AI Summer School #1: Making AI Work for Me, Starting with Clearing the Faff

We drove through the night to Italy this weekend, and the soundtrack was a playlist AI built from one prompt.

I typed my scattered thoughts straight into Spotify, club life in Vienna and Paris in the 90s, Ibiza chill, foreign language pop, something to help me feel the holiday vibe, and ninety seconds later I was listening to songs I love but could never ever have named.

I may be late to the Spotify prompt party. I think it's because remembering what songs are called is beyond me, and actually what I often want isn't connected to an artist but to a time or memory.

This time all I did was describe the feeling, places, the odd song or artist, but lots of random facts - and it did the remembering.

I got Piaf, 99 Luftballons, Buddha Bar classics, Enigma, the Gladiator theme tune, the Monks of Notre Dame abbey, Andrea Bocelli, Mecano, Madonna's Frozen, Dido, Neneh Cherry, Sting, Dire Straits, Verve, Duran Duran, Seal, The Cure, Adiemus, The Police... oh what a journey down memory lane.

I plugged in, the rest of the car slept, and I whizzed through France in the wee small hours, properly enjoyable even if it was 3am.

Making a properly creative playlist has been on my list forever. It was never difficult, it was just boring and faffy, so I relied on the same few plus some shared by my teens (ironically full of 90s music!) So it never got done.

I see this same blocker constantly in my work. When people hold back from AI, the reason is rarely fear of the technology; most of the time they've filed it under "another thing to set up" and the faff wins, again and again. Which is why I always suggest starting with a job you've been avoiding forever, because that's where ninety seconds of effort that gets your a-ha moment feels incredible.

And so when the first attempt came back a bit heavy on the ballads and too much europop, I didn't start again. I just told it "more 90s dance, as if you were in the Sophiensaelle (legendary Vienna club, sadly long gone) and less of the naff" and it adjusted. That's a completely new habit with AI: nudging rather than restarting and it transfers to every tool you'll ever use.

Try it. If you're on Spotify Premium, it's under Create, AI Playlist. Type in a memory and see what it finds...

One month of AI summer school, the scrappier version is on Instagram: @louballardmoody

PS Yes, summer school started a bit late. I'm on catch up!