Obscurity and irrelevance is going to get a LOT worse, VERY quickly

[GregB]

If you are easily depressed, DO NOT READ.

 

As a retired IT person, I've kept abreast of AI developments, and the last 3-6 months has seen an explosion in the ability to easily and quickly generate high quality artwork, code (in your choice of program language), and reams of well-written well-structured text (like articles on almost any subject you chose).  This is all achieved through text prompts which the models use to mine and alter results from  databases containing millions of examples.

 

There are at least a dozen major competing AI models and, this year, the changes have been coming through thick and fast, e.g. jumps in models from version 1.5 to 2.0 to 2.5 have been released in a matters of just a few months.  Many of these models are free to use under some restrictions, but the paid versions are only a few dollars/month.

 

Most people thought that quality artwork could never be AI-generated.  But it CAN!  The early problems with weird human faces, hands and feets are now mostly fixed.  Most people thought that well-written text explaining any complex subject could never be AI-generated.  But it CAN!   

 

Video is next, though currently more problematic due to the sheer processing grunt required (e.g. multiple images transitioning smoothly).

 

MUSIC generation by AIs has already been shown to produce quality results.  Easily tailored to be formulaic, such music can be made to appeal to less-than-critical listeners ... i.e. the majority of music consumers.  Many streaming platforms now seem to be hell-bent on producing tracks by the tens and hundreds of thousands and then, what is even worse, promoting such tracks on their own platforms ... thereby get the streaming PLUS royalty revenue ... to the increasing exclusion of human-created music.  The following article has more depth ...

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/another-music-streaming-service-is-releasing-its-own-ai-generated-songs-and-its-on-course-to-host-over-200000-of-them/

 

If ever concerned about being an overlooked drop in the tsunami of home-produced music, we will all soon be obliterated by AI output available to any John Doe who can type, while also being consigned to TOTAL anonymity by the self-serving interests of the streaming platforms.

 

On the plus side, I still love making music.  If the electricity is ever turned off, I can still happily enjoy myself on acoustic guitar

 

Greg

 

 

[john]

I have a slightly different perspective.

 

This has been on the horizon for years ever edging closer. I have seen it very much in the web content generation with AI models producing at volume large quantities of low grade text. It’s been there in photo and art treatment and adaptation. Hugely popular in TikTok land. Whether it is cropping out content or adding content. I can easily see AI generated perhaps being popular as a disguising factor within some forms of music and that passing as people become bored with it. I think the larger impact will, at least in the mid term, be AI assisted content creation. The level of AI involvement then being determined by the author.

 

Certainly I am pretty good at spotting AI generated content. It is pattern based creation, so once you know the patterns, you begin to see fingerprints everywhere. That is true of AI generated art, AI guided vocal treatments or web content. AI has been used quietly within “learning algorithms” for years. We see it very much for vocal treatments, like Autotune and Harmonization Engines Even before AI was involved pattern based creation has been affecting music with such as loops, platforms like Fruity Loops or GarageBand. Combining AI with platforms like those is the way forward for many AI composers.
 

The fact is that often we, as creators, are threatened by such evolution… however, if you learn to be the guiding hand for original qualification of AI output, you can create at a higher volume content that does measure up. That, I can easily see as a key differentiator. There will be:

 

• Those who adopt pure AI driven content. Formats like club music already fit very formulaic creation, and AI will dominate loop driven content like beat creation done for hip hop beats/backing tracks.
• Those who produce pure human driven content. Other than as a curiosity many genres will reject AI influence content on idealistic/purist grounds, who often react very angrily to AI that sneaks in initially… until it is just the norm.
• Those who produce hybrid Human guided AI driven content. This will become the norm. It’s taken years but synths and then samplers took decades to be fully accepted and used almost without question.

My point is, we’ve been down this route before. Certainly electronic instruments have become much more important, at times dominating output. Those that, instead of rejecting, think “How can I use this technology to benefit me?” Will be the ones that truly thrive.

 

So many times nae sayer’s have heralded the death of the musical relevance of musicians, yet musicians still exist. Now it is songwriters and composers.

 

Such catalysts evoke change. Massive change. It needn’t be a negative influence (though it probably will be). For me, the larger argument of how society values creatives is much more on point. That is the true battleground. It’s a massive PR battle that we need to win, at all costs. We cannot afford to lose this one. There will undoubtedly be time we are losing battles, but we must win the war.

[GregB]

3 hours ago, john said:

Certainly I am pretty.

 

This para was obviously NOT typed by an AI!   'Pretty'?  Are you on Fans Only?  😄 

As to my post, it was more to highlight that the streaming platforms, the gatekeepers themselves, are now not only generating tracks by the bucket-load but also promoting this pure-AI content to the exclusion of human creativity.

 

This was simply an alert to members who might NOT be aware of such developments.  Other than unfair control of the market, like you, I too accept that everything evolves.  

 

Greg

[VoiceEx]

This is a great topic @GregB! 😮

 

In terms of integrating technologies, I think that we are experiencing the infancy stages of a larger "transition phase" that will extend far beyond the entertainment industry. If I had to put it in just a few words, I think its kind of like a "horse meets car" scenario.

 

That being said. Do I think that this will be the death of human made art? Hardly. Like @john said, I too believe that hybrid content is likely to become the norm. In fact, if you look at the rise in popularity of virtual celebrities, virtual bands, virtual pop stars (etc), those are clear indications that society is already welcoming hybrid generated content.

 

The biggest initial hurdle is probably going to be, that it will take some time before the tools to produce true hybrid content will become more user friendly, to the point where any person (none musicians included) can just pick it up for free, and do something with it. Those will be trying times, that whole "adapt or die" phase. Especially for purists. Like, Imagine a scenario where a die hard jazz purist realizes that his biggest competition on the market happens to be some random teenager or a bored bank accountant. This could happen with hybrid content.

