Storytelling: Corporations Want to Replace Daydreams with Good Clean Algorithms

In this solo outing, Brandon talks about the big business of personalized, AI-generated music.

Companies with names like Spotify, Amazon, and Apple want to suck up all your valuable biorhythms and kick out the jams, while startups like Endel want to use artificial intelligence, and Grimes, to create a soundtrack for your mind because, as the company says, “we need new technology to help our bodies and brains adapt to the new world.”

Meanwhile, meditation apps like Headspace and Calm are recruiting celebrities and sports heroes to whisper encouragement, or deeply sensual lullabies, right into your brain.

So what are we talking about here? Possibly no less than the end of that particular kind of psychic jukebox shuffling of old tunes, random memories, and future-surfing we call daydreaming.

Is this more focused, more productive tomorrow a good thing? Or do we need the crap to keep us human?

A version of this story originally ran at WhoWhatWhy.

JOURNOS is produced by Heather "Eagle Ears" Wilson.