Creatives: René Gruss: Music, AI & The Power of Instinct

* Lena Robinson (Host)

Hi everyone, Welcome to Creatives WithAI. I'm your host, Lena Robinson, and today we have an amazing composer, environmentalist and humanitarian who, like myself, originates from Aotearoa, New Zealand, but lives over here in London René Gruss. Welcome, René.

*René Gruss (Guest)

Well, thank you for having me, Lena.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

I am very excited to have you on the show for a number of reasons. I do like having a chat to another Kiwi, but also, you're my first composer coming on and you have an amazing background. You're on a mission to make a better world through the music projects for environmental and educational and social good, which is pretty cool. And you've even won international acclaim with people like Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant choosing some of your particular music. I think it's the album Bellatrix. It's one of his top classical recordings for classic FM, the Secret Fan Show. That's a pretty amazing following.

So I am very much looking forward to our conversation today. It's going to be good. So the first thing I'm going to talk about really is and there is some relevancy to me asking this question which is around, you know, you've been here for a long time and working here and composing and so forth, but you know you originate from New Zealand, Aotearoa, New Zealand and you know you're now calling yourself a composer from that area. Is there a reason why you've decided to do that now?

*René Gruss (Guest)

There is actually Lena. I was born in New Zealand and grew up in New Zealand and came to the UK many years ago as a music student. I played the violin to Yehudi Menuhin when he was touring there at one time, and he was impressed with my playing, and he suggested coming to the UK to quite a famous music teacher that he knew at the Guild Hall and that he would get me a place. So my parents thought “this is an opportunity not to be missed”. So, I left school at 15 and a half, and in those days of course there was no internet, there was no mass travel as it is today. So, it was a big deal to come over. But, my parents didn't want me to lose an opportunity of a lifetime. So I did come over and I spent a number of years at the Guildhall and then I returned to New Zealand, went to university there for a number of years, back to the UK for another part of the journey, back to New Zealand again, and back backwards and forwards and so forth. Eventually settling here in the longer term when my brother and his family came over and my parents eventually ended up here.

So, I've lost touch with the practical side of being in New Zealand because my family was all here, but, I've imbued New Zealandness in spirit, in everything I do and think every day. And it's been, it's been significant. I didn't realise that a hundred percent until a little bit later in my life, that, I was this different, as it were, from many other people in many conversations and in many attitudes, and I used to think, “oh, it must be me”. But now, as I've got older and looked a bit deeper, I realise the significance that, that beautiful upbringing, that beautiful childhood, that significant time, and the New Zealand character, how big a role it played in my life. I didn't really understand it, but I do now and I feel blessed. Proud. And I want to now bring it forward in a lot of different ways.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

Well, that's a really cool place to be. I think, in your life when you're starting at that point, where you're starting to look at what has meaning right!

*René Gruss (Guest)

Yes.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

And I think, interestingly enough, you know you're on a show. We're going to be talking about AI in a minute, but it's a question that some people are asking about, like “is there an impact that AI is going to have on the meaning questions?” I was wanting to talk to you about…is…you know, the creative industry of music and composing, particularly in the classical area that you're working in, how has AI currently been impacting your creativity, if at all, or anything to do with your industry and the business that you're in?

*René Gruss (Guest)

Well, I mean, there's different parts of that question. As an industry, of course, it's made a massive impact, but I'll talk about it afterwards. Let me start with how it's impacting me creatively. And the answer is it hasn't impacted me at all, and it's not going to impact me at all. I'm a composer of the traditional variety, using acoustic instruments. It's taken me a lifetime to work out how to play the violin, how to play the piano, how to express myself, and that lifetime has been very much part of an emotional journey, a psychological journey, and a very personal journey, to end up with the amount of experience I have and the depth of knowledge I have.

