Carter's Notes - AI music, the far future, parenting and more
Hey friends,
Welcome to Carter's Notes - where I share what I've been up to and into.
As always, I'd love to hear from you. You can reply directly to this email or forward it to anyone you think would like it.
What's happening with me
Last month was packed with music and friends. We wrapped up gigs in Washington, including the biggest square dance I've ever seen, and played a couple of fun weddings locally.
The weather has been beautiful (finally), I've gotten a lot of work done, and I've reconnected (in-person) with some long time friends who I haven't seen in years.
What's living rent-free in my head
Will These New AI Tools Make Songwriters Irrelevant In 2025? By Rick Beato.
If you watch only one section, skip ahead to 9:25.
Clickbait title aside, when I first watched this video, I got emotional in a way that surprised me. On one hand I'm afraid for what it might mean if machines can get as good at art or music as humans are. On the other, I'm in awe at how good they already are. It's strange, but it evokes a similar thing I feel when standing on Lake Superior's shores or listening to Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech. However, that doesn't mean I think it's good.
In any case, I agree with Rick's take. People are going to like this music, and I think a lot of them aren't going to care that it's AI generated.
What's got me thinking big
Timeline of the far future. From Wikipedia.
Did you know that it will be 5,000 years the Greenland ice sheet finishes melting? I didn't... honestly, I figured it'd happen sooner.
I love this kind of stuff, maybe you will too.
These timelines begin at the start of the 4th millennium in 3001 CE, and continue until the furthest and most remote reaches of future time.
What I'm learning about parenting
Am I a Bad Dad? with Dr. Becky. From "Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know."
Parenting... One of the many areas in which I now find myself cosplaying as an adult. I found this interview both funny and useful. Hasan's question (at 9:58) of "how do you skip consequences without raising a psychopath?" starts a good conversation around topics that I'm personally thinking a lot about.
What's got me feeling hopeful
Cloudflare Just Changed How AI Crawlers Scrape the Internet-at-Large.
If you're not in tech, you've probably never heard of Cloudflare. Still, their technology underlies a significant chunk of the Internet and, for better or worse, they have real influence over what individuals and companies can do online...
Starting today, website owners can choose if they want AI crawlers to access their content, and decide how AI companies can use it. AI companies can also now clearly state their purpose – if their crawlers are used for training, inference, or search – to help website owners decide which crawlers to allow. Cloudflare's new default setting is the first step toward a more sustainable future for both content creators and AI innovators.
I'm unclear what this means in practice (the AI tools I use can still scrape websites, for example) and, frankly, the theft has already occurred. However, this is needed and I'm hopeful that as these technologies mature, human creators will have more power, not less, over how their work gets used.
What I'm drawing
A portrait of someone I don't know...
That's all for now. Thanks for being here. As always, please let me know what you're up to or if anything here resonates. I might be slow to respond but I read everything.
Carter 👾