno: the man who turned ambient sound into a timeless genre—without a single plot twist.
  • Art cuts budgets but fuels minds; it's humanity's choice to play, not just survive.
  • Eno's generative music is the grandfather of today's AI. Who knew sound had a family tree?
  • Feelings carry a bad rap—our first instincts often outrun our rational thoughts. Trust your gut?
  • Art isn't just play; it's adult learning in disguise. Imagine education through creativity, not tests.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Feelings, What Art Does, Art, Brian Eno
  2. – 20:00: Cultural Conversation, Feelings, Attention, Creativity
  3. – 30:00: Feelings, Attention, Hans Franc, Moral Dimension
  4. – 40:00: Music for Airports, Music, Ambient Music, Attention
  5. – 50:00: Attention, Generative Music, Music, Brian Eno
  6. – 1:00:00: Senius, Artificial Intelligence, Ecosystem, Social Good
  7. – 1:10:00: Feelings, Ecosystem
  8. – 1:35:33: Feelings, Attention

Notable quotes from "Brian Eno on AI, Art and What Makes Us Human"

  • So,, your, new, book, is, called, What, Art Does. And I guess tell me, what does art do?
    about What Art Does · at
  • Arguments of the book is that art is a way we explore or attune to our feelings.
    about Feelings · at
  • And, I, think, it, is,, but, I, don't, think it's good for you in that way. I don't think it necessarily improves you in any moral dimension whatsoever. I think it's quite…
    about Art · at
  • With all of that kind of music, what I call ambient music I don't want there to be an edge to the music. I want it to so that you don't know whether some of the things you're…
    about Ambient Music · at
  • So, I wanted to make flying feel like a more spiritual experience is what if I had to put it into a sentence with a controversial word in it. and by that I mean I was used to be very.
    about Music for Airports · at
  • And, that's, been, very, influential., this idea that music is a cultivator of different forms of attention, not all of them an attention that is spent on the music.
    about Music · at
  • Question, you asked, did I feel any responsibility for that? And I do actually. I was very excited about the idea of generative music. In fact, a lot of I think I invented the…
    about Brian Eno · at
  • You only start it. And I think that's what I kind of mean by generative music. You start the piece, but it finishes itself. It carries on finishing itself for the rest of time.…
    about Generative Music · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Brian Eno — Person · Main guest · 3 mentions · first at
    Central voice discussing what art does, feelings, ambient/generative music, and concerns about generative AI and social media incentives.
  • Hans Franc — Person · Referenced historical figure · 2 mentions · first at
    Used as a case showing that being 'cultured' (loving Bach, art) does not prevent participation in atrocities; challenges moralized views of art.
    Idea of genocide. And one of the central characters this book tracks is a man named Hans Franc.
  • John Hassel — Person · Referenced musician friend · 1 mention · first at
    Included once; duplicates above are artifacts.
    Musician friend of yours John Hassel who you says asks the question what is it that I really like and says being able to answer that is the most important question. Why?
  • Martin Buber — Person · Referenced theologian/humanist · 1 mention · first at
    Contrasted with Hans Frank to show that the same art (Bach) can shape radically different moral lives; art isn't inherently moral.
    A somewhat lighter conversation than this, but after reading Sans's book I started reading a biography of Martin Buber, the great Jewish theologian and one of the great humanists of the 20th century.
  • Jeff Tweedy — Person · Referenced prior guest · 2 mentions
    Used as an example of how audience feelings/interpretations diverge from artist intent (Wilco song meaning mismatch).
    I had Jeff Tweety on this show years ago.
  • George Orwell — Person · Referenced author · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example of art as world-building (1984) that lets readers inhabit a dangerous world safely to experience its feelings.
    Building, you're creating a world. It might be a huge world like you know George Orwell's 1984. That's a whole world completely thought out. And when you go when you read that…
  • Roberto Bolaño — Person · Referenced author · 1 mention
    Mentioned via The Savage Detectives to discuss the personality type that sacrifices everything for art versus those indifferent to art.
    You read the Roberto Blano book The Savage Detectives.
  • Bey Wolf — Person · Referenced collaborator · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as collaborator on 'Liinal' to situate Eno's current projects.
    And, he's, got, this, really, delightful, new book out, what art does, an unfinished theory, as well as a new album with Bey Wolf called Liinal.

Books & papers

  • What Art Does — Book · Primary work discussed · 3 mentions · first at
    Eno's new book anchors the episode's arguments about art as play, feelings, attention, and the non-moral nature of art's benefits.
  • The Savage Detectives — Book · Referenced example · 1 mention · first at
    Used to discuss devotion-to-art personalities and how some people center their lives on art even without social recognition.
    You read the Roberto Blano book The Savage Detectives.

Products & tech

  • Windows 95 — Product · Referenced cultural artifact · 1 mention · first at
    Cited to illustrate Eno's broad influence on everyday sound design (the Windows 95 startup sound).
    Hell, Eno composed the sound that plays when you boot up Windows 95.

Concepts & topics

  • Art — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at
    The episode centers on Eno's thesis that art is 'grown-up play' and a tool for exploring feelings rather than a moral improvement machine.
  • Music — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at
    Used to explore how art shapes attention and feeling; contrasted as object of attention vs tool to alter attention toward the world.
  • Feelings — Concept · Core topic · 14 mentions · first at
    A central thread: feelings as primary human judgment/attunement and art as practice for noticing and refining them.
  • Music for Airports — Album · Key work discussed · 4 mentions · first at
    Serves as the main concrete example of ambient music designed to shape attention and the felt experience of public space (airports).
  • Generative Music — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at
    Eno explains generative music as designing rule-systems (like wind chimes) that produce evolving outputs, framing it as precursor to generative AI.
  • Attention — Concept · Core topic · 10 mentions · first at
    Discussed as something music can cultivate; contrasted between deep listening and algorithmic engagement-maximization in platforms.
    And, that's, been, very, influential., this idea that music is a cultivator of different forms of attention, not all of them an attention that is spent on the music.
  • Ambient Music — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at
    Introduced as a genre Eno helped define; used to discuss boundaryless sound, public-space listening, and attention modulation.
  • Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at
    Discussed as a technological lineage from generative music systems and as a societal risk depending on ownership, incentives, and control.
    That into existence. A lot of his work on creating generative systems that make music can be seen as a forerunner to much of today's AI systems.
  • Creativity — Concept · Core theme · 2 mentions · first at
    Discussed as exploration, world-building, and system-design; contrasted with AI 'premature sheen' and over-polished outputs.
    Which is exactly part of what you're saying, is the possibility of not making a mistake at all, of making things that always come with this sort of professional finished gloss of what a real what a real pop song looks like or.
  • Senius — Concept · Key coined concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Eno's term for collective creativity ('scene' + 'genius'), used to argue that innovation emerges from ecosystems, not lone geniuses.
    Upon them. I don't do you know this word that I came up with years ago which is senius.
  • Ecosystem — Concept · Analytical frame · 2 mentions · first at
    Used to explain culture/knowledge production (and AI training) as interdependent systems; ties to Eno's 'senius' idea.
    IUS on the end. And that seemed to me to much better understand the ecology of systems like that. And I think that's what it is. It's an ecosystem. And we still don't understand ecosystems.
  • Cultural Conversation — Concept · Supporting concept · 3 mentions · first at
    Explains why art can feel inaccessible: meaning depends on shared history/literacy and where a work sits in ongoing cultural discourse.
    And one of the one of the ways art if you'll locks people out is by demanding so much literacy in a cultural conversation.
  • Moral Dimension — Concept · Debated concept · 2 mentions · first at
    Explicitly rejected as an automatic output of art; discussed through examples of cultured perpetrators and morally admirable listeners.
    And, I, think, it, is,, but, I, don't, think it's good for you in that way. I don't think it necessarily improves you in any moral dimension whatsoever. I think it's quite…
  • Social Good — Concept · Policy proposal frame · 1 mention · first at
    Raised in the context of generative AI: whether profits should be automatically shared back to society because training data is socially produced.
    Asking myself. Should it be that we automatically have a system that says this is a social good? all this knowledge. It's it's a socially produced good and therefore it should…
  • Persuasion — Concept · Supporting concept · 1 mention · first at
    Eno frames persuasion as a dominant industry shaping taste and attention, motivating the need to ask 'what do I really like?'
    Persuasion. and it's very easy in that sea of that flood actually of that tsunami of suggestions about what we ought to like to forget what we actually do like. So I think what he's doing.

Full transcript with timestamps

I've got an email from a lot of you lately saying, "Can we do a show just off the news? Can one show not be in the grim march of events?" So, here it is. How do you intro Brian Eno has a claim as much as anyone does to have invented the genre of ambient music.

