AI Thread

I saw that article and thought the framing of it as "political correctness gone mad" was a load of crap. Can't put it better than Moggy -- there's obviously nothing "woke" about depicting Nazis as black or Asian, it's the opposite. And treating that idea as a factual premise of the article feeds the racist delusions of the internet's biggest twats. In actual fact, this is a symptom of the AI dataset's underlying racism, just as much as depicting all doctors as white would be.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 234982307/

I don't know how to feel about this.

Generally I think all of this is very much 'we can do this, but maybe we should not do this' to me.

As a musician I have two thoughts:

1. AI can only reflect form as it exists

2. New form is generally an amalgamation, synthesis, or crassly put, recycling existing forms, and hence maybe "AI" will come up with something new, just as humans lay claim to.

More emotively, I am real and a human, and so I don't really care what "AI" does. I'll continue doing me (or not, as the case may be, ) as long as I have (and always have had and always will have) millions upon millions of competing musicians. And my own unique story.

For anyone who perceives this as a threat, and starts focusing all their attention on that, have they even been paying attention? And if they were, maybe that was the problem? Just make your music, who gives a strawberry float what anyone else is doing. No really, just do it and stop whining.

Green Gecko wrote:As a musician I have two thoughts:

1. AI can only reflect form as it exists

2. New form is generally an amalgmation, synthesis, or crassly put, recycling existing forms, and hence maybe "AI" will come up with something new, just as humans lay claim to.

More emotively, I am real and a human, and so I don't really care what "AI" does. I'll continue doing me (or not, as the case may be, ) as long as I have (and always have had and always will have) millions upon millions of competing musicians. And my own unique story.

For anyone who perceives this as a threat, and starts focusing all their attention on that, have they even been paying attention? And if they were, maybe that was the problem? Just make your music, who gives a strawberry float what anyone else is doing. No really, just do it and stop whining.

If its peoples livelihoods, I think they have every right to be worried, because theres not an obvious place to pivot to.

I'm broadly speaking in agreement with GG. Every generation has a panic over things not being "real music". From the horrors of jazz (black people!), rock n roll (black people + devils music!), rap (black people + gritty lyrics) to heavy metal (telling kids to kill themselves + devils music + it originated from black people!) electronic music (they can't play real instruments + it's probably black peoples fault!).

I fully expect AI music to be strawberry floating awful, unless a human has very carefully helped craft it. But who knows, maybe it'll come up with something that's ok. Plus, this time, black people probably won't be the ones to blame (but I'm sure people will still find a way to blame them).

You always pop up in these threads as if I have no idea that they might be worried and cannot see any of the humour in what I recognise as a human condition and one that is nonetheless a fallacy, because it is. I can't be bothered to repeat the same things over and over again. I'm not dismissing feelings, I'm saying they are true but useless.

I'm literally a professional artist and I've written music since I was 10 years old.

Worry about it. Then do something about it. There is no other path. Unless you prefer worrying over making anything.

Do art. The only way to fail at art is stop doing it. There are always a million reasons not to do something. Don't do any of those things, and do it instead.

I wish people could understand how much time is wasted spinning around and never moving one inch in the direction people probably want to be going in, but they are too busy debating the implications of some gooseberry fool that happened yesterday or might happen tomorrow. I'm a clinically depressed individual, that's exactly WHY and HOW I can see this mindset for what it is. Do I want to be that way? strawberry float no, so I think the opposite however possible, whenever possible, as much as possible, in response to as many things as possible. It's called being antithetic.

We all have the same 24 hours in the day, time does not go backwards, there are various universal constants. You can choose to spend 1000 hours on social media complaining about bad art, complaining about bad pay, complaining about zero funding, complaining about copying, complaining about emergent technology, complaining about some existential threat or another.

What do successful artists do? What do unsuccessful artists do? What do artists, in general, do? They make strawberry floating art!

I have done ALL of these things. As someone pointed out earlier, I'm half way to 70. In 35 years maybe AI will take over the world but I'm not waiting until then to just make my strawberry floating artwork. I have had and always will have thousands of reasons for why something is hard, that's why I do it. So do it.

Please don't miss my point. I'm bored of being a victim fast these days, I recommend others get bored of it fast too because it leads nowhere other than hell.

I did say, "focusing all their attention".

If an artists spends ALL of their attention on what AI is doing, and stops making artwork as a consequence. Then what? Honestly who's responsible for that? Who responds in that way, by throwing up their arms and saying, "Well I'm strawberry floated. We're all strawberry floated. Oh strawberry float oh strawberry float."