AI cannot really come into this equation at all. It just doesn't fit. There's just no element to it. I've looked at it, of course, but there's just no…I can't see any creative benefit at any level on this. I understand how it can affect certain people who may want to use orchestral sounds in a certain way, and then they want to push a few buttons. But as I'm a traditional composer writing, you know, similar to how it has been done for centuries, the equation just doesn't occur. Of course, I'm very excited to use AI for what it can do on the other side of the equation, which I'll come into in a minute, but on the creative side it has no interest to me whatsoever.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

It's really interesting because I think it is a discussion we're having with many of the creators we have coming on. Some are choosing to use it and, you know, proficiently and a lot. Some are trialing it and deciding they've had a go, and they want to go back to. They feel more for themselves and for the work that they're producing, it comes out better for them if they go back to the traditional ways of creating, whatever art form they're using. If you have tinkered around with it, what, what kind of things have I mean? Because New Zealanders are curious, aren't we? We're naturally a curious bunch.

*René Gruss (Guest)

Yeah, and I think, with the curiosity of it, you obviously tinker around with it a little bit well, to be honest with you on the creative side, not at all, okay, but of course I'm a man of music. I'm not a man of words. So, the AI Assistant for writing, of course, is very helpful when it comes to words. I'm also not a graphics person, so you know the graphics side is very helpful. So AI, as an administration assistant, of course, is there and I'm obviously excited, and it’s helpful to have help writing emails. But in terms of music, I sit at the piano, which I've sat at for many, many years. I have a piece of manuscript and I start playing this fantastic music, and it's just “bang” out, it comes. There's just no interface for AI in this process. It just doesn't need it, and it's as simple as that. And the music I produce is coming from within.

Musical interlude of an example of René’s music, Bellatrix.

*René Gruss (Guest)

As I was saying, on the creative side, I'm a traditional composer, and I'm actually dealing with the natural real world. AI, at the end of the day, is artificial intelligence and at my side of the musical spectrum, I'm not dealing in intelligence, I'm dealing in instinct. I'm dealing in…I'm dealing in human properties that are not intelligent actually and they're not data-driven. So AI's creative interest to me is like asking me “how does intellect or intelligence work in my music?” And the answer is “my music is not intelligence or intellectually driven, so therefore it doesn't figure”. It doesn't mean that outside of my music it doesn't figure, but inside that creative process, therefore it doesn't figure, because intelligence is not, it's not what drives my music. It's, so…it's an intellect versus instinct issue, and intellect is not, is not what… how my music works is that it's all about instinct.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

It's interesting because this is a conversation I have in my own head about instinct versus whatever, and what is it and what have you! Are you seeing that play out across the industry as well? Most composers and classical musicians in the same vein as you, or some.

*René Gruss (Guest)

Well, there's…there's two sides of the equation. Um, anybody who plays an acoustic instrument has to deal with the physicality of that instrument, whether you're a trumpet player or a singer, anybody who deals with an electronic instrument is now moving into the electronic space. So you're now dealing with machinery and possibly AI. So there are definitely two parts of this equation. There's the natural side and then there's the artificial side. Of course there's an entire industry and then there's the, you know, the other, the artificial side. Of course there's an entire industry built around electronic music and electronic recordings, and there's that. That's fine for what it is. But if you're in the natural side, then there's…it doesn't overlap as the reasoning for it. You want to know how to play that trumpet, you want to know how to play that cello. That's why you learn it, and when you learnt it, it's just you and the cello, it's literally just you and the instrument. That's, that's the whole point of it. You can then, of course, record that. So when you move into the recording space, you now move into production, and that's probably where AI comes into it and there's, and that's a whole world and there's that there's a whole group of musicians in that area.

But in my particular part of the musical equation and anybody in the acoustic side, the creative process is very much linked to your instrument, your physical instrument and intelligence, and AI just doesn't come into it. It's all to do with talent, gift, instinct, learning, experience. What works, what doesn't work. Why? And it literally takes you back universally centuries to how they were doing this for years and years, and I see this as going forever in the future, because if you want to play a violin properly, you have to know how to play. Nobody's going to help you on this. There's no artificial intelligence that's going to help you play that instrument without you having to master it. That's literally it and that's my world. That is my world so creatively, it doesn't figure at all and I can't see it ever figuring in the future, not on that side.

