I made a series of future AI/algorithm-generated Spotify playlists that are oddly specific. These are all live on Spotify, though I haven’t added music yet.
I picture a not-too-distant future where Spotify is constantly generating playlists for users based on very specific things happening in their lives. Spotify (and every other platform) will know everything about you and will effortlessly create custom playlists for every odd event. It will even generate an image of you listening to that playlist at that exact moment.
The first piece I did was the funeral playlist. In class we had been exploring the relationship between the virtual and the real. I’ve been thinking about current social and digital trends, AI, marketing, etc. I recently worked a celebration of life where the personalized playlist was 12 songs on repeat. I heard each song multiple times and kept wondering how someone could only pick 12 songs to represent someone’s entire life. Driving home I listened to one of many personalized, algorithm-generated spotify playlists that was nearly two hours long. It is only a matter of time before the machines are smarter and more empathetic than us.
