Adaptability
Just got home from the movie theatre where we saw "Transcendent Man Live With Ray Kurzweil".
Huh?
Maybe you know the Kurzweil piano. Or the Segway, Dean Kamen, its inventor ,was there too. As well as Steve Wozniak, computer programmer extraordinaire.
They were all in NYC beaming to 49 states, everywhere but Wyoming, a discussion on the future.
The key point Kurzweil wanted to make is human beings operate in a linear mode, whereas technology expands exponentially. In other words, the future is coming to us at an ever-increasing rate. With both pluses and minuses. Kurzweil believes it won’t be long until we live forever. Make it for another twenty years and the developments in health care will be mindboggling. Not long thereafter, we’ll have nanobots in our bloodstream, keeping us alive.
And it was all utterly fascinating, but a few things struck me hard.
One was Dean Kamen referencing Darwin. Kamen stated that Darwin didn’t say the strongest survived, but the most ADAPTABLE!
Think about that…
So many entities are strong but then crumble. From the Mafia to Microsoft. If you’re lamenting the future, if you’re trying to hold back the sands of time, you’re doomed for the scrapheap.
If you’re complaining about the lack of album cover art, of albums themselves, of physical product, you’re not gonna last long. Technology is moving just too fast. Remember when the labels decried Napster? Now every song is available on YouTube, you don’t even have to download it, you can stream it immediately! Sure, many of the videos are infringing works, but the old style laws, the DMCA, can’t keep up with technology. Your best hope of survival is to open your ears and jump into the future.
That’s why the hiring of Doug Morris at Sony Music is such a head-scratcher. Of course a record company is nothing without hits. But technology has changed the definition of a hit. It’s no longer that which is played on the radio which causes a reaction at physical retail. Sure, that paradigm still exists, but it’s forever shrinking. The money’s in souvenirs, in personal contact, it’s about deep niches rather than broad-based tracks. People only want these tracks. Whereas more modern acts, realizing that a career is more holistic, are triumphing. Katy Perry sells singles, Mumford sells albums. Katy Perry makes expensive videos, Mumford undercharges and underplays, extending the length of their career.
Songwriters can’t stop bitching about being ripped off. They don’t see we’re never going back to the past, and that maybe they should ask for a piece of the act’s revenue, just like the labels do in a 360 deal. Why not? Dr. Luke can do this. Maybe only a few writers have the leverage to achieve this, but we live in a society of winners and losers.
In other words, don’t complain about what you’ve lost, figure out how to play in the new world.
And the world keeps changing. Steve Wozniak said how future uses of computers could not be imagined. He suggested Apple create a program for editing movies and the company refused, everybody laughed. Now editing on computers is de rigueur.
And Kurzweil spoke about the wisdom of the crowd. Sure, sometimes the crowd gets it wrong, but usually it’s right.
Think about this.
Instead of battling the people, follow them, even better, lead them, give them what they want.
Sure, Napster was copyright infringement. But the concept of having the history of recorded music at your fingertips was too exciting to resist. It took us a decade to get to Spotify. Imagine how much faster the journey would have been if the Luddites controlling the rights had been willing to adapt. Instead, that revenue has been lost forever.
Intellectual property is worth something. But it’s less about protecting its value according to past paradigms as opposed to maximizing it utilizing new structures. There may be missteps along the way, but to refuse to risk is to remain behind. In tonight’s presentation it was stated that the road to the future is littered with mistakes. No one wants to make mistakes anymore. The label won’t put out anything they don’t think is a certified hit. But history tells us the label doesn’t always know what will be successful. Ahmet Ertegun didn’t want to put out "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and it ended up becoming the best selling album in Atlantic’s history.
Kurzweil has an uncanny ability to predict the future. Down to the year. That makes me wonder… What year will the album die, when will music radio become completely marginalized. I’m not sure, but definitely within a decade. The album? I give it six years at most. Radio… Seven or eight?
The future is coming.
Hell, it’s already here.
Watch this video about 3D printing:
They kept referencing it in the presentation. Jay Leno has a machine to make parts for his historic automobiles. They use them in Africa to manufacture necessary items that are not readily at hand.
The ability to endlessly reproduce a track ad infinitum at almost no cost is a good thing, not a bad one. The cost of hearing music is now much cheaper to the end user. Think about the benefits!
The tools of production are cheap and plentiful. Don’t just take my word for it, everybody on this panel agreed.
But everybody on this panel had many years invested in their work. Compare this discussion with listening to the thoughts of Justin Bieber and Greyson Chance. Huh?
Machines are going to outpace people. That’s coming soon. Where does that leave us? Contemplate this instead of trying to engineer the system to make sure we stay in the past. Too many people with too many skills are marching us forward, to resist progress is futile.
