AI music is the same as AI code. It’s derived from real code, but it’s not just regurgitated wholesale. You still as a person with taste have to guide it and provide inputs.
Electronic music made it so you didn’t have to learn to play an instrument. Auto tune made it so you didn’t have to learn how to sing on key. There are many innovations in music over time that make it easier and less gatekeepy to make music.
We are just moving from making music as a rote activity similar to code, to making music like a composer in much the way that you can create software without writing code. It’s moving things up a level. It’s how the steady march of innovation happens.
It won’t work to put the genie back in the bottle, now it’s to find what you love about it and makes it worth it for you and to focus on that part. Banning the new types of art is only going to last as long as it takes for people to get over their initial shock of it and for good products to start being produced with it.
But the parent poster is, presumably, human! Humans have the right to take inspiration like that from other humans (or machines)! Why do we seem so keen on granting machines the right to take from us? Are we not supposed to be their masters?
For me, one key difference is that I can cite my stylistic influences and things I tried, while (to my knowledge) commercial musical generation models specifically avoid doing that, and most don't provide chord/lead sheets either -- I would find it genuinely sad to talk to a musician about their arrangement/composition choices, only to find they couldn't
So much of music composition is what "feels right" and is instinctual. Artists aren't consciously aware of probably most of their influences. They can cite some of the most obvious ones, but the creative process is melding a thousand different vibes and sounds and sequences you've heard before, internalized, and joined into something new, in a way only your particular brain could.
Let music historians work on trying to cite and trace influences. That's not something artists need to worry about.
Thus already doing much better than the average Suno producer
E: More seriously, this strikes me as a motte-and-bailey where "Artists cannot list every single influence they have or provide an explicit motivation for every single creative choice" is treated the same as "artists cannot list influences or justify creative choices at all"
I guess the difference is proprietary code is mostly not used for training. It's going to be trained on code in the public. It's the inverse for music, where it's being trained on commercial work, not work that has been licensed freely.
This is cliche. Most celebrated artists in the electronic music world can play several instruments, if not expertly, than at least with enough familiarity to understand the nuances of musical performance.
Electronic musicians are more akin to composers and probably have more in common with mathematicians and programmers in the way that they practice their craft, whereas musical performers probably have more in common with athletes in the way that they practice their craft.
Same applies to Bandcamp not having any issues with people making music in a DAW
But if it is possible it's probably going to be a lot more involved than just '"video of cute cartoon cat, Pixar style" into a prompt'.
Though relatively old in the AI world (2023), it's still quite interesting.
In case you can't access the article, the prompt used is:
> 35mm, 1990s action film still, close-up of a bearded man browsing for bottles inside a liquor store. WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU!!! (background action occurs)…a white benz truck crashes through a store window, exploding into the background…broken glass flies everywhere, flaming debris sparkles light the neon night, 90s CGI, gritty realism
People don't understand that about music either. We may use sequencers and automation, but the work happens in real time, and it is an instrument that we are playing. It's just that we work at a higher level than just playing something on a keyboard.
Not necessarily apples-to-apples here. Full songs generated from AI prompts don't crash like a computer program would. You could simply upload the garbage to Spotify and reap the rewards until it got removed (if it even does).
It's the same with background music when I work. But like as a specific example, that's a specific track I quite listening to, and it's 100% AI generated. Can you really say it doesn't have any character?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJUvNVCqtpI
>> The world is messy, and human music reflects that
Are you familiar with the term "elevator music"? It doesn't need to be messy or have any character to it - it just has to cover the noises of the elevator moving up and down its shaft.
>>d that human-created music seems offensive to you,
I literally never said that, please stop implying so.
Put a different way, if I'm listening to music on random, and Led Zeppelin finishes, do I want there to be a chance of pink noise or elevator music playing after that song? Not really, but if "it's all on Spotify," then it could happen
Not music.
>waves crashing on the beach
Also not music.
>It's the same with background music when I work.
You do you. I like good music when I work, not "background music". The better the music, the more fun it is to work. YMMV.
>But like as a specific example, that's a specific track I quite listening to, and it's 100% AI generated. Can you really say it doesn't have any character?
Maybe it's not only the AI-generated music that is lacking in character.
