Jedi Dom is either the best band at SXSW or just a made-up name from a neural network

Hey, have you heard the new album by Jedi Dom? What about those sick beats by Lil Profits?

If you’ve never heard of these bands, it’s not that you’re completely out of the loop and devastatingly un-hip; it’s that these band names were created by a neural network. Yes, it turns out that neural networks and hipsters both prefer really obscure bands that you’ve probably never heard of.

The BBC gave neural-network genius Janelle Shane a list of every single band who played SXSW between 2015-2018, and she fed them to her neural network. It then spit out a bunch of band names that the BBC used to create a quiz to determine if fans can spot band names generated by AI or those generated by oblique-minded hipsters intent on sounding cool and standing out when they eventually make it to Coachella. By the way, Botnik created an entire AI-created Coachella lineup, if you’re into that sort of thing.

We’ll just be over here listening to the new single by Hard the Hart and waiting for Star Benders to go on tour.