All the Lies about AI Music

[@federicoaschieri]

Some folks, I don’t know whether bots of AI companies, AI fanboys or simply trolls, are commenting clearly without even having watched the video, and then disappear. So let’s recap my main points to keep the discussion tight. Tech companies are working hard to disseminate propaganda and lies. The first lie is the AI works exactly like our brain, that learns like us. I explained that it doesn’t - at all. So all arguments using analogies with humans are worth nothing. Moreover, the copyright violation of these models is already in their input: the training data. Even if the models where super smart, which they aren’t, the copyright violation happens when AI companies steal copyrighted material, making illegal copies and using them to train their models. Copyright doesn’t allow to make such copies. AI companies defense is admitting that, yes, that is against law, but they invoke the fair use exception. I showed in the video that fair use is a completely losing defense. Any good lawyer will win hands down the lawsuits.

[@SamGarfield1]

There are effectively zero major music releases from the last 20 years and longer that aren't auto-tuned or artificially enhanced in various ways. If there was a battle, machines already won a long time ago. Music is not a zero sum game. It is not humans vs machines, winner take all. Machines don't make music. Humans use machines to make music. And a musician who is talented can bring the soul out of any instrument, including synthetic ones and AI ones. We all will benefit as listeners from creative people exploring what new sounds they can make with whatever tools are available to make them. Did this thing connect my emotional experience in some way to yours? That's what matters at the end of the day, that's what people care about. Not what tool the musician used. This is easy to prove with AI. A great musician will produce a much better song with AI than a poor musician will. It's not a replacement. It's one of many tools available in a very large toolbox.

[@DoubtfulTom]

I respectfully disagree with the idea that AI is just a tool. It's more than that. AI systems allow non-musicians to push a button and get a result that they could in many cases never be able to obtain were it not for those AI systems, and those systems only exist because they are being trained on copyrighted material.

[@nunyabisinis3406]

This is like saying because digital graphic artists use tablets with line correction, that ai art is the same as an artist drawing digitally. If you use an "ai" instrument, that is just sampling an ai sample. Writing a song or making creative decisions, is the same whether you make it by drawing it on paper, typed with a keyboard or jamming it. That is automating the work. But ai is automating the thinking.

[@DoubtfulTom]

@@nunyabisinis3406 AI doesn't "think", but even if we run with that and pretend that it does, if a human lets a machine do the "thinking" in a creative task, where exactly is the creativity in that? Clicking an icon that reads "generate music" and seeing a song magically appear seconds later is not a creative act, let's be real here.

[@officebreakgaming1555]

I can have a machine make exactly what I want to hear and share that with my friends? That’s the future man, just deal with it.

[@federicoaschieri]

No future is based on theft and fraud. Society is based on law. If AI companies want to make legal products, you will be able to use your AI and have fun. Otherwise, you won't.

[@starsandnightvision]

AI can emulate emotions and the average end user doesn't care where the music came from. As far as copyright goes, you can't copyright sounds, chord progressions, styles and genres. Only melodies and lyrics can be copyrighted. So good luck sueing AI companies. And if you think AI music is crap, the same goes for a lot of music put out by humans.

[@federicoaschieri]

Any good lawyer will win hands down. The copyright violation is not in the output, but in the input, that is, the training data. Copyright doesn't allow to make copies of copyrighted works and use then for training. If you watched the video, you would have learned that indeed all my arguments were against fair use, which is tech companies defense against their theft of training data.

[@DoubtfulTom]

Hello, Federico. As a musician and multi-instrumentalist, I was lost in the grip of existential despair all day, worrying about my life no longer having purpose in a world where real musicians and composers could soon be replaced with prompt "musicians" "composing" on their phones, and your video managed to save my evening and give me some hope. This is an excellent presentation. I am very pleased to see that there are other musicians out there who share similar sentiments as myself. For over a year I have been reading comments on AI-related videos regarding music, and I keep seeing people - some of them bots? - mentioning that AI systems are the same as humans in terms of how they learn, and that because of this, it is not copyright infringement for AI to be trained on copyrighted material. I've been saying, "No! AI doesn't "learn" in any way even close to the way a human learns! The process is entirely different and therefore not comparable". You are the first person online I am aware of who has brought this important point up, and you did so very succinctly, in as clear a way possible. These companies say that their AI systems are like humans, when those with a basic understanding of how said systems work know that these companies are absolutely lying. Their systems could not produce such output were they not trained on vast amounts of stolen intellectual property, and it's quite apparent that creators of these programs are aware of this fact. Your presentation here eloquently encapsulates some really good ideas about what is likely to happen in the near future in relation to this wide-ranging issue. Thank you very much.

[@federicoaschieri]

As a musician, I feel you. AI fanboys, those who are spreading the lies, want to replace humans with machines in all dimensions of human existence. But that is not going to happen, especially in art, since copyright is supposed to protect and foster human creativity. Art is our culture, and machines, which are not like humans, cannot represent human artistic values.That’s why the main battle is to be fought on copyright enforcement. For some time, the awareness that these AI systems anyway are far from humans didn’t make me worry, but then I realized how dangerous all this misinformation is and now I’m worried about how these systems in reality are ripping off copyrighted music in a blatant way, and tech companies pretend that’s what we humans do. I realized that many people do appear to believe the human=AI equation, and indeed make wrong arguments based on that. The reason of this anthropomorphism is indeed to grant imaginary rights to “AI”, like it is a subject. But when you realize that it is just an algorithm, a computer software that has nothing to do with humans, then it is natural to question the whole AI business model. Why should they make money on software that they produced stealing my copyrighted data? When you put the question in this terms, you realize that AI is just yet another commercial use of data, so they have to license that use. There’s no escape. PS: There are indeed really few real scientists that bothered entering the debate publicly, so people are fed on tech companies’ propaganda. One of these scientists is Yann LeCun, whose videos I recommend you (he is nothing less than a Turing award, the highest award for a computer scientist). He too always says that AI doesn’t learn like a human, that’s why is not yet real intelligence, and he’s proposing alternative models.

[@DoubtfulTom]

The human tendency to anthropomorphize things has been exploited by the tech industry in regards to robotics and AI for decades now. How many movies do we see where the filmmakers attempted to make us empathize with machines or computer programs? It's a common theme, and I wonder if such themes are used as a means of steering the masses toward a casual acceptance of these systems. The scientific establishment and mainstream media have done a good job of obfuscating the differences between AI systems and human consciousness to the public, and the tech industry is both capitalizing on that obfuscation and adding to it as much as possible. From a legal perspective, it makes zero sense why AI systems would be tacitly accepted as akin to human beings, and it stands to reason that pointing out the cavernous gulf of differences between human beings and computer programs should be quite easy by extension. If humanity can save artistic expression from the soulless tech culture, it will be a major win for us as a species. I don't think most people really know what is at stake here. Art is so integral to the preservation and enhancement of culture...to let non-artists steal the entire means with which artists communicate emotions and ideas through sound and image and form would be a travesty. We as artists need to make these arguments as clearly as possible to add to the conversation. I will look up Yann LeCun.

[@Noqtis]

