Critics of Music-Making AIs MAKE NO SENSE

[@isaklytting5795]

4:25. Exactly! I think it's becoming increasingly clear - at least to my mind - that what I thought of as "creativity" is just some sort of trial-and-error/hit-or-miss random mixing of influences until one finds something - amid "the multitude of awful results" - that will be interesting. Then whether it is "deep" or not probably has more to do with the journey the listener (or viewer, in the case of visual arts) has in experiencing the work and letting it work on his psyche and emotions and imagination. I think maybe 99% of great creativity might turn out to be of this kind, and maybe 1% is a deeper or more profound sort of process. Ever since they began showing machine learning software producing images which to me looked very creative and new, and to me seemed much like any other piece of work I would have called "art" if a human being had made it, it began to dawn on me how simple creativity or imagination was in the majority of cases. I think it's great that we are making progress in understanding creativity and how the mind works. Also, this may either make people have less awe of creativity in general, when they begin to see how simple a process it is, and, maybe for people who have until now felt creativity to be a mystery it will give the confidence to see if they can find it in themselves. I think it might not be such a bad thing to let people become more conscious about the process of the mind and of creativity. People may say it will remove the spell, and the enchantment will disappear. I think people are already very disenchanted with many aspects of life and society, and maybe getting some truth in this area will not be so bad. Maybe in some way, letting people get new understanding might lead to a re-enchantment of the world and a re-awakening to the potential of life.

[@SimonMas]

i can only speak about my creativity. people say i'm really creative but to me there's really nothing magical at all in it. you put out ideas and try them out until you find one that sorts the problem in a way you like. in music there's many times where i just had to go: "how did they come up with THAT! it's incredible!" but to the musicians was probably as blasè as my creativity is for me. to be fair, even if i'm not 100% sure, i think this mystical idea about art and creativity comes from romanticism. people just started making a big thing out of it to acquire importance (and money) by fooling people into thinking that you're either born with some sparkle of magicval genius, or you are never going to create meaningful art. that's bullshit. sorry, but it really is. it's medieval, but i do side with the idea that art and creation are crafts that people can learn. some people will be better at them, some will have a natural knack. but the "magical" part of it is, i don't know... 5% of the whole deal.

[@jimsteinmanfan80]

The only problem with music-making AI would be if they tried to stop us from listening to anything else.

[@SimonMas]

mmmmh... if it became harder to listen to new human-made music because it would be a drop in the ocean of AI-made pieces... would that satisfy your condition of "stop us from listening"?

[@jimsteinmanfan80]

No @@SimonMas since you could find music elsewhere and then access it among the AI-made ones and many like me would have more physical records than they have time to play. It would certainly satisfy my condition of "trying to stop us from listening" though as most would stop. That's probably where we are heading.

[@SimonMas]

@@jimsteinmanfan80 how would you find it? i see the amount of people that moan how modern music is just crap and 99.999% of the time i see people that have no clue, no extra time, no expertise on how to find the new and exciting music that is being done. in pretty much every genre, i might add. i can't see how having even MORE music (and "music") to navigate to find what you want would solve the problem. in fact, this is *the* way some "democracies" and one way most authoritarian regimes win the information war: they bury the public in all kinds of news, so the important and meaningful ones go unnoticed. if it works for information, it works for music.

[@jimsteinmanfan80]

Well that's we I made a distinction between stopping and trying to stop@@SimonMas If we're talking about new music they will probably stop people from finding that, they will not succeed with people like me though who listen to music pre Pro tools and Auto tune.

[@SimonMas]

which means music has died a long time ago, for you. that's music recorded well before 25 years ago.

[@MaxLohMusic]

I really like the dog parking a car analogy. It explains better than I ever could why I always found the nitpitcking of everything AI can't yet do to be so illogical. I think there is a collective forgetfulness or ignorance of history of computing. The first wake-up call should've been DeepMind WaveNet synthesizing barely-classical-sounding piano pieces in 2016. People should've understood the longterm implications. But they were too busy criticizing lack of long-term coherency while ignoring that it wasn't even taught what a piano is or what notes are.