So, there's, no, narrative, quality, to, the music. It just sort of starts, stays pretty much in one place and then ends.

He, certainly, coined, the, term,, built, out the philosophy. sort of has eaten a lot of the music we now listen to, but also he's just done so many other things. He's produced seminal albums by you too.

The, talking, heads glory, Anderson Coldplay. Hell, Eno composed the sound that plays when you boot up Windows 95. Do you remember that one? A lot of sound we, just, take, for, granted., A, lot, of the way sound is now made. Eno helped bring that into existence. A lot of his work on creating generative systems that make music can be seen as a forerunner to much of today's AI systems. Anino is more than just a sonic technician or tinkerer. He's this wonderful thinker and philosopher of art and just being a human being.

At least, I, personally, am, not, interested in the idea of art being a sort of existential challenge to you.

And, he's, got, this, really, delightful, new book out, what art does, an unfinished theory, as well as a new album with Bey Wolf called Liinal. I wanted to talk to him about all of it or, at least, as, much, of, it, as, I, could., As always, my email escline shown times.com. Brianino, welcome to the show.

Hello,, Ezra., Nice, to, meet, you. So,, your, new, book, is, called, What, Art Does. And I guess tell me, what does art do? Well, perhaps I should tell you first why I thought that question needed answering. Because um in education in England, and in fact, I think probably in most parts of the world, the budgets that always get cut are the arts budgets because there are apparently more important things that we should be teaching people. Science, engineering financial, technology, that kind of thing.

Yeah., You, should, be, making, short, trades. Yeah., Exactly., Exactly. Are, you, really, alive, if, you, can't, short a stock?

But, I've, always, thought, that, art, is actually one of the most important things that humans do with their time. You know, in my book, there's a long list of things that I consider could come under the headline of art. And it includes, of course, obvious things like symphonies and photographs and paintings, but it includes cardigans and jewelry and makeup and tattoos and all the things that humans do that they don't have to do. None of those things have survival benefits in the obvious sense. They're things we do to do something in our mind, to change our mind in some way. So, what does art do?

Why do we like it? I have this phrase in the book that um children learn through play and adults play through art. And I think that's really what it does. But when we look at children and we watch them playing we don't think, "Oh, they're just wasting their time. They should do something more serious." We realize that when children play, they're learning. their understanding about materials about social relationships, about their own bodies, their own minds, about where they live, all of those things that are very important to understand.

And they do that infallibly and with a huge appetite. That's what children like doing. And we understand, all of us understand that that's the way they learn things. And then round about the age of 11, we suddenly forget that idea and we think people have got to start working to learn. Um, but I think people carry on playing. But what they do is they call what they then do, they call it art. Art is grown up play. It's a way of imagining things and imagining what they would feel like and imagining how they connect to other things that we know about. and then feeding that knowledge back into our lives and into our uh relationships.

I, want, to, zoom, in, on, a, word, you, use there which is feel. One of the central arguments of the book is that art is a way we explore or attune to our feelings.

Mhm. And, I, guess, that, raises, another question. Uh you you say and I agree with this that feelings have a bad reputation. So to you what do feelings do and why do they matter? Yes. So, they have a bad reputation because they're very hard to quantify and measure. And of course, science wants things that are easily comparable and easily describable in in some kind of language of quantity and measure. Um feelings because they're subjective are very difficult to do that with. However the first response we have to most things is a feeling response.

Particularly if they're unfamiliar things, what's the first thing that happens when you meet somebody? You kind of form an impression of them quite quickly. You think, "He looks like a decent person. He looks quite friendly. He doesn't look hostile. I think I could get on with him." Or, "She looks pretty interesting and I think I'm in love with her." The feelings form very quickly actually um and they form without really much valition on our part and they are in fact our first antenna, our first judgment of a situation, our first sense of whether it's dangerous or friendly or useful or useless is made on the basis of feelings. And then after that we backfill with other information we find and we sometimes find that our feelings the quick response were were incorrect.

But surprisingly often we find that they were actually exactly on the money. I knew that as soon as I saw her. One thing that I was thinking about while you were talking is a a way I think to say what our modern relationship is here is that we think feelings lie and we think facts don't. And I've come to believe that's a a very

uh, simplistic, way, to, think, about, both feelings and and facts. But, what, I, am, doing, to, to, make, form, into content here while you talk

I, have, this, whole, list, of, questions, and in a rational, coherent, factual way, I know what the next question should be.

What, I'm, actually, doing, is, watching, a feeling that is moving around in my chest while you speak.

Mhm., And, there's, a, moment, when, I, know that you said something that's the next place we should go and it's not the thing on my sheet of paper

right? It's, this, whole, thing, I'm, doing, right now in a way. And maybe it's wrong.

Yes. But, no, great, interviews are logical. Like they just aren't like we're working in a medium that does not work that way. Conversation does not work logically.

Mhm. And, I, do, think, we've, degraded our relationship, our attunement to what we feel. Yes.

And, that's, actually, a, mistake., So, I understood one argument you're making about art which which feels true to me is that it's a way of practicing our attunement to our feelings.

Mhm. I, I, think, that, opens, something interesting here. One thing in the book that connected for me was you quote a musician friend of yours John Hassel who you says asks the question what is it that I really like and says being able to answer that is the most important question. Why?

So,, we're, being, told, probably, about, 10 or 12,000 times a day what we ought to like, what other people like, what some people would prefer that we liked. Um in we're told that in the form of advertising, in the form of political messages, in the form of all of the things that try to persuade us to think or believe one thing rather than another. Um, it's the biggest industry in the western world actually. persuasion. Um, and it's very easy in that sea of that flood actually of that tsunami of um, suggestions about what we ought to like to forget what we actually do like. So I think what he's doing there, he's suggesting that the deepest feelings we have are actually the most reliable things that we know about. One of the things that happens when you're looking at art or listening to art something connects to you and you think "That's what I really like. That's what really moves me." And I think when that

happens, you should pay attention to that. You should you should think, why do I really like that? What does that mean that I like that thing? What what does that connect me to that's so important to me? Um, and we frequently don't do that because the distraction rate is so high. There are so many things to think about all the time.

I, think, this, question, of, what, is, it, that I really like and trying to pay attention to your response to different pieces of art is interesting because it it gets it a mystery to me about being human, which is why things that are legendarily beautiful works leave me completely cold

even, as, they, have, inspired, thousands, of books. and uh and comiums from others and then I'll hear something or I'll see something and my soul will leap into my throat. I I've been obsessed this year with an album by an artist named Drum. And the album is called Undertangled Silence. And this one song, Wax Cap, I just keep listening to and listening to

when I give my headphones to somebody else, they quite rarely have the experience I am having with that song.

Right?, it, in, a, way, that, makes, me, feel lonier but also a little bit more unique.

So, you're, an, artist, but, you're, also, an artist who both yourself creates and helps others create things for mass consumption. And so how do you think about that difference of attunement in different people? How some people can hear something and it is their favorite thing ever.

Yes. And, others, will, put, that, same, thing, on. Yes., and, they, hear, nothing, but, noise.

I, I, think, the, answer, to, that, is, that, of course when we look at any piece of art we're not looking just at that piece of art. We're looking at this piece of art in terms of our own personal history. So, it's like you're hearing the latest sentence in a conversation you've been having for your whole life. I I wrote this little story once about somebody finding, you know, in some post-apocalyptic time finding an art museum and the whole place is wrecked, but there's lots of pictures still around. And they find one picture that obviously hasn't been finished, which is just a white canvas which of course in fact is Malovich's white on white. So it's it has no meaning to that person who doesn't share its history.

Part of the value of any piece of work and the power of it is how it sits in the cultural conversation in general and in your cultural conversation in particular. So, you know, a little difference that is very significant to you may be meaningless to somebody else. For instance, I've always had a rather blind spot for Shakespeare. No English person is ever supposed to admit that, but Shakespeare's never thrilled me. Um, and I find I find it hard to read and quite unrewarding. Um so when a critic, a writer picks out a Shakespeare sentence and talks about its significance, they do that because they know the rest of the Shakespeare cannon and they know where it sits in there and what value it therefore has. It doesn't mean anything to me because I don't know any of those things and I don't care about them in that case either. Well let me offer a cliched uh concern, which is that this is a way

that art fails. I think when people think of art now, they don't first think of music or food on a plate or the way a building looks. They think of something you see in a museum.

Mhm., And, I, go, to, a, fair, number, of, of shows or try to and am often left cold in part because it feels like there is so much cultural conversation going on.