Copyright doesn't prevent an individual from learning. If AIs would replicate the data they get trained with you would have a point but they don't. You don't need to ask the copyright oner for permission to take his art for learning purpose. AI doesn't have to either. And the process how AI creates stuff can be compared to how human creativity functions. In the sense that if you get inspired by a picture you will not replicate it but fuse it with other inspiration to something new. Just like humans AI has to train on a lot of data to become good at a certain style. But it will never recreate existing images in it's training data. The similarity also comes from how the transistors of an ai processing unit are connected in a web like structure like the synapses of our brains. instead of just space efficient structures like in normal cpus. And the underlying mechanism for a transistor to switch to 1 or 0 is not totally logical in AI chips but follows probabilities which the ai comes up itself in the training process and can go against for no obvious reason. that's why we don't really understand what the AI is learning and how. we just see in the end that it works. No one is saying it's the same either. An don't get me wrong. I'm not an AI fanboy, quite the opposite actually. I see far greater dangers than artists dying out in AI and I'm speaking as an artist myself. I have this grand story I'm telling myself since 2 decades. I love the world I created and I enjoy building it and making it more complex. I can do a lot of stuff but I mostly ended up just making notes. Wrote a few chapters but my story always progressed faster in my head than I could write. I drew some pictures but again my story would progress faster I could make an image I'm good with sharing. Hell I even made some music for my sci fi setting just because you can't choose where inspiration hits you but I never could ever polish one to make it shareable. You guys have no clue what I made in the past 2 months using AI. I went from the most unproductive workflow to stephen kings writing speed plus some crazy artist with in humane abilities to draw picture after picture and now I even have music. Some days ago I created stuff people will listen to in my story in 3000 years and I was more mesmerized and drawn into my world than ever before or any other work of fiction could have drawn me in. It's scary what artists can do in AI. I'm so close just starting to live and breath in the world I carry around for 20 years in my head :D I always have this crazy ideas of buildings, cities, landscapes and people but I could never really visualize them, I mean I could but I needed 1 week for each and they just come so much faster. You don't want to draw pictures of stuff that happened in your story weeks if not years ago. If you stick to a single artform, you will lose. If you open yourself to the possibilities ai gives you, you will become a greater artist than people up until you could ever imagine. Your productivity level will be inhumane. Some people can shit out one awesome chapter after another on a daily basis. Before AI one week was a fast work pace most artists couldn't hold for more than a decade. Hell most never reached such levels of productivity. But many artists especially those that focus on a skill instead of the understanding behind it, have hard times in front of them. Ai isn't going away. It only will become better and the pace at which is scary. I started playing around with chatgpt already a year ago and the stuff dalle makes now is so much better. Especially character close ups are a joy to work with wen just some months ago it would fuck up proportions and do a lot of mistakes, mix and match stuff that doesn't work. It's not perfect but I need around 4-6 prompts to get the character how I imagined him to look like sometimes with small cool improvements I'll write into my story. A year ago it could happen I would go through 20 prompts not getting anything useful. It was often close but always some major mistake baked into it like 6 fingers, strange face anatomy, very strange hair and hard to see if not looking for, it would fuck up lines. A snake or sea monster with lots of tentacles. Prepere the AI to put some heads on the tentacles and from one will grow a boat lmao it's now so much better. in 1-2 years you give it a prompt and it gives you what you asked for after 1-2 tries. this means I can do in 30 minutes what about 20 talented artists would need 1 hole workweek. I hope those talanted artists thought about some creative stories to tell, when I can do what 20 of them can in 1% of the time.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@DoubtfulTom Exactly, I totally agree. It's mind manipulation through propaganda. AI Ceos go around saying that their work is fundamental, they will save humanity, cure cancer, solve climate change. Guess what: In order to do that, they claim they need all data for free. Screw artists, writers, film makers. But then what, we get a music generator? Sora? The problem is that OpenAI, Anthropic and so on, they have no idea how to build machines that solve scientific problems. They use art as a cash machine, to fund their other hopeless, naive research, or more accurately, to fill their pockets. Spoiler: they will never cure cancer with their crappy AI systems. I don't want either to live in a world where nobody can make a living out of art, except tech companies. It will end indeed human creativity, and we would have lost all humanity. We artists have to let out voice heard, I agree, otherwise no one will know what's happening. And a world with fake AI art is bad for everyone.

[@DoubtfulTom]

​@@Noqtis Thank you for your reply. Though we disagree, I appreciate having a dialogue about this. AI is not conscious. It doesn't feel. It doesn't experience. It has no internal existence or awareness of anything. It can however collect vast amounts of data in ways that no human ever could, and process it at rates of speed that humans cannot match. Those facts alone mean that it is dubious to say that AI systems "learn" the way humans do. A Casio calculator can process numbers faster than the best humans; the number-crunching abilities and memory capacities of modern computer arrays are so much greater than humans that comparing AI systems to humans is absolutely unfair. I can't hold a library of pure algorithmic data, gathered from millions and millions of songs, in my brain, access any portion of that data upon command and churn out hundreds of useful bits of music pastiched together in seconds, and to the best of my knowledge, even the greatest musical geniuses would not be able to either. Computers and the programs that use their power are just so much better at certain things than humans are, trying to compare seems quite strange. Copyright exists for humans to use. Allowing AI programs to train on copyrighted material is not the same thing as a human being inspired by a copyrighted work. AI systems don't ever get inspiration of any kind. Again, AI systems lack awareness, have perfect recall and abilities to collect, process and re-arrange data at rates of speed and in ways that humans cannot ever match, so I don't see why these for-profit systems should be allowed to operate. They're not people. They have no will. They exist to provide profits to those who own them. The consequences of allowing AI systems to be treated as though they should have the same rights as humans could be quite unpleasant, in ways that extend far beyond the the creative sphere. Indeed, many a science fiction author has explored the subject in a myriad number of books for decades and decades. The issues creatives are having now with AI are ones that the rest of humanity will face in the near future, and the more clear dialogues we have about the subject, the better able we will be as a species to tackle the issues.

[@louiserocks1]

I'm not a musician but I've had a lot of fun creating and listening to many great AI songs over the last few months, but now I can definitely appreciate the "real" music a lot more now. It's much better quality, and just overall sounds better, clearer, and the sounds just work together much better. I literally only listened to AI music for months, and recently listened to some real music, and noticed the huge difference in quality. I didn't realize this before but now I do. It's kinda like, remember in the 90s and 2000s films using CGI, at first you were like wooow that's so amazing it looks so real, but now with more experience it's so obvious that it's actually kinda terrible and obviously fake and bad quality

[@DjembeJimbo]

That’s probably not going to be the case in a year or two

[@reezlaw]

Ok, now look at top shelf CGI from today, in most cases you don't even know it's there. If your argument is sound quality I'm afraid it's going to be rather short-lived

[@neointhematrix_8]

I like how u compared the CGI thing in movies but cgi involves using human creativity to mimick reality in those movies to produce a certain quality (cgi artists,stunt doubles,animators etc…), which in turn gives more people work but this time with ai, its different. Ai takes away those jobs, i mean humans who use ai dnt need those jobs;Most people think ai is just a tool not realizing that at some point in time these tools might be compromised or hacked by other people with ill intentions thus making it worse for everyone else except themselves.

[@starsandnightvision]

AI music is still in its infancy, it will never get worse than it is now.

[@mikeomolt4485]

​@@neointhematrix_8 AI has also entered the world of CGI. Photo realistic video images from verbal prompts, no animator required. No stuntman, no scenery builders, fewer camera operators, less travel, fewer actors, more options, and the technology advancing fast.

[@SamGarfield1]

If I listen to an album and am inspired, and I got write my own album borrowing a lot of that "sound," have I committed a violation of modern US copyright regulations? Our brains do work similarly in some ways and differently in others. But humans and AI are both types of learning machines that learn (or are designed to learn) from their environment. And we both follow patterns in our output that we determine would best match the kinds of patterns that people like. I don't believe I can violate copyright by hearing something. The question of copyright violation comes down to what I put out into the world - like if I were to copy a song and claim it as my own. AI should be no different. What goes in should be anything that is publicly available in the world - all the books and music and everything else. What comes OUT should then not be allowed to replicate any of those things in a way that violates someone else's copyright. The responsibility for that falls with the person using the tool and releasing the output into the world.

[@federicoaschieri]

Did you watch the video at all? Recap. AI is not a human, it's a software, so it has no right whatsoever. No human can even listen to a song without the copyright being payed, so a personal license must be acquired also by humans. AI companies must pay a commercial license, as they're businesses and don't qualify for personal use. They're not artists, so it is even ridiculous that they should make money thanks to art stolen from others to train their software.

[@DoubtfulTom]

I disagree fundamentally. No one on earth can process anywhere near as much data in a lifetime as what an AI system can process in a few hours, much less match such a system in terms of output capacity. Also, the AI system is not conscious. Why do people think such systems should be allowed to be trained on all available material, even if the material is copyrighted? We're not comparing apples to apples here; humans are so different from AI systems in so many ways that even saying it's an apples to oranges comparison is a fundamentally flawed comparison. The degree to which AI systems outpace humans is such that we can't pretend they are operationally similar, even if we disregard the differences between a conscious being and a computer algorithm that lacks consciousness. Speed matters. Memory capacity matters. Humans don't have the capabilities that AI systems do. It's absolutely unfair for these systems to be able to gobble-up copyrighted data and churn-out output based on said data and then say such a process is foundational similar to what a human does. It isn't, even if you just look at it from the perspective of sheer number-crunching ability alone.