[@SimonMas]

"It explains better than I ever could why I always found the nitpitcking of everything AI can't yet do to be so illogical". yeah, it bothered me for a long time, too, until i understand that these positions made sense as an illogical way of protecting the speaker from the reality knocking at their door. it's totally understandable and i don't blame them for trying, but they have to see things for what they are, or we'll all end up in much deeper waters. a lot of time has been wasted. i was aware of ai progresses since 2014, i think. i remember reading this article claiming that one day in the far far future AIs will be able to even wirte books or compose music. and i remember people laughing their asses off in the comment section. with a bit more hubris and a bit more inquisitiveness, we could have sorted any problem a long time ago, in a multitude of ways. now, it's exploding in our faces.

[@Vansafe0]

When people feel threatened they will always find something wrong with ai generated content, doesn't matter if it is writing, art, video or music. Basically Technophobia. They focus on that rather than finding ways Ai can be used to improve the subject matter.

[@a.tevetoglu3366]

Ignorance is bliss. Enjoy.

[@SimonMas]

yeah, like i said in the third video of this series, now's the time to really discuss the consequences of this change we're facing. now. not later. luddism is a way to respond to it, but it is useful only if the real problem is discussed and solved. the real problem being now "what job is left for us", but "i am a human being, i deserve to have a certain quality of life, and the fairy tale about working hard to achieving it doesn't make any sense anymore. who is going to give me what i deserve?"

[@SimonMas]

@@a.tevetoglu3366 in this case, the bliss will be very short lived and the ignorant will be up for an extremely harsh wake up call, i'm afraid.

[@stoneneils]

This debate is ridiculous as there are already a million great songs out there unknown, unheard, unplayed, unrecognized. It takes a living breathing human face or band that connects with youth. They don't like The Weekend's music because its great, they like it because they like The Weekend and would like to BE LIKE HIM in some way. AI can create the music just like a songwriter does today but it will still take a young good looking vibrant personality and image to take those songs to superstar status..or even popular fame.

[@SimonMas]

you had me until the "it will still take a young good looking vibrant personality and image" part. all of that can be manufactured out of thin air. and when AI videos will be better, it will be possible to make a full AI "pop star" in a way it had never been before. there's a strong case for a certain type of music having real value (trascending from the sheer acoustic values) because they are deliberate artistic statements made by human beings. but then, it's an ontological/ epistemological issue that is probably lost on some listeners. which kind of negates my stance that real art doesn't require a degree to be understood :D

[@chaotickreg7024]

Two words: Hatsune Miku

[@DielectricFailure]

I’ve heard some music generated by AI and it sounded weird, but I felt like that made it unique and I enjoyed it.

[@SimonMas]

was that recently? things have really hit the hyperspace in the last month or so.

[@akpokemon]

i'm on suno right now and the top songs on there are indeed really awkward. The lyrics and rhythm that the lyrics are sung in do not flow at all. It's like those weird direct-Japanese-to-English-translated songs that they have in Japanese-imported animes and video games. But ColdFusion's video showed some amazing examples of AI songs so i know they exist...EDIT: I just found a song called "Golden Sunshine" in the "Showcase" section on the homepage that's excellent. I think the key is to make punchy minimalistic lyrics in ChatGPT4 first, then plug those into Suno.

[@SimonMas]

@@akpokemon you have to try and create your own. if people don't submit to the public what they create (i didn't, for a start) there's no way you might find it in the top songs. you're probably looking as stuff created a couple of months ago, maybe. don't trust videos (including mine!), especially if they come from the tech companies behind the AIs. if you have to test a model, you really do need to get your hands dirty.

[@markwrede8878]

AI is full scale humming with no adventure in mind and shambling structure.