Some other gooseberry fool would have done that. It's a mindset thing. This is EVEN MORE relevant than it was before I ever spoke about AI ever before.

Do art. Two words.

This is all the bloody DJ's fault.

Victor Mildew wrote:This is all the bloody DJ's fault.

Derek Jacobi?

It's always someone else's strawberry floating fault

I've been through this cycle a million times, you'd have to be in my own mind to see it so whatever man, cue 1000 pages of discussions, meanwhile someone, somewhere is practising, writing, recording, producing, performing music, and I'm right now not doing that. How very interesting, how about I go finish that 100+ hours worth of recordings that I've never actually released in any kind of commercial form (save for some door entry fees at live events), because OH NO AI is going to exactly replicate my art - or something close enough to it that it will instantly render me pointless. Ok see ya I'm going to bed forever, wake me up when I'm a successful artist =)

Moggy wrote:

Victor Mildew wrote:This is all the bloody DJ's fault.

Derek Jacobi?

What a bastard

Moggy wrote:I'm broadly speaking in agreement with GG. Every generation has a panic over things not being "real music". From the horrors of jazz (black people!), rock n roll (black people + devils music!), rap (black people + gritty lyrics) to heavy metal (telling kids to kill themselves + devils music + it originated from black people!) electronic music (they can't play real instruments + it's probably black peoples fault!).

I fully expect AI music to be strawberry floating awful, unless a human has very carefully helped craft it. But who knows, maybe it'll come up with something that's ok. Plus, this time, black people probably won't be the ones to blame (but I'm sure people will still find a way to blame them).

The AI thing is a different problem though. If you want to make a living making music it's going to make it far harder because it'll remove a lot of opportunities so making it harder to make a living. People make the argument that you should just be happy making music and being creative in your space time and do something else for a living, but I think that sucks.

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:I'm broadly speaking in agreement with GG. Every generation has a panic over things not being "real music". From the horrors of jazz (black people!), rock n roll (black people + devils music!), rap (black people + gritty lyrics) to heavy metal (telling kids to kill themselves + devils music + it originated from black people!) electronic music (they can't play real instruments + it's probably black peoples fault!).

I fully expect AI music to be strawberry floating awful, unless a human has very carefully helped craft it. But who knows, maybe it'll come up with something that's ok. Plus, this time, black people probably won't be the ones to blame (but I'm sure people will still find a way to blame them).

The AI thing is a different problem though. If you want to make a living making music it's going to make it far harder because it'll remove a lot of opportunities so making it harder to make a living. People make the argument that you should just be happy making music and being creative in your space time and do something else for a living, but I think that sucks.

My post was mostly talking about the knee jerk reaction to the idea of AI music, it wasn't really about music royalties.

It's already next to impossible to earn a living through recorded music. The vast vast majority of musicians make strawberry float all from their recordings.

Their money comes from live performances and merchandising. Which are not things I can see AI ever being able to take over.

I guess AI music will have its place in advert jingles etc. But for actually sitting down listening to music? I am very sceptical that it will be able to replace human made music for a very long time. Just as AI art is ok to view on a phone, but isn't something you're going to buy to hang on your wall.

I agree it all sucks for the people involved, whether we're talking about Spotify or AI. But there's no stopping the march of technology.

Moggy wrote:

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:I'm broadly speaking in agreement with GG. Every generation has a panic over things not being "real music". From the horrors of jazz (black people!), rock n roll (black people + devils music!), rap (black people + gritty lyrics) to heavy metal (telling kids to kill themselves + devils music + it originated from black people!) electronic music (they can't play real instruments + it's probably black peoples fault!).

I fully expect AI music to be strawberry floating awful, unless a human has very carefully helped craft it. But who knows, maybe it'll come up with something that's ok. Plus, this time, black people probably won't be the ones to blame (but I'm sure people will still find a way to blame them).

The AI thing is a different problem though. If you want to make a living making music it's going to make it far harder because it'll remove a lot of opportunities so making it harder to make a living. People make the argument that you should just be happy making music and being creative in your space time and do something else for a living, but I think that sucks.

My post was mostly talking about the knee jerk reaction to the idea of AI music, it wasn't really about music royalties.

It's already next to impossible to earn a living through recorded music. The vast vast majority of musicians make strawberry float all from their recordings.