* Lena Robinson (Host)

So, you've got a new project that you're working on at the moment, which is called ‘Reflections and Connections’, and I was listening to some of those pieces. So you've got…I'm just reading my notes here…You've got a piece called ‘Midnight’, also ‘Glasshouse’ and a piece called ‘Escape’, and when I was listening to ‘Midnight’ in particular, something popped into my mind along this line actually, which was you can, you can…and it counts With all composed music… you can hear one person play it on the same instrument as another person. It sounds completely different, and I think that element of all those, as you were pointing out, the instinct, the way you play, the emotion, all those kinds of things that heavily plays into why it should…

Technically, it should sound the same, but it doesn't, because it's the human element of it, which often is a conversation I've had with other artists as well as about when the human element comes into it. Where AI isn't being used, that's the thing that makes it stand out. Now there are people that are questioning that, and, fair enough, they can question it all they like, but it is interesting from a you know, a renowned composer's perspective, that that you feel that that bit of it will always be the creativity side of it, will always be the human element

*René Gruss (Guest)

The irony here is that the more AI becomes mainstream and more common, the more valuable the human side becomes.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

That is a very interesting point.

*René Gruss (Guest)

Yeah, and that's where I see massive opportunity for the people who are producing emotionally. I call it real music, real performances. No AI, no bots, no algorithms. Their value suddenly should increase because it's rare. It's rare and special and it has elements that no machine can have. So I see the great opportunity from AI coming, but opposite to what other people see, because AI, at the end of the day, is going to create a uniformity of stuff. That's what it is. It's a data-driven intelligence mechanism at the end of the day. So it should be much more valuable not to have it.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

I understand where you're coming from and that's kind of an exciting flip narrative to what a lot of people are worried about. There's a lot of worry and fear out there, partly because there's a lack of education, but also I think there's a lack of understanding of certain talents and certain skill sets. Like what you're talking about here with composing and music and so forth, that natural side. I'm kind of with you a little bit on that. Like don't get me wrong. I've heard other people create some music and it's pleasant and it's nice and it's fun and it's interesting.

Would it…like…I can listen to Pavarotti sing…now I can never get the name of it. Is it Nessun Dorma? Every single time my heart just comes out and I cry without any ability to stop it, and I do think music for me has always done that, or any good art of any type, and I think “is that going to be the difference?” Whether it be a painting, or a film, or a piece of music being composed, or what have you? Is that going to be the value? The standout?

*René Gruss (Guest)

I think it is. I think it is. The irony is that the more AI becomes mainstream, the more valuable human characteristics, that are not intelligence driven, become.

* Lena Robinson (Host)

I love that. That's really cool.

*René Gruss (Guest)

Yeah, but the issue is that also requires a labeling concept, because how can the normal public tell the difference? You know, once these images, in particular, or once AI generated things come into the market, how do you know where the truth lies? This is what frightens many people, and I understand it, i.e. where does the lines now cross? Of course, in my area it's quite different, because you have to sit in front of a crowd and play so people can see it's real. But if you're not, if you're behind the scenes and a lot of material that will be generated by AI will mimic human behaviour, of course how does the public know the difference?

So I see the labeling as an issue and so, like I said on my site, in the future I'm sure you'll see plastered and great headlines um, real music, real performances, real people, no AI, no algorithms, no bots, and then that's it. That becomes a standard of what you stand for, and this is where your path is. It doesn't mean you don't use AI, but in the production of this music, this is what you're getting. So you know what you're getting.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

That's a really fair point. I mean a completely different industry, but it's working for the food industry, right that they're properly labelling things. People know what they're buying, whatever is in it or what have you, and I think you know it's been a question coming up in the press quite a lot lately, hasn't it? About licences and music and the impact of AI and so forth. It's an area of, in some ways, concern, but also, like everything, there should be an ability to your point, a labelling system. It's pretty simple.

And they're already starting to do that on a lot of the social medias, like they're trying, like Instagram says that you must use. If you've used AI, then you must label it as ‘AI Content’ and things like that.