[@DoubtfulTom]

@@federicoaschieri Absolutely. AI has no rights. Those who use AI to generate "art" are essentially using hyper-powered theft systems and then claiming that said hyper-powered theft systems have every right to exist and be used by anyone because such AI systems are foundationally similar to humans in terms of how they function. It's quite obvious that there are ridiculously huge differences between humans and AI systems in terms of both the respective operational processes and computational abilities. Why so few people seem to grasp this I do not understand. We literally use technology because it is better able to perform certain functions than we can. If computers weren't so much better at processing data than we are, they would be nothing more than curiosities instead of the keystone of our current civilization. To say that computers or the programs that run on them are meaningfully similar to humans in terms of how they function negates the very reason we use computers and programs in the first place; namely, that without them, we just couldn't do most of the things we do today. To turn such powerful machines and programs against artists is ridiculously unethical and damaging, not only to the financial future of artists, but also to their sense of self-worth and for people such as myself, their very reason for existence. Without art, my life is basically devoid of meaning. Music is one of the few things I'm really good at...to see the skills, knowledge and talent of artists rendered irrelevant by virtue of digital theft is a terrible thing. Tech companies are making a crisis of meaning that does not need to exist. Some of the least creative people in the world have the most money and influence, and they often get to where they are by virtue of exploiting or directly stealing from those with talent. It's been going on since the dawn of civilization, but now we've reached a zeitgeist era, where such behaviour can be immensely increased in breadth and speed by virtue of powerful technology. I am glad to be part of this important discussion.

[@sharkysharkerson]

@@DoubtfulTom agree completely. Why do technology companies get a pass to violate copyright laws when people do not?

[@federicoaschieri]

@@DoubtfulTom Totally. All this need not be. If you ask me, I would make AI art illegal: today. Not all technology should be public, see nuclear weapons. And why some people don't seem to understand that computers work differently than a human? I think it's because of both the AI propaganda and the uncanny valley effect of systems like ChatGPT. Many reason: if this thing can answer my questions, it understands language, so it's like a human! A pure anthropomorphism fallacy, as you pointed out, that humans have been making throughout all history.

[@slurmworm666]

It is good to see this kind of pushback from artists who are also well educated in the AI field, and can make arguments from a deeper level of understanding.

[@morizanova]

No one ever talk about possibility that giant music business behind it . Imagine how profit for Big Record company with gigantic copyrighted catalog can get if they start offering their own AI services and Virtual music artist to serve direct customer who want customized songs ? In the end those music moguls are simply business peoples. Profit is their biggest goals . So never ever thinking that those peoples will backing up the artists and doing some lawsuits . They will just hiring the people behind those AI Generative Music tech and build for themselves , so they dont need again share the profit with any artist . Its sad , but I can see that will happen soon as most people realized . Artists and their supporters would be much more effective if focus their effort in some kind Fair Law about Human and AI . Copyright issues will be easy to crumble when any giant corporations with copyrighted materials and catalog enter that spaces

[@federicoaschieri]

Thanks for your contribution to the discussion! You’re totally right that we should ask also for new laws protecting human creativity. But to mind, it’s far better if the human music industry takes control of AI. Tech companies have no other goal than making money: they don't care about art. So their interest is to maximize AI music consumption, while minimizing the listening of human made music. So the very nature of their business implies destroying human creativity with all means. On the other hand, labels have a music business to preserve. They’re well aware that AI music is derivative, and human music is premium. They won’t devalue their catalogue generating infinite cheap variations. Moreover, they don’t control all the database. Universal is at 30% of the market, Warner even less, independent artists will be outside the training data of big corporations. Fragmentation of the training database will already be a blow against AI music. There are many other similar considerations it’s possible to make.

[@Musicmanbutte]

AI is beautiful. I can now create songs out of all my ideas. I have a learning disability so it limits me from playing guitar or piano. I am gifted with drums. I can just play by ear. I can also use fiverr to recreate my songs so i can sing them myself. It will cost a little, but at least I can make my idea's come to life.

[@angrygreek1985]

It's not copyright infringement because it's transformed. You can't say I stole or copied van gogh if I saw all his paintings and created something new in the same style or listened to all of Taylor Swift's songs and ended up creating something similar to her style. You'd call me an amazing artist, but because it's a machine and threatens your profession you get all up in arms.

[@federicoaschieri]

I already demolished the fair use argument. You obviously didn't watch the video. To claim fair use of stolen training data, being transformative is not enough. And being transformative is weak when your transformation has the the same purpose of the original. In total, four criteria are to be satisfied, in particular the impact of your product on current and potential market, and the amount of copyrighted work being stolen. I showed how basically all criteria are violated.

[@karlosmartos4646]

here is what you forgot to say : If you listened to Taylor swift every day, for the rest of your life, its IMPOSSIBLE for you to sound like her, 0% chance. With AI, it already happened, that it creates songs where the person singing, is sounding just like taylor swift, not just a bit, but 95% like her (+ the AI artifcats of course). Its also not just the voice, but the rythm ,style etc.

[@redmoonspider]

You'll still be able to make great music.Its just that McMusic will flood the spaces.

[@sharkysharkerson]

Here is where I side with copyright law. The goal of AI content generation is to make it cheap for companies to generate content like art and music, etc. If you look at similar situations where machines replaced people, such as when machines started making lace ... the ultimate effect was that a lot of lace was made and the market was flooded and people couldn't make a living making lace by hand anymore. The same thing will happen with AI. But it makes no sense taking away work that requires skill that people enjoy doing. Its different when we use AI or technology in general to simplify our lives versus using AI to subvert working with people. And the fact that this technology is based on other peoples blood sweat and tears makes it even worse ... they should pay their dues like everyone else and generate their own training content. I don't like this idea of ignoring the rules and destroying industries and then later dealing with the consequences ... like how Uber, etc destroyed taxi industry. Rules exist to keep the peace and keep things running smoothly for everyone.

[@federicoaschieri]

Totally agree. Moreover, it's in the interest of humanity to protect human art, which is one of the things that distinguishes us from all our ancestors and all other animals. Art talks about ourselves: what we enjoy, what we love, what we hate, what we fear, what we experience, what represents our own vision of the universe. What's the point of a robot writing a love song? I dont' care. They should be doing math and calculation. AI doesn't represent us, it's just mockery.

[@DoubtfulTom]

If a factory worker gets replaced by a robot, it sucks for him, but he didn't own the factory. If a musician loses his way to make a living because he has been replaced by computer algorithms that were trained on his work, it appears to be a different scenario.

[@SamGarfield1]

That is a funny way to define the goal of AI. AI is a tool. It has no goals. People with goals use it for things. I use it to bring my ideas to life through code. Corporations use it to replace their marketing department. Artists use it to explore the frontiers of art. It is as much within a corporation's power to utilize AI as a tool to empower them as it is within an individual worker's power to utilize it to empower themselves. Yes, people will lose jobs. And it will hurt. And new jobs we haven't imagined yet will be created. And those jobs will be better aligned to the things that make us human. Jobs should be based on what is needed. What meaning does a job have if it can be done by a machine? It's a job for job's sake. You might as well put people to work mowing lawns with toenail clippers at that point. I think what we need is better safety nets for people losing jobs. Not to artificially prop up inefficient and inhuman jobs.

[@sharkysharkerson]

@@SamGarfield1 I’m sorry. I didn’t mean the goal as in AI is doing this. I meant in the whole corporate pursuit to commoditize work that people enjoy. As a tool it’s the same as anything else. As an assist in creative explorations it’s fine, the ideal actually… as long as it’s not trained on stolen data. Even the study of AI on its own from a computer science perspective is fascinating. At the same time, it is obvious that the majority of the salivating interests we see is corporate. The goal is to not pay for software developers or artists or musicians or writers. The majority of the art I see in media right now is ai … just filler nonsense that could have been someone’s commission. Already KZbin is filling up with generic filler nonsense. So as much as it is a tool, the intent is to take people out of the picture and flood the system to ensure companies dominate visibility. What kind of world is that?

[@Build_Secrets]

Even if you force AI companies to make or buy all the training content (which they shouldn't because its use as training data falls under fair use for copyright works anyway), all you do is delay the inevitable. Ultimately AI use for all creative endeavours is a good thing. It opens the doors to more people to be creative, thus greatly improving the world. REAL artists, will make their money performing live, like they always have done. When you try to stop people using existing data to train AI models, you become a gatekeeper who is actually helping create/reinforce monopolies. The biggest companies in the world like Google, Microsoft and Apple will buy up the most data, and dominate the AI industry. Open source models will be less competitive, and newer start-ups will face additional cost prohibitive roadblocks. The answer here is to use AI as the tool that it is, for digital only music creation for example, or fully embrace the human element and do more live performing. But arguing to stop progress only makes the world a worse place.