Their money comes from live performances and merchandising. Which are not things I can see AI ever being able to take over.

I guess AI music will have its place in advert jingles etc. But for actually sitting down listening to music? I am very sceptical that it will be able to replace human made music for a very long time. Just as AI art is ok to view on a phone, but isn't something you're going to buy to hang on your wall.

I agree it all sucks for the people involved, whether we're talking about Spotify or AI. But there's no stopping the march of technology.

The problem is that the audience for live music is dropping unless you're a massive star like Taylor Swift. I've been going to see small acts for a long time and you used to be pretty easy to get a crowd and there were a lot of venues that would book small bands, even if you were doing original stuff not it's hard to get gigs for cover bands. I don't think it's a new thing, I remember talking to a guy in the late 90s who had been around since the 70s and he was saying it was getting a lot harder to get audiences back then. The problem is going out is expensive and there's a lot more stuff you can do at home.

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:I'm broadly speaking in agreement with GG. Every generation has a panic over things not being "real music". From the horrors of jazz (black people!), rock n roll (black people + devils music!), rap (black people + gritty lyrics) to heavy metal (telling kids to kill themselves + devils music + it originated from black people!) electronic music (they can't play real instruments + it's probably black peoples fault!).

I fully expect AI music to be strawberry floating awful, unless a human has very carefully helped craft it. But who knows, maybe it'll come up with something that's ok. Plus, this time, black people probably won't be the ones to blame (but I'm sure people will still find a way to blame them).

The AI thing is a different problem though. If you want to make a living making music it's going to make it far harder because it'll remove a lot of opportunities so making it harder to make a living. People make the argument that you should just be happy making music and being creative in your space time and do something else for a living, but I think that sucks.

My post was mostly talking about the knee jerk reaction to the idea of AI music, it wasn't really about music royalties.

It's already next to impossible to earn a living through recorded music. The vast vast majority of musicians make strawberry float all from their recordings.

Their money comes from live performances and merchandising. Which are not things I can see AI ever being able to take over.

I guess AI music will have its place in advert jingles etc. But for actually sitting down listening to music? I am very sceptical that it will be able to replace human made music for a very long time. Just as AI art is ok to view on a phone, but isn't something you're going to buy to hang on your wall.

I agree it all sucks for the people involved, whether we're talking about Spotify or AI. But there's no stopping the march of technology.

The problem is that the audience for live music is dropping unless you're a massive star like Taylor Swift. I've been going to see small acts for a long time and you used to be pretty easy to get a crowd and there were a lot of venues that would book small bands, even if you were doing original stuff not it's hard to get gigs for cover bands. I don't think it's a new thing, I remember talking to a guy in the late 90s who had been around since the 70s and he was saying it was getting a lot harder to get audiences back then. The problem is going out is expensive and there's a lot more stuff you can do at home.

That's a different problem to the AI issue.

The ridiculous cost of drinks/tickets/taxis is why so many people are no longer bothering.

Ticket prices are a direct result of allowing a monopoly to run the industry. Ridiculous that this hasn't been challenged.

Moggy wrote:I'm broadly speaking in agreement with GG. Every generation has a panic over things not being "real music". From the horrors of jazz (black people!), rock n roll (black people + devils music!), rap (black people + gritty lyrics) to heavy metal (telling kids to kill themselves + devils music + it originated from black people!) electronic music (they can't play real instruments + it's probably black peoples fault!).

I fully expect AI music to be strawberry floating awful, unless a human has very carefully helped craft it. But who knows, maybe it'll come up with something that's ok. Plus, this time, black people probably won't be the ones to blame (but I'm sure people will still find a way to blame them).

At times I deliberately specialise in especially dodgy music / no wave/noise / "wrong music" with abrupt improvisation or whatever. Because I've spent 28 years playing classical and wanted to "strawberry float you" myself. I did that for maybe 10 years and still do sometimes. It's in my approach. Very much no rules, whereas AI is all about rules.

An AI will try to mask its extreme averageness/beige-ness inevitable through mashing stuff together but it will never do something recorded off the cuff like this

https://soundcloud.com/benmobbs/breadbaking-blues

It won't be in a single day (within a matter of days) be able to write and sing badly a heartfelt waltz dedicated to someone who suddenly died when they were 18 and I went through that, and then harmonise with itself https://soundcloud.com/benmobbs/one-less-smile

AIs don't die and then write about their AI friends who also played music.

