The Technology Found the Songs, but It Could Not Dance
Yesterday I was talking with a fella who works as the resident DJ in a hotel. He was telling me about the previous evening, when the hotel had been quiet, the atmosphere was flat, and nobody seemed interested in dancing.
Unsure what to try next, he asked artificial intelligence to suggest a few songs that might bring people onto the dance floor. Within seconds, it produced a list of tracks and even suggested how he might move from one to another.
He followed some of its suggestions and, before long, people were dancing. The atmosphere lifted, and a quiet collection of strangers became, at least for a little while, something more like a community.
The technology found the songs, but it could not dance.
It could recognise patterns, offer suggestions and help the DJ make a decision. But it could not feel the atmosphere change, see the smiles appear or become lost in something it could neither name nor experience.
That little story captures something of the tension many of us feel about new technology. We seem caught between fear, in which we imagine everything meaningful being replaced, and blind acceptance, in which anything faster or more efficient is automatically considered better.
Neither response feels wise enough. The more important question is not simply what technology can now do, but what we want it to help us do and what we must be careful not to lose.
Picasso once said of computers, “ But they are useless. They can only give you answers.” Computers have proved to be far from useless, but his grumble still contains a question worth hearing.
An answer is only useful when we know which questions matter. Technology can offer us more choices, but it cannot choose what is worth carrying into the future.
Every technological advance invites us to carry something forward and leave something else behind. Some things can be gladly released, including needless bureaucracy, inaccessible information and processes that make life harder without making it better.
Other things deserve more care. Attention, presence, friendship, patience, curiosity and our ability to remain with an unanswered question may not look especially efficient, but they are part of what makes us human.
Perhaps our task is not to resist the journey into a new world or rush towards it with our eyes closed. It is to travel attentively, noticing what is helping us flourish and what may be quietly slipping from our hands.
The DJ used a new tool, but he still had to read the room, choose the moment and press play. The people still had to leave their seats, take the small risk of stepping onto an empty dance floor and respond to one another.
Whatever technology becomes capable of doing, it cannot live this life on our behalf. It may help us find the right song, but we are still the ones who must choose to dance.
Grab a cuppa, listen to the new Healthy Rhythms playlist and ponder this: as you step into whatever comes next, what would you like technology to help you leave behind, and what are you determined to carry forward?