I will say however, from experience, that there is basically a 1% chance any of this info would affect the opinion of somebody who supports her. But I would hope that your wife would be more willing to listen to you and consider your viewpoint.

It is admittedly difficult to argue that Rowling is transphobic. She's relatively careful with her own words and rarely does more than dog whistle. Instead you have to look at who she associates with and what causes she lends her massive finances to. And unfortunately, conservatives who are stuck in the "racism is when you say black people are bad" mindset, aren't going to be super receptive to an argument which rests on proving that JK Rowling's transphobia manifests primarily in her support of transphobic organizations and systems.

I'll put my copy-paste argument here:

She believes trans women aren't women. She believes trans women are only lying in order to get close to women and rape them. JK Rowling self identifies as a a TERF, or "Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist".

Rowling donates money to the LGB alliance a UK "charity" that actively lobbies against trans rights, and has fought for the continued legality of trans conversion therapy.

Rowling has tweeted out in support of one Maya Forstater, a woman who was fired and has become a martyr for intentionally misgendering trans people, and once again perpetuating the idea that trans men are rapists. Rowling keeps pushing the idea and propping up those who agree with her.

Rowling has posted to advertise for an online shop that sells, among other things, anti-trans merch. The store is ran by an Angela C. Wild, a founding member of "Get The L Out", an organization that has in its mission statement "We stand against any kind of misogynistic politics and systems that prioritise men’s interests: queer politics and transgenderism, right-wing politics, left-wing politics" etc.

Under the pen name Robert Galbraith (a name coincidentally shared by a 20th century proponent for conversion therapy), Rowling had published multiple transphobic books, writing one book about a serial killer who dresses as a woman to lure in unsuspecting victims, and another with a self insert character who is killed after "speaking out" against transsexuality.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a great video that goes into much more detail than I have here about the causes she supports and the right-wing activists and think tanks she associates with and gives money to.

If this was about somebody misgendering a trans person because they committed a crime, I'd agree with you. But Mitch is hated because of the immeasurable harm he's done to countless Americans (and non-Americans), and I don't think it's reasonable to expect that people give him grace.

My optimistic outlook is that most of the musical spaces I reside in will likely shun or be immune to whatever norms develop regarding AI. I personally care deeply about the fact that the music I listen to is made deliberately and thoughtfully by a human being, and I like to think there are many others who feel the same way.

More cynically though, I'm worried about AI taking market share away from music "made by humans". If this becomes the norm, maybe there just won't be money in doing things the old fashioned way. Maybe the type of musicians I want to listen to would be discouraged from making music in this new climate.

I sympathize with this experience, but I'm not quite sure why you "need" to quit your streaming services in order to achieve the desired effect. I almost exclusively use Spotify, but I use it to listen to new releases from artists I like, listen to way more albums then I could afford to buy physically, and check out music my friends recommend to me. You don't have to use streaming services as a playlist aggregator, there's nothing stopping you from actively enjoying music on there.

Why bother making something new when perfection already exists?

(kidding)

This band was recommended to me because I like stoner rock and doom metal. I made the mistake of listening first to their album Butterfly 3000, which absolutely isn't either of those things and it completely turned me off of them.

Then their most recent album came out and I realized that they're just a really weird eclectic group. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I've been meaning to check out some of their earlier music since then.

I hope some of that helps. Oh and also you can't go wrong with Ed Sheeran. I still think his first album (+) is his best work.

I'm not quite sure what aspect of her music you're trying to find more of, and it sounds like it might be multiple things.

If you're looking for, specifically, modern popular country music sung by a woman about romance/womens issues, I'd recommend the album Plastic Hearts by Miley Cyrus, or Rainbow by Kesha (which sounds weird if you haven't listened to her since Tik Tok, but her sound has really changed).

As far as artists endorsed by her, it looks like you're already listening to Olivia Rodrigo, but definitely check out Sour if you haven't heard it yet. I'd also recommend Lana Del Rey and Phoebe Bridgers, who have both been featured on Taylor Swift songs, and are both great story tellers (although they're typically more somber than Taylor Swift, more like Folklore).

As for some more personal picks from me that are maybe a bit more out of the box: I really like Car Seat Headrest. They're an indie band that has a bit more of a DIY sound, but their music is incredibly emotional and the storytelling is compelling. This song is my favorite from them, but most of their stuff is more about romance than this. I also really like the bands Modern Baseball and The Front Bottoms. Both are a bit more emo but they capture a lot of the heartbreak and teen angst that was present on early Taylor Swift stuff.

Hey cool my home town is being talked about on the Internet :D

Oh...

Costco has lines regardless of whether it's self serve though

Returnal, a rogue like 3rd person shooter (sort of bullet hell) with a scifi alien setting and a mindfuck story. It's one of my favorite games I've played in years, both for the story and gameplay. I can't recommend it enough.

If you're familiar with the story of the first Last of Us game, Last of Us 2 is great and is centered around Ellie.

I struggle to see how any music made by people for the enjoyment of people isn't art

the core role of an engineer in many ways already is validation of a plan.

I disagree, this implies that AI are doing a lot more than they actually are. Before you design the physical layout of some thing, you have to identify a problem, and identify guidelines and empirical metrics against which you can compare your design to determine efficacy. This is half the job for engineers.

There's one step of the design process that I see current AI completing autonomously (implementation), and I view it as nontrivial to get the technology working higher up on the "V".

It's still just a tool for engineers though. Half of the job is determining what the design requirements are, another quarter is figuring out what general scheme (i.e. water vs air cooling) works best to meet those requirements. Things like this are great, but all they really do is effectively connect point A to point B in order to free up some man-hours for more high-level work.