* René Gruss (Guest)

So there is. There's that whole world coming. So you do understand the fear element. I mean, I'm…I'm very comfortable because I'm producing natural music, but if I was in slightly more, if I was a designer or if I was producing content like copywriting or words, you know, in an AI environment now, where this is all going to become mainstream, I'd be slightly more concerned because it's much harder for the public to distinguish what's going to be real and not. For me it's quite straightforward, but for other people I see that I can sense the issues coming, especially now in the latest changes with the whole thing that's gone on in America. Now, when it matters, now stop telling the truth to check facts. I mean what, what's coming here in terms of the truth and reality. So, so, you do understand the issue and…and the concern for sure.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

So that brings us to a question that I sort of alluded to before, but you've got people like Sir Paul McCartney starting to stand up and have a conversation out in the public. What are your thoughts and opinions on that sort of recent press coverage of his warning that sort of proposed changes to copyright laws could allow AI to rip off musicians? Do you agree?

*René Gruss (Guest)

record industry is today, in: 2025

But unfortunately, what is actually happening on the Spotify system and where we are in the record industry, is a record industry in collapse. It doesn't actually exist. So the answer is if AI says this is the record industry, where do we now go with a record industry that's in collapse but it thinks is normal? That's part of the dilemma. The record industry is telling you that the only way you can make money in the record industry is to tour. That's the first thing. They're telling you. Right, okay, the interesting thing here is that on the other side of the equation, they are telling you, you must. You've got all this access on Spotify and Apple itunes and it's all this opportunity. And you're thinking, okay, let's go and examine this, because I'm in this whole industry, so I know it well.

There are 80 to 100 000 songs a day uplifted onto Spotify a day, and on Spotify you have to produce a thousand plays a thousand plays of one track to earn £3.40p, which is about $4 a thousand tracks, and if you don't hit that thousand target and you get 900, then you don't get any money.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

Wow.

*René Gruss (Guest)

So, if you're a band and you've got ten tracks, and you've got, and you have 9 of those ten, of those tracks with 900 plays per track, which is 9,000, you don't get a penny unless it goes over a thousand. So the Spotify algorithm is stacked against artists and artists hate it. All of them hate it. And that's what Paul was alluding to, because on the other side of it, Spotify is valued at $126 billion, and that's what he was saying. “Someone is getting a lot of money here, but it's not the artist.” So if you were to go up there and pop up “yesterday”, or an algorithmic thing were to take it off, how would that equation even work?

th century, in: 1900

What is going on here? And the answer is, of course…what's going on is Spotify is not a music company. It's a technological company. It's nothing to do with music. That's the point. Neither is Apple. They are tech companies, just like Facebook. They run the system, but they're nothing to do with music. They don't care about music. They have algorithmic equations that dictate their behaviour and profit margins.

So what we think of as music in the record world is in complete collapse. The record industry that we actually understand and see, is a legacy concept, such as old songs, covers and old acts going on tour. But the idea that there used to be a record industry. People would sell records. There was a ‘Top Ten’. There was a ‘Top of the Pops’. There'd be somewhere in a shop. This whole thing just doesn't exist anymore. So people like me, who come along and say, okay, well, how, I've got another, a beautiful piece of music, what do I do here? There's no system. There is just no system. So now, when AI turns up, you're going oh, this is going to get very ugly, because where do we go from here? A complete collapse of a system that now tells you that if you don't chase an algorithm and you're chasing against hundreds of thousands of people a day in a system that doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't make any sense.

YouTube. There’s a singer-songwriter and she's acquired 750,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, following her making songs and playing guitar and stuff. She recently went on a UK tour. An eight-day tour for two weeks. She managed to get a small number of people into the Southampton gig that I went to, about 150 people and she came out at a huge loss. And she's got 700,000 followers on YouTube. That's…the equations don't stack up. None of these equations stack up. So I spoke to an agent, a colleague who used to work in the recognition for 20 years. He's got artists in, young artists, New Zealand artists, actually in London and he's advising them to build local audiences, which means go to your friends, go down to the pub and start making music.

Hold on, this is: 2025

I've got the hope. So, that's the ugly part of the equation, Lena. You're asking me the good, the bad and the ugly. That's the worrying part that's coming.