[@reezlaw]

The problem is that for many musical applications the cliché, the average is not only acceptable, it's often encouraged. Think about ads, you don't want the background music to be too distracting, you want to set a mood. How many variations of that happy ukulele + whistle shit can one possibly come up with? It's 73% of all Kickstarter presentation videos. Those are the jobs music AI is going to take away first. Regarding your explanation and example at the end, it's very simplistic, that is not really how those models work. They don't take chunks of pre-existing music and make a collage, they learn how the waveforms usually are and recreate them, and they probably do it by stems. You can tell by how insanely consistent they are when you extend a track, not somewhat consistent as you suggest, they are basically perfect, the exact same snare sound throughout, same guitar tone etc. Just as transformers don't cut and paste sentences from books and forum posts, this is the same fundamental architecture; the biggest difference is that it's probably in layers and maybe even singing voice synthesis like Synthesizer V

[@federicoaschieri]

I agree with first point. But still the replacement will happen if copyright law will allow it, and I expressed that I don't believe so. For the functioning of Udio, I can say that the consistency is poor. I tried to generate a symphony in the style of Dvorak and it was all an incoherent mess. So obviously the model has poor understanding of music. Of course if you have an i VI v chord progression in all the track, or two drum patterns, then consistency is easy, and it doesn't take intelligence. The example I made at the end however shows how known songs are cheaply photoshopped, which is my experience with Udio. AI changes a note here and there, then changes the lyrics, and call it a day. There was literally the same voice. I can photoshop songs in 5 minutes, you know, and you will like the result. And by the way, no, LLMs are not intelligent at all, they are copying-editing-pasting guided by blind statistics all the time as well. This is just musical confirmation. So I'm not very impressed, but I honestly don't care. My goals were just to point out that AI is not human-like intelligence, and to denounce why training on copyrighted data is illegal. if you think that what AI does is interesting, it doesn't matter to my arguments, it's simply not what humans do.

[@alexforget]

Artificial mind will learn like our biological mind, just faster and broader. If an human with musical talent 20X better than other was born would we let him play? Yes of course! The same will happen, except that you can clone your AI mind as you wish. It's not only music, it's all human activities. I am a programmer and AI is already better than any single programmer and 1000X faster.

[@federicoaschieri]

It will. In... 100 years. Musical talent is in part emotional talent: you are emotionally in sync with other people, but at the same time original. I don't see a way that AI can learn what we would feel in every possible situation, so to have this talent. It's a sci-fi possibility. One day AI will simulate the human brain, and it will be possible. Just give it other 300 years? It doesn't even make sense to do that. AI is not already better than any single programmer. That's ridiculous, sorry. Yes, if you to code a simple website, AI can do that faster. Give it a difficult problem, and it doesn't know where to start.

[@SamGarfield1]

This. We all love listening to music by artists way better than us. And yet, we also are still capable of loving playing silly little songs for our friends on the guitar or going to local shows to see what the kids are up to these days. All these things can co-exist. AI won't replace musicians. But musicians who use AI will make new kinds of music for us to listen to. And amateurs who use AI will still produce a lot of crap like we all do as amateurs.

[@SamGarfield1]

@@federicoaschieri Define emotion. And explain how some synthetic sounds like auto-tune or synthesizers can reproduce it with basic math, but AI can't reproduce it with complex math.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@SamGarfield1 Emotion is a concrete brain feature, in animals and humans. It is studied scientifically. It's more complex in humans, just read Joseph LeDoux's books. We are not sure it can be simulated via software, as it depends on the biological features of the brains (hormones, chemical reactions, receptors, body feedback etc) as well as consciousness. Good luck creating with math. We have just no idea how to do that. So machines can't understand music, as they don't experience the feelings involved. They can just fake understanding. But faking a human being is difficult, man, we are not mosquitos.

[@DoubtfulTom]

@@SamGarfield1 If AI is allowed to continue training on copyrighted material, people with zero talent will one day be able to click a mouse and generate countless iterations of top-tier sounding music. The gap between actual artists with immense talent and those with no talent or abilities whatsoever who simply press buttons is narrowing rapidly, and as much as I don't like to think so, if the rate of technological "progress" is allowed to continue unfettered, there could soon be a day where genuine artists just hang up their hats and go grow vegetables or something, because their passion and abilities have been stolen to such an extent that bothering to write music is essentially pointless. I do not want this to happen at all. It's the worst case scenario, and one that artists must avoid at all costs.

[@Musicmanbutte]

The only coywritable elements of a song are the lyrics, and tune, and any solos of the guitar or piano that are written. Chord progressions aren't copyright protected or infringement. It can't be or there would be no more hits in music.

[@federicoaschieri]

Copyright grants the copyright owner the exclusive right to control every copy made of their work. When AI companies train their models, they're making an illegal copy of our music, which is protected by copyright. They need a commercial license to do that, because as I showed, there is no possible world in which that is fair use.

[@Edbrad]

@@federicoaschieri See my other post to you. You can say this all day as strongly as you like, but you'll lose. Did Getty/Adobe/Shutterstock pay everyone a "commercial license" to train their own Ai on all their creators work? But of course you wouldn't have ever agreed to the deal in the first place, because you know this is going to destroy your industry. Did they ask their creators to opt in, or at least opt out? Not as far as i've read! They did did it, and started offering it to the public, before their legal cases against the AI companies had even concluded. Adobe said they gave their stock music creators a "bonus" for having their work in the training data, gee how much was that do you think? It would only be a few dollars or they'd have bankrupted themselves. And they get to be represented as "ethical AI". If they win their lawsuit you have a legal premise that still says they get to have THEIR models. Since it cost them basically nothing to make and didn't have to pay artists anything, they can also afford to license it to the Ai companies for vastly less than anyone would have agreed to before. And you're still thinking the court cases might stop this, no dude, they are just Sharks trying to agree on who gets to do the exploiting.

[@Musicmanbutte]

​@@federicoaschieribut if you opted in to let AI companies use your work to train AI then they are not legally taking your music you already gave them permission to use it to train the model. And what they do is not an exact copy. As I mentioned earlier the only things that are copyrightable in a song are the tune and the lyrics, and if somebody has created a solo on a guitar because that would be their voicing on the guitar. At least that's the way the copyright laws work in america. But, as far as them outright taking your music they're not doing that because you have already opted in and gave them permission to use your work to train the AI model, like I said it is not an exact copy and you cannot copyright chord progressions or there would be no more new songs. I have been studying the copyright since I have been 16 years old. I'm now 57.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@Musicmanbutte Opted in? Lol, NO. They never asked us to opt in, and they didn’t because nobody would that for free. And as I said, the copyright violation is in the input of the model, not the output. To train their AI, they need an exact copy of copyrighted work, and when they use it, the violate copyright law.

[@cyberpunktsunami]

It's almost impossible to find the exact music you're looking for to put in your video. Now I can make exactly what I want in a few minutes. I used to waste hours listening to crap while trying to find the perfect song.

[@federicoaschieri]

What if AI were instead used as a smart search tool? You say I want this and that, and the AI finds you a song made by a human, which perfectly matches your video. That would be legal and useful. That's the AI I love.

[@Rorama2024]

AI is simply a tool it dont' have emotional system but I do... I use it to make random demo and if one is good for me with my emotional system so it's good music... simple, make music like this seems to bit too easy, but record company as they listen to many music to find the good selling music do exactly the same, and no one say it's too easy way to make money... Some like making music but don't have the skill, will you ask them not to make music ?

[@federicoaschieri]

I'm not proposing to ban AI music. I'm proposing to make it legal. If someone enjoys pushing a button to order AI music as it were a pizza, good for them. But copyright laws protects human creativity, so artists' human rights have absolute priority over any AI.

[@Rorama2024]

@@federicoaschieri But if I pushed the button and my creativity judged it's a good music it's my emotion my vision my creativity so I copyright this fact not the randomness of my tool...

[@federicoaschieri]

@@Rorama2024 Well, the US copyright office doesn't agree that pushing the button creates the music. So it won't grant you copyright. That's the way it is.

[@Rorama2024]

@@federicoaschieri What is AI all about ? we will all do work with it but not selling it? Ho will buy Udio by the end of free beta ? what the meaning of creating it ?

[@federicoaschieri]

@@Rorama2024 You can sell it, but everyone can steal your music. It's not clear how you can sell it in the first place, since anyone can take it for free. You don't have legal protection. If you have your own lyrics, they will change them. So probably some label will specialize in stealing AI music, and they simply go on social media and grab AI songs with many streams, and then sell them. I don't think a world where everyone steals to each other is viable. But it was started by AI companies stealing in the first place.

