a + emusic by Paul Dempsey
August 1, 2019
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Portrait of music artist Paul Dempsey.
— contents —
~ track
~ music video
~ features
~ about
~ lyrics
track |
music artist: Paul Dempsey
album: Everything Is True
track: Ramona Was a Waitress
year: 2009
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music video |
watch | “Ramona Was a Waitress” ~ music video
listen | “Ramona Was a Waitress” ~ song
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features
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1. |
publication: Technoist
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web: home ~ channel
story: Robots in popular music
deck: Paul Dempsey teams up with a robot waitress.
read | story
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from: Paul Dempsey
bio: musician, singer + song-writer
bio: The lead singer of music group Something for Kate.
So “Ramona Was a Waitress” is an unusual song. It’s about a guy arguing with an artificial intelligent (AI) robot waitress about mortality. Sort of an unusual subject for a pop song. But that’s what I was thinking about as I scrawled the lyrics — artificial intelligence and conscious robots arguing about the meaning of life.
The Ramona actually comes from a guy called Ray Kurzweil who’s an interesting character. He’s one of the foremost thinkers on AI and what the future holds for tech. He created this chatbot program called Ramona that’s like an interactive person.
As tech progresses he’s trying to build her up so she becomes more + more sophisticated. He hopes one day in the future she’ll be essentially conscious. That’s the point he’s trying to make — at some moment in the future tech will be arguably conscious. That’s an interesting idea. I managed to pack it into a pop song.
— Paul Dempsey
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publication: Mess + Noise
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web: home ~ channel
story: New York state of mind
read | story
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quote |
from: Paul Dempsey
bio: musician, singer + song-writer
bio: The lead singer of music group Something for Kate.
The Ramona in the song is actually supposed to be this kind of artificial intelligence (AI) and the third bridge. There’s this guy Ray Kurzweil who has all these wacky ideas about paths to AI + trans-humanism — the 3rd bridge is actually a part of his concept of when human beings will transcend their biology.
— Paul Dempsey
music artist |
1.
music artist: Paul Dempsey
web: home ~ channel
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music artist: Something for Kate
web: home ~ channel
image | below
Photo of the music group Something for Kate — with band members Paul Dempsey, Clint Hyndman, Stephanie Ashworth.
lyrics |
music artist: Paul Dempsey
album: Everything Is True
track: Ramona Was a Waitress
Typing letters to the dead.
Late at night on a closed piano lid.
She circles past, she fills your glass.
But she doesn’t recognise the song.
Once in a lifetime she says.
The waking life stitched together in your head.
Well, what if it’s only worth.
The bundle of nerves it’s written on?
And I don’t need these arms anymore.
I don’t need this heart now to love.
I don’t need this skin + bone at all.
There’s a way you’ve always known her.
Telephone between her cheek and her shoulder.
And eyes like crystal balls.
That just won’t shut-up about the future of the future.
And Ramona was a waitress.
All but made of information.
In a bar under the third bridge.
She says she’s looking forward to living forever.
When I won’t need these arms anymore.
When I won’t need this heart now to love.
And I won’t need this skin and bone at all.
At all.
And Ramona was a waitress.
— notes —
* Ramona is the name of a virtual reality persona — created by best-selling author, inventor, futurist: Ray Kurzweil.