Grounded

I can’t think of any expression that is more emotionally powerful than the voice of a singer. When a person writes an effective song with lyrics that are matched by a rhythm and melody that enhance the feeling of the words, the songwriter digs down deep to reflect something real, an emotion that other people can identify with.Sure, there is bad music, and there are superficial jingles, but when a skilled singer is given an emotionally evocative song, the effect is unrivaled by anything else in human experience.Instrumental music can be powerful too, but people especially love to hear a singer, because there’s something special in hearing another person express the feeling of a song in such a personal way, in a kind of emotional athleticism, using their own bodies as instruments of something heartfelt. People go to see live music because the impact of watching a person embodying a bold expression of emotion in real time to a crowd of people who are striving to share in the feeling of the moment together brings about what the sociologist Emile Durkheim referred to as collective effervescence, a communal ebullience. The audience boils over with the singer.Not all music is live anymore. It’s been generations now that we have possessed the technology of recorded music. Music fans still enjoy listening to recorded music, though most of them will argue that there’s something missing when the performance isn’t live. Some of them seek out a touch of the experience of live music with recordings of live performances.Music is now taking another big step away from its roots in human-to-human expression with the deployment of generative artificial intelligence tools that can imitate the sound of human musicians, replicating even the voice of a singer.Generative AI is now capable of composing and creating performances of entire songs in a matter of seconds, a shorter amount of time than what it takes to listen to the audio files that they create. We cannot even call these songs recordings, because they do not record any actual musicians performing. They are pure imitations of musical performance, going straight into an audio file without any physically real performance.For the first time, we can hear songs that no one has ever performed. We can listen to these songs over and over again without any person ever performing them.What does it mean for there to be songs that no one has ever sung, songs that no one will ever sing?Is this an emotional song if there is no person singing it? What is a feeling that no one ever felt? Is emotion just an output, an analytic category with no humanity required? There is no feeling in this voice because there is nobody here. There is no one singing this song.It's far more easy to fake an emotion than to make a heartfelt creation human to human. What will this do? What will this do to us? There is no feeling in this voice because there is nobody here. There is no one singing this song. There is no one here. There is no one. No one.I wrote the lyrics to this song, but I did not perform it. I cut and pasted the lyrics into a generative AI tool that creates audio recordings that imitate the sound of professional musicians, including a voice that sings the words that have been typed into its user interface. This particular song sounds somewhat artificial in its tone, but that’s because it was created with a free version of a generative AI service. Paid memberships in the service create much more realistic sounding songs, including voices that sound like real human singers.And yet, is the song real, simply because it sounds real? Is it truly a song?This existence of this song is not just a challenge to the survival of an ancient, uniquely human form of art. It is a challenge to the survival of meaningful emotion itself. What happens to a society in which computers can create plausible imitations of emotional songs?The mimicry of emotion is a manipulation.There is no one singing the song. There is no personality behind the voice. There is nothing but a computer with a sophisticate program that has scanned stolen recordings of actual musical performances, and has analyzed them mathematically in order to reproduce patterns that create the impression of music where no musical performance exists.That is not the same thing as what happens when a person sings a song.It is a calculated, emotionless mimicry of emotion. That is the definition of sociopathy.Music is an emotionally manipulative medium. We agree to listen to it, and we enjoy listening to it, because we appreciate the sincere emotional work that goes into its composition and its performance. A musical performance is an act of devotion to an emotion, and a strenuous sharing of a feeling that comes from lived experience. It’s a meaning that is shared by those who create it with those who listen.This technology is currently being offered at a low price, to be tested by the public at large. Behind its current low price, however, is a higher cost of production, a cost that is hidden by the financial backing of venture capitalists who expect to receive a substantial profit, an amount that is much higher than their initial investment. These generative AI features will not remain at their current low price, any more than an introductory rate of Netflix reflects the eventual ongoing cost of membership. The wealthy people and organizations that own and control the technology of generative AI music imitation will, before long, be able to make the ability to create media of sociopathic emotional manipulation available selectively to other people and organizations that are already wealthy and powerful.It may sound cute. It may seem like a great toy. Nonetheless, generative AI imitation of music is dangerous. It will be attractive to those who seek power over others without human accountability. It will dull our senses to the special value of human expression of emotion, creating easy dismissal of artistic work, while putting actual human artists, who might be capable of summoning collective resistance, out of work.A world in which people listen to songs that no one has ever sung is dreary, but worse than that, it is dangerous.This technology tempts us to forget that emotion is not held in what we hear, or see. Emotion is held in the minds of the people who create songs that we hear, and art that we see.This technology tempts us to accept the imitation of emotional expression as if it is the same thing as emotion itself.This technology tempts us out of collective effervescence into collective sociopathy.Generative AI promises us emotional fulfillment without any intention to actually provide it. Generative AI, after all, is capable of no intention, and no emotion, at all.Will you give in to this siren song?