Yeah. And, I'll, read, the, little, placard, on, the wall next to a piece by an artist working at the peak of their powers who is being venerated as one of the great artists of our age. And

this, little, placard, is, telling, me, that, you know, what a meditation this is on identity and borders. And I'm looking I'm like, is it though? And one of the um one of the ways art if you'll locks people out is by by demanding so much literacy in a cultural conversation. Well, one of the problems that fine art faces is the problem of its own irrelevance to most people's lives. You know, nobody buys a 2 million pound or a 20 million pound painting just cuz they like it. they they buy it because there's a good chance they'll be able to sell it again at a profit or it secures them a sort of social status that is um not easily obtainable otherwise. So you have to make it seem very important. You have to pretend that it isn't just an object of commerce. It's an attempt to build something up by by repackaging it in this kind of crust of usually incomprehensible language. I think some of the worst

writing in the world is writing about art, about fine art. And it ought to be much simpler. As you said, the one of the reasons you like it is because it doesn't translate into words. It doesn't turn into sentences. it hits you in some other place, some other part of your mind.

You, did, an, album, in, the, last, couple years with uh Fred again, who I think is you've been a mentor to and who's another artist who I really love. And there's a song on that album that became big. And I remember the first time I heard it. Uh the song is called Come On.

Mhm. And, I've, probably, listened, to, it., It, was one of my top listened songs that whole year. I want to play a little piece of it. I want to ask you about it. Please make me.

So,, we've, been, talking, about, feelings and, the, thing, that, happened, to, me, when, I listened to that song and every single time I've listened to it since including in that moment, is something about the way you've distorted that sample. Mhm.

is, incredibly, physical, for, me. There's, something, I, think, it's, because, I don't really know why that works, but I think it's something to do with the sense of a of near incoherence of the voice. It's like somebody trying to say something and it come it's it's, broken,, you, know,, it, doesn't come out clearly and straightforwardly. So there's a sort of either a reticence or a feeling of the machine doesn't work any longer. The machine that is me speaking isn't quite working. It's defective in some way.

But, the, way, you, describe, it, there, is almost frightening where to me it's extraordinarily comforting. It's a feeling

I, almost, never, have., I, I, mean, it's there's very little I can put on that gives me the exact feeling of that song and nor would I be able to describe the feeling. Yes.

But, it, it, is, much, more, like, a, it's, not jarring for me. It's like a caress.

If, you, had, to, name, the, emotion, that, that song has, what would you call it? I mean, for me, it's there's something melancholy and like a nostalgia for a different future or something. A nostalgia for a future that didn't happen. It's which isn't sad, but it's it's a to me it's a it's a very moving song actually. Um I find it enormous I love hearing you say that because I have such a different experience. I find it enormously comforting

that, song. That's, that's, lovely. And, that, there's, something Yeah. very physical. It's like having a blanket pulled over you.

Mhm. And I even find that I mean I I find this interaction so interesting. I had Jeff Tweety on this um show years ago uh from Wilco and we were talking about the song his impossible Germany and I was asking about the lyrics of it because I've always found it to be such a beautiful song about the dislocations of travel.

Mhm. Impossible Germany Japan wherever you go wherever you land. And, that, is, not, what, he, was, doing, with that song at all. It was like a misremembered line from a murder novel as I remember his description. And just the idea that you can create something that it's not just that it's evoking such feelings in in me or others, but that the feelings are so different than even the ones it gives you.

Yes., When, you're, making, something,, it starts to come alive when you start to have feelings that you didn't expect from it. You know, do you start out with something? You think, well, I'm going to make this that, the other, and as it starts to form, it starts to change. it starts to become something that you hadn't imagined. And you can either say "Okay, I don't want that." Which is what a lot of people do. They shut that down and try to get back to what they're supposed to be doing. But I don't do that. And I think a lot of artists don't do that. They we say, "Oh, I wonder where it's going. I wonder where it's taking me." And you just carry on then and think there's a certain point you reach.

Either way, you can't make it any better. you notice that what you're adding is starting to subtract rather than to add or you've hit the deadline, you had to stop. This is often a lot of the best things I've made have been because I hit the deadline and I couldn't spend any longer [ __ ] them up. Sorry

you're, you're, you're, fine., There's, a, um I think this gets at another interesting distinction. So, I think we've been talking about the exposure to pieces of art here, if I'm going to try to define it more tightly

and, the, way, that, they, create, a, space, to be attentive to feelings arising in you that you might not have expected.

Yeah. Then, once, you, have, discovered, that, it gives you that feeling it can become a tool to reevoke it.

Mhm. I, put, on, that, song,, Come, on., to, feel, a certain way. Yes. Uh, I, put, on,, you, know,, your, your, series of ambient albums uh because I actually know how they will make me feel and I'm trying to shift my emotional landscape in that direction at a certain moment. Mhm.

And, I, I, always, think, this, is, really interesting, this difference between art as something you pay attention to or music is maybe something you pay attention to and then music as something you use to change the way you pay attention to everything else.

That's, a, very, nice, distinction., I, wish I'd thought of that myself. Well,, it's, very, built, on, things, you've written. So, but I'd be curious to hear how you think about that. I think when you're when you're working as an artist, you're always world building, you're creating a world. It might be a huge world like uh you know George Orwell's 1984. That's a whole world completely thought out. And when you go when you read that book, you decide to live in that world for a time and you decide to experience the feelings of living in a world like that.

Because the wonderful thing about art is that it isn't dangerous. You can live in that terrible totalitarian world and then you can shut the book and go and put on uh a Fred again song or whatever else you want to do. Um I'm always sort of trying to find something that that suddenly makes me think, oh there's a different kind of world. I've never been in a world like that before. If if we go back to the idea of adults playing, I think that's what we're doing. Pretending, imagining situations and then sort of figuring out the mechanics of them by imagining them is the clue to everything that makes humans such a powerful and probably dangerous species. So even if you thought art was not valuable for anything else at all you would have to say that this process of giving our minds a way of imagining futures and im in and virtually living in them. Actually living in them in our imagination must be a very important

thing for human beings. I hear this so often from from artists and and in books I've read about art. this cultivation of humanity, right? This cultivation of different futures. I know you're doing a lot of work on on on Gaza and I've been doing a lot of podcasts on on this topic and and as part of that work, I was reading a book by Philipe Sans who will by the time this comes out have been on the show and this is a book about the Holocaust and the development of the idea of genocide. And one of the central characters this book tracks is a man named Hans Franc.

Yes. Who, is, under, Hitler,, the, uh, governor, of Poland. And the worst things in history happen under Hans Franc.

And, a, point, Sans, makes, about, him, that, is very very very present in his biography is how cultured a man he was.

Yes., Yes. A, beautiful, classical, pianist., Somebody who much more so than most people does really did care. Mhm.

about, art,, about, literature,, about music, about paintings that he got it and, at, the, same, time, was, so, much, more capable of inhumity and callousness. And so some part of me rebelss on this. I often hear novelists and others as if it is an equation with a single output. If you expose yourself to more of these worlds, more Beethoven more Bach, you will become a more civilized person.

And, yet,, so, much, of, the, most, univilized civilizations uh or parts of our civilizations have been driven by people who were enormously cultured. In fact, that was part of what they believed made them so superior to everybody else.

Yes., No,, you're, absolutely, right., And, in saying that, it helps us use our minds in that way. I'm not saying necessarily for good things. It just makes our minds better at imagining, but they can just as easily be imagining terrible things. You know, one of the great art collectors of the 20th century was um Himmler had a huge collection which he'd stolen mostly from Dutch and low countries Jews, French Jews. um and he was apparently very uh very learned in that area. But to to your point, the ability of something to make a mind work better isn't the same as the ability of something to make a mind work to good ends. That's a different problem. That's a that's a problem of morality spirituality, something like that.

Um, I'm not going to stay on this topic for very long because I want this to be a somewhat lighter conversation than this, but after reading uh Sans's book um, I started reading a biography of Martin Buber, the great Jewish theologian and and one of the great humanists of the 20th century.

Yes. And, it, it, was, again, so, strange., Hansf Franc loved Bach and Booer loved Bach and says that much of who he is as an adult is formed in sitting in concerts listening to the contradictions inside box music.

Mhm. And, that, two, people,, two, souls, can, I mean far from our like is is come on melancholic or comforting, right? that that it can that these works of art can take people in such different directions. I'm not blaming Bach for um anything that Hans Frank did, but it it just speaks to something very very complex in like the feeling

faculties, and, what, we, bring, to, them, right? We, we, sort, of, we've, been, told, somehow that art is this very important thing that is good for you.

Uh, and, I, think, it, is,, but, I, don't, think it's good for you in that way. I don't think it necessarily improves you in any moral dimension whatsoever. I think it's quite possible that um as some people now insist, Picasso was a bit of a [ __ ]

He, was, more, than, a, bit, of, a, [ __ ] Well,, I'm, I'm, going, light, on, him.