AI, as an intelligence, will look at our society today and think that the society we have is the society we want, because it must be, because we've arrived at it, otherwise why are we here? But when you analyse the society we have, which is a sort of globalised, consumerised junk society, you know trashing the world it will conclude that, oh, this must be the best society and they must have arrived at this. And, and if we should replicate this model and go forward, you'd think otherwise. You're asking it to project a society that we don't have into something that's better. Okay, but its data is brought from the past, which is all now monopolised by small groups of people.

The record industry has three companies that monopolise about 90% of the industry. So you know choice, variety, creativity, all these things have been at risk for years now, and AI is just going to make it more worse. I mean, it must do, because that's what it's going to think we want. So there's the dilemma. I see that the paradox of, yes, AI is a fantastic technology idea, but if it's data, which it learns from is a society which is now crashing the world. What are you teaching? What are we teaching it to be in our own image of what? That is the dilemma.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

It doesn't mean we can't teach it beneficial ideas, but that's not exactly how society is unfolding here. Is that why you've come up with the project, which is around well-being and with ‘Reflections and Connections’? Is that kind of…tell us a bit more about that so I can understand, so the audience can understand that well.

*René Gruss (Guest)

You've actually hit the nail on the head. Um, because, at the end of the day, our, our society, as it gets more and more technologically dependent, has become sort of a society of mass distraction, a society of anxiety, a society of overload of information, a flick society where, if your music doesn't get their attention in five seconds, it can be of no value to the algorithm. Well, hold on. This is a complex thing going on here. I'll sum it up with my piece, Bellatrix, which you beautifully alluded to, that you enjoyed.

A few years ago. I wrote this very beautiful piece, for an orchestra, called Bellatrix and in those days, slightly before the internet had come into the world, I went to Prague with my own money. I recorded that, I conducted it, I composed it, I copied it, I then marketed it, I then sold it, I made a CD. Then the internet came along and I did that all off my own back. I built an audience and then I went on to Apple, and then Apple, and this was, as you know, it's about a 15-minute orchestral piece with 50 musicians playing, this is not cheap.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

Extraordinary piece.

*René Gruss (Guest)

And I went on to Apple and they told me, Rene, that music is worth 99 cents and I thought “hold on, I've spent all this money, I've got all this to do and now you're telling me that's its value to your algorithm and that's it?” That's literally was it. So I thought “why would I go and do that again? And how can I sell this online and how would it work?” Because they're telling me it's, it's fabulous, and yet I've done all. So that's the dilemma. If that's the algorithm, I haven't written that piece again because I can't afford that equation.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

It doesn't make sense.

*René Gruss (Guest)

So where are we going in this thing? Because the record industry wasn't involved in this. I went straight to the Apple, which is the online side of it, which is fine. And now that's got even worse because now we have the Spotify thing, which doesn't even pay you anything for it. So on my side of the equation, at some point I left Apple, I left Spotify, I took my stuff off everything because I refused to be part of this equation. It made no sense to me. So for many years I just pursued my own way, because I was more interested in my craft than the money.

It's obvious I'm interested in the real thing. I'm a real composer, interested in real music and real values, and this path was not taking me where I wanted to be. You have to be a slave to the algorithm to go into this path, and I wasn't prepared. So in many ways, that's why you've never heard of me and that's why I'm quite unknown in many, many places, because I have gone my own path, looking for my own reality. That doesn't exactly fit in. Now, on the other side of the equation, I've come in much later here and now I've found that the the system itself has just got worse.

Now we have a flick society, we have a stress society, we have an environmental collapse, we have a humanitarian collapse and we have a society addicted to phones and flicking and billions of people and I'm thinking we've got a whole generation here of young people that are…that are disconnected from something so much more meaningful, something much deeper, something that takes time. You've noticed that when you listen to my ‘Reflections’ music, you've got to take time. You've got to sit there for five minutes and listen. Something in the fast, fast society. No, you haven't got, but you need the time because this information overload is giving you an anxious world, an anxiety filled place that you can't escape. All the world's information from all the tragedy in Gaza and Ukraine is coming to you on these phones every day. You need to escape. You've got to get away somewhere.