An AI sure can put itself through "dodgy recording" filter to mask its averageness but it can't actually do that incidentally because it can't be bothered to set up a recording properly and just used their phone instead, and yet, there fundamentally cannot be any of the expressive playing and technique interpreted in this piece for example:

https://soundcloud.com/benmobbs/preludio-alfonso-montes

It would be funny if it said something like this though https://soundcloud.com/benmobbs/you-are ... tely-wrong

These honestly are my gooseberry fool recordings of music, the good stuff I've never finished because I keep iterating on it endlessly, forever. I think some of them manage to sound soulful by accident, because they're not overproduced, whereas that sad AI blues song thing did that on purpose.

I can with honesty, conviction and yes - pride - 100% guarantee an AI cannot come up with the absolute hellscape, chaotic, bloody horrible and chaotic noise rock music in playlists on that page. That stuff comes from something deep in humans that are not trying to algorithmically "solve" music, but create something responding to the borderline insanity that is life. It would be like asking AI to design a new species and then instantiate it on the spot.

I would be interested to see if AI music can, in some sense, "live". Which brings me to a whole other element - live AI music performance?

What would it be like to watch that? Sound appealing?

Listen to Dr Kliener. People are completely right, completely wrong, somewhere in the middle, it doesn't matter. Do your own thing, that's the whole point. I don't think AI poses an existential threat to any artform, but it sure as hell can provide a millionth excuse for people to not dedicate time to their art.

Complain about a bunch of people doing something better than you and so you're going to give up? OK, that's a shame, and that's how mediocrity happens, by believing you're mediocre. Do the same thing but because a computer replaced you? That's unimaginably sad and I wish that upon nobody, and yet I see it all the time.

Feel doom, write a song about it, do something about it. Write about AI. Point at AI and be like, Ah here's another reason to add to my toolbox for not doing gooseberry fool, it's that which I find immensely depressing again exactly BECAUSE I have been through this process of holding myself back for DECADES because of the same thinking.

Same problem, different circumstances. Maybe I have the luxury of spending time making music that will never be commercially appealing. But the last thing I want to see musicians do is give up because they've seen AI do something half convincing in a news article, as if that wasn't the case already, a thousand times over.

I don't know much about either music or AI music, so it's possible things are different in that sphere.

In the visual arts, I've seen genuinely really interesting images come out of generative algorithms. But I think that the stuff that I would assess as having a degree of artistic value was happening way before the current wave of 'aesthetic' models like Stable Diffusion.

There's something really unique about (for instance) the DeepDream images from five (EDIT: actually it's nearly ten!) years ago:



I know a common reaction will be like, "that's just a silly picture, it's not really artistic!", but to me personally, these have a capacity for prompting a response (often confusion or disgust!) and I think that means that to me personally - and I think art is in the eye of the beholder - they have the spark of art in them.

But I'm a lot less interested in AI generation as a potential 'artistic movement' since models became 'good' enough to present coherent scenes in mimicked real styles. It was cool on a technological level to see the progress, but now the vast majority of what I see from it looks like a middle-of-the-road piece in a real style I've already seen before, and I guess to me that became a bit boring quite quickly. Don't get me wrong, "I can make infinite van Gogh paintings!" had a lot of novelty factor, but I think that progress ultimately lost what made the medium artistically interesting to me.

So I think it's possible that algorithmically generated music could be interesting, but I think that will come from embracing what makes it algorithmic -- how a computer's understand of what is 'musical' can challenge or unsettle us. (I'm sure that stuff is already out there being made by experimental musicians!) I think it will be less interesting when it gets 'good' enough for you type in "rock, female vocalist, very cool, trending on Spotify" and receive some mimicked slop.

Of course that's all a separate issue to whether AI can or should be used in the creative industries. I hope that workers in those industries are able to organise and protect their jobs.

Moggy wrote:

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:I'm broadly speaking in agreement with GG. Every generation has a panic over things not being "real music". From the horrors of jazz (black people!), rock n roll (black people + devils music!), rap (black people + gritty lyrics) to heavy metal (telling kids to kill themselves + devils music + it originated from black people!) electronic music (they can't play real instruments + it's probably black peoples fault!).

I fully expect AI music to be strawberry floating awful, unless a human has very carefully helped craft it. But who knows, maybe it'll come up with something that's ok. Plus, this time, black people probably won't be the ones to blame (but I'm sure people will still find a way to blame them).

