On April Fools the LW team released an album under the name of the Fooming Shoggoths. Ever since the amount that I think about rationality has skyrocketed.

That's because I've been listening exclusively to it when I'd usually be listening to other music. Especially Thought That Faster (feat. Eliezer Yudkowsky). I now find that when I come to a problem's conclusion I often do look back and think, "how could I have thought that faster?"

So,  I've started attempting to add to the rationalist musical cannon using Udio. Here are two attempts I think turned out well. I especially like the first one.

When I hear phrases from a song in everyday life I complete the pattern, for example.

  1. and I would walk... 
  2. Just let it go
  3. What can I say?

I feel like there is potential to install actions to common phrase triggers. For example, a way to make confusion phrases easier to remember, and act on.

If you think "Hu, that's weird" I predict that you're more likely to notice you are confused if your brain rhythmically autocompletes for you.

 

I encourage others to use Udio to create more rationalist music. 

  1. Find your favourite sequence post, LW Post, etc
  2. Take the more beautiful or poetic lines and dump them into a note
  3. Write lyrics that connect those ideas together trying to explain the concept, or install activation phrases that make someone aware of the potential to use that specific rationalist skill at that time.
  4. Dump it into Udio
  5. Slowly raise the sanity waterline

I would also love to see entire sequences have accompanying albums. Something like Hammertime might really benefit, if you would unlock a new song for each day you complete. Then those songs come with you in your day to day.

 

Edit: I can’t stop making them! It’s so fun. Here are some more. If you’ve got Rationalist material you’d like turned into a song let me know!

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2 comments, sorted by Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 11:18 PM

I've been experimenting a little bit using AI to create personalized music, and I feel like it's pretty impactful with me. I'm able to keep ideas floating around my unconscious, very interesting, feels like untapped territory.

I'm imagining making an entire soundtrack for my life organized around the values I hold, the personal experiences I find primary, and who I want to become. I think I need to get better at generating AI music though. I've been using Suno, but maybe I need to learn Udio. I was really impressed with what I was able to get out of Suno and for some reason it sounded better to me than Udio even though the quality is obviously inferior in some respects.

I went with Udio because it was popular and I was impressed by "dune to musical". I think I'll give Suno a try today, but I get what you're saying about the objective quality. It does have that "tin" sound that Udio is good at avoiding.

If you've got tricks or tips I'd love to hear anything you've got!