In the middle of a long BBC editorial about artificial intelligence’s challenges and deep potential, Schmidt tossed in some thoughts that are clearly a barb against Apple Music:
A decade ago, eh
To recap, Apple Music launched in late June, and Apple touted its human touch as a key feature in a world full of streaming music services that revolve around algorithms. Apple Music’s “For You” section is stuffed with themed playlists curated by actual people, while Beats 1 is a 24/7 live radio station that beams its songs across the globe, selected by big-name DJs like Dr. Dre, Elton John, Zane Lowe, and Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme. Reactions were mixed its first day, but Beats 1 has proven to be extremely popular if Twitter chatter’s any indication.
Google Play Music, on the other hand, relies heavily on algorithms for its playlists, as Google services often do. But here’s the deliciously ironic part: Google employs a team of “music curators and editors” to hand-select every track in Play Music’s contextual playlists, according to Time. From that article:
Like I said: ultra-rich executives of multinational companies are people too, and some people put their foot in their mouth all too often.
Via Engadget