As American culture has become increasingly concerned with numerical values (in economics, government, education, and many other areas), we have increasingly risked losing sight of important benefits that can be seen, but not measured.

In a recent segment on National Public Radio, journalist Priska Neely covered a robot band called Compressorhead, billed as “world’s heaviest metal band.” [1] The robots recently performed at the Australian festival Big Day Out. The band is programmed to play cover songs by Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and other classic rock and early metal bands.

The short answer to this question is “yes.”

My area of expertise is music, so I will limit my comments to that subject, but I think a great deal of my commentary below applies to all of the arts…