So ‘Reflections and Connections’ was born out of that idea, that I live this music every day. I don't need to escape. I play it every day, but I want to share it with the world. I play it every day, but I want to share it with the world. I want someone else to feel that they can participate on this gift I have. So I've made the ‘Reflections and Connections’ idea for people who just want to reconnect, just to calm down, slow down, find something that's just a bit slower in life, just take the time to just appreciate and connect, and also to the understanding that this music is actually good for you, it's good for your well-being, it's good for your soul, it's good for your spirit. But you have to just take a moment.

The other side of the equation was I'm passionately environmental, as all New Zealanders are, as you know, with a passion for the world, a passion for the natural world and, of course, watching humanity destroy it is just beyond imagination.

So my ideas on that front are that mental health is connected to society breakdowns, connected to an environmental breakdown, is connected to a disconnection, and all these things are interlinked. So I wanted to bring forward natural music, which is what I write, to naturally heal people from the mental health-type anxiety who will then be able to environmentally understand that the environment, mental health and nature are all interconnected here and they don't go together. You're not going to solve the environmental problem by itself. It's a society issue. It's not an environment issue. It's a society issue. Society itself needs a new narrative, apart from the usual progress, progress, speed, progress. More economic, more money. None of that ever filters down to real people. More economically, more money none of that ever filters down to real people. And yet, we're brainwashed into this nonsense for years by a consumeristic monopoly of people who're making a fortune out of us. And here we go again.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

So I just have felt compelled to…to do something, say something and bring these strands together so we've got, we've, we've chatted about the the good and, uh, the the bad, the the bad and the ugly and some of the good, and we've sort of had a little bit of a delve into what AI and the creative world that you're in around music is going to look like in the next couple of years. Is there any hope?

*René Gruss (Guest)

In fact, one of the questions is, as you said initially, is what does the future look like? Yeah, that was one of your questions, I remember when we first met. So the future could be very good, it could be filled with hope, and that's where AI…a beneficial AI; AI that's programmed to look for good things, that's designed to help you, could very much come into it. In my particular area, which is the record business, the music business, the record industry itself has died, as I mentioned to you. It needs to be rediscovered, it needs to go. There's a great opportunity here for a new version of the record industry to arrive, and here I have a very specific vision that I'm working on myself personally, and that is a vision for a new record industry based on a combination of the blockchain world coupled with a beneficial AI that puts all the lessons we've learned to good and then makes an entirely new system.

At the moment, we don't really have a democratic system. That's the problem here. We have really a monopolistic system and only a small group of people are really in charge of the system. What we really want is a democracy of…cultural democracy, a cultural renaissance, an idea where independent people, artists, creators, people can connect to their audiences. The thing that the internet sold us all those years ago when it first came along. The thing I was most excited about. The opportunity that an artist could find his audience and connect directly, never really monopolised, because the middle ground has always been taken up by these technological companies.

The future I see, a very exciting future, is this idea of blockchain, which has come along and created a massive revolution. That again, this will probably perhaps be another chat, Lena, but it represents this fantastic idea that you trust the system. You might not trust people, but you can trust the system and if the system is true and you trust it, it works. So if you couple that concept to an AI that is trying to do that, together you have an exciting idea where there is no possibility of a monopoly because it's decentralised in its nature.

And if decentralisation, which is what I see is relevant, just imagine that you are on that Spotify and you to have those 900 plays, but not the thousand, but you could be rewarded every time someone hears that directly by the person who's paying for it. That's it. You've just now decentralised all the money that's going to the top and you've got it straight to the artist. So what we're saying is all artists can find their own audiences and they can be paid by those audiences. They don't need that middle layer of the Spotify and Apple if there's a system in there that can fulfill that function, and blockchain has the technology to have that proof of an idea, concept, and AI has the facility to enact that. So the future I see, with the greatest hope is a game-changing system based on an entirely new music industry that's decentralised, essentially, and democratised, and I see that rolling out to all culture and all issues which are now centrally controlled by mass players who are essentially fulfilling their own goals, to then decentralise that whole structure using blockchain and AI.

