Did Pink Floyd and Radiohead Predict the AI Age?

It sounds like a strange question, doesn’t it? Back in 1973, when Pink Floyd released The Dark Side of the Moon, the idea of artificial intelligence was mostly science fiction. The same goes for 1997, when Radiohead gave us the masterpiece that is OK Computer.

Neither of these albums is about AI. But listen to them today, and you can’t help but feel a shiver of recognition. They somehow tapped into the anxieties and feelings that define our lives in a world now dominated by AI.

These albums are like musical prophecies. They explore feeling disconnected, the dizzying speed of modern life, and the fear of losing our humanity to systems we don’t control. These are the very same conversations we’re having right now about AI. It’s as if they gave us the soundtrack to the 21st century, decades before it even started.

You only need to look at TikTok to see how relevant these songs still are. Recently, Radiohead's "Let Down" has been trending on the platform, with young people using it to soundtrack their feelings of disappointment and existential dread. Watching these videos, I'm struck by how the same song that captured my feelings of alienation back in 1997 is now doing the same for Gen Z. The lyrics about being "crushed like a bug in the ground" and feeling "let down and hanging around" perfectly capture that sense of being overwhelmed by forces beyond your control. What's fascinating is that these young people are experiencing these feelings in an age of AI and social media - the very future that Radiohead seemed to be warning us about.

In this post, I want to explore how these two iconic albums managed to predict the emotional landscape of the AI era. We’ll look at how their lyrics and sounds are more relevant than ever, and what they can teach us about navigating our relationship with technology today.

Feeling Alone, Together: How Tech Isolates Us

Isn't it strange that we've never been more connected, yet we can often feel so alone? Both albums nail this feeling perfectly. OK Computer was released right on the cusp of the internet age, and it’s filled with a sense of digital-age dread. Thom Yorke wasn’t singing about social media, but he was singing about how it feels to live a life mediated by screens. The album paints a picture of a world where we’re all just going through the motions, chasing a happiness that’s been automated and pre-packaged. It’s that feeling of staring at your laptop at 3 am, in a building full of people you’ll never speak to. That was written before Facebook, but it perfectly describes the loneliness that can come with being constantly online.

Pink Floyd was talking about this stuff way back in the 70s. The Dark Side of the Moon is all about the pressures of modern life that can push us to the edge. Take a song like ‘Brain Damage’. Roger Waters wrote: “There’s someone in my head, but it’s not me.” He was talking about mental health, but in 2025, that line has a whole new meaning. With AI algorithms feeding us content and shaping our opinions, it’s easy to feel like our thoughts aren’t entirely our own. It’s like there’s a ghost in the machine, and that machine is inside our heads.

And what about ‘Us and Them’? That song was about war and social divides in the 70s, but today it’s the perfect anthem for our online echo chambers. AI can push us into our own little bubbles, where we only see things that confirm what we already believe. It creates a world of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, leaving us more divided and isolated than ever.

This is where the AI connection becomes crystal clear. The very technologies that promise to bring us together can also drive us apart. We’re “alone together,” as psychologist Sherry Turkle puts it. We build these perfect digital versions of ourselves online, but we’re often too scared to show our real, messy, human selves to each other. The result is a world that feels a lot like the one Radiohead and Pink Floyd warned us about: a world of glowing screens, quiet neighbours, and a deep sense of being disconnected from the people around us.

And then there’s ‘Fitter, Happier’, the creepy, robotic interlude from OK Computer. It’s a list of self-improvement tips recited by a computer voice, ending with the chilling line: “a pig in a cage on antibiotics.” It was a joke about 90s consumerism, but now it feels terrifyingly real. We’re constantly being tracked, monitored, and nudged by algorithms that want to make us more productive, more efficient, and more predictable. We’re in a cage, and the antibiotics are the endless stream of content that keeps us calm and scrolling. It’s a powerful warning about what can happen when we let technology run our lives.

Time Keeps on Slippin’: The Great Acceleration

Do you ever feel like you’re constantly running but never catching up? That feeling of time slipping through your fingers is another thing these albums captured perfectly. Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ is the ultimate anthem for this anxiety. It starts with the sound of ticking clocks, and then David Gilmour sings those unforgettable lines: “And then one day you find ten years have got behind you / No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” It’s a song about waking up and realising that life is passing you by. That was a powerful message in 1973, but in our hyper-connected, always-on world, it’s a feeling that’s become a constant companion.

AI and the internet have created a world that never sleeps. There’s always another email to answer, another notification to check, another video to watch. We’re living in a state of what sociologists call “social acceleration.” We’re always rushing, always trying to keep up with the endless stream of information. The result is a constant, low-level anxiety that we’re never doing enough, never moving fast enough. It’s the feeling Pink Floyd warned us about, but amplified to a whole new level.

