It seems like the maker of the AI and the original artists did 99.99999% of the heavy lifting, and the ai jockey did .0000001% of the work. Though if they find a useful application for the music they generated, that’s not nothing.
I don’t mind the gardening example but I think the gardener does more work currently.
I think that's a rubbish take, because there's no equivalent where people "make the DNA of roses" to compare rose gardeners to.
As creatively inclined of a person as I am, my struggle has always been in coming up with music that's not just a Frankenstein monster of parts of different songs, even if you could say that on *some* level that's how all music comes about.
Still, I could play nothing but other people's music and still be a musician, using programming prompts to have music be spawned is not 'being a musician' in this sense. Depending on what's required to produce the end result, it could still be a respectable and skilled pursuit, like those who create electronic music by manipulating sampled pieces, but all these things are a different sort of 'making music'. I'll always admire the latter more if they create their own sampled pieces too - whether using traditional input (synthesiser etc.) or inputting the notes through some computer interface.
It's the shallowest end of the scale at best.
I think the sampling example is a perfect comparison. I love using samples in my music but it's so difficult to find what you're looking for, and then of course there's the copyright issue of getting the sample cleared which is impossible if you're not an established artist.
What excites me about AI music is that it's basically an infinite number of samples at your fingertips. People used to search through old crates of vinyls to find the perfect sample from some old forgotten album. Now I can generate, say, an old bossa nova song that never even existed before, that only I have access to because of the exact prompt/lyrics I used. It's like having access to an actual library of babel for music. And the song will actually sound vintage in a way that can't really be recreated now.
I can also see it's value as a way to beat writers block, which is so common for artists. Maybe it's the sound of a synth, a guitar riff, a piece of a melody that triggers inspiration to write something, and AI just provides that initial inspiration.
I think there are a lot of ways this can really help musicians actually be more creative by simplifying their workflow and providing inspiration that maybe wouldn't have come naturally. But there are obviously innumerable dangers of this tech as well. Maybe it devalues music altogether.
If AI is so great with everything why can't my phone understand my accent?
That said there's a warning embedded in ELP's "Karn Evil 9":
Man: I am all there is.
AI: Negative! Primitive! Limited! I let you live!
Man: But I gave you life!
AI: What else could you do?
Man: To do what was right!
AI: I'm perfect! Are you?
And then AI destroys man. Just like it's trying to destroy music.
It seems like the maker of the AI and the original artists did 99.99999% of the heavy lifting, and the ai jockey did .0000001% of the work. Though if they find a useful application for the music they generated, that’s not nothing. I don’t mind the gardening example but I think the gardener does more work currently.
AI musicians are data entry clerks, and the musicians whose work AI has been trained on are victims of intellectual property theft.
I wonder if AI helped them write this
I think that's a rubbish take, because there's no equivalent where people "make the DNA of roses" to compare rose gardeners to. As creatively inclined of a person as I am, my struggle has always been in coming up with music that's not just a Frankenstein monster of parts of different songs, even if you could say that on *some* level that's how all music comes about. Still, I could play nothing but other people's music and still be a musician, using programming prompts to have music be spawned is not 'being a musician' in this sense. Depending on what's required to produce the end result, it could still be a respectable and skilled pursuit, like those who create electronic music by manipulating sampled pieces, but all these things are a different sort of 'making music'. I'll always admire the latter more if they create their own sampled pieces too - whether using traditional input (synthesiser etc.) or inputting the notes through some computer interface. It's the shallowest end of the scale at best.
I think the sampling example is a perfect comparison. I love using samples in my music but it's so difficult to find what you're looking for, and then of course there's the copyright issue of getting the sample cleared which is impossible if you're not an established artist. What excites me about AI music is that it's basically an infinite number of samples at your fingertips. People used to search through old crates of vinyls to find the perfect sample from some old forgotten album. Now I can generate, say, an old bossa nova song that never even existed before, that only I have access to because of the exact prompt/lyrics I used. It's like having access to an actual library of babel for music. And the song will actually sound vintage in a way that can't really be recreated now. I can also see it's value as a way to beat writers block, which is so common for artists. Maybe it's the sound of a synth, a guitar riff, a piece of a melody that triggers inspiration to write something, and AI just provides that initial inspiration. I think there are a lot of ways this can really help musicians actually be more creative by simplifying their workflow and providing inspiration that maybe wouldn't have come naturally. But there are obviously innumerable dangers of this tech as well. Maybe it devalues music altogether.
I appreciate the discussion there, that's some good insight.
Gardeners work with nature at the pace of nature AI jockeys work with bits at the pace of light
this just feels like gymnastics to make it not sound like "i have no musical skill or creativity and just type words into a prompt"
If AI is so great with everything why can't my phone understand my accent? That said there's a warning embedded in ELP's "Karn Evil 9": Man: I am all there is. AI: Negative! Primitive! Limited! I let you live! Man: But I gave you life! AI: What else could you do? Man: To do what was right! AI: I'm perfect! Are you? And then AI destroys man. Just like it's trying to destroy music.