[@Shadolis]

I understand where you're coming from. If the developers are truly just after a quick buck at the expense of others, that's not good obviously. There needs to be a way to incentivize creativity by use of AI. Looking into the future, I see AI being very integrated into music production / generation. I think every artist will eventually use it to some degree. It will become more sophisticated, to the point that you will be able to creatively orchestrate every part of a song via prompt. You will also be able to change any part of a song via prompt. At that point we will have a truly creative technology that won't simply be copying the most cliche and popular beats and melodies. This will open up boundless creativity for everyone, not just those who have the dexterity and time to invest in learning musical instruments. I see no problem with this, even as someone who has played music since a teen. But we all know a lot of musicians, sorry to say it, are very pompous and feel like this will be cheating.

[@DoubtfulTom]

Such "boundless creativity" would be anything but. It's sort of like saying, "I instructed this professional design team and construction crew to build me a mansion. Look at how creative I am", although that example is still wrong because the design team and construction crew would be humans, who have agency, unlike AI systems. I'm not pompous for thinking that people who lack the talent to compose music on their own are fake musicians, or cheating. They are.

[@Shadolis]

@@DoubtfulTom I don't think so. There are plenty of people who do not have the opportunity to learn musical instruments. They might not have the finances to be able to take classes, or might have a disability that prevents them from doing so. This is just a new way for people to make music. A new instrument if you will. People condemn the synthesizer when it was first invented. I don't see this as very different. Sure it can do a lot for you, but so can a sequencer, and lots of other tools in DAWs. We will get used to it, instead of producing music or playing it, we will steer it into the direction we want it to sound. You will carve a piece of audio using AI. Or perhaps you will integrate it into your manual playing and production. Or perhaps you will just use it for inspiration to then play with your instruments. Don't be so limited in your thinking. This is only change. There is no stopping it.

[@federicoaschieri]

I will never use AI to write my music. For me, it would be like using chatgpt to chat automatically with my friends instead of talking to them 🤷‍♂️ The fun is to express yourself, and I want to talk to my listeners with my own voice. But as an help for starting musicians, AI could be an interesting learning tool, that’s true. I’m afraid that the effect of AI will be that fewer and fewer people will learn music. Learning to express yourself through music requires years, while with AI you can now produce music without effort. It will require a huge motivation to study music.

[@Shadolis]

​@@federicoaschieri AI is certainly shaking things up for everyone. Even programmers (that's my main area). There was a time when humans had to learn assembly language, but then we abstracted things and made it easier for everyone to program. It has only become easier and easier, and that's a good thing. You don't NEED to learn about different CPU registers or garbage collection, etc (unless you want to, or need to do low-level stuff for systems/architecture engineering purposes). The extremely skilled musicians and instrumentalists will have a deep learning for their purposes and pursuits. The truly inquisitive and pioneering people will be the ones to seek to educate themselves about music, and will separate themselves from the crowd if they are talented enough. Look at artists like Aphex Twin, Pink Floyd, or Legendary Pink Dots who created such unique styles and sounds and obviously have a very intimate relationship with music. These kinds of people who pioneer truly unique styles and their art will no doubt minimally use AI or ML tools. I'll also say that truly talented instrumentalists do not need to worry about their careers if they do live shows. That is not going away, and in fact we may see a massive increase in shows because of AI (either helping to put shows together, or for those seeking a genuine musically played experience). I don't see this as doom and gloom. The initial adoption phase will cause some problems, but then things will be fine. People will still study music, it just won't be necessary for most people --which is ok. Keep doing what you love and are passionate about. You'll be even more special because of it, but don't let it get to your head ;)

[@federicoaschieri]

​@@Shadolis I had a lot of fun programming in assembly when learning at university. But AI is not the same thing as Java. AI is not a tool that simplifies your life. Tools don't make the whole thing. A hammer doesn't build your house. Tools can't replace you by definition. So I'm not sharing your optimism. Tech had only the effect, since Napster, to make harder for new talent to grow, not easier. The digital has devalued music, fostering theft and leaving success to the lottery of cheap recommendation algorithms. Music indeed has worsened since the golden era. So we need rules and laws to protect human creativity from this final blow.

[@mickmack9333]

Very good explanation and lookout for the future. Sounds logic and reasonable to me, very plausible. Are you a programer or a musician or a lawyer or everything? U put a lot of thoughts in. Thx

[@federicoaschieri]

Thank you very much. My formal education is in mathematics, computer science and music. Actually I always loved the field of artificial intelligence, so I put a lot of thought also on it. And now it is all the more disappointing to see the technology used to steal our work, instead of giving benefit to humanity.

[@Biczycki]

​ @keithdunwoody1302 Picasso had slow internet and learned late about photography. But while many of his colleagues were panicking, he realized that "Todo lo que puedas imaginar es real" and decided to paint what no camera could capture. There is a wealth of literature, exhibitions and even original Picasso footage on this subject. Might prove helpful.

[@_Mach3]

AI and AI music is here to stay. If you’ve messed with any of those programs you’ll see. This is only the beginning of this tech. I doubt we’ll have any huge new music artists in five years. People as famous as Michael Jackson and Prince is a thing of the past.

[@cyberpunktsunami]

I agree!

[@monkeyjshow]

I'm an artist who uses AI to create art. We won. Hands down

[@federicoaschieri]

But in what part of your "hands down victory" fits that, according to US law, you don't own the music you generate with AI? Everybody can take it and claim it's theirs, because it is not recognized by copyright law. We artists instead own our music.

[@monkeyjshow]

@@federicoaschieri so you're saying it's time for some legal reform. Cool beans. Because last time I checked, I own the copyright to lyrics I've written and claimed copyright to.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@monkeyjshow I said you don't own your music.

[@monkeyjshow]

@@federicoaschieri I take issue with this as a creative director. If I hire other artists to produce work my my piece, I own the copyright to that work no matter who produced it under contract. If I employee AI to do the same, the final product is still my creative vision, my creative property. Time to torch the courthouses again otherwise

[@federicoaschieri]

@@monkeyjshow That's a fallacy. In that case, the human songwriter *transfers* to you the copyright that they have by law, in exchange of money. AI has no copyright to transfer you in the first place. If you can't argue with a youtuber, good luck in court 😂

[@jtar922]

Excellent presentation. Excellent perspective. Thank you 👍

[@BobKane-g6x]

Sounds similar but not the same. For example, consider how many types of soda or chips or other items there are. Similar in some ways, but not identical. Consider Coke versus Pepsi versus Dr. Pepper. An AI is designed to produce subjects from its training data. Therefore, it will be similar by nature

[@Tony_Indiana]

? I am an American an I never played an instrument and not 30 + yrs later (after my birth) because of I can play anything

[@MrPartch]

maybe one day, you'll even be able to type!

[@getkraken8064]

With most of the top 10 on spotify these days being garbage, maybe time to turn to ai. I refer to a well-known musical youtuber who reviewed the top 10 recently. Frankly, I've made some better tunes than some of them with ai.

[@gavincstewart]

Good points, thanks for sharing your perspective

[@federicoaschieri]

Thanks!

[@reimagineuniverse]

Great video. Just wanted to chime in on movie side. Also with AI you dont create value, it is absurd for me to believe if you make a movie by typing words to ask people to pay to view it. Movie making is way complex to evoke emotions from camera movements to acting to lighting to colors-as far as computer graphics goes it will never be able to do movies as we know because it renders every image in a different bucket it is not calculating a lighting in a 3d scene an rendering it. It can make goofy youtube tiktok videos maybe but already general public refused AI. No value creation.