I, mean,, a, remarkable, artist,, but, uh, a complicated person to say the least.

Yeah., But, it's, funny, that, we expect that it would be otherwise really because it's because we've we've sort of imputed a moral dimension to art. And all I'm saying is that no, I think it's much more biologically functional than than we think it is. I don't think it's such a spiritual moral business being an artist. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at UCLA Speed Test. And they're using that network to launch SuperMobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. That's your business supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com. Seamless coverage with compatible device in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky.

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I've, always, found, this, very, interesting. You you read the um Roberto Blano book The Savage Detectives.

No. Uh, it's, a, beautiful, fiction, book., Um, and one of the reasons I love it is it's because it's about a personality that I have always been fascinated by and do not myself have, which is the personality that would give everything anything to create art. In this case young poets.

There, are, people, I, mean, you, you, know them. I've known some of them who for them art is everything.

They, put, their, whole, souls,, their, whole lives into projects that most people would walk by if they were hung on a wall or playing in a store and not give a second thought to. And then I know other people

who, see, no, role, or, understand, no, role for for art in their life. What to you differentiates those people? the people for whom art becomes everything the most important thing uh even in society cannot give a damn about what they are creating

and, the, people, whom, see, feel, no resonance to it yeah, have, you, ever, heard, of, place, in Switzerland loan called the muse dear brut

it's, it's, the, museum, it's, the, I, think the greatest museum of outsider art in the world so these are people who none of whom were called artists in their lifetime. A lot of them were in mental institutions and they had nothing much else to do and they painted for their whole lives. Some of them did it completely in secret. Nobody even knew until they died that they had been working as artists for their whole life. And my kind of feeling about that is that if you if you can invent a world that you prefer to live in, which is sort of what those artists were doing, then why not stay in it? You know, if if the rest of the world is awkward and you don't fit into it, it's got lots of sharp corners and you can make this world where suddenly you you're sort of in control of it.

you've you've decided the terms of that world. And I think I think a lot of what's happening when artists are working is that they're trying to make the world they would prefer to be in. Now that sometimes gets dismissed as escapism, but I I don't think it is. And anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with escapism. It's sometimes a really good idea to escape and to get out of things and think about them from a distance rather than from being in the center of them. Um but this is another of the misconceptions about art that a that it ought to be difficult to do and I think there are many people who I would call artists who never experience any difficulty with what they're doing. It's just what they do. People who make beautiful cakes for example um or who love doing one of my daughters loves doing um masipan decorations on cakes and they're beautiful the things she makes. Um, but

I'm sure she wouldn't call that being an artist, but I can't see what the difference is. You know, why why is that not being an artist? Um, so that's one of the other art world things that in order to make it valuable to justify the high prices, we've got to think of some way of kind of making it seem abnormal making it seem like something that only abnormal humans can do. What are you doing with art? Uh when I think of your uh library it's not all creating a world that you would like to live in. What is you've sort of given all these legible motivations for other people. Is your motivation as legible to yourself?

At best, what I'm doing is thinking um as I often do, I often start something by thinking I I wish there was a piece of music like this. whatever this means in my mind. For instance, one of my best known records is Music for Airports. And that came from a very direct experience like that of sitting in a a newly built airport in Germany near Cologne. And everything about the airport was dazzlingly beautiful. It was lovely structure and they had terrible German disco music playing really loud through the whole PA system in the airport.

And I just thought nobody's thought about this issue of what kind of music would belong in this place. You know, we use music in public all the time, but does anybody actually sit down and think seriously what would be the best kind of music to have in this important place where people are arriving, leaving going on to important new phases in their lives or going back to loved ones or whatever. It ought to be something a bit more. So anyway, a bit more. I I started think what what should it be more of? So I started thinking and trying to make a kind of music that I thought would make the airport experience feel important and special.

And, there, were, quite, a, lot, of, technical considerations like obviously it mustn't interfere with communication. Um people must be able to talk over it. um it mustn't keep stopping and starting. Um it must not matter if it gets interrupted. So it should be a sort of continuum that you won't feel like you've missed something if there's an interruption. So on and so on. So that was a that was a very conscious act of making a making a work of art. But most of what I do isn't really motivated by such high high sounding ideas. Most of the time I'm fiddling around and something starts to happen.

Something intrigues me or some feeling starts to happen. I think I like that feeling. How can I make how can I bring that forward? How how can I make more of it? And I often don't know why I'm doing that or how it will end up. Um, I have an archive of about 11,000 unfinished pieces of music. Um, and what I do occasionally is pull one of those out and suddenly I haven't seen it for 15 years maybe.

11,000, unfinished, pieces, of, music. That's Yeah,, some, of, them, some, of, them, are, very short.

Let, let, me, hold, you, on, Music, for, Airarts for a minute. um one of my, favorite, albums, and, the, second, song on that album 21 uh the tracks are not so the tracks are not so evocatively named given how evocative they are

is, like, a, very, important, piece, of, music to me so I want to play a couple seconds of Yeah. What does it sound like to you when you were saying that you wanted music that matched what you felt that experience should be? It should be more something to one on there. What is it more of to you?

I, think, it's, more, contemplative., So, I think it makes you relax into the situation that you're in whatever that happens to be, presumably in an airport in this case. Um rather than tries to pretend that you're not in that place. So my nightmarish for form of music is getting on an airplane and hearing a piece of music coming like this because they haven't got the machine to work properly. And and the you have two thoughts then. You have a thought they're playing music because they want to stop us thinking about the possibility we might crash. And secondly, they can't even get the bloody player to work properly. So, we're going to crash. Um you know, you can use music as a mask which is what is normally done in public situations, as a way of covering up the noise, or you can use music that invites the noise to be to sound like it's part of it. So, with with all of that kind of music, what I

call ambient music I don't want there to be an edge to the music. I want it to so that you don't know whether some of the things you're hearing are in the world around you or are part of the music. So I want it not to have a sharp boundary. I want it to sort of fade out into the rest of the world's noises around you. I always think about that as being on an album called Music for Airports.

Mhm. because that both is very discordant and then as I thought about it more exactly correct, that, is, to, me, one, of the, holiest pieces of music I have ever heard. That piece of music just feels holy.

Mhm. And, in, a, way, I, guess, it's, something, true about airports which is that this is a place where human beings go to fly.

Mhm. Where, they, are, forced, into, I, mean, I, feel this when I get on planes a confrontation with their own mortality.

Yep., There's, never, a, time, when, a, plane when I am in a plane that is having turbulence during takeoff or I don't think to myself in a way I usually do not think in my day I could die.

Yes, there, are, all, these, people., They're going to places that are in many cases incredibly important to them. And the the airport is this like extraordinary combination of a place that is so benol lines and you're taking off your shoes and you know you're waiting in line for food that is mediocre at best and you know you're late and your plane is late and you're annoyed. And then also the absolute most remarkable place that a human being can possibly find themselves. something that for most of human history was completely unimaginable.

Yes. And, that, 21, to, me, on, an, album, called Music for Airports is such a perfect song because it's more true about the airport than my experience of the airport is.

That's, a, nice, way, of, putting, it., Yeah. So, I wanted to make flying feel like a more spiritual experience is what if I had to put it into a sentence with a controversial word in it. Um, and by that I mean I I was used to be very frightened of flying and of course I had to do it at that time in my career. I don't do it much anymore, but um and I thought, well, what about if you could make a kind of music that made you less worried about the idea of dying? What about if you could make a piece of music that made your life seem less the center of your attention? if you could see yourself as just being one atom in a universe of complicated molecules, um would that make things feel better? So so in a way it was a it was intended to take the stress off yourself. Um not by pretending you weren't flying. So, let's make it just sound like a disco or a or a you know a nightclub or something like

that, which is what most of the music tries to do. Let's not do that. Let's say we're having an unusual experience and let's experience it as a beautiful experience.

One, of, the, things, in, in, that, album, Music Parts, your liner notes are very famous and I know you've been asked about it a million times, so I don't want to stay here too long, but you do talk about wanting that music to cultivate different modes of attention.

Mhm. And, that's, been, very, influential., this idea that music is a cultivator of different forms of attention, not all of them an attention that is spent on the music.

