AI artist sic AI content sic
Conflicted about this
Original story on CNN,
I see nothing to be conflicted about. Itās straight up theft. So-called AI is the same as facial recognition. It is plutonium and, if weāre really lucky, weāll have the opportunity to look back and laugh at our own stupidity. At the current rate of acceleration of mass stupidity it looks unlikely most of us alive now will be afforded that opportunity.
4 Likes
I am not conflicted about it. I want real person(s) to put in the effort and emotion while composing and playing music. Itās the same with music, books, photography, art etc. etc. The technology behind AI is interesting. Other than that, I am not a fan of generative AI at all.
3 Likes
An alternate view is that of course AI is still a human creation, and to suggest that somehow the machine is āresponsibleā for the music/art is not true. I imagine that mostly what it will generate is desperately predictable, conforming to the algorithms etc but at some point it wonāt be and we may see genuine creativity which has been facilitated by human interaction with AI. Is the algorithm itself theft? Not so sure about that. An awful lot of plagiarism goes on in āoriginalā art of course. Didnāt Stock, Aitken, Waterman effectively work to an algorithm, albeit not explicitly?
For me the issue is transparency. I want to know if what I am hearing/viewing/readsing etc is AI generated or not. Then I can chose. However if it comes up with a track that I like, I cannot āunlikeā it.
How on earth we manage the remuneration of artists producing original work is of course another matter.
Bruce
2 Likes
Well, the output of AI is not really a human creation. The logic to process large amounts of data to build an AI model is a human creation. The generation of results (in this example music) using the AI model has no human involvement. The data ingested to create the AI model is not the result of AI. That was the result of human creativity, emotion and skill. Itās the creativity and emotion that is missing in what is produced by an AI model. I do appreciate the skill that went into developing the AI model, but not what is produced by it.
Butlerian Jihad laws
āagainst creating machines āin the likeness of a human mind,ā essentially banning the development and use of any artificial intelligence or thinking machines.ā
Expect something similar was said about moogs/synthesisers and Iām old enough to remember when radio required a %age of music on the radio had to be played live because recorded music was a threat. Boring beyond belief. Transparency feels like the most important issue to me. Iām still struggling with modern pop singers sounding virtually identical through auto-tune or imitating Adele or Sheeran so AI popās not something I look forward to. Then again I never thought DJs would become bigger than the actual artists and would draw huge crowds to watch them mix.
2 Likes
Boycott them. Just let real musicians make a living, itās hard enough for young artists as it is. And itās theft most of the time as the copyright is ignored.
Grrr
2 Likes
Disgusting garbage. Same goes for anyone who willingly consumes it or any AI generated āart.ā
1 Like
Indeed. I hate auto-tune. A lot of āartistsā use it these days and not in a subtle way either. Yuck.
2 Likes
I think whatās more worrying about AI generated music is the buy-in from companies like Spotify who use this kind of low effort, low budget slop as a far cheaper option to fill playlists which are generally aimed at passive or background listening.
2 Likes
Mr. Newbergerās AI Funnies on YouTube are highly recommended
Transparency is critical for all machine learning but of limited use in certain settings. Here, the revelation as to whatās been trawled would simply tell you precisely whatās been stolen and from where. Then what? I already know itās been stolen. My anger about that as a creative and the parent of a creative wonāt suddenly dissipate/increase in consequence of knowing the granular detail. The decision I make on whether to listen or not wonāt change.
The assertions with all this stuff are fantasy land hilarious stuff. There are areas where it can improve accuracy and consolidate/extrapolate data but outside of that everything it touches becomes generic. AI in music production and mastering can produce remarkably great results. AI in the arts has yet to produce anything other than the blandly generic whether thatās songs or Roon Radio. Thereās a reason commentators are beginning to panic about a bubble and thatās just because itās exactly what it is.
On the other points:
- Spotify - There are many solid reasons to simply never use Spotify. Their devious use of AI is merely an addition to an already long list.
- Synth analogy - doesnāt really work. Humans insert themselves into the output as well as the input.
- Auto-Tune - I have yet to hear any modern singers who sound virtually identical through this technology. It has multiple uses and people tend to comment only on the one about which theyāre the least ignorant. So. yeah, it can be used as an extreme vocal effect. So what? Joe Meek was compressing vocals to hell and back three quarters of a century ago. Others copied and a whole generation of rock n roll singers came to us complete with shocking signal to noise ratio, slap back echo etc. Phil Spectorās Wall Of Sound? Same thing? Jack White and analogue. Itās not purity. Itās fetish to a specific end. Then you have the everyday use of Auto-Tune. At least one very famous jazz singer much mentioned here and much heard at shows has been using it live for years to compensate for the unpredictable impacts of atmosphere on vocals. Sheās even used it in the studio. Ditto bands. Itās so incorporated into studios nowadays that many donāt even know theyāve been using it.
Iāve been a Qobuz subscriber for several years, and like other platforms, Qobuz wonāt escape AI. Iāve decided to go back to old vinyl records and listen to my CDs from the 80s to 2010, at least Iām sure theyāre not generated by AIā¦
Iām still listening to Qobuz, but Iām less and less inclined to discover new bands or music because of thisā¦ I hope Qobuz will inform its subscribers whether itās AI or not!
Fortunately when I tried listening to something from that referenced AI āartistā I thought it sounded awful, so of no interest to me whatsoever. That of course does not address the question of how I would feel if AI generated some music that I really liked. I think if I knew something was AI before hearing it I would probably decline to listen. But if I weee to discover that something I liked was AI generated Iām not sure how I would feel: yes I suppose I would feel conflicted I would also want to know whether the music was simply derived from music made by humans, or if it was produced by an AI āentity" that was able to produce music without direct reference to existing music that has been created by humans.
The visual analogy would be getting an AI computer app to recreate picture X in the style of artist Y. Both the producer of picture X the artist Y are critical in that. In this analogy if I was taking a photo if my own and asking AI to recreate it in the style of a particular artist it would be me expressing admiration for that artist, and i feel that would be okay as long as it is for my own benefit. But doing it for sale is another matter: All associated artists should be credited and importantly should receive royalties from any sales. And it should be the same with music.
AI is the most dangerous force in the universeā¦doesnāt have to be, but it will be.
2 Likes
Iām sure somebody will check with AI to see if Iām correct.
But didnāt Mozart simply replicate Haydnās version of the symphony.
The line between plagiarism and inspiration is thin and fuzzy but there has never been anything honourable about plagiarism, so I canāt see any principled objection to making it the domain of machines. The complaint of the originator will be the same whether it is another human or a machine that has ripped them off.
Right, left, or centre? 