>Are you familiar with the term "elevator music"? It doesn't need to be messy or have any character to it - it just has to cover the noises of the elevator moving up and down its shaft.
And if it's pretty bad music, then it makes me anticipate getting out of the elevator even more, but most likely I'll be listening to music that I like in my earbuds while I'm in the elevator. And I've been in some fancy elevators with actually nice non-AI generated music.
>>>without anyone trying to impart anything on them.
>> that human-created music seems offensive to you,
>I literally never said that, please stop implying so.
Okay, maybe I read more into it than you were expressing, but it seems like having a human put effort into relating an experience is just too distracting for some people, or something... I took it as "offensive" because you seem to just want a machine to sanitize what someone else wrote and regurgitate it out in a non-distracting way. If that's what you want, nobody here is stopping you from having it, but we can form opinions based on what you write about yourself. You are free to do the same, and yes, I'm sure I can be seen as kind of an asshole sometimes. Maybe I should write a song about it, I'd call it "Ballad of an Internet Asshole", and I'm sure a lot of people would relate to it.
This is already what pop music, EDM and some other genres have been about for decades. Most of it is slop made with overused similar chord progressions and beats. The very fact that we can easily separate music into genres is a proof most of the music we produce nowadays is super generic and follows very basic repetitive patterns.
There is AI slop but there is human slop too and it tends to be very successful.
Neither of those things are really true, though. They made it possible to make poor music without learning those things, I suppose, but not make good music.
> Banning the new types of art
Nobody is seriously talking about banning AI generated music. What you're seeing is a platform deciding that AI generated music isn't something that platform is into. There are a lot of different platforms out there.
Doesn't seem like a good way to measure a "good song".
I think in this context, the term "intentional music" or "earnest music" applies better. People who just wants "music that sounds good" already has mainstream stuff. Many who want a more niche sound deliberately look to support humans in that endeavor. Not yet another billionaire label who puts out "safe" but "boring" stuff. Except it's worse now.
Personally, I don't buy this "AI models are learning just like we do." It's an appeal to ignorance. Just because we don't fully understand how a human brain learns, one can't claim it's the same as a statistical model of ordered tokens.
But even if it were true, I'm alright with drawing a line between AI learning and human learning. The law and social conventions are for humans. I want the ability to learn from others and produce original works that show influences. If this right is allowed to all humans, there is a chance one learn from and outperform me. That would suck for me, but I can accept it because it came from a universal human right I also enjoy. But an AI model doesn't have human rights. For models, the law and social conventions should still favor humans. The impact on the creative community and future creative endeavors should be balanced against the people who create and use the models.
I don't know how to do that with LLMs in a way that doesn't prevent the development of these amazing models. Maybe the government should distribute a portion of the revenue generated by the models amongst all citizens, to reflect how each model's value came from the written works of those citizens.
I don't know about that. America shows us that laws and social conventions are for corporations. Humans are just entities to extract profit from.
But I've seen the discussion here on that's and we're pretty far away from being able to have a good discussion on that. Let along bridging the two topics together.
This is a rather sad take. If someone learned from my art or music and did something new and more popular, I would be happy! I had influence, I mattered. That new more popular work takes nothing away from my previous work. In fact, when I do science I'm doing it explicitly for this reason, to build on.
For me, creating music is not about "being the best" or "making more money than some other artist." It's about telling the stories I want to tell. An AI would not tell my stories, ever. It might produce things that somewhat similar, but it won't tell a human story, just a shallow imitation.
On the flip side, AI can be immensely useful. For example, stemming means that DJs or visualizer applications can do more with music. Perhaps AI can be used to create interesting new effects, or interesting new instruments or sounds. It can give ideas and help with inspiration.
I honestly have a hard time seeing AI actually driving musicians out of business because it can't tell a story. And it can't do that because it hasn't lived a life. Yes, I can see it producing low quality ad-jingles or low quality filler tracks like you see in spotify, so some people will be impacted. But we're long past time for some form of universal basic income to deal with this. It's not just artists that need a basic income at this point.
>That would suck for me, but I can accept it because it came from a universal human right I also enjoy.
I would imagine the vast majority of other humans agree with me. I'm not just gonna betray humankind because some 1s and 0s "learned" how to write music. Who cares, it's silicon.