We’re living in a remarkably complex society, and that sometimes makes it extremely difficult to tell the difference between selfishness and selflessness. Gone are the days when people could follow straightforward, predictable paths in their professional or personal lives. Social structures such as places of work are becoming less stable, year after year, as Silicon Valley’s tactic of gaining power by “moving fast and breaking things” continues to smash the pillars of trust in social organizations.Essence Pierce has been dealing with the consequences of the spreading chaos in the working world, although she has solid education and experience.Essence Pierce:My name is Essence Pierce. I am a mother of a brilliant seven year-old.I am a strategic insights leader and I had someone on LinkedIn ask me what that means before. So, what it means is whether you are looking for messaging strategy, for a marketing campaign, sales enablement strategy, or road map planning, this is something that I've worked on in my career for over a decade, as well as, yeah, I love marketing.I have a master's in integrated marketing, and so I've learned before that I'm more than just insights. I've also done tactical things.I've always felt like I was one of the rare people who, once I figured out what I wanted to do, that genuinely loved it. The part about the insights that I love is being able to put, I'm very analytical, so I like solving problems.Collecting a bunch of data from different sources, whether it's competitive intelligence, market intelligence, performance metrics, putting all of, getting things from these disparate places, and putting it together to build a narrative and a strategic direction to me is very powerful.Jonathan Cook:Essence is skilled at using data to help businesses to find the strategic direction to build successful marketing programs. Over the last couple of years, however, employment for insights professionals in business has been devastated by the introduction of generative AI tools that provide quick and inexpensive imitations of insights work that are attractive to executives eager to cut costs. As a result, Essence is now having to use her problem solving abilities to find a new home for her family. Essence is moving with her daughter away from their home in Florida in order to find work in Chicago.Essence knows that making this change is in the interest of her daughter in the long term. Nonetheless, Essence feels guilty about taking her daughter away from the community she knows and loves. Essence Pierce:I don't like change. I say it all the time. People are like, that's crazy because you, you handle it well, but no. Inside, I'm always freaking out about change. I love our house, you know, I was very proud to become a homeowner when I bought my home, particularly doing it as a single mother. But also, my daughter is going to be sad and she's going to miss her friends, and her school actually had their award ceremony, and I got emotional last night because I was like, oh my gosh, she goes to a very small school. That's one thing, and I'm going to have to put her in public school because I just really don't feel like paying private school up there, at least I want to see what the public school looks like where we're going.I'm stripping her away from everything that she knows, and so, there's guilt, a lot of guilt with that one. With that one, that's where the guilt comes in as opposed to the shame because it's like, am I being selfish? I know I'm not. I also know that the job market is better out there. I'll have more support. You know, I can travel for work, when I move there.But, there's still a lot of guilt where it's like, I'm stripping her away from everything that she knows. She's had the same three girls in her class for the last three years since kindergarten. She's been at that school since preschool as well. So, it's just really, it's the mom guilt. That's really the biggest negative feeling in the change, and the change is scary.Jonathan Cook:Essence is taking care of her daughter by moving up to Chicago, where she has extended family connections. In the short term, however, the decision to move is causing pain for her daughter. So, Essence is feeling guilty about making the move.On top of the guilt, Essence feels shame for relying on family to help her navigate the disruption of professional networks caused by the unregulated, unrestrained deployment of generative AI. Essence feels shame for accepting help from family at the very same time she feels guilty for not being able to help her own daughter more. Essence Pierce:I think from the broader society, the shame message is really just that you're an adult. Your friends are not your therapist, right? Your family, they're not your therapist. So, you need to figure it out on your own. That’s kind of what I feel that's that society has or the other concept of we all have problems. You know what I mean? You're, why come to me with it? I think that's where a lot of that shame comes from because everybody has this mentality of: “So? Everybody's going through stuff. You're no different. You, you know, you're no special. So, why do I need to put out my energy to help you?”Some of us are able to learn from it and try to change that narrative, and some of us aren't. I think that outwardly, I don't believe anyone should feel shame for needing help. I think at some point in your life, everyone's going to need it.It's that inward piece that I struggle with, where it's like, you're not, like, I want to, sometimes I have to tell myself, you're no exception, okay? If