I got a massage recently. And as I was lying there and relaxing, my attention came to the music softly playing in the background. It was R&B-flavored, chill, slightly lo-fi and distinctly generic.

With each song coming and going, and with nothing else to focus on, I start noticing some strange patterns. The songs are similar enough to be from a single album, but the vocalists sound like a different person on each track. Some songs suddenly go from featuring zero guitar to guitar solo. Then as quickly as the guitar solo came it goes and the whole song starts fades to a close. The lyrics are very same-y, with small portions even repeated verbatim across different tracks.

But overall the music was not unpleasant. Frankly I was glad that the place wasn't playing the same ten C-tier pop song covers that they usually play on an endless loop.

Not unpleasant as it was, I couldn't shake the feeling of a distinct lack of care in the creation of the music. Whoever made it didn't care that the lyrics were repeated from one track to the next. They didn't care if a guitar solo didn't fit with the rest of the song. They did care about the general vibe and quantity, however.

On my way out I Shazam’d the currently playing track, only to find that the artist was "AI MUSIC MATRIX". Who, from a brief search, appears to be a Japanese guy making this stuff with a combination of ChatGPT, Claude and Suno, and apparently quite successfully based on his engagement stats.¹ Maybe you saw it coming, but I was somewhat surprised to actually encounter AI music in the wild.

The experience made me reflect on care—specifically on what we choose to care about. Choosing to care about music's vibe and quantity over artistic expression or craftsmanship isn't an inherently invalid or wrong choice. But it is a selfish one, I think.

Creation is the most powerful tool for communication that we have. Music, writing, art, software… it all communicates something to those that experience it. If you devote your time and energy and self into something—a song, a piece of writing, an app—that artifact forever communicates that you care. You cared enough about the people who experience and interact with it in the future to put in the dedication to create it.

So what do you communicate when you have AI write your email, write your app, write your song? That you don’t care. You don’t care about the person on the other end to put the time in yourself. You do care about yourself, about saving your own time and energy. But not about them.

AI is undoubtedly a powerful tool, but to what end? Do we use it as a tool of convenience to enable our laziest and most selfish impulses? Or do we use it to achieve new heights of craftsmanship, of expression, of care for our fellow human beings?