I don't care if creative individuals have fun with AI, let them. What concerns me is how big companies will use it to screw over working musicians, like they always do. Remember when we all laughed at Metallica for making a big deal about Napster and then made fun of bands eho shunned streaming? Now people are getting paid pennies for millions of streams on Spotify. Every time a cheaper way to do something is invented, the greedy pigs on top eat it up and make everything worse. Let AI be the funky seasoning, not the main course.
@@nmlssonly partially. What Lars was actually fighting was Oversaturation vs Scarcity. The ever lowering bar into music was always going to devalue music and the lowering of the bar also caused Decentralization. Centralization of the Music Industry is how those labels made real money. Now that record labels aren't integral to making professional sounding music means millions upon millions of people are making music. Napster was just s glimpse into what unrestrained sharing of data can do to art. Lars saw that it was hurting money. Now that the unrestrained sharing of data Is the norm. Not sure why artists think they can get paid well in an extremely oversaturated market without ripping off the commissioner.
Screwing around with AI is not 'creative.' It's mastrubation. I've never heard any AI-generated music that was worth a shit. It's also VERY destructive to the environment and is way too expensive. Once these companies start wanting their money out of these very expensive tehcnologies, the cost is going to favor people who just do it for real. And have, actual talent.
Don't lie to yourself, because the reason Ai was made and is now being pushed by many corporations is simple: make more money. Cut corners. Generate "art" without having to deal with an artist. And many people don't care, they only want more and more content to consume.
if people truly don't care about real art, then art itself is dead. i'd say it's more the fact that artists have been such stuck-up, posh assholes about it, after a few decades of acting untouchable by ai. either you support ai, and by extension support corporation's ability to replace artists that can't compete with the ai, or you support copyright, and by extension support corporation's ability to monopolize ideas from artists by legally taking ownership of their ideas and likeness. if the only reason you oppose the corporations making ai is because you want to make more money, then you're going to have to adapt to the ever-changing demands of the market, same as everyone else all throughout time. if you enjoy art for the sake of art, then whether or not corporations pay you for it, or buy an ai instead shouldn't matter to you.
@@davidlewis6728 The artists you describe sound like a sitcom idea of an artist. But anyway, you are right that art would be dead. We artists make art because we love to, but we also need to eat, so no money = no food, no rent, no life. We'll have to give up art in order to make ends meet, and we do already! Unless you're wealthy, most artists have to juggle part-time jobs to support their careers. But with Ai, it will certainly be worse than what it is now. And yet, even with all this mess, we artists can't give in. "Adapt" worked when they changed from paper to a digital tablet to draw. Only thing that changed was the canvas. Now, what corporations want to change is the artist. We can't allow that.
@@LON009 you are stuck in the belief that ai is meant to replace the artist wholesale. you don't want to allow that, but the way you're setting the conflict up, there's nothing you can do to stop it. view ai as a tool, instead. use it to radically decrease the costs of creating art, use your own art to improve on it. consider getting involved in technologies that can (and have) improved artist's ability to monetize their work. nfts are unpopular for whatever reason among the vocal artistic crowd, but they've been very good for people who aren't blinded by the fearmongering, i'm sure they could be even better if more kinds of artists tried to use them. if there are any differences in value at all between ai art and normal art, people will pay more for it in it's absence. art is never going to die, and ai isn't going to change that. stop being dramatic. also, real life would almost be a sitcom if not for the depressing fact that it's real. then again, i guess most of them are most vocal on twitter and other such internet cesspools, so hopefully it's not actually as common irl. i'm in california, so there's not much difference.
Machine learning algorithms can be useful tools and assistants, but putting it on autopilot and letting it take control unsupervised will always lead to serious issues. It's going to be interesting to see what happens to those companies who are now embracing machine learning algorithms too early, too quickly, and too completely.
The reason people say this is killing art is not about thy aesthetics, but rather the economics. If Ai can make art that is indistinguishable and costs far less time or money, it will play the capitalist game better than human beings. Artists will become even more stratified in an already stratified society. There will simply be no viable way to make a living as an artist, even worse that it already has become. If we want to really keep art alive and keep MEANINGFUL art flowing from people who spend a lifetime mastering their craft, then we must ditch capitalism for something far less insane. Ai isn't going to get worse. But our ability to keep up will
As an artist, I'm pretty disappointed how you completely glossed over how artists and musicians will financially survive in an environment taken over by AI art and music. Big record labels and media corporations that are completely money hungry will do anything to not pay us. Also, there's a lot of us that have a massive issue with how these models are trained. A lot is taken without our permission- even Adobe has been in hot water lately (I wanted to bring that up since you said you used them). idk. If I saw an artist outsourced their songwriting to a genAI text model, I would absolutely lose all respect for them. What is the point of art if it's not human. Just bc a certain tech is new and shiny, doesn't mean it's the next big leap forward for the medium.
