I think we are at the beginning of a shift in what software is actually for.
The first era of software helped us manage information.
We built tools to compute, organize, search, communicate, publish, and transact.
The dominant metaphor was the computer as a thinking machine.
But increasingly, the most important software is no longer helping us think. It is helping us enter states.
Focus. Calm. Energy. Momentum. Presence. Connection. Flow.
We already see this shift happening everywhere: meditation apps, ambient environments, AI companions, wellness tech, adaptive workspaces, nervous system tooling.
The interface is moving closer to human experience itself.
And music might be one of the oldest examples of this.
Music has never really been informational.
It regulates. Synchronizes. Transforms.
A great DJ is not just selecting songs. They are shaping a collective emotional space in real time.
Being an incredible DJ requires so much knowledge and nuance of tension, pacing, intimacy, anticipation, release, and cohesion.
The room changes state through sound.
But the tools we use to control music are still surprisingly mechanical.
Playlists. Decks. Waveforms. BPM. Cue points.
Humans do not naturally think this way.
We think in atmosphere.
We say: "warmer," "more tension," "less obvious," "don't lose the conversation," "make this feel like a rooftop in Beirut," "hold this energy longer."
People already know how they want a room to feel.
The gap is that we have never had systems that could translate human aesthetic intent into live musical behavior.
That is what I am building with Oto.
It is not AI playlist generation or AI replacing DJs.
Something much closer to creative direction for atmosphere.
A system where you can direct the emotional arc of a room through natural language and real-time interaction.
The deeper idea underneath Oto is that taste is becoming computationally legible.
Not in the reductive "Spotify recommendation algorithm" sense.
But in the sense that software is beginning to understand pacing, atmosphere, emotional movement, aesthetic intention, and collective energy.
The future interface for music probably will not look like a playlist.
It may look more like conversation. Direction. Steering. Worldbuilding.
Less: "play songs I like."
More: "help this room become something this group would find special."
I think this extends far beyond DJing.
We are moving from information interfaces toward state interfaces: systems that help humans shape focus, feeling, energy, and collective experience intentionally.
Music just happens to be one of the most powerful places to start.