Yes. I, guess, in, the, years, since, then,, the decades since then, how do you think the relationship between music and attention has changed? Like, do you see it as a success of what you were trying to do? Do you see it as a nightmarish world that you accidentally summon into existence? What is your what is your relationship to it? Well, I think what's happened is that it's changed in both directions. So, I think people are ready to accord music a level of attention that they never have done in the past. Um, for instance, when you go to these extremely long concerts sometimes 10 hours long, where you basically listening to three sign tones for a very long time, that's a level of attention that really people never thought, of, giving., until, at least, the middle of the 20th century and later. So there's that. And then on the other hand, you have Tik Tok where or or very short pieces of music like that. Um

which are of course right at the other end of the scale. But I think in culture this is a this is a general rule that every single uh standard every single metric has increased in both directions. We now have extremely long pieces of music and extremely short ones. We have extremely loud bands and very very very quiet ones. Um so we've it's as if we've taken every dimension in which music can exist and tried to expand it and say what would happen at the edges now let's make a new edge. But but I also was thinking about that in terms of the movement towards music that what it is doing is saying we're going to cultivate this form of attention or feeling for you. So the rise of the Spotify, but they're on every um streaming network now. The playlists that are well here's your happy beats playlist. Here's your beast mode at the gym playlist for when you really need to be pumped up. But here's your melancholy

rainy day playlist. you're studying at a coffee shop, which is different, of course, than studying at the library playlist. Here's your ambient playlist your ambient essentials, but here's your

and, and, now, we're, we're, seeing, this, move into these playlists being in some ways generated, right? I don't know how much of it is happening now, but clearly we're moving towards AI generating a bunch of these

songs, at, functionally, no, cost, mass-roduced mood altering music. Music is Xanax, music is aderall, music as

um, music, as, mood, alteration. Yeah. And, done, not, as, a, relationship, between the artist and the listener, but as a like you hire the music to perform a service

and, to, do, so, quite, unobtrusively. Mhm. Some, of, that, music, is, good,, some, of, it is bad obviously, but how do you feel about that? Well, you're right. In your previous question, you asked, did I feel any responsibility for that? And I do actually. Um, I mean, I was very excited about the idea of generative music. In fact, a lot of I think I I invented the phrase, I believe. Um, and I was very excited by the idea of making a music like a seed. You know, a seed is something that has a genetic message in it and every manifestation of it will be a little bit different depending on where you plant it and what time of year it grew and so on and so on. So I thought, wouldn't it be nice if you had music like that? So I mean there's a very simple example of that. Windchimes.

A windchime is a simple enough machine. So you have, let's say you've got five chimes. Um each one is a particular pitch. It's not going to change. It's only that pitch. But how and when they strike depends on the wind. So it's sort of semi- random. So you can't really say that you composed that particular performance. Though you can say that I built the system from which that performance emanated. You know, a windchime is basically a simple piece of generative music. And and so it shifts and I know you've talked a bit about almost wishing you could sell people not the um the the album but the system behind it. It it shifts the artistic act into the creation of the conditions.

Yes. That, will, create, the, artistic, product. Yes,, that's, right., So, so, two, things become po important. What what is the structure of rules if you like? What are what are the possibilities that the system has? What are the limitations that it has? and what are the materials you put into it. So, if you make a windchime out of glass, for instance, or out of bamboo rods or out of uh metal they're all going to be slightly different results, but each one is a is a kind of package of possibilities. You're not specifically saying which possibilities you want to happen, but you're conditioning which group of possibilities can happen.

Um, and I I thought that was a sort of a nice area for music to be in because if you think about it up until the turn of the 20th century you could never have the same musical experience twice. There was no way that you could precisely repeat a musical experience. As soon as records came along, you could do that. You could hear exactly the same performance of exactly the same song over and over and over and over. Um, and that became how most of us listened to music. You know, most of the music that unless we happen to be born into a musical family or a church group or something like that, most of the music we heard was repetition. Um, so what I thought was, well, I wonder if you could use the technology of repetition to make music that constantly changes.

And my first clue to that was when I first got hold of a tape recorder. I had wanted a tape recorder my whole childhood. I just thought the idea of being able to catch a piece of sound and make it physical was most magical thing I could think of actually. Um and and I had this obsession with you could play it backwards and I just wanted to hear what things would be like if they were played backwards. discovering that first of all you can capture sound and make it physical that was something new for the 20th century but then I thought if you can make it physical can't you also make it mutate in certain ways can't you make it so the physical medium for instance is not reliable it it will play slightly differently each time and so my first experiments in that direction were I had a collection of broken tape tape recorders, uh, which I just got from junk shops you know, or thrift stores, as you might

say, and I would try to break them a little bit more, but so that they would still play things. So, a tape playing through it would change into something else, you know, it would have a lot of distortion or it would run unevenly like this, you know. Um yeah. So I think that became an obsession to try to make to try to make a recorded music that somehow changed every time. Um I finally achieved it in the 1990s and I'm still doing it now.

You, draw, this, distinction, when, working with generative systems where you say you don't want to be an architect, you want to be a gardener. What's the difference? So the conception of an architect is somebody who thinks about an end result in great detail. You know the archetypist Frank Lloyd Wright who designed everything down to the teaspoons in in his houses. And so the whole thing kind of pre-exists in the architect's mind and then is bought into being by builders. Um, what a gardener does is put some seeds in the soil and then watches how they develop. Oh, these ones over here are doing better than those ones over there, so next year I'll plant them differently. Um, but you know that if you're making a garden, you're making something that you're only starting something. So, one of Stuart Brown's books, it's called How Buildings Learn. It's a great book. And in that he says, "You never finish a building

you only start it." And and I think that's what I kind of mean by generative music. You start the piece, but it finishes itself. It carries on finishing itself for the rest of time. But so you you upgrade this idea of generative music and now we have launched into this world of generative AI. the way you were using the term generative and the way what it is describing when we're saying now generative AI which are things like chat GPT and and and all these um large language models is it the same word for you right are the two generatives equal

I, think, they're, the, same, I, think, they mean the same thing now of course as as a set of techniques mine is much much much crudder and simpler and much more analog than than the techniques that are generally being used in LLMs. Um, so and of course the other big difference is that mine are not owned by mad billionaires. And I I think that's an important difference. In fact, with all the discussion about AI, this to me the single most important question is who should be in control of it? And we've seen in this century what happens when billionaires control new technologies. Social media I'm talking about and we've seen that they you get completely unpredicted and quite disastrous results sometimes. You know the the collapse of democracy in most of our countries, I think, is very traceable to social media and to the kind of misunderstanding that that underwrote it that um oh, let's make

this amazing new medium where everyone can communicate with each other. Oh, but let's make the underlying algorithm that we've got to make a lot of money from doing it. You know, in a way, the big mistake was when the the algorithm became maximize engagement, which means maximize profits, of course. Um, if maximize engagement is what you're going for, then you end up with what we have now, an internet that flourishes on anger and nastiness in some ways. Um, I'm not saying, of course, that everything like that is a is like that on the internet but what what seems to have happened in the race for profits, we've managed to sidestep the friction that normally comes with things being born into the world. Friction is very important.

Friction gives you a little time to see what's happening. It makes something ease into your life more slowly so you can start to correct it as it's easing in. I always say it's like we've invented an amazing new type of car that can travel at 750 mph, but we haven't put any brakes in it, you know, because brakes slow down the profits basically. Well, so there's this question of who controls it, then also as you get at there, this question of who profits from it. One of the things I find very morally complicated to think about with generative AI is that it is generative and the seed of it and more than the seed of it, the substance of it is the sum total of knowledge

that, human, beings, have, made, in, a, way that is legible to the crawling software developed by the AI companies.

Yeah., And, you, can, see, that, it's, really about that because in fact these companies are are mostly neck andneck with each other for how good their systems are.

Uh, it's, not, like, one, of, them, came, up with like an algorithm that no other human being could could come up with. They're they're sort of going back and forth

because, they, have, the, same, training, data which is us. Yes. And, so, on, one, level, that's, like everything else is scientists are coming up with new scientific discoveries built on every scientific discovery before them. You have a lovely uh bit in your book about all the human genius over how many years that goes into getting you to work in the morning.

Yes. There's, nothing, new, about, creations, just being a marginal step forward built on the on the shoulders of us all. And yet I can never escape this feeling with the AI systems that there is something about the scale of the use here

that, should, change, who, profits, from, it and and how the fact that they have absorbed everything I have ever written for the internet and fed it into their machine. I kind of think somebody should send me a royalty check. You know, it's not it doesn't have to be a big one and it maybe shouldn't go to me. It should go to society.

