A Tale of Two Robots

As I write this, there’s something humming across my carpet and tiles; a robotic vacuum cleaner. After a brief struggle between the legs of my piano bench, it continued its trek across the floor, picking up small pieces of dust, hair and debris with each pass.

If you’ve ever used a robotic vacuum cleaner, you’ll know there are a few trade-offs you make when you exchange a full-size vacuum for the puck-shaped device that navigates your floors; power, suction and – most importantly – the human intellect to steer it away from things like power cords and dog treats.

If you’ve ever read my blogs, you’ll know that I have a particular thing for vacuum cleaners. You might say they were one of my first ‘loves’ as a product; beginning with my beloved Dyson vacuum(s) and culminating in my commercial-grade Kirby vacuum.

As I write this, I’m listening to music performed by a friend of mine, who has spent nearly a decade in and out of recording studios, live performances and working side hustles to fund it all. At this point, I estimate she could have bought a brand new car with the money she’s dropped on studio time. Her music is divine, inspired and deeply authentic.

Another friend of mine comes to mind, another aspiring musician who gambled it all to move to Los Angeles and chase down her dreams of winning a grammy. Fifteen years ago, I used to watch her performing at the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade; serenading passing shoppers with custom songs she wrote on the spot for tip money. Afterward, she and I would go to a sushi restaurant for $1 roll night and sort through the pieces of our lives over $2 sake pitchers.

Both of these artists have enough talent to knock your socks off, as well as compelling stories of their journey through the dregs and gutters of the music industry. Their stories would make your toes curl and make you thankful you have a sheltered life (if you do).

Over the years, I’ve watched both of my friends on their tireless pursuit of their musical ambitions. I’ve cheered them on, traveled to see them play live and have played taxi driver to and fro the recording studio. In every way, I’ve been a groupie.

As the years have gone by, there’s one number that neither one of these artists have been able to break through; a number that really matters if you want to make it big in the music industry. That number? The number of monthly Spotify listeners.

One of them has 15. The other has 416.

Over the 4th of July, I went to a friend’s house for a cookout. As I sat outside of her home, I chatted with a few guests outside. As the plates of food disappeared and the empty bottles of beer grew to a small mountain, our conversation eventually made it to our favorite musicians.

One of the older guests at the party shared his favorite musician. Eddie Dalton. For the uneducated (as I was) Eddie Dalton isn’t a real musician. Eddie Dalton isn’t even a real person. Rather, it’s AI-generated music…

…and it’s incredible.

With over 737,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, Eddie Dalton has taken the internet by force since 2026 (…that’s this year). If you listen to the music, you’ll be hooked instantaneously.

A few weeks ago, I got a playlist sent to me by my brother – sharing “I’m hooked.” Within minutes, I was too, and I spent a week listening to the artist (Sethdrums) before discovering something odd; Sethdrums was another AI artist. In this case, it’s a drummer that records his drumming over AI-generated music.

His monthly listeners? 55,300 – and growing.

What do music and vacuum cleaners have to do with each other? Well, that’s a great question.

As somebody that still enjoys a good vacuum cleaning session – don’t get me started on the joy of using my new carpet cleaner… – I’ve happily exchanged the task of sweeping/vacuuming my floors and tossed over those keys to my AI-powered robotic vacuum cleaner.

Why? Because it’s one less thing for me to worry about, and the degradation in quality is a solid trade-off for floors that are consistently vacuumed/swept every night at 10pm. While I still bring out my Kirby on a weekly basis for deep cleans – and to remember that ol’ lovin’ feeling, I’ve recognized that the way of the world is changing for something inherrently less ‘human’ than the world I grew up in.

Did my friends waste their lives pursuing musical ambitions that seem to have fallen flat, by the standard of monthly listeners and getting paid for performances? No, they haven’t.

If you measure the worthiness of something only by the end result, you lose one of the most important things life has to offer; the journey, itself.

See, I look at my two friends and see two beautiful, strong women that risked everything they had to chase a dream that never paid for their rent. However, I saw both of them grow in their character, charisma, courage and chutzpah as they chased their dreams.

AI is taking the world by force. As I write this, it’s doing about $100,000 worth of work for me in my office for a personal project of mine. Were I to have hired a design firm, development agency (like Tripleskinny), copywriter, product manager, front/back-end developers, QA team and branding agency, I’d easily be set back at least 100k for the work I asked Claude to perform in the span of a week.

In some ways, AI has become like a superpower. While to others, it’s the ultimate desecration of artistic talent. Catch me over a few beers, and I’d be happy to go down the rabbit hole of ethics, creativity and the ‘new age’ of possibility we’re now in, which I’ve learned how to leverage to the hilt.

Unfortunately, not every industry will be able to take advantage of these advancements. For operators in those industries, it should be a scary time because their livelihood is going to come at a much greater cost, because their customer base will be losing their jobs in unprecedented rates.

In the grand scheme of things, I think it’s important to remember one important question that few people ever take the time to ponder:

“Why am I here?”

See, the goal of this life thing isn’t that everybody turns into a programmatic algorithm that prints money in their sleep, or to turn companies into IPO’s on Wall Street. Rather, life (in my opinion) has a much more valuable goal – one that’s attainable by everybody.

It is to live a life that’s been lived well. It is to love others and treat them with respect. It is to find, maintain and protect your peace. Most importantly, it’s to remember that each and every one of us is a child of God and worthy of Love.

While your robotic vacuum is cleaning the floors, go do something you love…like write a blog.