Is "gatekeepy" how we're referring to skill now? "Man I'd like to make a top-quality cabinet for my kitchen, lame how those skilled carpenters are gatekeeping that shit smh"
From this statement, I doubt you've written any music worth listening to, or any code that's not trivial.
Don't confuse music with muzak. What you get from an "AI" is muzak. It will never, ever have the same depth, warmth, or meaning as a human translating human emotions and experience into music and lyrics.
There have already been AI-created #1 hits.
Sure, there’s music that has all of the attributes you lay out as “requisite” for “good” music, but this is classic moving of the goalposts. It’s how people always justify that AI is not here yet, because there’s this facet of it that’s not human enough.
A lot of the music people listen to is devoid of the depth, warmth and meaning you mention, even without AI involvement. It’s written and produced by tens or hundreds of people and there’s no single visionary behind it. It’s a product.
Similarly, there can be AI assisted music that has just as much depth, warmth and meaning as a human, BECAUSE a human is involved in the decision-making of that music.
Do you believe that if someone uses a sample, or uses a prebuilt drum loop, that their music automatically is bad? What level of assistance is acceptable? Where do you draw the line?
It's an old story, but it was a fabricated one.
The only reason this sort of tracks is that a lot of people today don't listen to music, they just put it on as background noise to drown out the silence. It seems to pay off for some producers, but I don't think there's big money there, or a real threat of replacing artists.
By and large, the general public has shown that they notice the vapidness, blandness, and incongruity of GenAI music, and don't much care for it apart from seeing it as an interesting curiosity.
You didn't, and I never claimed that you did - I wrote that I doubt you have. If you had written non-trivial code, or written any music worth listening to, then I doubt you would have the same conclusions.
>A lot of the music people listen to is devoid of the depth, warmth and meaning you mention, even without AI involvement.
I agree, and it will be forgotten, and that's fine. Not every song is a winner. I guarantee that #1 AI generated hit will not be thought about a year after it comes out. Yes we're still listening to hits from the 1960s that real people created because they express human experience that isn't easily fabricated by a machine.
> lukevp 13 hours ago | parent | next [–]
Where did I claim in my post to have written music worth listening to or nontrivial code? Seems like you’re just insulting me in particular instead of providing a counter-argument. There have already been AI-created #1 hits.
Sure, there’s music that has all of the attributes you lay out as “requisite” for “good” music, but this is classic moving of the goalposts. It’s how people always justify that AI is not here yet, because there’s this facet of it that’s not human enough.
A lot of the music people listen to is devoid of the depth, warmth and meaning you mention, even without AI involvement. It’s written and produced by tens or hundreds of people and there’s no single visionary behind it. It’s a product.
>Similarly, there can be AI assisted music that has just as much depth, warmth and meaning as a human, BECAUSE a human is involved in the decision-making of that music.
AI-boosting nonsense
>Do you believe that if someone uses a sample, or uses a prebuilt drum loop, that their music automatically is bad?
Generally, yes. I abhor Kanye and his ilk. YMMV.
Yes, when I make music, I am taking inspiration from all of the other artists I've listened to and using that in my music. If someone listens to my music, they are getting some value from my contribution, but also indirectly from the musicians that inspired me.
The difference between that and AI is that I am a human being who deserves to live a life of dignity and artistic expression in a world that supports that while AI-generated music is the product of a mindless automaton that enriches billionaires who are actively building a world that makes it harder to live a life of stability, comfort, and dignity.
These are not the same thing any more than fucking a fleshlight is the same as being in a romantic relationship. The physical act may appear roughly the same, but the human experience, meaning behind it, and societal externalities are certainly not.
If someone trains a machine on my work and it means you can get the benefit of my labor without knowing me, interacting with my work or understanding it, or really any effort beyond some GPUs, that feels bad. And, it's much more of a risk to me, if that means anything.
Agreed. My goal, my moral compass, is to live in a world populated by thriving happy people. I love teaching people new things and am happy to work hard to that end and sacrifice some amount of financial compensation. (For example, both of my books can be read online for free.)
I couldn't possibly care less about some giant matrix of floats sitting in a GPU somewhere getting tuned to better emulate some desired behavior. I simply have no moral imperative to enrich machines or their billionaire owners.