Yes., Yes., But, something, about, it, feels, I don't want to call it theft. It isn't theft. But nor is it

just, like, a, standing, on, the, like, there's something here that feels like it needs new ways of thinking about it because you, know, just, for, a, couple, of these companies to profit off of the transformation of everything we've all ever done. This this is the question I'm asking myself. Should it be that um we automatically have a system that says this is a social good? all this knowledge. It's it's a socially produced good and therefore it should its usage should reward society. Um that's quite hard to meter. Of course it's hard to put a meter on it. Um I think it has to be written into the whole machinery itself so that nobody has to make a decision. for example, it wouldn't be a bad idea if everything that was generated um in that way 50% of of all the profits from it immediately go back to society in some way. It would be saying we're not claiming to be the geniuses here. We're

claiming to be the people who know how to corral it all, how to put it together, how to make it available to you. And but thank you for all the stuff you've written, Ezra and Brian and everybody else. and uh with your permission we'll redistribute this to society. It it's so obvious to me that that should be the way. But of course that that is not the American way at all. That sounds like socialism of some kind, or, at least, taxation., I, that, seems true to me too. I mean at the moment these companies are not making such big profits that even doing something like that would be that meaningful to the treasury. Mhm.

Uh, they're, sucking, in, much, more, venture capital than they are producing revenue.

Yes. In, general,, but, in, the, future,, if, it, is what they think it will be, you know, if it is what they're promising their venture capitalists it will be.

Mhm. I, mean,, I, guess, you, just, solve, that through the tax system, but but it seems like you need a way of thinking about it that's a little bit clearer than the ways we have. And it's funny, if you go into the writings of a lot of them, Sam Alman and and and and others from a couple of years ago, they're talking about this, like this is a thing they imagine. I mean, Alman has, you know ideas for what's functionally like a universal basic wealth grant coming out of taxing the AI companies. But I'm sort of with you on this. I I think it deserves a different conceptual category that is not merely the category of taxation,

that, is, more, something, of, sharing. Right. It is not confiscatory taxation. It is a reflection of the nature

of, these, systems. Yeah. And, sort, of, my, view, of, them, is, they actually should be able to crawl the sum total of human knowledge that is, you know,, at least, that, people, are, willing to make accessible to them.

Yes. But, that, part, of, that, is, that, there's, a contract between those companies and the rest of us that we both know what we're doing here

and, we're, in, this, together. Yes. Yes. In especially if you're trying to inspire confidence in them, you you you want people to willingly participate in them rather than having it forced upon them. Um I don't do you know this word that I came up with years ago which is senius.

Yes. Okay., So, that, that, was, an, attempt, to, try to understand that I had been studying the early 20th century painting in Russia. There was a 20 year period when there were amazing amount of innovation going on you know suprematism constructivism ranism all these different isms appearing and I discovered that the scene was very complex it wasn't just that there were a few brilliant artists like Kandinsky and Rodchenko and Tatlin and so on turned out that some of the very important people were the collectors who would specifically target certain artists and say, "I want to keep this person alive. I want I'm going to support this person." Or they would go to Paris and buy pictures that they brought back to St. Petersburg and Moscow to show to painters there and say, "Look, this is what's going on in Paris now." Um, and then there were the people who ran the salons who would invite artists to meet up with each

other and talk to and so on and so on. And as you read about it, you find that there were so many people. the cafe owner, the cafe that everybody used to hang out in, who was quite conscious that they had a part to play in the scene and they would let people not pay for their meals and so on. Um, and put put it on the tab. Um and so I thought there was a whole scene here that was fertile, that was operational. There was a whole support system. And so I had got sick anyway of hearing this word genius being used all the time because it never seemed to me like it was just one person who was doing everything. Uh so I came up with this word senior which is scene with an IUS on the end. And that seemed to me to much better understand the ecology of systems like that. And I think that's what it is. It's an ecosystem. And we still don't understand ecosystems.

It's it's still not intuitive to most of us to understand how a thing like an ecosystem works. How there are lots and lots of nodes and they're collected in very complicated ways and if you move one of the nodes to a different place everything else in the system has to shift. I mean we anyone who's become interested in the environment has started to become aware of how complex natural systems are. But human society is a natural system as well. And the and the society of knowledge that we all share is a natural system.

This is a way in which and I'm not an anti- AI person. I use JBD a lot. I'm fascinated. I feel a sense of both. I I do feel some fear, but I feel a tremendous amount of wonder around these technologies. I I I find

watching, it, formulate, a, response, that, in some ways reads more human than the responses most humans give me to most things. It, it, it, does, it, it it, generates, a, a form of awe in me. One thing that frightens me as somebody who came up on the internet and understands I think fairly well how knowledge production works on the internet is they are breaking the fundamental social contract of the internet

which, is, you, even, take, something, like Google. The value of Google is that there is so much that other people have created that is valuable and Google connects you to it. Yes

but, it, does, connect, you, to, it., And, now GPT or anthropic or whomever inhales the internet and it's all right there and I never go to the underlying sites.

And, the, creation, of, all, this, data, which was incentivized by ways people were able to monetize and not just monetize but have their work discovered. That was for many of us on the internet. When I started a blog with no ever intent of a job or a profit from it, I was a college student.

Just, the, idea, that, anybody, would, ever find their way to me and read something I did and care about it was such a tremendous incentive to create.

But, but, there, is, something, very problematic about this. A huge amount of the internet and the intellectual commons we are now built on

is, traffic, moving, around, the, internet, people moving around the internet and then the advertising that comes from that the whatever that comes from that keeping that whole ecosystem healthy.

Yeah. And, these, these, AI, systems, by, nature, you go to the system and, then, for, most, people, it, stops, there. Even Google search is trying to become more like that.

Yeah., the, whole, thing, they're, built, on, they're going to destroy. Yeah. Or, at least, substantially, degrade.

Yes,, that's, that's, right., When, when, I was a kid and I I liked watercolor painting a lot, and I used to notice that after a day of painting, the water that I was dipping my brush into, which was of course a mixture of all the colors I touched that day, was always the same color. Actually, I called it munchge. M u n g e. Mong is sort of purpley brownie horrible color basically and when whenever I've tried creating things on chat GPT I haven't done that much of it actually but I work very hard to get my prompts right and to filter what I'm saying to it and to trying to urge sort of edge it into something interesting but the color of munchge covers all of it. It's it's so overdigested and of course it's it's quoting things it's using things on the basis of how frequently they have appeared. I don't know whether you've ever tried making anything let's say artistic using chat GPT or any of the other programs. Um

it's it has a very interesting progression when you're doing it. the first thing you make, you think, "Bloody hell, that's pretty amazing." Um, and then after half an hour or so you think, "I'm so bored." Um, and I remember that thing that Samuel Johnson said about something. I can't remember what it was about now, but he said "It's a little bit like watching an animal walk on a dog walk on its hind legs. You're not interested in how it walks, but just that it can. You know you you're sort of impressed by the fact that it can do something that is really quite like a human being, but then you find out that it's like a quite dull human being.

Mhm. And, and, it, kind, of, doesn't, get, more exciting unless you can trick it into some sort of aberration. Um which is what I've been trying to do. I I've been amazed on the one hand at how good it is, but then I also have the exact experience. I love your uh description of it as munge. Um, and I think it goes back to something we were talking about at the beginning of this conversation, which is the information and possibility that is encoded in factual knowledge and then the more amorphous forms of intelligence and intuition that are encoded in feelings.

So I have uh experimented a lot with using different forms of AI as help in this show and they are helpful for things that are very specific but they are never helpful for the actual work of creating the conversation and and what's absent in the output is I think what we're talking about. I could not give you a description of how this conversation is structured. It is just structured

by, me, having intuitive reactions to what is happening with it and then moving with those reactions.

Yes. And, chachi, is, structured, as, a probabilistic output. Yes. Of, what, the, entire, internet, would, have done.

Yes. And, so, it, it's, not, even, that, it, always lacks surprise, but it always has a very visible internal logic.

Yes. And, then, over, time, that, internal, logic becomes overpoweringly annoying. some people who work on at these companies said, "Oh, I I keep my diary in it and that's very interesting.

You, should, try, that.", So,, without, giving too much personal information, I did that.

And, the, first, couple, responses, I was amazed at how psychologically insightful they were, how supportive they were. I mean, it was better than what human beings in my life gave me. And then on response 9 10 11 12 15 20 it was the same [ __ ] feelings. It was the same glazing and sick of fancy and the same kinds of insights.

And, I, think, it's, one, of, these, things that you couldn't look at the response and say there's anything wrong with it.

But, there, is, something, human, beings, are attuned to. Yeah., in, the, way, we, do, not, travel, a perfectly logical or well ststructured path. We're not supposed to. It's not how our intelligence works. And it is funny. We you do begin to feel the divergence there.

Yeah., It's, it's, not, even, what, we, like actually. You know, as as humans, we we like a certain amount of predictability but only a certain amount. We don't want it exactly the same each time. So, you know, we we rely on our interest being taken by a deviation we didn't expect. Um, the sick fancy is the thing that really drives me mad when it says, "Good question, Brian. That's a really good question."

