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Why Frank Zappa Hated AI.
Shock and surprise, disbelief and then believing. This is where AI will always fail — not by design — but lack of it.
“The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows.” Frank Zappa
There was a time when the strains of Frank Zappa’s band (Mothers of Invention) floated through Laurel Canyon. Further up the road, Crosby, Stills and Nash practised in their driveway, Joni Mitchell strummed by the window, Janis Joplin jammed with Big Brother beside her pool and Shel Silverstein, her neighbour, made them margueritas.
Down the hill on Sunset Blvd, at The Whiskey a Go-Go, you could hear The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Steppenwolf and Them. One night Jim Morrison and Van Morrison discussed ancestral ties (both believing they were related).
All of the above were iconoclasts in their own way, trying different things, different harmonies, different wording. If the Left Bank in Paris inspired and conscripted the more famous and experimental writings of the 20s, it could be said Laurel Canyon did the same for music in the 60s.
A panelist on some debating show once said, “I don’t even know what you’re talking…