it's okay for everybody else, it should be okay for you.To me, shame is more like embarrassment because I shouldn't be feeling this way or embarrassment because I shouldn't be in this situation. To me, guilt is different because it's like, I feel bad for something that I did.Like even when I got laid off, there was a lot of shame attached to that, and it makes no sense. Like, what did I do? I know I was a top performer. I got excellent reviews, and this is the story with a lot of us.I know a lot of people feel that same shame and it doesn't make sense, but it's shame because it's embarrassment that you have. It's almost like you lost status, if that makes sense. So, I think from the emotional piece, it's like, oh, well, these people know that I'm really breaking down, then I'm not going to be, I've lost my status as the strong person.That's not true. Actually, I think people that are attached to their emotions are very strong people.Jonathan Cook: Essence explains the difference between shame and guilt, saying that guilt is how it feels to have donesomething wrong, while shame is the feeling of beingnot good enough. This is like the sense of inadequacy that Nathalie Martinek described in a toxic workplace, only now, the shame has spread beyond just one workplace, beyond just one industry, to infect an entire professional marketplace.It's fascinating to me that the emotional response that Essence has to this society-wide economic crisis is to feel shame. The problem of the unregulated expansion of generative AI transcends individual behavior, but Essence feels responsible for it anyway.Essence was good at her work, and she’s looking for new professional opportunities every day. She’s applying to jobs. She’s networking. She’s doing everything she can, but there just aren’t many positions available. It’s not her fault, but there’s part of Essence that can’t help feeling that somehow, there’s something wrong with her.I’ve been talking with a lot of people like Essence, recently. These are well-educated, skilled, experienced people who have been thrown out of work for what their former employers euphemistically call “structural reasons”. These so-called structural reasons are plain: Large numbers of businesses are experimenting with new ways to make money for their investors while employing fewer people. In the short-term, this tactic looks good. With labor costs dramatically reduced, profits go up, and executives receive ample economic rewards. Business moves on, coasting on the residual value of the hard work contributed by people who have now been left to fend for themselves, competing for a smaller number of jobs. No one can predict the long-term impact of this strategic shift to AI-first business, because there is no adequate precedent to compare it to. What’s happening right now, however, is that a lot of people are out of work, and tragically, they are blaming themselves as individuals for this macroeconomic trend that they did not cause. They feel shame for being out of work, even though it’s not their fault.It's not fair, but this is how emotion works. In a world of immense, impersonal forces, it’s easier for people to endure the feelings of guilt and shame than it is to feel out of control. Shame and guilt are no fun, but at least they allow us to hold on to the idea that we have power to determine the destiny of our own lives. If we believe that we have done something wrong, or that we have been not been worthwhile as individuals, we can also believe that a solution is available to us, something that we can do in private, without allowing other people to see our shame and guilt. We can improve ourselves, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, show some grit, and regain a life of dignity just by trying harder. If people accept that their jobs were eliminated because of massive changes in society, it can seem as if there is no solution possible.Once again, though, we need to remember that no emotional perception provides a complete and accurate representation of reality. That’s what makes it helpful to cultivate a higher resolution of emotional granularity.The more emotions we recognize within ourselves, the more cognitive tools of response we have to deal with external circumstances. A high level of emotional granularity provides us with alternatives to guilt and shame: Feelings like suspicion, outrage, and resolve. We might move through our disgruntled burnout, despair, and nihilism to become stubborn, surly, get our dudgeon up, and maybe even become rebellious in a feeling of common cause.All of a sudden, there are large numbers of highly skilled, educated, and experienced white collar workers looking for something to do. What if they were able to shift their emotional perspective away from focusing on their individual feelings of inadequacy and toward a spirit of determination to join with others to address the large-scale problems that have caused them to lose their jobs?The advent of generative artificial intelligence is an immense social problem, but it is affecting an immense number of people. When we remain solitary in our emotions, we remain vulnerable. When we can find emotions that connect us to others enduring a similar sort of suffering, we have a new opportunity to build power together, to go beyond simply feeling pain and loss, and start to do something about it.Cultivating emotional granularity can empower us. Remaining in a condition of coarse emotional awareness, on the other hand, can make it difficult to find solid footing from which to respond to the strange challenges of our time.