Sure, but so does the homeless guy living on the streets right now because computers and the internet automated his job - and yet here you are using the very tools ("mindless automatons") that put him out of work.
The invention of the shipping container put nearly every stevedore out of a job. But it made it radically cheaper to ship things and that improved the quality of life of nearly everyone on Earth.
I suspect that for most stevedores, it was a job where the wages provided dignity and meaning in their life, but where the work itself wasn't that central to their identity. I hope that most were able to find other work that was equally dignified.
That's certainly less true for musicians, poets, and painters where what they do is central to the value of the work and not just how much they can get paid.
There's no blanket technology-independent answer here. You have to look at a technology and all of its consequences and try to figure out what's worth doing and what isn't.
I think shipping containers are a pretty clear win. I think machine learning for classification is likely a win.
It's not at all clear to me that using generative AI to produce media is a win. I suspect it is a very large loss for society as a whole. Automating bullshit drudgery is fine. Most people don't want to do that shit anyway. But automating away the very acts that people find most profoundly human seems the height of stupidity to me.
Do you really want to live in a world where more people have to be Uber drivers and fewer people get to make art? Do you want to live in that world when it appears that the main people who benefit are already billionaires?
In fact, the theoretical turn in 20th century art was due in part to the invention of the camera. What's the point in continuing down the path of representational art if the camera can recreate a scene with infinitely more realism than the best painter?
Many of the same criticisms that people have of photography as art are being used against AI today, like that it's too easy, that it's soulless, or that the machine is the real artist.
You say that as if it's a given that that's a good thing.
> Many of the same criticisms that people have of photography as art are being used against AI today, like that it's too easy, that it's soulless, or that the machine is the real artist.
I made none of those criticisms.
Plenty of people miss taking care of their horses, but we still drive cars.
The vast majority of humans do not, in fact, think making art is "the most profoundly human" thing. They are about socializing, they care about their family, they want to go on fun vacations and have fun experiences. Most people do not spend their free time painting.
I observed, which is entirely likely to be true, that on average people probably find more personal fulfillment in the work of being an artist than the work of hauling crates off a ship.
Yes, we humans are clever creatures and will extract as much upside and value as we can out of any situation. That does not at all mean that all jobs are thus equivalent in all respects.
> they want to go on fun vacations and have fun experiences.
And how many of those vacations are to places with incredible architecture and rewarding art museums? How many of those fun experiences are music, plays, and movies?
Certainly, family and socializing are important avenues of meaning as well. Those aren't mutually exclusive with wanting to live in a world full of art made by others who care about it.
It's not about putting the genie back in the bottle, it's about helping folks realize that the vague smell of farts in the air IS the genie--and this particular genie only grants costly monkey paw wishes that ultimately do more harm to the world than good.
Your instrument is the computer and designing sound. You still have to have talent and musical ear to make this music.
The volumes of production are really scales of magnitude of difference between a human producing music, and a computer.
With a script and generator 1 individual could oversaturate the whole marketplace overnight rendering it impossible for other individuals to be found let alone extract any value.
Also, I don't know if you've ever done music production for fun but you don't really just setup only a prompt. It takes a significant amount of time to actually produce something. Time setting up a DAW system and export an empty track, and submitting it. An empty track.
Let alone actually doing all the microoptimizations by ear and trial to produce any catchy tune. Meanwhile a statistical approach doesn't even have to understand what's it's doing, could as well be white noise for all it matters.
Normally the copyright is owned by the creator. Algorithms can't own copyrights, so there is no copyright. There is already legal history on this.
This is an argument that the AI should be allowed to benefit, not the person prompting it.
I've never heard an artist confident in their own ability complain about this because they're not threatened by other competent human artists knocking them off never mind an AI that's even worse at it.
AI not going to out-compete anyone on volume by flooding the marketplace because switching costs are effectively zero. Clever artists can probably find a way to grease controversy and marketing out of finding cases where they are knocked off, taking it as a compliment, and juicing it for marketing.
But I liked the Picasso quote when I was younger and earlier on in my journey as a musician because it reminded me to be humble and resist the desire to get possessive -- if what I was onto was really my own, people would like it and others could try to knock it off and fail. That is a lesson that has always served me very well.
Why are people mad? Don't they understand that you can't stop progress? Fssss... /s
What do you think about The Prodigy?