I completely agree. Using generative AI speaks volume on how you view and respect the labour that is the creative process. Like, for instance, if a musician makes an album, and uses some AI slock on the cover. Well, then that just tells me they don't respect visual artists enough to pay some one to make the cover for them. It's also pretty obvious why record labels are salivating at the thought of AI breaking through. No artist, means they have complete control, no mishaps, no bad publicity. Artists using generative AI deserve scrutiny, harsh scrutiny.
He did mention early on how this wasn't going to be focused on the ethics of AI. Frankly, I'm tired of hearing the same talking points from both sides and it's refreshing to hear how artists can integrate AI into their workflow to expand their own boundaries, rather than replace them like industry and the fear-mongering seem to think they will. Yes, those are all legitimate issues you mentioned, but the legal and ethical consequences are still evolving and playing out, and it's what most people talk about in the polarized culture war he briefly discussed. It's not the only conversation to be had, though.
The issue here is every technology does the same thing. Machines have destroyed the manufacturing industry, administrative work, and so on. While you feel strongly there are millions of people that are being born that will never. You should absolutely not support it if you do not want to. Please just understand it will happen the wave is coming and is unstoppable.
@@kassemir you know, there was this artist who purposely replicated ai feelings to make an art peice, and i think that mimicking that style, (the same way one could add the sounds of radio static of record damage for effect) can be used well, but the enviornmental and corporate reasons are whats bad.
Generative AI music is a very granular collage which doesn't want to admit that fact, for copyright reasons. I'm okay with that - personally, I don't use restrictive copyrights - but I can see how it upsets people who make their income due to restrictive copyright law (i.e. commercial musicians). It would be like if they developed an AI that makes artistically accurate Polyphonic videos. You'd wonder how it learned how to do that, and you might be a little bit miffed... especially if its videos were just barely good enough, and yet viewers seemed not to notice any difference, or care.
I - and I'm an artist who's used broken AI as collage elements since 2015 when that website went up that said "We will turn your line drawing into a 300px cat/handbag/shoe" - maintain that a greedy corporation can be stopped, but the scarier idea is that the audience won't care about the difference anymore. That they'll be fine with soulless work because it no longer occurs to them to judge by that metric. As an artist, that breaks my heart.
I have to disagree with you here: the main problems with AI "art" or "music" is not that they shouldn't be used in art production, but what use a person that thinks only about profit will make of it: people lose jobs because it's cheaper to just ask an AI to do a background image... Or sing for them. This means that big corporations won't give a damn about stealing your data for ai training, suppressing the work of independent artists who want to be paid, polluting through servers ever more and so on. It's true that we have always doubted of new technologies, but this is different, since the electric guitar or the use of samples never really showed a way to be abused for one's own gain. The beauty of a capitalist society, amirite...
From what I’ve seen of AI art and heard of AI music so far, all they are replacing is the soulless, generic corporate art that was never special or unique to begin with. That’s great. Truly expressive, creative and provocative art will always be the domain of humans
@@pensive-penguin they replace soulless slop with soulless slop. It's not really that good of a change (I'm talking about the mere use of ai as a song generator and not as only a tool to enrich another song)
The argument of comparing any previous technology and it's advancement, in music or otherwise, is not really valid, since GenAi works in a completely different way from any other advancement that came before
yes, and the synthesizer worked completely differently than any instrument before it. People are people and we'll always seek out art we can identify with. No one identifies with a machine, et least, not yet afaik
The difference between this piece of technology and previous ones is big though and that's the corporate element. The invention of the electric guitar didn't the music industry could phase out guitarists, and while subsequent developments have attacked different jobs (who needs a drummer? Every instrument can be played on a keyboard) and basically made the producer the only vital job, AI can even dispense with that, with the job whose only core attributes are knowledge and vision. Will it destroy music? No. Will some fringe people find interesting ways to use it? Of course. But the fact that mainstream music uses fewer instruments, structures, chords and sounds from decade to decade shows exactly what happens when you lose the individual player, and this technology just advances that. A time when "a beat" and "a song" are interchangeable terms.
