Rethinking AI, Consciousness, and Creativity

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hey guys and welcome back to the Sound Connections podcast. Today is the final partnership episode with Music Tech URG Academy. And Alex, thank you so much for being in the studio.

Alex Braga

You very much for having me. I'm super excited.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Alex, you are a very well-renowned artist that sort of plays live and makes music in the intersection of AI and human artistry. And we're going to cover that today, especially with the angle of understanding where is AI going to have its place on the live music scene and in music creation in the future. And I think you might be one of the best people to speak about this because you've been practicing this for years. But Alex, you've obviously won awards and done really well in this space, but obviously there's probably also lot of people who don't know you. So for the people who don't know you, who are you and what do?

Alex Braga

For people who don't know me, I'm a human being. I think that's what best defines me. A human being that tries to make his statements about what he feels around topics of life, society, politics, spirituality, and I try to do it my way. So my way is to express it throughout audiovisual art. So that's what I do. And since I'm not a very amazing virtuoso instrumental player. I played all the instruments but not very good. I made up my own instrument so I built an AI 10 years ago with two professors, Professor Reganti and Laudani from the University of Roma 3 and we started this amazing journey into discovering what the potentials of technology can change in the life and the language of musicians. And then, since from the beginning, a lot of things happened around AI and technology. We discovered that was also a journey into what was going to change in society itself. So I find myself now in a very strange position, experimenting with new technology, but also leading a militant way to use technology in an ethical way.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. Okay, Alex, I'm going to start hard with asking you a question that I've asked myself, but I don't have an answer for it, or I need a reflection on it at least. So I used to produce music. I stopped around seven years ago when I started pursuing building companies full-time. And I now... With the current movement that was going on in the world with AI, I now say to myself, I'm really happy I did not continue to be a music producer because I really wouldn't understand where my career would take me now. What's your reflection on that statement?

Alex Braga

My reflection is that I'm very sad that you quit because with the technology we're having right now, and if we take that technology in the good way, your production could have led you to uncharted territories, which would have been amazing to discover for yourself. So this is the big theme. Are we data or are we humans? There is a way to use technology and there is a big way to use AI that it's going to lead humanity into being just data. And for that side of the moon, you've done well quitting. But for that side of the moon, you could also quit your podcast. You could also quit your job. You could also quit everything and just lock yourself and wait for a pleasant death to embrace you. But there's another side, which is the bright side of the moon, which is the one where I'm living right now and where I hope to all the people that listen to my music and comes to my performance, which is a way not to intend ourself in life as data sets, but as human beings. And that technology adds to that equation the capabilities of going beyond. So on that side of the moon, you would have been a very happy producer with new tools to produce new amazing music. So you decide on which side of the moon to stay. It's not technology that is driving you to one or the other side.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So what's the practical differentiation from a, let's say consumer standpoint or the audience standpoint? Like what's the practical differentiation between the human creator and the data creator? Like just reusing your analogies.

Alex Braga

I'm giving you a very simple example in music because music in this equation can simplify a lot the understanding of what we have in front of us. There are now a lot of engines that can produce prompt to music, which means that you prompt something in and the engine gives you a song back. I've done those experiments myself because I needed it for my master classes, my lectures and my conferences. And one day I woke up and I really needed to produce in 30 seconds a new track that was talking about pizza, innovation and AI that was... sung by an Italian very good voice like the one of Domenico Modugno you may remember him for a ball which is a world-known song. And that song should have been produced with the touch of Apex Twin, which is one of my favorite producers. I clicked prompt and the engine generated in 30 minutes dreams of pizza and innovation. It gave me also the cover of it. The result was indeed a song that was indeed sung by somebody resembling Modugno, indeed produced by somebody resembling Afek Stwin, indeed talking about pizza innovation and AI. But in the end, who cares about that? Who needs it? What is the meaning of that? So the practical thing is that we live life

