The Times They Are A-Changin’ indeed. Known for his counter-culture appeal, political opinions, and civil rights anthems, Boomer icon Bob Dylan was promoting IBM’s early AI platform in 2015.
The advertisement for Watson seems to envision a world where humans toil while machines create poetry and music. Dylan appears more amused than alarmed at his impending obsolescence.
Although his public persona involves an adversarial stance towards the media and an anti-establishment posture in general, his financial success has been intimately connected with the media’s willingness to promote his music, keep him in the public eye, and even pay him for the use of his image.
This seer of the 1960’s should, perhaps, take his own advice: get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand.
