Tried letting an AI pick my playlist for a road trip and it made me genuinely uncomfortable

Last Friday I drove from Austin to Dallas and figured I'd let one of those mood-based AI playlist generators take the wheel. I told it I was feeling 'reflective but not sad' and it served up a sequence that felt way too personal. Third song in was the exact track I listened to on repeat during my breakup three years ago. I have no idea how it figured that out since I never search for it. Made me wonder how much of my emotional history is actually floating around in training data. Has anyone else had an AI hit a nerve like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

laura_chen415d ago

My friend Becky tried one of those AI playlist things before a long move she was making. She told it she was feeling 'hopeful about new beginnings' and it immediately played the song from her first date with her now ex-husband. She hadn't heard that song in years and it completely wrecked her mood for the rest of the drive. She still won't touch any AI music thing again because she says it feels like the machine knows more about her past than she remembers herself.

west.casey5d ago

Honestly this is just how everything is getting now. Like the other day I googled "cheap flights" and my phone started showing me ads for a city I visited once five years ago. These algorithms are basically keeping a diary of our lives that we don't even know exists.