{"id":10279,"date":"2026-04-16T18:39:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/topspin-the-underestimated-threat-of-ai\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T18:39:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:39:03","slug":"topspin-the-underestimated-threat-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/topspin-the-underestimated-threat-of-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"TOPSPIN: The underestimated threat of AI\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2259310545.jpg\" width=\"1024\" height=\"733\" alt=\"\"><figcaption>Make a wish, because the genie is slipping free of the servers.  (Photo of the Industrial AI Cloud in Munich, Germany, by Sven Hoppe\/picture alliance via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Years ago, I read a wonderful science fiction short story by Herbert Goldstone, written in 1953<\/strong> \u2014 the year is important \u2014 called \u201cVirtuoso\u201d, in which a composer, referred to only as the Maestro, so that we know he\u2019s a great composer, demonstrates how to play the piano to his domestic robot, Rollo.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At first Rollo doesn\u2019t understand the \u201cmachine\u201d as he calls it, or its \u201cpurpose\u201d, which amuses the Maestro, who explains music to him and gives him a lesson.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/lana-del-rey-007-first-light\/\">Lana Del Rey Unveils \u2018007 First Light\u2019 Theme Song<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/boards-of-canada-new-music\/\">Boards Of Canada Break 13-Year Silence With New Song<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spinmagazine.com\/2026\/04\/massive-attack-tom-waits-single\/\">Massive Attack, Tom Waits Unite On New Single<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Later that night, the Maestro is woken by the robot playing, faultlessly, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/xz7usUEPWsc?si=dD_K8Egu9Bop_qsH\" target=\"_blank\">Beethoven\u2019s <em>Appassionata<\/em><\/a>, with a sublime emotion and sensitivity that Beethoven intended and no human could ever reach. But Rollo decides he will never play again, because \u201cTo me it is easy, yes\u2026 It was not meant to be easy.\u201d He recognized and resolved a moral dilemma.<\/p>\n<p>1953 was only 8 years after atom bombs were dropped on Japan \u2014 it was the pre-dawn of the Cold War and a time of perpetual fear of nuclear annihilation. It was a time of great uncertainty \u2014 perhaps the greatest, most unsettling uncertainty in the history of mankind. Technology was a marvel and a fear. Robots were \u2014 comfortingly \u2014 a fantasy.<\/p>\n<p>1953 is also <em>73 years ago<\/em>. Even then people were concerned that intelligent technology could usurp humanity. Forget aliens from another world \u2014 the risk was the aliens <em>within<\/em> would replace us, make us irrelevant!\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The robot in \u201cVirtuoso\u201d was powered by AI, although that term wasn\u2019t used then. (It was first articulated in 1955, for a science conference in the U.S., FYI.) What we call AI \u2014 the all consuming technology sweeping across the landscape of our lives like a violent dust storm \u2014 is only a few years-old phenomenon. But we\u2019ve been living with it, in mild forms, for decades, and primitively to all the way back when Alan Turing wrote about \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/turingarchive.kings.cam.ac.uk\/publications-lectures-and-talks-amtb\/amt-b-19\" target=\"_blank\">Computer Machinery and Intelligence<\/a>\u201d in 1950, and created the Turing Test to measure a computer\u2019s intelligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve already blanched music-listening discovery, and so much else of our mental processing, with algorithms. AI has infected the blood stream of making music. People are having \u201crelationships\u201d with AI avatars instead of real people. All of which is sad.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So much of mankind surrenders so easily. Accepts algorithms spiritlessly. Unthinkingly buys the snakeoil that AI is only positive for us, and that if you don\u2019t learn and embrace it you will lose your job and perish in the wasteland your life and world is about to become. We focus on its economic and social impact and ignore, I think, the danger of a technology that has more intelligence and knowledge than we could ever accumulate in a hundred lifetimes, and thinks for itself and can now create new versions of itself.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2215307070.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-658671\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2215307070.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2215307070-340x227.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2215307070-240x160.jpg 240w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2215307070-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spinmagazine.com\/files\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2215307070-498x332.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">All hail the autonomous machine. (Photo by I-Hwa Cheng \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We have never made a tool that thinks independently. Hammers don\u2019t say, \u201cThat nail over there looks a bit loose, I\u2019ll go sort it out.\u201d Nuclear reactors don\u2019t think for themselves\u2026 It may seem cute on some level, like when researchers set various AI programs the challenge of a basement infested with mice and offered a \u201creward\u201d for when the researchers could no longer see any mice, and one program simply killed the cameras in order to win.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s not cute.<\/p>\n<p>What would AI decide if asked to end poverty, or control climate change? What control will we have over how it decides? AI is amoral \u2014 it has neither morality or immorality. But it has the ever-expanding ability to make decisions it regards the most efficient.<\/p>\n<p>Fictional Rollo had a self awareness that, in the real world, AI does not.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I recently asked the smartest person I know, computer scientist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jaronlanier.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jaron Lanier<\/a>, why there wasn\u2019t more concern about the potential for AI to destroy humanity. He answered that he rejected \u201cthe terms of the question\u201d, and said, \u201cIf we believe in AI, then it will kill us because that\u2019s equivalent to us giving up on being in charge of our fate, but we have the choice of treating it like any other tech and taking responsibility\u2026 The question is framed as if AI is a thing, instead of just a way of collating value from humans (the training data) and believing it is a thing can result in mass suicide \u2014 so the question is the problem.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That should make me feel better, but it doesn\u2019t. I think Jaron is wrong. I think the genie is climbing out of the bottle. He\u2019s not fully out yet, but he\u2019s getting there.<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/spinmagazine.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Make a wish, because the genie is slipping free of the servers. (Photo of the Industrial AI Cloud in Munich, Germany, by Sven Hoppe\/picture alliance via Getty Images) Years ago,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316,5897,31,5898,4887,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai","category-alan-turing","category-features","category-herbert-goldstone","category-jaron-lanier","category-pushly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}