There was a great BBC click podcast this week, covering some of the advances made in technology and music. There was some interesting stuff around Bjork’s new music video and art exhibit, but also a section on IBM Watson research. They did some interesting work on computer/musician collaboration with Alex Da Kid. They also discussed learning algorithms, used to identify vocal stem samples in songs, and attribute them to the original song.

I recently finished listening to the audiobook version of Rise of The Robots, by Martin Ford. It was a fascinating and insightful look at how robots and computers are used today to replace human work, and how the expansion of artificial intelligence and the reduction in costs for new machines are accelerating their creation. It got deep inside my psyche - I’ve been thinking about the implications for a couple of weeks afterwards, and it started a big conversation on Christmas Day with my family.