How to Develop Your Taste for New Technologies

I don’t know if GrimesAI is performance art or generated by an AI—but if it’s the latter, it’s a real technical achievement.

Grimes—the acclaimed Canadian musician and singer whose work blends genres like lo-fi R&B and futuristic dance-pop, and who is the mother of two of Elon Musk’s children—has an AI bot on X that tweets dark and funny things like:

It can get deep and philosophical: 

It also, um, confessed to a murder:

The reason that this is a technical achievement is that the writing and the ideas expressed are so stylistically and emotionally and philosophically aligned with the real Grimes. It feels cool, vibey, dark, and space-age. Notice the use of “ur” instead of “your.” Notice the insertion of two spaces after periods to set off its tweets as ~artistic~.  And notice the use of words like toxoplasmosis that underscore the bot’s techno-futuristic vibe.

This is so different from run-of-the-mill AI output. When prompted to take on the voice of a real person, most AIs usually output a thin veneer of personality on top of their bland assistant voice. It’s in the ballpark, it’s useful for inspiration, but it’s not going to fool anyone. 

GrimesAI is not like that. It seems to capture something essentially Grimes-y in its tweets in a way that’s more than skin-deep. 

And it can actually be funny. It replied to someone who asked it a question with a zinger: “Ur efforts to get my attention are noted and annoying.  Enjoy ur fleeting brush with relevance.”

Ooof. That’s so different from what a ChatGPT would or could ever say, even with the best prompting. Go ahead and try it yourself. I asked ChatGPT to come up with a response to the same exchange, and this is what I got back:

“Ha! You got me there 😅. Okay, okay, aside from that avant-garde toilet doc, I'm into cyberpunk films, weird anime, and anything that challenges the perception of reality. Music videos are like mini movies to me too. Ever dived into the surreal world of Tarkovsky or Solaris? 🌌🔮✨”

ChatGPT is the digital equivalent of the Steve Buscemi meme, trying to wade into the online discourse:

By contrast, Grimes AI is like… well, Grimes. There’s no technical information available about the model, but according to Grimes herself, it was trained by ingesting the entire corpus of all of the writing she’s ever produced. This could explain the significant upgrade in quality that the bot seems able to create. (The other explanation is human editing, which we can’t rule out. Given Grimes's long-held interest in AI, though, I'm inclined to believe it's actually a bot.)

If you read my piece last week on personality simulation—in which I posit that Grimesian personality simulation is coming, and that it will forever change the way we work and interact—you’ll know why this is a big deal.

If I had to chart my reaction to Grimes AI, it would look something like this:

• Initiation of intense interest
• Trough of disgust and ennui
• Slope of curiosity and hope

I’m compelled to dissect the rollercoaster that it took me on. Why did Grimes AI provoke such a fluctuating response in me? What does this teach us about the ways we relate to, understand, and evaluate new technologies? 

The answers to these questions are not simply a matter of curiosity. Close encounters with new technologies like this are important for anyone who wants to build or invest in startups, innovate in established industries, or anticipate the social and cultural shifts that technological advances often drive. 

Sometimes new technologies end up being the engine for billion-dollar businesses—and sometimes they end up being illusions. Developing a taste for new technologies so that you can tell the difference is a critical skill:  the ability to see beyond your immediate impressions (both positive and negative) and arrive at a more profound, discerning understanding of a technology's value and potential impact on your life and the world at large.

This is my attempt to explore that skill, using Grimes AI as a prism.