That is a brave new world that I'm after.

Lena Robinson (Host)

That is mind-blowing and exciting and, to your point, it’s kind of there. To your point, there is hope with this and I love the fact that AI is going to be part of that solution, although, to your point, the actual creative, creativity bit wouldn't be. That's still down to people like your talented self. But I do think, you know, that's a…that brings you closer to your audience as well, and I think, particularly in the music industry, not being separated from your audience doesn't make sense no, no, that is the future that's coming and that's the future I'm I'm pursuing and are you…have you got people that you're thinking of working with on this?

*René Gruss (Guest)

I've started opening those doors. It's a visionary idea and I, I can't tell you how exciting it is coming and is going to be. It's just an entire new world that's coming. Again…this is another line of thought. Basically, I'll just give you a very quick, brief idea on this.

The idea is, in the last twenty years we've evolved into sort of a digital life. A digital life has sort of come upon us. We haven't kind of been aware of it, but it has become our second life, our banking system, our credit cards, how we hit them, the way we interact with money and things. We have a kind of a second world that's operating in the background. We used to just be in reality. Now we have a kind of a digital second life, but that's never really been brought forward and explored what that actually means.

Most people have gone for virtual reality. You put on some goggles and you have an alternative reality of what we have. But in my line of thinking there's actually a digital life, an element in our psychology that sits there in another world that's not populated by real things but populated by ideas, such as digital money or ideas that you think your bank account is there because you, you know, you can see it, you imagine it, and that's very much where I see this whole world coming the the creation of how we then have a digital life series of products and experiences that now are part of our normal existence, because they already are. We have them on our phones and we're all glued to them and it kind of works, but we haven't actually separated this out as an identity and now created this world, and this is where I see the democratisation and blockchain coming into it and AI coming into this whole area and massive opportunities to change the world for good.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

Well, that was not where I thought this conversation was going to go, so I love the surprise of that. I love the fact that you are solution-oriented rather than just going. Well, you know.

*René Gruss (Guest)

No, no, no.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

That's a good description of the hope of the future. Any other thoughts on future before we… because I think we're getting to the point we need to start wrapping up, I think.

*René Gruss (Guest)

Okay, the future does look hopeful. I think it's a game, ultimately, between different types of thinking. We are very much focused at the moment in a sort of consumerist, modernist thinking, and my version of the future could very much be a classic kind of thinking. Now, the difference there is a classic thought is something that fits and works and is finished. Therefore, you come up with a solution. A sort of consumerist, modernist thinking is we need something to make money and therefore it's anything that progresses, that sort of thought to then keep moving forward. So that's at odds with classic thinking, which says, well, you don't need any more money if the answer's finished and you've got it. Two and two is four, so the discussion's over, isn't it? So that's my world, which is…the tune works and that's over.

The modernist consumerist goes well, I need 50 tunes now because I gotta have 50 things, but you're going well. There's only one ‘Yesterday’, it's good, why do I need 50 ‘Yesterday’s’, is it? So it's a different type of thought process. We're very much locked into the consumerist model, the modernist consumerist model, um and so therefore, therefore, AI is part of that. But, as Einstein said, “be careful, not to make intelligence your goal. It has powerful muscles but no personality.” and so that's, I think, the question and the idea we have to just be aware of.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

What a sentence to end on quoting Einstein. Love that. Absolutely amazing. Look, thank you so much for today. We are at a really interesting place in the world and in your area in particular, in the recording and music industry. I've learned a lot today. I'm excited about the opportunity you think the future holds. I think what we've talked about today is pretty amazing. So thank you for that. Thank you for coming on and giving us your time.

*René Gruss (Guest)

Thank you for having me.

*Lena Robinson (Host)

You're very welcome and, from both of us, we'd like to say thank you to the listeners.

*René Gruss (Guest)

Thank you for listening to me.

Lena Robinson (Host)

And from both of us, we'd like to say thank you to the listeners. Thank you for listening today. Yes, and go out there and continue to be curious everybody. So thank you very much and thank you René, and we will be listening to some music for a long time from you, hopefully. See you later.