The AI thing is a different problem though. If you want to make a living making music it's going to make it far harder because it'll remove a lot of opportunities so making it harder to make a living. People make the argument that you should just be happy making music and being creative in your space time and do something else for a living, but I think that sucks.

My post was mostly talking about the knee jerk reaction to the idea of AI music, it wasn't really about music royalties.

It's already next to impossible to earn a living through recorded music. The vast vast majority of musicians make strawberry float all from their recordings.

Their money comes from live performances and merchandising. Which are not things I can see AI ever being able to take over.

I guess AI music will have its place in advert jingles etc. But for actually sitting down listening to music? I am very sceptical that it will be able to replace human made music for a very long time. Just as AI art is ok to view on a phone, but isn't something you're going to buy to hang on your wall.

I agree it all sucks for the people involved, whether we're talking about Spotify or AI. But there's no stopping the march of technology.

The problem is that the audience for live music is dropping unless you're a massive star like Taylor Swift. I've been going to see small acts for a long time and you used to be pretty easy to get a crowd and there were a lot of venues that would book small bands, even if you were doing original stuff not it's hard to get gigs for cover bands. I don't think it's a new thing, I remember talking to a guy in the late 90s who had been around since the 70s and he was saying it was getting a lot harder to get audiences back then. The problem is going out is expensive and there's a lot more stuff you can do at home.

That's a different problem to the AI issue.

The ridiculous cost of drinks/tickets/taxis is why so many people are no longer bothering.

True, although the low end gigs I go to still only charge about a fiver, although train tickets into Camden and a couple of beers is getting on for £40 (actually probably more) now.
I think having AI generated content will make it harder for that kind event though as it'll give people another option of stuff to do. Do I want to go to a gig that I might not like or shall I just listen to some AI generated stuff that's trained to only make stuff I like even if it's crap.

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:

Lex-Man wrote:

Moggy wrote:I'm broadly speaking in agreement with GG. Every generation has a panic over things not being "real music". From the horrors of jazz (black people!), rock n roll (black people + devils music!), rap (black people + gritty lyrics) to heavy metal (telling kids to kill themselves + devils music + it originated from black people!) electronic music (they can't play real instruments + it's probably black peoples fault!).

I fully expect AI music to be strawberry floating awful, unless a human has very carefully helped craft it. But who knows, maybe it'll come up with something that's ok. Plus, this time, black people probably won't be the ones to blame (but I'm sure people will still find a way to blame them).

The AI thing is a different problem though. If you want to make a living making music it's going to make it far harder because it'll remove a lot of opportunities so making it harder to make a living. People make the argument that you should just be happy making music and being creative in your space time and do something else for a living, but I think that sucks.

My post was mostly talking about the knee jerk reaction to the idea of AI music, it wasn't really about music royalties.

It's already next to impossible to earn a living through recorded music. The vast vast majority of musicians make strawberry float all from their recordings.

Their money comes from live performances and merchandising. Which are not things I can see AI ever being able to take over.

I guess AI music will have its place in advert jingles etc. But for actually sitting down listening to music? I am very sceptical that it will be able to replace human made music for a very long time. Just as AI art is ok to view on a phone, but isn't something you're going to buy to hang on your wall.

I agree it all sucks for the people involved, whether we're talking about Spotify or AI. But there's no stopping the march of technology.

The problem is that the audience for live music is dropping unless you're a massive star like Taylor Swift. I've been going to see small acts for a long time and you used to be pretty easy to get a crowd and there were a lot of venues that would book small bands, even if you were doing original stuff not it's hard to get gigs for cover bands. I don't think it's a new thing, I remember talking to a guy in the late 90s who had been around since the 70s and he was saying it was getting a lot harder to get audiences back then. The problem is going out is expensive and there's a lot more stuff you can do at home.

That's a different problem to the AI issue.

The ridiculous cost of drinks/tickets/taxis is why so many people are no longer bothering.

True, although the low end gigs I go to still only charge about a fiver, although train tickets into Camden and a couple of beers is getting on for £40 (actually probably more) now.
I think having AI generated content will make it harder for that kind event though as it'll give people another option of stuff to do. Do I want to go to a gig that I might not like or shall I just listen to some AI generated stuff that's trained to only make stuff I like even if it's crap.

There are over 100 million songs on Spotify. And probably a similar number of amateur singers on YouTube. I can't see why some crap AI songs are suddenly going to make more people think "strawberry float it, no point going out to gigs with my mates anymore".