Alex Braga

because we have a purpose and the purpose is the meaning of life itself. All the data set world takes this equation away from our life and brings us down to numbers. And so we end up with a lot of things, a lot of new songs, a lot of new apps, a lot of new pictures and videos. But none of them mean nothing to us because they're made by math. They're made by probability. They're made by lowering the average of our inner self. Vaisa versa. Yeah, tell me.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I do have a question to that because I'm generally curious to understand. What the differentiation is. And I kind of stand right now from quality and humor, like, you know, a lot of people using these platforms, exactly what you're saying. But, you know, if I were to break down my understanding of music, also through the podcast, interviewing professors that's been searching this field, music consists of three elements, at least from an academic angle that I've sort of been presenting. One is of an acoustic nature, one is of a communal nature, and one is of a personal association. So these are the four, three core components of consumers meet with music. And AI, theoretical already now, can come close to the acoustic nature of what humans can create. And the communal and the individual association bears a context that, of course, is important and really strengthens the human-led music, but over time, they can also form its own subcultures and associations to that music. So what is it you specifically are talking about when you're talking about the Well, the unsaid you're saying, saying that think about with music that creates things that matters and then mass produce technology that doesn't matter. Like what are you specifically pointing out there? What is it that doesn't matter or matters less when it comes to output from technology?

Alex Braga

Well, it's a very simple thing. I don't specifically agree with your three pillars of music, but that's not the topic of this conversation. What we should point out now is that everything you do in terms of creation and not generation, they're two completely different words.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Alex Braga

Should attain to a concept, okay, to something that you want to do and that you need to...

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Alex Braga

Generate or create in that sense. Machines know nothing about this. These machines are just spitting out outputs. But that output is not meaningful in any way to them because they don't know anything. They're just machines. So let's break it down to the most practical way there is. Always see what you're hearing now for a machine. Is a sequence of zeros and ones. This is how digital works. This is how the brains of the machine, which is not a brain at all, work. So this brings you to the conclusion that nothing that comes out of a machine makes sense for a machine. Not in the way that we intend sense. It makes sense because the sequence of zeros and one for the machine is correct. So it's spitting out that output. But do you feel as a sequence of a zero and ones or do you feel as a human being? That's the most practical way I can put it. I feel as a human being. And...

Jakob Wredstrøm

Again

Jakob Wredstrøm

At the end, a usual audience that will be listening on Spotify would be receiving the signal at series and ones no matter what. It will be series and ones, either human created or machine created, but in the day, it's digitally converted and it comes out of speakers with headphones. So everything is series and ones at that point. So what is it between that? Is it the intention that matters? Is that what transcends? What specifically in that concept differentiates?

Alex Braga

Of course. Of course. It's the intention that matters. It's that whoever wrote that certain sequence of notes that become a song has blown into that sequence the whole sense of his life, his fear of death, meaning of love, his joy, his sadness for being heartbroken, his sadness because he has lost somebody he cared about, the fears, the ancestral fears that he has around society, the sexiness that he feels and the chemistry that he feels around the partner. Everything is

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Alex Braga

Translated into this magic act of creation, which then afterwards becomes a sequence of zeros and one. But that doesn't matter. That's just a digital translation of a real magical transcendent human intention. If you take away this fundamental, all you have left in your hand is a handful of zeros and ones. That are not, that cannot be meaningful to anybody. So this is the big problem around the common losing of sense that we are now experiencing in society because the two worlds are mixing up so well into the digital world that if you don't use your assets, and by assets I mean consciousness, knowledge and education. If you don't use these three pillars to navigate this new context that we have created with the digital world, you can get lost. And an AI has driven this process to such an extent that now I could be talking to your deep fake. So Jacob that I see now could not be a real Jacob. And I have no way, I have no way of understanding that unless I use my knowledge and consciousness and education and I start driving you on a very philosophical, meaningful context where zeros and ones cannot cope with humans.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Alex Braga

You see what I'm saying?

Jakob Wredstrøm

So I think I'm again, I think I understand and I'm just trying to dissect in my mind to understand this perfectly because this is a question I'm really struggling with. So that's why I'm asking so many questions. So are you talking about like nuance or spirituality? You're covering both sort of points in your arguments at least in how I receive it. What is, because you're talking about sort of the cultural new, sorry, go for it.

Alex Braga

I'm talking about

Alex Braga

Now, I'm talking about practical daily life. Know, we have we have experienced in terms of languages, mass, mediological languages, we have experienced very dramatic revolutions when radio arrived, for instance, the dynamic of the relationship of people, the way that