That's, not, just, an, insight,, that's, a revelation. Yes. That's, not, an, X,, it's, a, Y, formulation.

Yeah., Um,, so, you, first, of, all,, if, you're going to do work with AI at all, you have to start, as my friend Danny Hillis says, you have to start off by saying "Please don't flatter me." In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at UCLA Speed Test. And they're using that network to launch SuperMobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. That's your business supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com. Seamless coverage with compatible device in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky.

Best network based on analysis by UCLA speed test intelligence data at 1H25. You've, done, so, much, of, your, work, in, in collaboration, but also in collaboration with machines. I mean it is something you are known for.

Yes. So, to, you, what, makes, you, good, at creating healthy collaborations between humans and and technologies and and what for you typifies a healthy collaboration as, opposed, to, an, outsourcing, a, an an unhealthy form of of the diminishment of the human beings behind it.

Yes., So, so I have a a few mental tricks that I use which I think are just part naturally part of me. One of them when I'm faced with a piece of technology which can do something, I immediately don't want to know about what it can do. I want to know what it can do that the makers didn't imagine it would ever be used to do. And with the type of technology that I work with, musical technology, that's that's a very rich open territory. And it's rich and open because not that many people explore it. You know, they have something that says this will make your mixers sound louder and they use it to make mixers sound louder. Well, you know, I don't blame them. That's what it says on the box.

But but you can you will also find out that that can do something else that nobody had ever thought of doing with music before.

So, give, me, an, example, of, when, you, did this with a piece of technology. Well,, um, I, discovered that if I connected two tape recorders together, put one tape through one and coming out through the other so that the playback head is separated by several feet from the record head, you get a very late echo.

And then you can build up those, you can work on top of those. I mean, I discovered this in the 60s. So did Terry Riley and a few other people. I think it just happened. I had two tape recorders for a while. So I could try this out and then I could build up these huge sort of orchestras of music um live on my own. Um now there's a whole there are many people who do that brilliantly with little tiny looper pedals, little tiny boxes. Um Reggie Watts is a brilliant exponent of it for example. Um so so that was an example of using something that was meant to do a particular job.

record something and play it back later on. So, build something uh new in real time. Uh another example could be when I first started playing with tape records as I said earlier, I used to try to exploit the faults that they had cuz I all the tape records I had were cheap. They came out of junk shops and one of them had a a bent spindle and it would make everything go like this because and I thought, "Oh, that could be really nice if you had a piano like that." So I called that butterfly echo. And um that was on the first Roxy Music album. We had a butterfly echo piano. Um so I think that's to do with technology to do with people. The first thing I think about when I look at a band I think okay there so there are let's say five people in that band how many possible duets is that how many possible trios how many possible quartets um how many solos five obviously and how many everybody who won. Now it very

often happens that that space has not been explored properly by the band. People haven't thought what about if only three of us play in this and uh then another another slightly different configuration of three play. So it's a very simple thing but it suddenly unlocks a a set of possibilities that probably hadn't been explored before. You know what happens if we only have vocalist drums and bass none of the other instruments that usually fill in the harmonic information in between. There are lots of tricks like that, but they're sort of ways of looking at the system as it stands and thinking what hasn't been done yet with this system.

What what might excite people? You see I think that the main music grows out of excitement. And if you aren't feeling excitement then you try to create it in some way. If if the situation isn't turning you on, then you try to change it until it does turn you on. Because when you're excited, you are at your most alert. I think this this is what and when you're at your most alert, you're most likely to spot the little thing that is going to turn into the big thing. One thing that makes me think about that feels relevant in both directions is I think it's often a very important question where the agency resides in something. So I think we always say we use social media

but, no,, social, media, uses, us. Yeah., Yeah., Yeah. And, over, time,, if, you, watch, anybody, on it for long enough, you you watch them become the social media that's using them, right? They they they begin to bow to its incentives, to its habits, to its form.

What, you, were, just, saying,, I, thought, was so interesting about the set of possibilities in a band, right? Initially, it's a bunch of musicians playing in a band. Eventually, the band through its habits, through what's expected of it, is playing the musicians.

Yes., And, I, think, this, is, very, true, with technologies. You, know,, when, you, talk, about, you discovering or Terry Riley discovering what you can do with two tape recorders you are playing the tape recorders.

Mhm. And, I, think, this, is, probably, not, always true, but when you think about a lot of the the digital possibilities people have had, you know, in the last couple decades like Ableton and and other things, it's still people playing the synthesizer, playing the music library. I think the fear that a lot of us have about generative AI is that we're not going to be playing it. It's going to be playing us often because we prefer it to play us, right? When a kid, you know you can use AI to help you

write, a, better, essay,, but, a, lot, of people just want the AI to write the essay right?

The, whole, essay. The, whole, essay. Yeah. And, and, I, think, that, that, space, between are you playing the technology or is the technology playing you?

Is, a, very, tricky, one., And, I, think, that's one of my more dystopic versions of of our AI future, my kids future in AI is a world in which they've given up a lot of their own agency because it seems a little bit ridiculous to to take it. Um

yeah, and, that, could, always, have, been, true., I mean, there's a million technologies that I hand like I don't I'm happy I have Google Maps. I'm have a bad sense of direction and I'm not trying to make it better. Mhm.

But, there, is, some, line where you know you are acting upon the world versus the world is just acting through you that I think is going to be very hard to police.

Yes., I, think, what, bothers, me,, which which is exactly part of what you're saying, is the possibility of not making a mistake at all, of making things that always come with this sort of professional finished gloss of what a real what a real pop song looks like or what a real picture looks like. And I think that's lethal. I have a friend, an architect friend called Rem Koulhas. He's a Dutch architect and he uses this phrase the the premature sheen. So when in his architectural practice when they first got computers and computers were first good enough to do proper renderings of things. He said everything looked amazing at first. You know you could construct a building in half an hour in the computer and you'd have this amazing looking thing. And he said but it didn't help us make good buildings.

it help us make things that looked like they might be good buildings. But he said in the end we went back and I I went to visit him one day when they were working on a a big new complex for some place in Texas and what they were using were matchboxes and pens and packets of tissues. um it was completely analog and there was no sense at all that this had any relationship to what the final product would be in terms of how it looked. So it meant that what you were thinking about was how does it work? What's it like to be what do we want it to be like to be in that place?

You started asking the important questions again, not not what kind of facing should we have on the building or what kind of color should the stone be. And when I see people fiddling around with um synthesizers, this has always been a problem with synthesizers that they always come with a bank of sounds readyade for people who don't want to learn how to program them, which it turns out is most people. I I remember talking to Yamaha once who had just who produced the most successful synthesizer of all time which was the DX7 and I said um you know you should really make these a little bit easier to program.

And they they said well we don't bother because nobody tries to change them anyway. We get we often get them back for repair and nobody has ever tried. You can we can tell if somebody's tried to change the programming and nobody's ever done it. They've just used the presets and that seems to me a kind of mental laziness that I I really don't think fits well with making new things. I

I, think, that's, strange, a, little, bit inspiring as a as a as a principal. You've worked corresponded. known so many just fascinating people and people admire, that, I, want, to, see if, you'd, be, up for me just reading a few names not a lightning round you can you can answer at whatever length you would like but you just tell me sort of you know something inspiration an insight something that that you took from that person if you'd be up for it

sure, yes let, me, start, just, the, composer, John, Cage cage I think the thing that really impressed me about Cage was not his music which I didn't particularly care for after of the 1940s. Um, but his idea that being a composer was a kind of a practice in the sense of a a religious or a spiritual or a philosophical practice. And I thought that's the kind of artist I want to be. I I want to have a practice. I want there to be resonances into other parts of my thinking. I don't want it to just be something that I do on the weekends and then forget about. So Cage Cage with his book Silence was very important for me.

That came along at just the right time for me. David, Bowie, uh,, one, of, the, most committed artists I've ever worked with in the sense that he he really thought about what he was doing. Um just to tell you a short story. Um, I remember being in the studio with him doing he was doing a vocal on one of the songs. I can't remember the song, but so he he does the vocal and he comes back into the control room and said listening back to he says, "It's a bit lumberjack, isn't it?" And I knew exactly what he meant. And he said, "I think the guy should sound a little bit more nervous, like he's working in an office." and he hasn't been there very long and doesn't quite know how you're supposed to behave in the office. Then he goes back out and does this other vocal and suddenly you hear the the transition from this confident strong, hairy, macho guy to somebody who's a little bit timid and has kind of

doesn't quite know whether he should be saying the things he's saying. Um, and seeing him fine-tune that was was very impressive. Steve Reich.

