THE UNCANNY MUSE

A study of the long, uneasy relationship between art and technology.

The rise of ChatGPT and other AI-driven creation tools has spiked anxiety about machines cannibalizing, perhaps even overtaking, human creativity. But as longtime music historian Hajdu (Love for Sale: Pop Music in America, 2016, etc.) points out in this lively book, machinery and art have long been closely intertwined. In the late 1800s automata produced music and drawings, and throughout the 20th century devices emerged as experimental novelties and practical helpmates to artists: Bell Labs explored computer-generated drawing in the 1960s, the Moog synthesizer transformed the texture of rock music, and ’80s techno reflected how people “were using machines to produce sounds to stir people to move like components in a machine—a machine of social transformation.” Hajdu doesn’t make a precise distinction between art created entirely by computers and cases in which humans leverage technology to create art—an AI-generated painting that sold for $432,500 at auction in 2018 is not the same thing as, say, the German synth-rock act Kraftwerk. But Hajdu thoughtfully explores how the arrival of new technology has prompted handwringing. (Though not always: The Hammond B3 keyboard was warmly embraced by Black soul and gospel acts for its efficient evocation of an organ.) “The fear of machines taking over for humans is one of the great constants in the history of technology, and it is equally easy to inflate or dismiss,” he writes. A more cohesive thesis about the degree to which concerns are legitimate might offer a path for readers to think about potential and ethical risks of AI and other technologies. But Hajdu is at heart a humanist, and he suggests that the disruptive technologies themselves don’t spell doomsday but are, in themselves, works of art.

Wide-ranging, thought-provoking music history.