A Playlist to Help You Deal with Complicated Feelings About Technology
I’m going full emo here…
Technology can elicit intense emotions.
With the proliferation of AI tools, humanoid robots, social media spirals, internet rabbit holes (not to mention disinformation that spreads faster than wildfire), and more, it’s a little too easy to be overwhelmed these days.
As we become immersed in the “Age of AI,” we’re questioning more and more what it is that we value, as individuals and as a society, and what it means to be human. What do we want to keep, and what do we want to trade away for convenience, efficiency, or the cool factor?
Luckily, we have artists and musicians to help us navigate these existential questions. Some of my personal favorites like Incubus, Young the Giant, Muse, and Radiohead have been grappling with issues around technology for a long time — before AI was such a buzzword. Like technology, music elicits intense emotional responses (even more so), provokes big questions, and helps us better understand our own humanity. Because of the sense of universal connection it creates, music can also be very therapeutic. For me, it’s the medicine — the healing thing — I need when I find myself overwhelmed by change and the big questions ahead of us.
Here’s what I’m listening to as I navigate complex feelings about the technology’s impact on our lives — both the good and the scary. It’s my mixtape, Napster-era burned-CD to you. I hope it can lend you some solace as well.
- “Moral Panic” by Nothing But Thieves
- “Hysteria” by Muse
- “Paranoid Android” by Radiohead
- “Love in a Time of Surveillance” by Incubus
- “Camera” by Young the Giant
- “Thieves” by Incubus
- “Spies” by Coldplay
- “Agoraphobia (Acoustic, pandemic release)” by Incubus
- “TV” by Lewis Del Mar
- “Mr. Know-It-All” by Young the Giant
- “God Made Man” by Young the Giant
Link to play on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/age-of-ai/pl.u-6mo4lEeTN7K8M