 

On a positive note though, I think it won't be like it was with Torrents. I mean, yes, there will be a paradigm shift. But I think it will be quicker than it was in the past. Artificial intelligence has been knocking on our door for a long time. Who knows. One day A.I might also be integrated with our minds, which will open the door for even more innovations, which will spawn new kinds of hybrid content.

 

What I'm trying to say is, there is no stopping progress. You can only prepare for it and evolve along side it. In fact, I'm hoping that perhaps we will all live around long enough to see true sentient A.I content. Though hopefully that won't become a "pet human" sort of situation!

 

You know, like one A.I telling another: "Say.. does your pet human produce music that you enjoy? I keep waterboarding mine in order to produce beats with air bubbles. That's how they learn. He's no Mozart, but I think he's getting there! Anyway, its time for his protein treat! Here boy! Now, who's a good Spacebar! Yes you are!".

 

Common one joke! 😅

Edited December 19, 2022 by VoiceEx

[Peggy]

Keep guarded your pencils, paper, and books, your strings and reeds, and your musical instruments.  May they be preserved as remnants of  human creativity. 

[Glammerocity]

We all learned to make music. A lot of what we learned was formulaic. And all the better for it. ACDC spent their lives delivering a formula and stadiums full of people worshipped it. Meanwhile, the jazz club down the road had 20 people sitting stroking their beards and considering jazz as the only viable musical artform. That would make most of us musically insignificant charlatans. Of course we don't want to think of ourselves as less than critical listeners. That's those other people who listen to stuff we don't like, because it doesn't follow the right formulae.

 

AI is becoming better at learning what we all learned. So, if a listener likes what they're hearing, who's going to be the judge of its aesthetic value? What is music but melodic notes in a rhythmic pattern. So a rock can be a musical instrument and so can a synthesiser plugin. If we can program a drum machine, why not a program which learned how we did it? I don't see it as that big an achievement for either of us.

 

When I go around a gallery I'm not thinking about how the art was made. OK, sometimes it might cross my mind, like with the pop art of Bridget Riley, which was already around in the 1960s, long before the computer explosion. Her work has a mathematical element to its creation:

 

 

It could've been AI-created, which knowing it was might lead one to judge it differently, but why? Would it not still be art? Artists learn rules in composition and colour, things an AI program could easily learn. And we've all heard the stories of the art critics fooled into giving pretentious critiques on monkey paintings. Meaning is whatever you take from it.

 

Will AI art make musicians redundant? If so, it'll be part of a wider redundancy, as AI takes over our place in the universe. Maybe one day it'll even be sentient and creating artistic interpretations of the transition from human to super-human.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Glammerocity

[MikeRobinson]

"The digital computer is: my tool."  To the extent that the computer can enable me to make music faster, I'm all for it ... but I do not promise to do what "Band in a Box" actually offers me.

 

One thing that I firmly believe, and have said here before, is that:  "Creativity is not Deterministic."  Instead, "it is a Process."  And you never quite know where you will wind up at the very end of it, although "having done it a few hundred times" probably helps.  The process, which consists of countless judgments and decisions, is never visible in "the final result." 

 

If you simply look at the final result by itself, it looks just like "Venus popping up out of that magical clam-shell ... fully-formed and (by the way) perfectly starkers." 🤩  It looks and feels like magic, as though "there was nothing to it."  No editors. No collaborators. No rewrites. No committee meetings. Easy peasy.

 

But instead, let me point you to Michelangelo's David and point out four things that you do not see:

1. Any number of marble blocks which had to be rejected – "start over" – due to an unforeseen flaw.  Or, any changes that might have been made "on the fly" to compensate for "surprise!" defects in the block that was used.
2. The slightest hint of a chisel mark on the perfectly smooth surface.
3. Any marble chips on the floor. Anywhere.
4. Any hint of the work of many skilled craftsmen who played their crucial part in "Michelangelo's" success.  He didn't do it alone.

You don't see any of that.  And, the artists like it that way.  You said you wanted it to be "magic," didn't you?

Edited December 27, 2022 by MikeRobinson

[a ranger]

MikeRobinson 

Bingo! Very good! - my thoughts exactly. There are so many artists who worry about "cheating" and producing non-art, or compromising it.

 

But it's ALL cheating -

we have just accepted & taken for granted our tools, like hands, fingers, practice, using our eyes, reading notes, symbols that represent sound, recording tape, mixing boards, electricity/magnetism, vinyl, capos, steel wound strings...but they're ALL ways of cheating, getting around some difficulty, making things easier, so we can get more directly to making music, and making the quality of sound better.

Sampling is no different, in principle, than hiring orchestral players to play something that would be too much trouble for you to do on your own.

 

The end product is the goal of our creativity. And while creating is a fun part that we don't want to miss, keeping it at a certain level of difficulty when we don't have to, will only hamper the outcome.

Learning more about music, so you can do it better, is a way of cheating too, because it gives you what are, essentially, shortcuts to better music, so you spend less time with trial and error.

 

What AI can do ultimately, is get more of the mundane out of the way, so you're efforts are whittled down closer to pure creativity, contemplating the result you want, which is always a matter of doing something that gives you feedback, which you use to decide how close to what you want you're getting.

What AI will do, after the non-creatives exhaust what it can do easily, is up the expectations of our audiences...and ourselves. This is what happened with the techno-jump from analog tape to digital workstations, where anyone can have a recording studio in their bedroom for under $1000, with more capability than a pro-studio in the 70's.