"Her (Taylor Swift's) new album was so corny!" ranted the 17-year-old as they
were taking their after-meal walk. "You can love a song for its lyrics, its
melody, or its vibe matching your mood. I like her early works but, man, two
hours and fifteen minutes of cliches!" He was griping about the "The Tortured
Poets Department," which even Bill noticed earlier while they were eating in
front of the TV.
"Oh." Bill said. He really had no say in his son's music tastes as he listened
to nothing except for a few classics year-round. He knew the name, of course,
but nothing else about her and, moreover, he refused to learn. His generation
had their share of pop icons, most of whom and their songs he later came to
despise. Maybe that's something they can discuss in 20 years.
"You know what made her famous 10 years ago?"
"I can't even imagine."
"It was Kanye West at a Grammy where Taylor's was nominated the best MTV. He
said Beyonce just dropped." Tim was into rap, which again Bill was not
conversant with.
"Dropped?"
"Released something new. You know Kanye West, don't you?"
"Sure. You told me about him last year. I guess at the time Taylor was already
anti-fragile: the more she was dissed, the more her fame grew, like Bruce Lee."
Bill tried to use short informal words but couldn't with "anti-fragile,"
which he thought missing from the English vocabulary until Taleb came along.
"But you still like Kanye West?"
"Also Kendrick Lamar. West's got his problems these days. But he was a genius
back then chopping and mixing pieces of a song to make something new."
"That's nothing. I could do it. I don't know songs but I read books, how about I
find some nice paragraphs from, say 'For Whom The Bell Tolls,' and shuffle them
up, maybe add a few segues, and boom, a literary giant is born? What do you think?"
"I'm afraid it's got to be much more complex. How would that work?" Tim smiled.
Dad was just such a one-track-minded tech guy.
"Well. That's simple permutation. We throw the result onto the wall and see
which sticks."
"That's where AI can help!" The teenager obviously thought the idea hilarious.
"Absolutely! What else is AI good for? It's just a few methods going over a
large database and coming up with some combinations. You got it!" Bill was
happy. He was planning on some homework on rap but so far, at least his son's
straightened out on AI.