Radiohead also tackled this feeling of being rushed off our feet. The last song on OK Computer is called ‘The Tourist’, and it has a simple, powerful message: “slow down, slow down.” Thom Yorke said he wrote it after seeing tourists rushing through a city, so busy taking pictures that they weren’t actually seeing anything. It’s a beautiful plea for us to take a breath, to step off the hamster wheel for a moment and just be present. In an age of AI-powered productivity hacks and constant pressure to optimise every second of our day, that message is more important than ever.

What both albums understood is that a life lived at full speed can feel empty. The more we rush, the less we actually experience. We’re so busy trying to get to the next thing that we miss the beauty and the meaning of the present moment. This is the reality of the “attention economy,” where our time and our focus are the products being bought and sold. We’re encouraged to “fritter and waste the hours” online, just like Pink Floyd sang, but now it’s by design. The algorithms are built to keep us hooked, to keep us scrolling, to keep us comfortably numb.

So what’s the answer? Both albums suggest that it starts with awareness. By showing us a reflection of our own anxieties, they encourage us to step back and think about how we’re living our lives. The Dark Side of the Moon ends with the line: “Everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.” It’s a reminder that the good things in life are always at risk of being overshadowed by darkness. Today, that darkness might be the digital shadow that follows us everywhere we go. And OK Computer ends with that gentle plea to slow down. It’s a reminder that we have a choice. We can let the machines run our lives, or we can choose to be human.

Are We Becoming Machines? The Human Cost of AI

This is the big one, isn’t it? The fear that in our quest to build intelligent machines, we might lose a part of our own humanity. Both albums are shot through with this anxiety. They paint a picture of a world where people are becoming more and more like the machines they’ve created.

We’ve already talked about ‘Fitter, Happier’, but it’s worth coming back to because it’s so scarily accurate. It’s a checklist for the perfect modern citizen: productive, healthy, calm, and completely soulless. It’s a person who’s been optimised to within an inch of their life, and in the process, has lost everything that makes them human. In the age of AI, this isn’t just a metaphor. We have apps that tell us when to sleep, what to eat, and how to be more productive. We’re constantly being measured, monitored, and optimised. The danger is that we start to live our lives according to the algorithm’s script, and we forget how to be spontaneous, messy, and human.

Pink Floyd came at this from a different angle, but the theme is the same. When they sang “there’s someone in my head but it’s not me,” they were talking about the feeling of being controlled by forces outside of yourself. In the 70s, that might have been the government or the pressures of society. Today, it’s the AI that curates our news feeds, recommends our music, and even finishes our sentences for us. It’s becoming harder and harder to tell where our own thoughts end and the algorithm’s influence begins. We’re in a constant conversation with AI, and it’s changing the way we think, feel, and see the world.

This isn’t just a psychological issue; it’s also about our place in the world. In the 70s, Pink Floyd was singing about the dehumanising effects of money and war. In the 90s, Radiohead was singing about the dehumanising effects of corporations and technology.

Today, AI has brought those two things together. We’re all just data points in a giant corporate machine, and our lives are being shaped by algorithms that are designed to maximise profit, not human wellbeing.

So what can we do? The first step is to be aware of what’s happening. We need to have a conversation about the kind of future we want to build with AI. Do we want a future where we’re all living in cages, pacified by an endless stream of content? Or do we want a future where AI is used to empower us, to help us connect with each other, and to solve some of the world’s biggest problems? The choice is ours.

The Music Plays On: What These Albums Teach Us About AI

Looking back at these two albums, it's remarkable how they managed to capture the emotional truth of technological change before it fully arrived. They weren't trying to predict the future; they were just trying to make sense of the world they were living in. But in doing so, they gave us a roadmap for understanding our own relationship with technology.

The themes they explored – disconnection, acceleration, and the loss of humanity – are the same themes we're grappling with in the age of AI. The difference is that what was once metaphor has become reality. We really are living in a world where algorithms shape our thoughts, where we're constantly rushing to keep up with the pace of change, and where we sometimes feel more like machines than human beings.

But here's the thing: these albums don't just diagnose the problem; they also point towards a solution. They remind us that we have a choice. We can let technology run our lives, or we can choose to be human. We can let ourselves be isolated by our screens, or we can reach out and connect with each other. We can let ourselves be rushed off our feet, or we can choose to slow down and be present.

The key is awareness. By understanding what's happening to us, we can start to make different choices. We can use AI as a tool to enhance our humanity, rather than replace it. We can build technology that brings us together, rather than drives us apart. We can create a future that's more human, not less.

Pink Floyd and Radiohead gave us the soundtrack to the AI age before it even began. Now it's up to us to write the next verse. The question is: what kind of song do we want to sing?