[@SimonMas]

can't that be said about some human made music, too? the more people go down that rabbit hole, trying to debase AIs, the more they actually put it on the same level of human achievements. not of the best human achievements, but still. edit: having said that, i had never seen such an argute way of putting it before. :)

[@gu9838]

personally i dont see ai as the death of music or creativity or art or any of that. in fact i dare say it can do the opposite by providing users tools to create music and art and all. it can INSPIRE more creativity in people

[@SimonMas]

we will see. i don't see it thay way, but, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. we will be able to fully assess the outcome only when things become well developed.

[@ItWasntAPhase]

I wonder if it would be possible that if Suno or Udio lose the training data copyright case that they could train a new Ai model strictly on all the AI music that has already been generated? I read that on average users are generating 800k songs per day just with Udio. That would be a lot of copyright free training data. Think this could be their backup plan aside from purchasing music libraries? Of course a lot of those songs are about farts and pooping😂

[@robertruffo2134]

Legally they can't, because the generated music is already a form of illegal copy. Also, AI fed on AI output gets weird and bad fast.

[@SimonMas]

there's a paper that's been tossed around by commentators (which i haven't read myself) which would conclude that if AI use AI-generated things to train themselves, their work would gradually decrease in quality, soon. regardless of whether that is true or not, there's no need to feed AI-made stuff to AIs. you just need to invest some (not even that much, i suspect) money to pay for human content you can use 100% legally.

[@SimonMas]

@@robertruffo2134 "the generated music is already a form of illegal copy": where did you get that? last time i checked, the case was still being discussed. is there a new piece of information i'm missing?

[@3DaveO]

The music generated by AI - is legal. Training data falls under fair use for research and education. 1 they are researching and didn't steal anything. 2 they are educating a large language model. Seem farking clear to me.

[@SimonMas]

@@3DaveO sorry, but fair use is something that has to be decided by a judge. it's literally a defense line that your lawyer can try out when someone sues you for copyright infringement. and the jury is still out on that. when there will be an official ruling, then you can be sure. the fact that it might be a clear case of fair use doesn't make it any legal :)

[@krunkle5136]

Its ability to cause mass human uselessness is the main trouble.

[@MrHarumakiSensei]

There's always stuff that needs doing.

[@krunkle5136]

@@MrHarumakiSensei there's less stuff however. You don't need dozens of clerks to do what Excel can do. Yes, it's "progress", but it's increasingly pressing that assumptions, such as that progress is good and unstoppable, should be questioned.

[@SimonMas]

nah. the main trouble is that your comment underline the biggest problem with human culture of this day and age: something is useful only if it can make work, i.e. make money. that's an *extremely* dehumanising thing to believe and it's all over the place, or at least it is in many western cultures. AI doesn't make human useless. just like a car doesn't make horses useless. humans are living beings and as such, they should have a value that is intrinsic to their existence. no tool can take that away. AIs can make humans useless *in the job market*... but is that really what being human is all about? being a tool for someone else to get rich? what a sad sad mode of being.

[@SimonMas]

@@MrHarumakiSensei i bet AIs will be soon able to do that, too :D

[@SimonMas]

@@krunkle5136 the notion that progress is good and unstoppable is an ideological statement. it's really surprising how many "truths" are just simply based on an ideology so ingrained that we think it comes from some physics rulebook or something. progress is progress. it can be negative, and it can be stopped. positive and negative are also subjective, too. i think AIs are just making impossible to sweep the dirt under the carpet and pretend that political and ideological assumptions are based on something other than thin air. who says we have to work? who says there's no such thing as a free lunch (ah, that one i know!)? who says i and you and everyone else don't deserve being pampered from just being alive? it's time to start putting everything under scrutiny and call everything into discussion. if we do that, *then* we can decide what kind of life and future we want. but let's not be fooled: it's *we* who decide, one way or another. not any law of physics or "common sense".

[@harryjones5260]

if you are convinced by Ai music, then the human lowest common denominator is alot lower than previously estimated. dont underestimate the integrity of the population.

[@SimonMas]

it's not a question of integrity, but a question of perceived value. maybe i am underestimating it, but i am convinced that most people care very very little about music. if they did, apps like spotify would be forced to close shop a long time ago.

