SONG:
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Based on Defense One, 2 Oct 2020, “Can AI Detect Disinformation? A New Special Operations Program May Find Out”, as used in the post “Artificial intelligence is being programmed to spot disinformation – by the military”.
ABSTRACT:
I’m counting this song as on time, although technically this is a day late. I had the thing written, it was just a chore getting time to mix it and stuff. I recorded on a different computer than usual – an old desktop in the back room – which meant I couldn’t lug the tracks around with me. And I had training today as a poll worker. (And I got rear-ended a couple days ago. And the president voted in my library. All a bit much, this week.)
Anyway, the song started as a bass sound – running *two* VSTs on the same MIDI track, a rumbly organ and an orchestral double bass – and a text message I sent to myself saying “Science advances through incorrect answers.” Because the weird thing about science is that it’s hard to prove something exists, only that something doesn’t exist. Correlation can’t prove causation, but a lack of correlation definitely proves a lack of causation.
Anyway, the rest of the words fell into place in short order. I used that trick where you imply a rhyme and then don’t use it. (In this case, “misled” for “dead,” hopefully obviously.)
It’s about “information space” and the military investment in disinformation – not just psyops, but in machinery to wage psychological warfare. We’re in a weird time now. A Cold War not fought with deterrence, but with, like, head-mines. Germs that are ideas. And it’s not just a metaphor – it’s something the military is investing in.
If I was more of an upbeat person, this would probably sound more like a protest song. But I do like the way it turned out.
LYRICS:
CCEF
Science advances through incorrect answers
Through falsified hypotheses, mistakes and lies
Truth is not evident, evergreen nor elegant
It doesn’t seem symmetrical, it doesn’t seem to riseGGAmF x2 C
To the top of our guesses, our hunches, our thoughts
Like claymores in pastures in farms that we bought,
Like heat-seekers scanning beyond infrared,
Like a bomb in your head. Bang, you’re misled.CCEF
Wielding the weapons of lies and lost lessons
Seduced by the stories the soldiers stand down
Machines turn off gunners at screens in their bunkers
So better machines learn the language passed roundGGAmF x2 C
To the top of our guesses, our hunches, our thoughts
Like claymores in pastures in farms that we bought,
Like heat-seekers scanning beyond infrared,
Like a bomb in your head. Bang, you’re misled.Em Em Am Am / F C-B-Am-G / F-F
And information space is a crowded, caustic place
And the war proceeds apace
In our hearts and minds
We are going blindGGAmF x2 C
To the top of our guesses, our hunches, our thoughts
Like claymores in pastures in farms that we bought,
Like heat-seekers scanning beyond infrared,
Like a bomb in your head.
Bang, you’re misled.