My conclusion speech at the ADC25 Open Mic

Here’s the full version of what I had prepared in my notes to conclude Audio Developer Conference’s ADC25 Open Mic, that I hosted on 12th November 2025. I feel this should be a food for thought for everyone who builds tools for creatives, so here it goes:

“Okay, before we wrap up, I want to emphasise that EFFORT is valuable. It takes time, but that is what transforms into bliss, that happy feeling. The other day I was walking on my terrace and thinking about parody names for audio apps. Don't ask why. For example, ‘Pre Stools’, ‘FU Studio’, ‘Unablemilligrams’, ‘ByteHair’, ‘Cheaper’, ‘Scoundrely’, ‘Glubase’ and so on. Any time a funny word popped up in my head, I’d laugh out loud and the moment felt nice. Went on for 45 minutes as I lost track of time. I was in a state of flow. And then I realised I could have just asked any LLM to give me these names, and even better ones. Like why was I wasting almost 45 minutes walking and thinking on my own? *pause* Because I am not living a life to come up with the best parody name ever. I am doing it because I want to enjoy and live an experience. Besides, best joke or funniest joke is a myth. There is no best code in the world. There is no best chord progression or best music track. It's all about the experience! The subconscious. And sometimes, especially for creatives who do want to express themselves, who do want to document their emotions as a melody, or find a moment away from the dilemma that they have in life, the time factor & the effort that goes into it is the element that allows them to live that moment subconsciously. Tuning a guitar isn’t just about tuning a guitar. You never know what an artist is going through in her mind while doing that. Just like how you’d get a solution to your DSP problems while you’re doing other chores. So don’t suck out the fun part from a creative process in the name of doing things quick. Real emotions are what show up as good songs or sound design or paint or artwork or whatever it is. Not everything needs to become a text-prompt or an on-demand magic button. LLMs and ML are here to help in many ways, like the need for tuning guitars quick for live shows — but let that be a choice meant for such moments of hurry. Let’s not make life a race by default — despite all the social media pushing us to do so. So, when you are making a product decision for a creative use case, please think. The technology of today is like fire. But just because we can, we shouldn't go burn out everything around us. Don’t let the new marketing SEO geniuses drive the product. Put your foot down in favor of creating for the artists.”

Of course, with my short memory, I didn’t deliver some parts of this (like the fire bit) at the Open Mic, but now you know. Share the article if this resonates with you.

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