[@Help_im_sad]

For anybody who thinks AI isn't a legit part of the music creation process: AI is a new instrument like a guitar or a piano. The same kinda people who say "to use AI is to cheat" are the same people that say crap like "double bass pedals on kick drums are cheating". Lmao 😂 noooo... It's not cheating. It's an instrument. Put AI in front of 10 people, there WILL be extra creative people who stand out more than the others while using it. Just like any other instrument 😊

[@SimonMas]

"AI is a new instrument like a guitar or a piano" i 100% disagree with that. it's just *not* the same in any shape or form. it might look the same, but once you understand the deeper implication of what the tool can do (and does already), you understand it's like saying a baseball bat is the same thing as a carrot. that's why to say that "to use ai is to cheat" is wrong. because it's not the same game. can't cheat in basketball by playing football.

[@phladjki]

I agree that this may be like a new type of instrument and that some people will be better at it than others and still distinguish themselves. This has happened with sampling, electronic music “it’s not a real instrument!” yet it’s now considered legit. If you’ve spent time on midjourney like I have - it draws/paints/photos for you, but it’s actually quite hard to control and make “great” things. Some people make average things, others make incredible things on midjourney. Maybe you could debate whether it’s an “instrument”, but it is a “tool that someone can wield more or less skillfully to make music” - which sounds a lot like an instrument to me

[@Help_im_sad]

@@phladjki oops I replied to the wrong comment. Lol

[@Help_im_sad]

@@phladjki exactly! 💯

[@Help_im_sad]

@@SimonMas i can push the limit of AI in ways people didn't know possible ... Innovation is doing what wasn't expected. And I promise, you can actually break AI. I do it on suno all the time and I can make it do new things. Try misspelling words in style prompts. Or replacing words with emojis. Use math equations with no context or add a variable name like "level_1 = [null]" Things happen. Guitar distortion wasn't embraced at first. It was seen as a nasty sound by the old, and rocking out by the young. I guess I'm just young. 🤷‍♀️

[@JayPlaysEverything]

AI is currently incapable of creating something new, it can only borrow and mix from existing sources. So as of now no matter how unique AI created music is, it's stolen.

[@MaxLohMusic]

Does this not strike you as a horrendous argument of training being equivalent to stealing? If you'd apply the same standards to humans then the vast majority of professional musicians would also be "stealing". Most people aren't creating a whole new genre every time they create something.

[@SimonMas]

as a musician and a composer: i can't think of any piece of music, ever, that didn't borrow and mix from any number of existing sources, both deliberately and unconsciously. there is literally *nothing* 100% original in art. real geniuses (and, as far as i'm concerned, you can count them on the figers of one hand, with spare fingers for future geniuses) might create something that is... i don't know, 10%, even 15% original. not any more. so, by your definition, all music is stolen. it's an empty argument against AI all based on an extremely debatable definition of what is "new". even settling on one person's view of what constitute "newness", there *will* be human made pieces that will be classed "unnew". so you have a non sequitur argument, i'm afraid.

[@SimonMas]

@@MaxLohMusic most people? i can think of one or two really really original musicians (mozart, with bach behind). a lot of decently original musicians (way too many to mention). but literally no human being who ever created a whole new genre since human history has been kept in writing. maybe some ancient caveman did. :)

[@niaschim]

I'm replying to your comment in a vacuum at present (I won't watch the video for a decent while). That said, the current numberline is incapable of creating new numbers, all it is capable of doing is mixing and matching old numbers. Thank you I will be here all night 🤣✌️

[@y.__.y--]

People learn from other people, get inspired by other people, emulate other people, borrow and remix and innovate and create through the works of other people ALL THE TIME. What are you yakking about?

[@Derek_Smallshorts]

If you think AIs can make music, you don't understand music.

[@SimonMas]

damn, i must have had a merit in my master in music composition and musicology and i must have studied music for 26 years without understanding music. i fooled everyone, including myself. or perhaps, you have completely missed the meaning of what i've said in the whole series. after all, if you check all the comments, *you* are the only one coming up with this...