16:50 "Is this the death of art?" It's not the death of art, but it is the death of the artist. As you say, we'll always make art, but in a capitalistic system where a human costs money & an AI essentially doesn't, human art is obsolete. We'll always make art, we'll always be creative, but artist will no longer be a viable career.
I think you‘re probably right and I think it‘s sad. But I also can‘t wrap my head around it on a meta-level. I may be pretty much alone with this question, but I wonder if art should have ever become a career option in the first place. If you look at history, most of the time it was just a hobby. Apart from a tiny minority of people who were paid by monarchs, oligarchs, etc., most people couldn’t make a living with arts until maybe 100 years ago. To me it seems like the freak accident of a century, where humanity was at its greatest and its worst at the same time is coming to an end and we‘re going back to a futuristic dystopian version of the middle ages.
it's all well and good to say that generative AI will "remove the shackles" and "give artists a boost to their own potential", but lets be real. If you can just make top 40 hit after top 40 hit with only a couple prompts, labels are going to do that. e.g. With K-pop being the notorious performer mill it is, what's stopping major labels just making a "certified hit" and saving money by cutting out artists. If an executive sees the chart numbers be good enough to make comfortable profits with AI slop, that's what they're going to do. The main differences with samplers is an engineer HAS to mess around with said sample to make a good beat, a photographer HAS to look for that perfect photo to take, YOU mister polyphonic HAVE to research the topics for your essays and HAVE to look for subjects in your collages. RIP Nebula if I can just AI gen an essay on Pink Floyd.
i would love to look forward to the future creative uses of ai, but before i do some fundamental changes need to happen that i just don't see coming to pass. if ai can train and generate without killing the planet at an unfathomable rate, not provide giant companies with access to personal information, and not financially reward corporations more than/instead of individual creators, ill be happy. but the scale required to produce consumer ready ai incentivizes the opposite of all those things...i do really hope it can change though. the way those lyrics were written or the old beatles song being revived are really cool! i just want it to be sustainable
I agree with you, I don't see changes to favor individuals happening right now. Quite the opposite. I feel more advertised and sold to than ever before. It's a weird age of corporate greed at the expense of normal people we've let happen and it's getting worse. As you said it could be cool if the overall vibe right now didn't seem so dark.
As a visual artist I can already see a problem with AI as a tool of artistic creation- it replaces artistic intent with a kind of creative ennui. What I mean is that unlike the iteration that characterises human creativity, which is guided by intuition and is in that sense goal directed, the iterations of AI are mindless. As a result an AI image is never really complete- it's always possible to tweak the prompt one more time, to generate one more randomly different interation of that image- a process that is theoretically infinite. The point being that human creativity is an emergent process- the Artist does not sit down before the blank canvas with an already completed image in mind that he then simply translates onto that canvas- that is not how it works. In reality art is born incrementaly as the process of it's creation unfolds- more simply put you cannot seperate the process of creation from the end result- they are one and the same. But with AI there is no such process- each iteration of an image emerges from the black box of the AI fully formed and complete. Yes you can 'roll again' as the AI artists put it- you can tweak the prompt and the machine will generate a new variation of the image- but this new variation does not organically extend out from the first- it too is a fully formed and complete thing. Humans misunderstand probability- we tend to think that if you toss a coin the results are cumulative- that if you got heads last time you have a greater chance of getting tails the next time- this is not so- every time you toss that coin the chances of either heads or tails remain exactly the same- randomness does not 'accumulate' that is why it's random. So it's important to understand that trying to use AI to engage in creative iteration is futile because these machines are probability engines in which each iteration they produce is unique and in no way influenced by the iteration that came before- so you cannot in fact use AI to engage in creative iteration, that is not how it works. To be an AI 'Artist' is to engage in a process of self deception in which artistic intent does not preceed creation but is subsequent to it- the work of the AI Artist is complete when his patience is exhausted and whatever random interation he has currently generated he then nominates as the intended result. He points to this image and says 'That is exaclty what I meant'. In place of intuitively guided creative iteration we get a potentially infinite number of atomised discrete outcomes none of which really build on that which came before because they are the output of machines that operate in the realm of probability, a realm that is by it's very nature antithetical to the subtle incremantal process that we call Art.
you must've never herd of image to image generation. Here artistic intent preceeds creation. It's an inherently intuitively guided process the way I do it. I use Image to image for my visual art in the same way a singer would use autotune for pitch correction
I'd like you to have a word with the thousands of digital artists that lost their jobs in companies that later hired "AI specialists" to do their job. I personally know more than one and more than two and more than three of those cases.