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Alex Braga

We used language to create communities changed dramatically. Okay. Then you probably all remember the famous song video killed the radio star from the bagels. It was a super hit in the seventies video killed the radio star. The video changed the perspective of the entire society. It changed the way we related to each other. It changed the way that the perception of ourself that we had before completely changed. And now I like to say AI killed the video star. We because we have objectified reality into a video. How many times have you heard the sentence? That thing happened because I saw a video on Instagram. I saw a video on the news. I saw a video on X or YouTube. So that means that it's the truth. So we have objectivized our daily life truth around a technological innovation. And now AI destroyed that certainty. OK, because you cannot be sure anymore. Because if I see Jacob now. That it's picking his nose, it might be a deep fake of Jacob. So I can't be sure I'm seeing something that it's real. What this does to our practical life, I think it will lead us back to basics because the only way I have to objectivize reality will be live reality itself outside the box.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Alex Braga

And I'm saying it as a very tech enthusiast boy who has made his career and art research around technology. But I'm very critical on technology and on human consciousness. And this is where my research is leading me to dissect the box and try to lead myself first. Out of the box and lead the people who are liking what I do, opening their eyes and awakening and possibly taking different directions to escape the algorithm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm. It so, uh, for a tiny bit of a context, first of all, that was an amazing answer. So thank you so much for that. Uh, it gave me, it gave me a step towards clarity. I think, you know, I'm on a personal journey to really understand this. That was definitely a step closer. I'm still miles away from having that really big comprehension, but again, I probably never get there. But one, one interesting thing for you to know, and I think the listeners who've been listening to the podcast for a while would know that, that I'm a fairly, um,

Alex Braga

Hahaha!

Jakob Wredstrøm

I like to innovate. I'm never like the early adapter, but I'm always right after and I find creative ways to change stuff. For example, one and a half years ago, according to at least the media that covered it, which was a lot of international media, I was the first one to launch a live AI podcast host. Together with myself, I had a clone of myself one and a half years ago, live did interviews. And that was sort of like four or five months before that sort of became like a thing you could do. So that got a lot of courage and I actually scared myself at that point. Like, okay, wow, like this is happening. And that's sort of the sentiment I've brought myself with the whole podcast, the way through the way that I've sort of been really deep diving into AI generation music and such. So I think inherently I have like this deep rooted fear of disruption of expression that I'm just really scared of. And I think that's where a lot of these questions come from. I have a question. Sorry, there was a nuance. I think that's just important for you to sort of understand my angular.

Jakob Wredstrøm

You say that we're going back to the fundamentals, the basics. What do you mean by that? Like, what is that going to manifest itself in?

Alex Braga

There are three possible directions. First direction is that we don't understand this and we don't go back to the fundamentals and we jump right off the cliff. Which is one possibility. Because that's what... Sorry, I'm being political here, but I need to be political. This is where capitalism is trying to lead us. So we're not human beings, we are consumers. Consumers are just data. Platforms like Spotify are not platforms for music or music listeners. Our platforms to profile you better and better and better through something that they call music, but it could be paper planes or kittens scratching a door. It doesn't matter to the system. All that matters is profile you better. One big cliff is straight ahead. If we manage to diverge from that, and I really do think and hope we are going to do that, there is a ludist way to escape this. Let me put it in a more historical way. Ludism was that movement that was destroying machines because they feared that machines were evil, the devil was inside the machines. And so they started during the Industrial Revolution to destroy machineries because they were adversing so much progress in technology. That for me would be a very bad thing as well. And there's a third way, which is hopefully the one that we are going to embrace, which is using technology not for creating new consumers, but to actually try to transcend and uplift. And I'm going to break it down to a very practical way so that we can understand this. How do we make a difference between

Alex Braga

What's good and what's evil in technology at the moment. It's very tough. It's very, very tough because technology is inside every single ripple and wrinkle of our life. But there's a good technology and there is a bad technology. And it all comes down to ethics in the end. So there are some technologies that are used at the moment to exploit. And these technologies are not going to lead us anywhere good. There are other technologies that are not used to exploit, that are used to share knowledge, that are used to uplift consciousness, and all these are going to lead us toward a good direction. I'm talking about the open source movement, for example. I'm talking about artificial intelligence like the one that I built that it's called Amint. That doesn't use data sets. Data sets are one of the big evils of our times. And why is that? It is because they've been scraped by human culture, which means that they've been robbed by somebody without consent, without paying anybody, without recognizing the sources of knowledge itself. And the way that humanity has to perpetrate culture and knowledge is by sharing the sources. OK, this is how culture builds and grows big. What they have done is taken all this and mashing into LLMs to make more profit and to create new addiction and consumers. And they've taken away all the pillars of culture. So that is... a bad way to use it. But artificial intelligence and the computational power can make magic. But if you use it in another way, A-Mint, for instance, doesn't use datasets, but it uses the human being as a live real-time dataset. So I am my own dataset live in real time because it is the only way to use an algorithm.