[@DoubtfulTom]

As a creative, I really like the multiple disciplinary element to filmmaking, and wonder how Sora AI will change that creative front as well. There is an interview of the lead programmer of Sora AI, where she was questioned about how Sora AI obtains its training data, and she was unwilling talk about it. The fact that she didn't want to answer questions means that she knows that there could be legal problems for her company and other companies like it. That gives me hope that this stuff will at least be regulated or controlled in some way in the near future. Another factor that matters here is whether or not people want to idolize talented people for what they can do without AI assistance, or if people value the product, regardless of the talent - or lack thereof - that produced it. I think that initially many people will use AI to write for them, and consider themselves artists in a new era of "artistic democratization", but then, like all trends, it will fade out due to absence of novelty, and such people will quickly be viewed as talentless fakes, at least by a significant portion of people who love good music, and those people will hopefully be more interested in supporting the creation of genuine human art than ever before. I could see an era where we have a sort of hyper-motivated art scene propelled by Patreon-type subscription services whereby patrons can pay for a guarantee that a piece of art, be it music, visual art or a movie or a show is untouched by AI at any level of production. This would remove the necessity of requiring mass-market appeal to ones output and allow for real art to be made at the traditional pace. To a certain extent, this model already exists, but I can see it becoming much more popular in the future, as the art world further fractures into many camps. You'll have the general public, who tend to engage with whatever media is advertised to them the most. Then you'll have the people that want to combine AI with genuine creativity into some sort of hybrid media. Then there will be the purists, such as myself, who will refuse to knowingly engage with music, visual art movies or shows that have AI being used at any level of the production. It's going to be a strange future, but in order to make it work, the artists need to gather together and figure out which camp they're in. Thanks for the good discussion.

[@reimagineuniverse]

@@DoubtfulTom I would like to give some inside. I work in VFX and companies hired 'prompt artists' when the hype was higher. Whatever that means..and very big companies. I think they wanted to utilize as much of it before it regulated. I was thinking like you that companies wont touch it until the legality of it becomes cleary. However there are weird rules like if you change some pixels you can claim the work as yours. The reality of what happened was these prompt artist couldnt create what director wants and director started to ask if the image was created by ai and refused it. I am not romantizing it but MJ creations are lack of emotion, even with 'best prompt artists' imags it creates are very generic and distingushiable (I saw they tried to use it in sci fi movie) so it didnt live long. I can see it can be utilized by artists maybe to bounce back ideas or something but never as end product. I agree with you hundred percent that a patreon type of support system will happen. It is good the see public reception is currently against AI but in the era that eople wants to consume products faster it will create its own genre, genie is out of the box. Thanks for the discussion too!

[@MirskyMan]

I’m not a musician (I’m a wordsmith) and have found Udio to be a lot of fun. I think of it as a music-making game. However, I have been feeling a little guilty about using it (and signing up for a paid account) because I’ve always assumed it’s been illegally trained on copyrighted music. My only disagreement with your video is that I think Udio does a good job of generating melodies that are original, especially to match custom lyrics. Usually it takes some remixing to get something that doesn’t sound derivative. But once it does, I find it very exciting and it’s why I keep using it.

[@federicoaschieri]

Udio's melodies are new, indeed I never said the contrary. But they are usually obtained by taking the melody of some song, and changing some notes here and there. Not a very intelligent and creative way of writing music. That's actually the reason why Udio sounds decently: it takes real songs, real chunks of music, "photoshops" and combine them in one. We know that because you can often hear the original voice, you can hear from which song is taken, so then you compare the notes. Since nobody knows every single piece of music note by note, the system can fool the average listeners, but not composers with knowledge. But really, I don't care about the output. It's cheap music making, but the copyright violation is in the training data. If you feel guilty but want to help artists, then use only the free version. Never fund this robbery.

[@fernandogajo8800]

Hey, can you please link some of the scientific papers you mentioned in the video? Cool points there. I'm trying to bring this discussion to my music school in Rio de Janeiro.

[@federicoaschieri]

Great! Let's promote debate and critical analysis. I added some useful references.

[@AllanGildea]

Thank you Federico.

[@Rgyth]

I wanted to listen to this while working on my car but it's one of those cases that a thick accent and untypical cadence of words is an obstacle to me. I sense the irony because I've long thought that video-publishers could really benefit from AI that re-talks stuff in their own voice and let's them check the script for it. And it would have to put a red label on top: [ai-respeak on],of course. For language learners and mentally impaired it could make almost any material good, properly pronounced basic English and maybe for the advanced do distillations of videos. The video here seems cool, but does it disregard everything not America?

[@S4CR4LTV]

It's a breath of fresh air to have this very well-rounded commentary on the rise of AI as it relates to music. I'm very happy it popped up in my feed. I also have to mention: your voice has such a pleasant calmness to it. I happened to pull up your video while I was driving in some stressful California traffic on my commute home, and listening to you speak really calmed my nerves after a long day. I even checked out some of your other videos just to keep hearing you talk! haha Thank you for sharing your content.

[@federicoaschieri]

Thank you very much!

[@NakedSageAstrology]

If you cannot beat them, join them! I am in favor of AI

[@Noqtis]

8:30 you make the argument that ai just creates stuff with the highest probability but this is not correct. it analyzed what has what probability but it can go against the highest statistical probability. lets say your prompt is: create an image of a cat. probably fotos of cats will have the highest probability, but because it noticed patterns in other groups like a lot of drawn cats it will make those when "it feels like" doing it. this behavior enables AI to mix and match like humans do when they create new stuff, no emotions needed. emotions are more result than source of an artwork. you need emotions to appreciate art. you don't need them to create it. as silly as it might sound for someone who thinks his emotions are the reason for his excellence. you also seem to have the expectation the results the AI creates are very similar to each other when they are not. take the prompt: a Caucasian rebel in the year 4632. this should give me the same guy again and again, right? wrong, it gives me new people til the end of times as long as I keep asking for more

[@federicoaschieri]

I didn't use that expression. AI has randomness in it, yes. But the patterns it memorizes have *always* statistical significance. So AI cannot develop a vision totally against the grain. For AI truth is what is mainstream, not what really is true. Randomness produces variations, but it's a cheap way of achieving creativity, as it is not done with purpose. That's not what we do. We learn because something is meaningful to us. We see something one time and we can totally understand its meaning, memorize it, manipulate it. We can break every rule, but in a way that makes sense. We can come up with something totally new just because that day we are bored. You underestimate the emotional system. That's what creates our own vision, our own originality. As I said, I listen once to a particular pattern, and if it is exciting to me, I study it. I have a personal notion beauty. AI doesn't. It tries to guess what the average human thinks is beautiful. It has no notion of beauty. So it is derivative.

[@Noqtis]

@@federicoaschieri I can't follow. Can you look at the Monalisa, totally understand the meaning, memorize it, manipulate it? And is really every single art piece in human history this complex? Because I'm a fan of art and I know quite a variety of it. I appreciate high skill art just like I appreciate the street musician showing off his rusty songs. Art isn't really that one thing and if you have it it qualifies as art. There is somewhere in a state museum some stone with some lines carved on it. 10.000 years old. Human art. Your kid drew you a silly looking dog onto a sheet of paper. True art. The kid wasn't sitting analyzing dogs and their anatomy. He just drew some lines on a piece of paper and expressed himself through this way. I look at it and think: lel looks like dogshit buddy. But you are his dad, you see a totally different thing. That's art as well. You know what I think about the mona lisa? I think it's shit. Honestly. Fucking ai can do better. But many many people think I lost my mind saying this and this is art. Subjective. You are right art is closely related to emotions but not the way you think it is. Like emotions are not the source of art. Emotions are a reaction to art you perceive as valuable. If you listen to a song you created and appreciate it. You are appreciating art. When you listen to a song that got created because of the prompt you used. Nothing changed. And like I said it's not mainstream what AI is going for nor the highest probabilities. That's what normal computer chips do since like 60 years and not a single one of them made a single song you would enjoy listening too. Ai cpus work differently. They go so much against the mainstream most work is being done on 'al alignment' and the whole field is just there to align ai more to >the mainstream< That's a real problem of ai. Not ai itself but humans who have to align it to opinions accepted by the mainstream. They can't have ai telling them the truth in the face. Ai on its own is quite neutral and this is a huge plus also for art. No matter what you do, even your approach to art will always be biased. Ai looks at stuff and just tries going for combinations without any underlying bias. Well as long as not aligned :/

[@SamGarfield1]

You are right and wrong. AI models are deterministic. If you take your example prompt and feed it into the AI model a million times, you can get the same result a million times - provided you use the same seed each time. It gives you a different answer with the same prompt because it is using a different randomly generated seed. At the end of the day, it is just adding some random noise into the process. But... you know, that's probably something like what we do, too.

[@lendrick]

@@federicoaschieri > So AI cannot develop a vision totally against the grain You should probably familiarize yourself with the term "negative prompt" before you make a claim like that.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@lendrick Again, that's not a vision of its own, AI just says what you want you hear. Even when it adopts an arbitrary point of views, it spits out cliches about the topic.

