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I'm incurably curious about many aspects of this journey of ours. Here are a few noteworthy items I've stumbled across that I want to remember so I can revisit them from time to time.

Appetizer:

"Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated."
– Albert Einstein, from a short speech he gave to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, in 1932, which can be found in Einstein: A Life In Science by Michael White and John Gribbin, Dutton, 1994, pages 262 – 263: via Internet Archive⩘ .

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The kids are alright

Three kids playing music: one on drums and two on guitars.Knights of Molino. Photo by Beth LaBerge/KQED.

May 26, 2026: While browsing Mastodon this afternoon, I came across these kids who have formed a punk bank, Knights of Molino, and have released a song about AI titled "Take Back Control". I am impressed! They can really play, and their song is a passionate exploration of the humanity of music.

In fact, the music and lyrics are so good that I was a bit skeptical. I've never before heard kids that young play so well. So I started poking around to see if this was indeed legit. I found them on Bandcamp: Take Back Control by Knights of Molino⩘ .

The Knights of Molino are a San Francisco Bay Area middle school punk band – members are brothers Erik and Tommy Birmingham, and Rowan Campbell.

Then I found their website: Knights of Molino⩘ . Here's the beginning of the lyrics of "Take Back Control""

I won't be a slave to AI
It's time for us all to step out of line
Free your mind and look to the sky
End the code and blind the cyber eye

There's a crisis in the nation
Gotta break free from the simulation
The truth is music comes from the soul
Unplug, join in, take back control

Artificial Intelligence
Can't know the human experience

Finally, I found an excellent article about them and this song by Jody Amable, KQED. Here's a couple excerpts:

Knights of Molino are a new punk band composed of middle schoolers Erik and Tommy Birmingham, 11 and 13, and Rowan Campbell, 12. They recently reached moderate viral fame for another track in which they didn't shy away from speaking their minds. In October, their scathing takedown of generative AI, "Take Back Control," went spinning across Bay Area and punk-rock TikTok. It's currently at 240,000 views and 2,500 comments: definitely not Mr. Beast numbers, but pretty impressive when you consider none of them even are allowed on TikTok yet.

But those interactions aren't from their peers (at Mill Valley Middle School, rock is out and pop and rap are in, they say). They're mostly from adults inspired to see young people picking up the Bay Area punk torch and rejecting the creep of technology. "AI is taking over the arts and it is vile," agrees one comment. Another: "We need more of this human creativity and true punk." More still are various versions of "the kids are alright."…

For the record, they're not totally anti-AI ("It has [some] good uses," admits Erik), but they're increasingly horrified by its infiltration of music and the inability of many to discern it from the real thing. "The problem is not many people can recognize AI as fake," Erik continues. "And I feel like that's one of the reasons we made the song, [to] help people realize that AI's stealing human thoughts and emotions, and, like, human hard work and time."

"We put emotion and feeling, heart, experiences and all that into writing these songs. But when AI does it, it has nothing to go off of," Tommy adds. "'Cause it's not human. Robot on a screen. How is it supposed to connect with humans?"

A Preteen Punk Band From Mill Valley Takes on AI⩘  by Jody Amable, KQED, Nov 24, 2025.

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