Alex Braga

Without a prejudice. To use an algorithm without installing inside a machine, the worst thing that we have in humanity, which is prejudice. Okay? And if you use datasets, the bias that has created a dataset creates a super strong prejudice on the algorithm. There was this joke and a meme that came out when DeepSeek

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Alex Braga

The Chinese artificial intelligence, the Chinese competitor of Chia GPT. When it came out, if you tried to ask DeepSeek about Tiananmen Square, it wouldn't answer. The same as that if you ask Chia GPT about Cuba, and if you try to make some critical question about Cuba or something like that. It wouldn't answer as well, because both algorithms were biased and were full of prejudice because they were made by man. So the algorithm is pure. And we have to use it pure.

Jakob Wredstrøm

So. It makes sense. Are you basically... Are you basically saying, again, I'm just trying to sort of reframe with my limited understanding that when it comes to, for example, music and quality of music, it's like a diluted cultural narrative that makes this less good.

Alex Braga

Yes and no. The diluted cultural issue is one of the aspects. There is another one that is even more scary, which is the loss of meaning itself of the things. If you think about... Let's take Spotify for a second because it's good.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Alex Braga

For understanding. We now are experiencing around 100,000 new songs uploaded on Spotify each week or something like that. 100,000. More than two thirds of these songs are made by artificial intelligence, made by the platform itself based upon the tastes that people have demonstrated and they have given to the platform, most of the time without a real knowledge that they are giving out their preferences and data. And so most of the music that you listen in playlists doesn't even exist. I mean, it does exist, but it exists in a dystopian world where...

Alex Braga

Nothing makes sense anymore. There is one case which is very good to understand this that I always use in my keynotes and conferences, which is the paradox of Michael Smith. Michael Smith was a music producer, an American music producer, not very successful, of course, but he had a genius idea. He said, okay, society is going bananas. So everything is going through a dystopian verge. So I make the scam of the scam of the scam. He built an algorithm, an AI that was able to produce music. Nothing new. He produced an algorithm that was able to upload these songs into Spotify. Nothing new. He produced an algorithm of AI that was creating fake listeners to listen to his fake songs. And in few months, he robbed 10 million dollars to Spotify. Then he was caught, he was put in jail because that's not legal and you cannot do not legal things, obviously. But this is a super powerful metaphor to show us that the king is naked. And he had his way to demonstrate it, but I think it's in a way an evil genius to have done such a thing. Because, hey, what does this tell us? Songs doesn't mean nothing anymore, don't mean nothing anymore because they've done, they're made by an algorithm. But...

Jakob Wredstrøm

So.

Alex Braga

But nobody listens to them anymore because also the listeners are fake and made by an algorithm. But that's creating money in a dystopian world.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Think what I'm struggling with in all of this, and I think I come with lot of naivety when I say this, so don't misunderstand me. I understand my own weakness, my own lack of understanding. It's the bias, which really removes me from understanding this in total. So when words are used like evil and nothing and, you know, the king is naked, for me they're all biased. Statements through interpretation and understanding built over a long time, which does not remove the power for any of those statements. But for me, it's harder to attach myself to. And I'll give you an explanation as of why. So not to go too personal, I grew up in a spiritual household. And so I understand that and I adhere to that. And I believe in spirituality, you know, in the form that most people would. Understand with spirituality, but then I also have my own issues with that. And therefore I've in my own personal life, tried to have two perspectives. One is of spiritual understanding and one of us practical understanding. And I'm trying to them to both coexist, but also provide its own meaning, its own separate contexts, which might be a wrong way to do it, but that's at least how I try to approach it. And I'm hearing a lot of biased statements about this. Like, do you believe that there is a nuance to what you're saying that doesn't support your statements that could also be correct from an individual perspective.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Like statements of evil or statements of music doesn't mean anything if it's made by an algorithm. Do you think that nuance exists or does not exist?

Alex Braga

Let me put it this way. What if you started eating food that has the resemblances of the food that you normally eat, but doesn't contain anything? And little by little, little by little...

Jakob Wredstrøm

Hmm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

But now we're back in the assembly.

Jakob Wredstrøm

But now we're back in the deception of nothing.

Alex Braga

Little by little Sorry, what? I missed that. There was a...