Well,, Steve, Reich, was, a, very, important part of my listening because he made a piece called It's Going to Rain that opened a door for me. And the door it opened was not just to do with the way in which he made it which was itself very impressive. Um using an absolute minimum of material 8 seconds of material I think it was that piece works by making your brain behave in a certain way. So I suddenly thought then, oh, the composer isn't just Steve Reich. It's Steve Reich and my brain that's making this composition what it is. And that thought never left me that you actually are engaging the the technology of the listener's brain to complete the piece.

They're not passive. Listening, to, his, music, completely changed my relationship with music. I think it it it's like powerwashing your own mind.

Yeah. like to really sit through it. It It's as psychedelic as any um as I think any drug out there. It really does. It It's so rhythmic and it forces

your, brain, to, adjust, to, it, in, a, way, that feels like when you come out the other end of it.

Yes. Some, sort, of, reprogramming, has, happened. Yes., Yes., Certainly, that, that, definitely happened with me. I I can definitely say from the moment I heard It's Going to Rain, music was a different thing. Lori Anderson.

Oh,, such, a, sweet, friend., Um, probably the hardest working artist I know. She absolutely never stops and she is always working on half a dozen projects in 10 different parts of the world. Um and I think she's the only person I know who can fly all night not sleep, come straight into a meeting and be absolutely there. She's she's remarkably lowmaintenance person. She's she's always there uh and always sharp. and Stuart Brand.

Well,, these, these, all, these, people you're naming are people who had a huge impact on me. Um Stuart was in the army during I guess it was the time of Korea or just afterwards. Yes, just after Korea, I guess he was in the army and I I don't think he was ever ashamed of being in the army. He I think he enjoyed it. Um and he left the army and became a hippie. became one of the sort of foundational hippies around Timothy Liry and Ken Keezy and that group of people. And he's always been a very big thinker and a very long-term thinker. And one of his earliest thoughts was if people on Earth could see a picture of the Earth from the moon, it would change our consciousness of the Earth. a thought he had sitting on a roof while on acid if I remember the story correctly.

Yes,, that's, absolutely, true., Yes., Um acid does produce good b good results in some people not not in me unfortunately. Um so so Stuart sort of gave birth to this idea I think that if we could show the world from the outside if we realized what this tiny what an amazing extraordinary unique gift it was this tiny little planet teeming with life swimming around in a dead universe as far as we know. We still don't know that there's any other life in the universe which is phenomenal if you think about it. We still don't know. We might be the only life in the universe. I I think about that nearly every day. I think it's the most sobering thought. I think uh that should be shouted from the rooftops every day. That's my my version of seeing the whole earth from space is getting people to understand that we might be the only life.

It might all be on this one place and bloody hell, shouldn't we look after it a bit better then? Those those things make me constantly think and constantly be sort of grateful for the fact that I'm alive. Um I remember reading this comment from a New York taxi driver. He was driving the taxi and he says he turns to the customer. says, "Oh, life. I'm so glad I got in. I just love that. The idea that it's like a an amazing show at a theater and you managed to get a ticket to see it. Um I I appreciate that kind of gratitude."

That, is, lovely., And, then, always, our final question, what are three books you'd recommend to the audience?

Okay,, so, this, was, a, very, hard, question. Three is not very many books and I thought quite hard about them. So one of the books it's called printing and the mind of man. It was the catalog really of an exhibition that was at the British Museum in 1963 and it was about the history of printing but actually the book is about the most important books in the western cannon and the impact that they had when they were released. um starts with the Goodutenberg Bible but it's such a fascinating book because you really start to understand where the big fundamental ideas that made Western culture. It doesn't have any Arabic books or any Indian books or any Chinese books. So, it's it's really about the last 500 years in Western culture. And it's probably the most fascinating book about intellectual history that that I've ever read. And it's a very beautiful book because it was put together by a great printer

um who used lots of beautiful types and so on. It's a wonderful book. So the second book I think I'm going to suggest is a book by the architect Christopher Alexander called a pattern language. And it's really a book about habitat about what makes spaces welcoming and fruitful or hostile and barren. Um, and it's the most beautiful book. Uh so it talks about things at the biggest scale possible, you know, countrywide nationwide scale down to the scale of the molding of a banister or something like that and tries to understand why some of those things work and why they don't. And it's it's such a lovely book to read. over over the course of my life, I've bought I would say 60 copies of that book now because I I always give it to anyone who is about to renovate a house or about to build a house. So that's that's my second one. It's a great read and you would love it. My third one is um Naples 44 by Norman

Lewis. Norman Lewis was a British intelligence officer who was sent to Naples when the uh Germans had been beaten out of there and he was sent there to find out whether there were nent fascist groups still working in Naples and he kept a diary and this is the most fabulous diary you'll ever read. It's just both hilariously funny, deeply moving, and totally confusing. And that you realize that Naples was like another planet. It's like reading sci-fi, some of it. The strangeness of that that little world of Naples with its intertwining of deep religiosity deep criminality deep love of the senses incredible attention to food weird decaying aristocracies all woven in with crooks and priests and so on. So there's three books. And I just want to suggest one other thing which is a subscription to the London Review of Books.

Probably the best intellectual reading in the English language. I I think it's it's amazing. Comes out every two weeks and it's if you're if you're interested in books the London Review of Books for me beats the New York Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement or any of those things. Well, let me let me try to do this because I've loved these recommendations so much and I didn't offer this to you before, so maybe it's too hard given all that'll flood into your mind, but how about three albums? Three albums that have influenced you that that they sort of form part of your base layers.

Okay,, I, can, respond, to, that., One, that really made a huge impression on me was a a folkways record called the rural folk blues. And they were sort of semifield recordings. Some of them were actually records that had been made, but they all dated from the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Um, and they were black American music. I'll make you happy in the morning as any woman can be.

Now,, I'd, been, listening, to, a, lot, of black American music because of where I grew up in in Suffukk, which had a lot of American air bases, but it was it was pop music, doo-op and stuff like that. I loved it. When I heard those recordings I thought, "Okay, this is the soil that that stuff grew out of." And I loved it. It was such such rich soil. Um, I think the second one that I have to name because it still remains as one of the most moving records to me is the Velvet Underground's third album which had the song Pale Blue Eyes.

Linger, on your pale blue eyes. beautifully controversial in many ways because in fact I think it was probably without that record I wouldn't have been a pop musician. I don't I don't know what I would have done. I've probably been an art teacher or something. But that record made me think this is something I could do. And I think it made a lot of other people think that. I know so many musicians who say that was the record that really made things happen for me. Um, now I've got to do number three. That means I only got one choice left. This is very difficult.

See, so much of the music that has really affected me is religious music which is funny because I'm sort of an atheist. Um, but the the thing about religious music, I think that is so special is that it's made by people. And it's made by people for other reasons than I want to pull a chick. I want to make a lot of money or I want to dance. Now, all of those things are fine. I have no problem with them. But the majority of popular music comes out of those kinds of feelings. I think

I, am, very, moved, by, the, old, conception, of beauty that when we recognize beauty, it is recognizing in nearness to God.

That's, Yep., Well,, I, I'd, take, that., Yeah. Even an atheist like me would say it depends how big the word God is for you and if it's big enough, I can accommodate ideas like that. Um, so I'm going to choose a gospel record and it's a strange one. It's the consolers. The consolers were a couple Sullivan and Iola Pew, P U Gh. Um, you know, I asked myself the question after going to this museum I mentioned in Loausanne, the Museum of Outsider Art. I thought, what's outsider music? I wondered. And then I thought, well actually the whole of pop music is really outsider of music in that it didn't come out ofmies or institutions. It's just people doing stuff together. Um and I I think as outsider artists, the consolers Sullivan and I stand absolutely unmatched.

Lord. Oh, yes, he, is, bringing, me, down. Brian,, you, know,, truly, what, a, pleasure. Thank you.

Thank, you, so, much., It's, lovely, to, talk to you, Ezra.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Brian Eno on AI, Art and What Makes Us Human"?

Ezra Klein (Guest), Brian Eno (Guest).

What is "Brian Eno on AI, Art and What Makes Us Human" about?

Brian Eno discusses the intersection of AI, art, and humanity, exploring how his pioneering work in ambient music and generative systems laid the groundwork for today's AI technologies. He reflects on the importance of art in education and society, highlighting insights from his new book, *What Art Does*, and the philosophical implications of creativity in a rapidly evolving world.

What is mentioned in this The Ezra Klein Show episode?

26 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Brian Eno, Art, Music, Feelings, Music for Airports, What Art Does. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Brian Eno on AI, Art and What Makes Us Human"?

The episode runs 1 h 36 min; the transcript is about 15,287 words in 212 timestamped sections.

More from The Ezra Klein Show

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.