Brandon Polite (@politephilosopher.bsky.social)

Ep 69: How Spotify Threatens Our Musical Taste | A Discussion with Jenny Judge In this episode, Brandon Polite (Knox College | he/him) talks with Jenny Judge (University of Melbourne | she/her) about the role that algorithms, like Spotify's recommendation system, can affect our taste. Judge begins by explaining how Spotify's recommendation algorithm works. It's goal is to recommend the perfect song to play for you by learning about your mood based on real-time information it has about you with the aim of keeping you engaged with Spotify. In building up this profile of you, it can target specific ads to you to generate revenue for itself. With the basics explained, we first explore the moral implications of how Spotify's recommendation system operates. Among other things, Judge finds it morally problematic that Spotify is trying to exploit our emotional states for the purpose of selling us stuff we probably don't need. We then shift to discuss the aesthetic implications of how Spotify's recommendation system operates. Judge argues that Spotify not only fails to help us improve our taste in music, it also actively harms our relationship with music. Spotify cannot help us improve our taste in music mainly because its algorithm is set up to give us more of same the kind of music we're already listening to; thus, it can't help us expand our musical horizons. It harms our relationship with music mainly by habituating us to listen to music as mere background mood setting rather than as an object worthy of careful and fine-grained aesthetic engagement. This leads us briefly to consider whether Spotify could intentionally manipulate our moods by playing certain happy, sad, etc. songs to make us susceptible to certain ads to increase its revenue. Judge believes that the answer to this is very probably yes. From there we discuss the basic question of whether its possible for our taste to actually "improve," since this implies the existence of an objective standard of aesthetic value and also smacks of elitism. Judge believes that our tastes really can improve: that some music within particular domains (genres, subgenres, styles, artist's oeuvre, etc.) really are better than others. She argues that having good musical taste involves not just being able to tell what songs are the better ones, but also be able to give reasons for why they're good. Judge says that Spotify can't help us improve our taste because it can't help us with either task, since it merely gives us music without suggesting anything about its value or telling us anything about it. We next consider the financial cost of cultivating our taste: how it can be really expensive to care about the more aesthetically valuable objects in certain domains -- fine wine, craft beer, etc. Judge points out that while this is true for many aesthetic domains, it isn't really true for music thanks, in part, to it being widely and freely available to listeners on radio stations and streaming platforms like Spotify. We then loop back to follow up on an issued discussed earlier. As Judge described, Spotify benefits from us listening to music in a superficial way by having it on constantly in the background as a soundtrack to our daily lives. But why do some people want music on constantly in the first place? Judge suggests two possibilities: (1) because some people just can't handle silence and (2) because music can help us regulate our emotions. A constant musical stimulus, then, might be functioning as a sort of existential balm for many of us. We conclude the conversation by shifting away from Spotify to how other artificial intelligence systems might affect how we will relate to music in the future. Recently, several record labels have sued fledgling music-generating AI companies for copyright infringement because those companies have been training their algorithms on their catalogs. The labels suing not to protect their recording artists' rights, though, but rather because they're developing their own in-house music-generating AI's and want exclusive access to their catalogs to train them. The goal seems to be to produce "new music" from artists in their stables, including dead artists. We discuss not just how this is morally problematic, but also how it will negatively impact how we appreciate music moving forward. Chapters: Introductions How Spotify's Recommender System Works The Moral Implications of Spotify's Surveillance The Aesthetic Implications of Spotify's Surveillance Algorithmic Mood Altering & Targeted Ads Does Our Taste Ever Really "Improve"? The Price ($) of Cultivating Your Taste Why Do We Want a Soundtrack for Our Lives? Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Music Conclusion SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL https://www.youtube.com/c/PhilosophersDiscussingArt?sub_confirmation=1 * Subtitles edited by Athko Ehrnstein https://youtu.be/xBR1bZPX5W0