Instead of the knee-jerk reaction, maybe consider what he’s saying. What he’s commenting on - individuals learning how to twist and bend the tech to make interesting new things - can coexist with your concerns about how it’s being applied elsewhere
"AI specialists"? you mean, they fired artists, and hired artists by another name? is that like when all the film photographers lost their jobs to guys with digital cameras?
@@arachnophilia427 it's not the same, because AI specialists don't need to understand the skill, just manipulate the AI to perform the skill. A digital camera and a film camera still make the same art and have the same basic principles. an AI tech doesn't do the art or understand the skill, it inputs to a machine to do it. I don't think I could ever call someone who inputs prompts to AI an artist.
This could be a really cool idea if it werent for the devastating consequences ai will have on small artists like myself. I don't stand a chance to follow my dream if a corporation can get a robot to do it for free.
Just saying dude, this comment section is really sharing the truth. For all the fun and creatively that can come from using AI, it comes at a horrible cost to many and unless there are fundamental changes we may be looking at much bleaker future (and this is coming from someone that has been trying to champion AI as a helpful “tool” for the past couple of years… but I’m less and less idealistic as time passes)
The more you get into the weeds about a type of media you appreciate, and want to make it for yourself, the more you appreciate the smaller elements that contribute to the whole and thus want more control. Complexity may seem intimidating but the tradeoff is honing and finding your voice. Wheras if its all just autocomplete and made easy....the more trivialized and potentially less involved it is
I don't think he cares though. He literally called all the criticisms that artists around the world have towards AI "ethical snags" in the beginning of this video. How detached from reality can someone be to even say that?
I find AI art to be disgusting in a way that is hard to put into words. It’s like the fabric of reality being distorted. Like humanity is being pulled even further from its self. It’s deeply haunting and I find it very hard to find anything the be hopeful about with AI art. It just makes me sad. I feel like the only thing it’s good for is showing you how fucked up and twisted the world is becoming, I already knew about that I don’t need to see it more, I want something to smile about.
@@AugustRx no it's the way it misconstrueds things in such a twisted way. I actually disagree with what I wrote now after thinking about it a bit more, I think AI can be used for good things but I just sometimes find it's twisted perception of the world to be so disgusting.
@@tatemcilwain1775 I agree with your first assessment, ai is just horrible in every way, and it’s scary, it’s just so horrifying, it literally has kept me up at night, I just hope something gives, that something will change
I agree with your original comment, even though I also agree AI can be used in interesting ways. But to be honest, the interaction of AI, art and capitalism just gets me into a really nihilist place. I feel it's like sacrificing and corrupting the essence of human creativity and expression on the altar of late stage capitalism just for the sake of the rich's profit.
I really appreciate hearing a different perspective on Gen-AI and art. I also find some of the more creative explorations intriguing. I’m not sure the value of Gen-AI as a tool outweighs the costs though; literally or figuratively. When it’s used as a smaller tool, it doesn’t really provide anything new or meaningful. People can already create more or less the same art without Gen-AI prompts or bases. When it’s used as the only tool, there’s little to no human input and it spits out a meaningless mess of stolen content. Neither scenario currently excites me, inspires me, or motivates me to think about or interact with the art in question. I guess I’m not convinced yet that Gen-AI is actually art by any meaningful definition. And even when it’s relegated to being a tool, like a sampler, the environmental and social costs are way too high. It’s possible I’m missing something, but I don’t see the appeal or the value. I can see how it might save someone time brainstorming or experimenting, but isn’t that part of the fun? It’s not truly a convenience like being able to record or sample. It’s providing an idea or developing an idea; and I don’t see the benefit of removing that from the creative process. I hope that Gen-AI as it currently exists isn’t here to stay. But if it is? Then I hope it stays relegated to being a small tool to save time and that we find ways to make it less detrimental to both nature and humanity. I don’t believe it will ever be as meaningful or transformative as previous technologies though. It’s a dumb and expensive machine using stolen assets to create profit for a small group of people who aren’t even artists and don’t care about or support art. It’s hard to be excited about that or anything that’s created using it.
As someone that plays several instruments and records his own music (as a hobby), I am saddened to see what´s gonna happen to music in the following years/decades due to AI. It´s futile to fight it though, people are gonna listen to AI generated music and they won´t care, sadly.