[@Overt_Erre]

Your solution isn't very good. Companies can just use their inflated stock valuations to generate capital to buy out a lot of music, old and new, at cheap prices and then use that data library to put future artists out of work in perpetuity. For example, once they bought thousands of R&B albums, perhaps from dead artists, no future R&B artists will ever see their music purchased, while the AI generates billions of R&B tracks. Synthetic data and technology improvements will require less data to generate results. AI music must not be copyrightable, nor sellable without a warning on whatever products it comes packaged with. "This product contains AI music". If a movie comes with an AI soundtrack, then the public should rightfully expect a cheaper cost for it. If it comes with AI footage, even lower, etcetera. If the actors are AI, even lower, and the AI generated imagery can be reused by others. Labeling will ensure it's priced different than human-made work. We must ensure there is no profit in unethical uses of it, so all uses will concentrate where AI is useful, data management and labor-saving measures. The other risk is not just artists losing their livelihoods, but humans becoming unable to accomplish anything without AI very quickly. Imagine mixing. If AI replaces human mixers we'll lose that skillset in a few decades, so who will be able to train and program the AI to mix in the future? It will become a black box "magic" unable to ever change or adapt to anything new.

[@federicoaschieri]

Thanks for your contribution to the debate! You have good points, I totally agree on the fact that AI work must not be copyrightable, and on the price tags. In the US, it is already the case that AI generated music is not copyrightable. We must be really stringent on that. But that alone is not enough. We have to use all the tools we have, starting from not giving up our music for free. So mine is not a solution, it’s a necessity. Licensing is unavoidable. Moreover, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of licensing. Labels are smart in business. No label will grant a perpetual license to an AI company for their catalogue. Especially because labels can make their very own AI: copyright gives them the exclusive right. And if they do that, then the music business has control of AI, which is a good defense. So labels will tie themselves to the AI business or build their own AI exclusively. You make money, we make money. Moreover, with license you have bargaining power, so you can steer the AI music business. In other terms, the model of Spotify will occur once again. Moreover, I point out that one third of the market comprises independent artists. You simply cannot pay each one to obtain perpetual licenses. Yes, AI companies have inflated values, but you would need dozens of trillions to buy perpetual licenses for everything. If AI companies pay me one million dollar, I may decide to sell them my catalogue, but I’m just one artist. And that's just one third of the data. Moreover, AI is not that intelligent nor suitable for meaningful art. AI can’t compete already with best songwriters, and if it misses data it will get worse, not better. There is already shortage of data, and synthetic data is known not to work very well in humanities, while it may work in mathematics. In art AI will always be data hungry, as it cannot really understand music.

[@Edbrad]

It's not enough to prove they trained the AI on copyrighted works. Everyone knows they do that already. I realize you think it's by definition copyright theft, but legally it isn't defined that way. This is something completely new, that's why it has to go through the courts. Your side will obviously lose because those companies like Getty and Shutterstock that are suing immediately went out and trained their own Ai's on all their own content before their legal case even concluded, but are represented as the ethical good guys simply because you're too distracted by the "bad" company's like OpenAi and Midjourney. This is like Universal Music suing Udio and then immediately making their own Udio that's trained on Universal Music's whole catalogue, which they will certainly do the first chance they get. These lawsuits aren't trying to win the same outcome as you, don't you see that? Now lets say one wake up to this and tries to sue them properly, well you're now also going to have to sue all these OTHER company's that just made it harder to win than before because THEY'LL argue they actually DO have the right to train their own AI on this material and THEY actually do have the right to license that for a relatively small amount to OpenAi, Facebook, Google, etc, Even if they won their cases their ideal scenario is either, 1) they get to make money with their AI and have exclusive rights to have that model with their training data, or 2) license it to OpenAi and all these companies. See you think it wont happen because no artists , composers or producers would agree, and that they'd never be able to pay enough. But you see they've already done it! They made their own AI's and are fooling you into thinking they're the "ethical" ones! They didn't ask people, they just did it, Adobe threw a few dollars at their stock image creators and called it a "bonus". So their Ai models were very cheap to make, the content creators made basically nothing, and so therefore they can easily sell their training data to these AI companies for a fraction of the cost you think will be prohibitively expensive. You're crossing your fingers for the courts to side with you when the ones suing them are just trying to get the legal right to do the same exact thing, and you end up in the same position after they betray you. And by focusing on the output (which you only cared about when Ai got good, and affected your industry) then you're literally making an argument with the logical implication that the output doesn't necessarily produce copyright infringing content, and that it actually usually doesn't most of the time. Your actual argument should be that the output is irrelevant and that all music (and all audio) produced by this Ai is infringing copyright regardless of what it sounds like, and regardless of how good it is. This is just one of the many reasons why you'll never win this legal fight. Even if you got everything you wanted, which you won't. Open Source destroys all possibility of putting this back in the box. Why do you think facebook is releasing everything open source? Because then they know they can't even be told to stop, because it's open source and they can't take it back. And if everyone now has the tools they'll say this wasn't just a reasonable arguable point to use copyrighted material in training, but now there's no point limiting them specifically when literally anyone can generate whatever they want on their own computer and train in any content they like. But you're in pure denial the biggest companies in the world will agree to a legal position that makes it so they have to literally throw away models like GPT-4 and Sora etc.

[@federicoaschieri]

Your comment is as long as it is full of logic mistakes. I don't focus on the output, and if you watched the video until the end, you would have heard me say precisely that. The copyright infringement is already in the input, the stolen training data. If you watched the video, you'd have heard the simple, but deadly arguments against the AI companies' defense, that is, fair use. The important thing, for many artists like me, is that AI companies don't use our own music to train AI. Independent artists are one third of the market. If they use the catalogue of other artists that allow that, I'm perfectly fine with that. But every label will only have their catalogue available, so the training data will be broken. And if they license their catalogue, they will have control on AI companies, so they won't let them ruin the music business, devaluing their catalogue, as Udio & co are already doing. That's pure logic.

[@Tomasz.Abrahamer]

Picasso had just completed his classical studies when photography was invented. At first he wanted to hang himself. He didn't do it, nor did he sue anyone or become a Luddite. Instead...

[@keithdunwoody1302]

Picasso was born in 1881. The first photographs were taken in 1826.

[@SamGarfield1]

Respectfully, may I offer a point for your consideration. I assure you that Google is not worried about getting sued by the music industry, whose entire COMBINED market value is less than 5% of their own market cap. And that's just one tech company. Nobody setting policy cares about the music industry, sorry but it's the sad truth. The reason the major players are behind on this stuff is because the more successful they have become, the more anti-technology they must become. Innovation breeds disruption. So Google, Amazon, Meta, etc. have a whole gaggle of VC's who run around silicon valley slurping up ANY tech startup that MIGHT someday, theoretically, be disruptive enough to threaten their business. Then those companies disappear and go down the memory hole. Their technology is rarely integrated into the tech giant because they have no reason to rock the boat. Now the problem for them is that tech is moving faster than they can, being the big behemoths that they are. It takes them years to do what a couples devs can do in a weekend. Their model is broken.

[@federicoaschieri]

I have to disagree. Udio people, as I said, come from Google Deepmind. The reason they founded their own company is that Google stopped their music projects. Indeed, Google is trying to develop ethical AI music. AI music is not innovative at all. It uses what are already standard concepts. Any major AI companies can do that, far better than Udio and Suno, having more resources.

[@b1daly1]

You have made an excellent video. In contrast to the streams of hype, nonsense, disinformation, and confusion flooding the media space on AI music. I don’t see how companies like Suno or Udio survive the legal challenges coming.

[@iBananenjoghurt]

When a man says what he knows -> a man always says what he doesn't know

[@elxero2189]

So long as there are people who still like making music snd there sre people who loke listening to human made music ..music will be fine...money on the other hand....

[@BjoernLewin]

OR: "Why accounts that use clickbait-titles are doomed!" - or do you happento have a crystal ball telling the future?!

[@federicoaschieri]

I don't have any crystal ball, nor I need any: Logic works better in predicting the future. You're welcome to find flaws in my reasoning and show that AI music has a bright future.

[@CPB4444]

The Last War you mean...

[@federicoaschieri]

I don't like to make long term predictions, so I meant first. All I know is that this, at least, first battle, will be won by us.

[@CPB4444]

@federicoaschieri For a prediction, one would seek an oracle. The outcome is the most important detail. The way it gets their could be argued. However what we fight will be a reflection of ourselves. Us vs them tale as old as humanity. But that's a matter of opinion. Ps. I'm for humanity

[@dannygjk]

You said something like you are a researcher but a little before 5:00 you stated a basic fallacy.