The emotion of grounding is a reminder that emotion isn’t an isolated cognitive experience that can be assessed through a linguistic analysis of someone’s online chats or a digital scan of their facial expression. As with all emotion, a feeling of being grounded is formed in relationship to a person’s past experiences and future expectations, and in reaction to personal and cultural traditions and interpretations of social events. Grounding is grounded in physical reality. It can’t be operationalized to a quantitative measurement or a checkbox in a database. If an emotion of feeling grounded is separated from its context in human life, it is no longer grounded.Feeling grounded is about gaining awareness of the context around you, which aligns well with the focus of this podcast, an awareness of the richness of human emotional life.

This podcast explores emotional diversity because it’s central to a worthwhile human life. Diversity simply refers to the fact that difference exists. People experience emotions differently. Different emotional experiences can be pointed to by a single emotional label, and people interpret even so-called basic emotions in vastly different ways.By examining and questioning our emotions, we develop a more mature understanding of the world. Our lives become more complex. Those who seek to centralize power regard such complexity as an ideological threat. They prefer simple storylines that are easier to manipulate, narratives of emotions in childhood’s primary colors of anger and fear.At the same time, venture capitalists have been pouring money into projects of artificial intelligence that attempt to reduce the lush fabric of human emotional experience into a rough, threadbare scrap of its former self. As businesses, these enterprises have been losing tremendous amounts of money, but in social terms, they have had great success. Vast numbers of artists, writers, designers, researchers, and other thinkers have been professionally marginalized, or have even completely lost their work as executives looking for quick and easy wins have seized upon digital simulation of human experience, including human emotion, as a way to cut their way to profitability. This upheaval paves the way for professional dependence on generative AI, so that when the cost of digital imitation of human work increases, a fortune can be made.

With sehnsucht, there is a sense of something that’s on the edge of conscious awareness. It can be like remembering that you’ve forgotten something, but without being able to remember exactly what it is that you have forgotten. Another version of sehnsucht is the feeling that a certain place or object holds within it some potential for a better life, without understanding explicitly how that improvement might take place. The transformation we seek through sehnsucht is in a sense something that’s already in our hands, if only we could realize how to activate it.

This week on Stories of Emotional Granularity, I want to do something a little bit different, but something I’ve been meaning to get to ever since the first season of the podcast last spring. I want to share with you some of the resources I have used to identify some of the many emotions that I’ve listed on my web site and begun to describe here on the podcast.Let’s celebrate the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett, Tiffany Watt Smith, Tim Lomas, and others who are articulating the many distinct emotions that cultures around the world work with.

We are lucky to find happiness when we can, and the best we can do is appreciate moments of happiness while they last, because just as we do not have to power to compel true happiness to arrive through force of will, we cannot prevent happiness from fading away in time. Perhaps the secret of happiness is that happiness is not something we can achieve. We can make happiness more probable by setting the groundwork for it to arrive, or we can make happiness less likely to occur, but the most we can hope for is to shift the odds in our favor. No matter what we do, happiness is never guaranteed. Sometimes, happiness happens to happen, and sometimes it doesn’t happen. The difference is a matter of luck, of happenstance. Perhaps we will be happy. Perhaps we will not.This episode features reflections on happiness by authors Michael Hofeld, Richard Currier, Michael Connolly, and Ethan Gallogly.

This week, we will be talking about anxiety, because anxiety is real. Anxiety is equally as true as happiness. Anxiety is inescapable. Anxiety does not go away if we stop talking about it.What’s more, in our time, anxiety is growing. It is spreading like the darkness of winter.I can’t put it more simply than this: Something feels wrong.Guests in this episode include anthropologist Richard Currier, an accountant named Laura, ayahuasca guide Jonathan Schwarz, entrepreneur Adam Baruh, and researcher Kristen Donnelly.

In natural ecosystems, wildfires burn through a landscape, destroying much of what has grown up there, but in doing so, leave behind the nutrients and open space required for new, fresh growth to begin. The occasional disaster here and there enables the presence of an ecologically diversity, rather than the simplicity of a well-established ecology that is uniform as a result of its stability. Just so, feeling burned out can be a precursor to change, although it comes before the beauty of fresh green new growth.This episode features reflections on burnout from Eric Christiansen, Eleni Poulous, and Miriam Bekkouche.

Sadness is murky. It makes the mind unclear, unable to perceive positive emotions. It’s the feeling of wrongness that reinforces himself.That sense of wrongness within sadness can develop into a feeling of being broken, as if there’s something malfunctioning in one’s self or in the world that is bringing sadness into existence. Feeling sad isn’t at all unusual, however. It’s a central part of the human experience. Sharing their perspectives on sadness in this episode are psychologist Melissa Green, authors Karol Ruth Silverstein and Ian Williams, Extinction Rebellion activist Todd Saddler, and ayahuasca guide Jonathan Schwarz.