Jakob Wredstrøm

No, back in the assumption of nothing that doesn't contain anything. So for me, like that's back to the same question I had, like it's the bias towards that it is nothing. And that's what I'm trying to address. So if you would, you know,

Alex Braga

Well, if you assume that a machine can have a consciousness, that a machine can understand what is love or what is death, what is fear, and not simulate it, but understand it, then you can believe that a song made by an algorithm is meaningful. But there is a physiological theory that makes this impossible. We as human beings, and this is the most practical way I have to demonstrate this to you, we as human beings have... two centers. not to be spirituals, because if you are spiritual, then you are the third center, which is the brain, the soul and the stomach. Not to be biased, take away the soul from this equation. So I'm not going to dive deep into that. We have a brain, which is a super powerful machine that processes inputs. Okay. And then. And this is an amazing discovery of this last decade, I think, or maybe in the last decade, we are starting to talk about what is a macro biome. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Yeah, the macro biome is what lives inside our stomach.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Somewhat, yeah.

Alex Braga

And all the digestive apparatus. And it is a colony of receptors that have a DNA that is old as the earth. OK, so through that colony of things living inside our digestive apparatus, we are able to process reality, okay? To access reality. And then also a lot of other things that your doctor will tell you. So cure your microbiome, otherwise you don't sleep well, you feel weak. But most of all, and what's the most interesting thing is that our greatest antenna to perceive reality is there and it's inside our stomach and it's a process that it's going on for so many ages that a machine, even if it's super powerful and if it's super fast in computing, cannot compete in having. because simply it doesn't have that technology that we have. know, my last release is called We Are Technology. And that part of that, of the reason is that one. Because we have inside ourself a technology that allows us to get in touch, in real profound deep touch with not only reality, but also transcending reality, the cosmos above. ourself and transfer all this information to our brain. So when we talk about meaning itself, we're not just saying something about unicorns or whatever. We're not biasing anything. We're talking about a specific physiological process that goes on inside our body, which is not replicable by machine and that drives all our emotions, drives all our actions.

Alex Braga

Drives all our perception of reality. So that is the... The simplest breakdown I can give you to make you understand the point of view of someone, which is me, that deeply believes that this combo of brain and processes that we have in our brain and processes that we have in our stomach, thanks to this amazing technology, creates that magical thing. Yeah.

Jakob Wredstrøm

That's amazing.

Alex Braga

The word magical is a bit biased, but I am a showman. So give me my bias and I'm gonna take away and go away with that. That sparkle happens only because of that.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mm.

Jakob Wredstrøm

I

Jakob Wredstrøm

I think that's so interesting. so one sort of knot I can tie to this conversation before I close it, in my sort of movement of understanding, if I were to sort of consolidate into somewhat of a statement that might make some sense is where my barrier of understanding lies or the fallacy of that lies is I've been thinking about the advancement of intelligence of machines, but I have not fully understand the complexity of the human functionality and organism in that context, where I've been very focused about like how smart can this get and how much can it replicate. And basically what you're saying, at least how I understand it is the human body and physiology and psychology and you know, maybe even spirituality and soul is much more complex than one might initially think about. Is that basically what you're saying? That's at least how I receive it.

Alex Braga

Yes, and I'm very happy that you take it this way because when we fear technology, we fail to understand that we are technology ourselves. If we assume as an abstract definition of technology, to me, when I define technology, the simplest way to define it is... a set of tools that helps you to develop a process in a more efficient way, okay? Like in a very abstract set of concepts. To this extent, our body is technology, our brain is technology, our stomach is technology. So we are a far more complex technology than a quantum chip. But we fail to understand that. we fail to... And this is why I titled the opening artwork of my new work, We Are Technology, because for me it's the most powerful statement that I can have to represent my way of thinking. when you... I love the process that you have

Jakob Wredstrøm

Mmm.

Alex Braga

Driving through this podcast because you started on a point and then you came to the breakdown of all of it and at the end of this path there is this and there's no other way around it. I don't know how other words or other concepts to put it because this is I think it's pretty clear in the end.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Think it has become much more clear for me doing this episode. So Alex, thank you so much for being a guest. Thank you so much for initiating this conversation for me and for the listeners. I think it's a topic that is really difficult to unlock at scale, but hopefully this episode is doing its part in that. So thank you, Alex.

Alex Braga

Thank you very much.

Alex Braga

I hope so and thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Jakob Wredstrøm

Okay, stopping the recording.