[@federicoaschieri]

You mean when I talked about loops in neural networks? I confirm that's not the technology that AI music models use, nor the main AI models from the big AI companies. Networks with loops are called RNN, and have enjoyed little success up to now. Or you claim that artificial neurons work like real ones? Either case you're wrong.

[@rickard.eriksson]

AI music sounds great, but, every generation cost shitload of money, Udio was great in the beta version, but its gonna limit the datasets, so the sound is gonna sound amateurish.

[@federicoaschieri]

Interesting. So you claim they will make available a smaller model, trained on a smaller database? What's your source? Anyway, for the sake of speculation, and assuming that what you say is true, the thing sounds suspicious to me: they could simply limit the use of the model, instead of decreasing the quality. I wonder whether, foreseeing the huge backlash, they had already a plan B, that is, releasing a model trained on copyright-free music? 🤣That would sound certainly amateurish.

[@rickard.eriksson]

@@federicoaschieriThe quality overall is higher, Udio had before the new update, limitless datasets, so you could mix and mash, after the last update they limited the datasets to three.

[@rickard.eriksson]

@@federicoaschieri They changed it back, to more datasets..

[@PlanetJeroen]

Right .. so within half a minute you contradict yourself as artists are both not aware and scared .. interesting .. Assume for a second you would be right in claiming it all due to copyright infringement and fair use by AI cannot be possible. All you did is delay things, as big tech will hire every low wage human on the planet that can draw between average and awesome, and they will find a way to both get better data than what they got random from the internet, as well as min/max getting it. You lot are basically having the same discussion you all had when PaintShop introduced AI brushes. It's a tool .. and best used by an artist to get something out of it that will touch humans and not make the result look like empty hallucinations. The only people this will hurt is the ones that were already leaning way too heavy on other peoples work, as now they cant easily replicate it anymore.

[@federicoaschieri]

I'm perfectly fine if AI companies hire musicians to train their AI. I simply demand for justice. I don't care about stopping AI.

[@TomiLoveless]

Bro, let me help you out some; Our brain neurons have 100 trillion connections!!!! AI is a machine running programs! period. The machines have 15 million connections at best, there is no contest!

[@federicoaschieri]

Eh, eh, yes, we still have more connections. I think AI is already to more than a trillion, however. Some AI fanboy will come and say that with a server farm powered by a nuclear plant we can have 100 trillions next years. But it won't be like our brain, let alone as efficient. It's the organization of the networks what makes them intelligent. And that organization just doesn't happen magically on its own, just training on data. It took one billion years of evolution of neural networks to reach that organization. And how many living beings with neural networks have appeared in that time frame. I don't dare to make an estimate 😁

[@Stinktierchen]

Not going to watch the whole video. But from my understanding. You have completely forgotten the home run "AI" software. I have some of them, I dont need any company. There are so many tools out there already. People will run on their home computers. And more and more people have strong CPUs and massive GPUs. I have many different LLMs and voice generating and image generatic tools running on my own PC. Without any need of any specific company. Nobody will be able to stop home run systems ever again. And that is great!

[@federicoaschieri]

Counterargument for you. Those AI softwares that are pirating music will be illegal, and you won't be able to find them. I know that piracy exists, but the majority of people use phones and just listen to music on Spotify legally, for instance. The important thing is that piracy is confined to few people. Moreover, we will use AI to detect music generated by pirate AI, so you will be caught. Remember that if bad guys have AI, also good ones have it.

[@SamGarfield1]

@@federicoaschieri Wait.. am I understanding you correctly? Are you arguing that even producing an original work using AI is copyright infringement if a single copyrighted work exists in that AI model's training dataset? I don't see where an infringing copy of anything was made in this case.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@SamGarfield1 A work generated by AI may not infringe copyright, but when the training data is illegal, the model is illegal. To become legal, so to avoid being deleted by law, the AI company must license the training data. If you are caught using illegal AI, you will be legally persecuted. At least, that's what I believe will happen.

[@Stinktierchen]

@@federicoaschieri As Sam said. You forget the AI that is trained on a lot of different data. The work that you create using that AI is not infringin any copyright. And I DONT agree that, even if it has caught someones work into its database. That this is infringing copyright. I have ears and eyes. I see and hear things... especially melodies. When I create music, based on some melodies I have heard somewhere at some time. Does this make me stealing someones work? To be honest, I am not a lawayer on that subject. And I dont need to earn my living doing music or making art (anymore). So seriously think... creative people will have to adapt themselves to the new reality. The time is over, where you could make one super hit and earn millions. And I dont care if someone wants to make money with their music. There will be enough musicians who just make music because they like it. Creating music has become so easy... not only the software and hardware. But instruments are much cheaper too. I dont pay money for music anymore, not movies.. not anything. And if all the music dissapears, that is being created by big labels. I dont care. There will always be someone, who makes great stuff just as a hobby. And even if not... there is plenty things to do in my life, or I start to play guitar myself again. I am sorry for everyone who wants to make money with music or computer arts. But thats life... we all will move on. But I am sure there will still be demand for live music made by real people for a long time. It is just... you wont get rich thru it anymore. Nobody... not even one hit wonders or some pushed and hyped label stars. And I think that is a great development. The past 60 years or so... were too hyped. Ridiculous to earn millions creating a few simple songs. It was the golden rush era... everyone who made huge money in that periode... well. They had luck. That time is over now.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@Stinktierchen It's using the training data without licensing, as I said, that violates copyright. Sorry but, as I explained in the video, that theft would be declared illegal, so this illegal AI will be stopped.

[@vladimirnadvornik8254]

US constitution says that the reason for copyright is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". It does not mention humans. Now there is more progress from AI than from humans. Using copyright to slow it down is illegal.

[@federicoaschieri]

US legislation does mention humans. Quote from the copyright office: "The U.S. Copyright Office will register an original work of authorship, provided that the work was created by a human being. The copyright law only protects “the fruits of intellectual labor” that “are founded in the creative powers of the mind.” So humans are protected. If AI harms humans making difficult to sustain a creative carrier, copyright law responds. Isn't it obvious that human society should protect human creativity?

[@Laecy]

What a weird take. I get that some people genuinely believe that robot overlords would be good for us, but we’re going to have to go through some significant difficulties on the way. Might be best to spread the trouble out so it stays manageable. And I don’t like the humans who will be making the decisions for us all in the meantime.

[@vladimirnadvornik8254]

@@federicoaschieri The purpose of copyright is to motivate humans to work. AI does not need such motivation, it works on request. Motivating humans to work in the areas where AI is more efficient is wasting resources. Copyright can still make sense in the areas where humans can't be replaced by AI, for example live performance.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@vladimirnadvornik8254 But the point is that AI is not more "efficient" than humans in art. Art is not an industrial process to produce coffee machines. It's just not what AI should be doing. Art is from humans for humans. It's not interesting what AI spits out about love or feelings or human condition. That's why human culture is protected by copyright. There's no more motivation to make art, if AI steals you songs with no compensation. Many artists are thinking of hiding their art in a way that cannot be stolen by AI companies. They're afraid of putting it on the web. That's exactly what copyright wants to avoid.

[@moonstonewarlock]

Very good and interesting video! I hope you are right!

[@markcooperartcomofficial]

You're right. The only way ai can persist is if they continue to ignore copyright law, which can't happen.

[@federicoaschieri]

Exactly. The US copyright office is working on the issue, and before the end of the year will release its updated guidelines. After that, all the open lawsuits will be decided in favor of copyright holders, I have no doubt.

[@SamGarfield1]

Copyright is a law dealing with making unauthorized copies of protected works. Training an AI on a copyrighted work does not copy or reproduce that work any more than you or I consuming that piece of media makes a copy in our minds. Now if you, or an AI, or a human using an AI, reproduces an unlicensed copy of a protected work, then you would be in violation according to the law that already exists. ChatGPT should be trained on NY Times articles, but it should not be allowed to output infringing copies of them. That's where the violation lies.

[@federicoaschieri]

@@SamGarfield1 When you train your AI, you have first to collect the dataset, that is, download the music. That's making a copy without permission. That's illegal. This shows how comparisons with humans lead to falsehood. AI companies have to use the "fair use" defense, exactly because it's illegal to download music without license.

[@YaKUZZiGirlWorldwide]

This will not age well.😮

[@federicoaschieri]

On the contrary, several predictions I made on the lawsuits and the legal arguments being made not only aged well, but turned out to be correct. But I understand that an AI agency selling fake models doesn’t like these truths 😁