I also write and record my music... AI will by its nature is just at the moment stealing from pre recorded music on the net. I think it isn't producing anything truly origional... maybe when I hear a song that remotely compares to Lennons Imagine r something, I'll get depressed about it.
@@Brokenmono Man, what's saddening is that AI discourages people to learn instruments. Think about it, why put on hundreds of hours of work/concentration if you can just tell a software: create a song in a sad mood, in Gb dorian with a 4 chord progression, a solo that resembles Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing, etc. We're there already and it's gonna get much easier. Why bother learning an instrument? People care (understandably so) about the end result anyway. Sigh....
it's scary to me, very scary, I haven't even watched this video yet and I just happened to see your comment and I agree it's truly heartbreaking what ai is going to/ already has caused, and it's only going to get worse, I'm also a musician and a songwriter and it means everything to me, to think that a stupid machine is going to take it away from me, from everyone, I just try not to think about it, because that way I can pretend to have hope
Excelent analysis. However, I guess your mind is so naturally inclined and culturally infused by the indie/progressive/R&R/experimental aspect of modern music that in your balance you may be overestimating the disruptive aspect of AI as a creative force for human beings while downplaying the pop/business/industry tide of conformism and consumism that it will allow and will be promoted.
polyphonic is a Hendrix and Floyd (and any 60-80s rock thing) meatrider dont expect him understanding the problematic momentum for the music rn with the AI
While i agree with the broader points this reads like dismissive of the labor issues and the understanding that corporations don't want AI to really break like this. Framing this as a way to hijack tech corps intentions would be a better sell than inadvertently that art can just adjust to the techbros ambitions but that's not so bad.
This framing also ignores the fact that AIs are currently running out of data to use. So it's not actually a fait accompli as you call it either. Again your broader points besides the framing ain't wrong but it's more like exploiting a corpse than the techbros winning here and we just have to suck it up.
More music is now produced in a year, than could be consumed by a single person in a lifetime. Anyone born today will have all the tunes they could ever need to hear, for essentially no cost. The future of music is bright for anyone, the future of the music business is bright for a small minority, as it always has been.
So just because machines can produce some facsimile of something means suddenly your own human creativity is paralyzed? I really don’t get this. Nothing is stopping you from continuing to create
@@pensive-penguin he's afraid he won't be able to compete with the creative originality of a toaster. else, he thinks art is something the filthy, uncultured masses simply cannot comprehend. that seems to be the main mindset of anyone on this topic that isn't simply copying whatever they've been told to say.
@@pensive-penguin I mean, I think people will continue to make art. But, let's not kid ourselves. A lot of jobs and revenue streams will freeze up. Let's take library music. A lot of musicians make a good chunk of their income from licensing library music. But, if AI slock can replace that, then that revenue stream disappears. It's a capitalist system. And, creatives are already under a lot of pressure to diversify revenue streams. It's naive to think nothing will change. People will lose important income, and less people will be able to do creative work in the future. That's seems pretty obvious to me.
Whilst it's interesting to hear some of the positive uses of AI in various creative mediums, it's sadly nothing compared to the negatives. The biggest one I've seen come is the recent Pink Floyd video competition where an AI generated video one for Any Colour You Like. It was disappointing to see this in a competition where the artists had a chance of winning money and that some lazy guy (who could have put in the effort as he said he was a visual artist in his behind the scenes video) won it with complete lack of effort over the many other entries who did their work for no pay in this competition. This is sadly still the norm when it comes to using AI, and it's not a good thing to deny that. In a lighter vein, it was nice hearing you recommend Mic The Snare. He's one of my favourite TH-camrs
On the other hand, people with no skills in videography are now able to compete in that market, pushing the envelope for videographers to make more creative content due to the increased competition.
The cheaper the thing, more massive will get. I think ai music will become massive, but because it is cheaper to produce, for labels. And humans will keep creating. Sometimes in the shadows, sometimes not.
This has had all the perfect makings of a counter shift. AI has made strides faster than even the initial days of the internet not because it's *good* but because so many people support it. This isn't going to stop just yet, we haven't had a movie in the theaters that's 100% AI after all. However I'm sure anyone can imagine at that point we'll be pretty tired of it, what happens with the rest of content creation however will be anyones guess. My guess leans on our future generations, live bands are fewer and far quieter, garage bands are broken up by noise bylaws regularly. Heck even TikTok has helped shape a belief that everything we try we must be good at day-one. It might be a small spark, and it will probably happen away from us both geographically and generationally, but I do genuinely believe a kid somewhere out there won't give a s*** about what they see/hear and try to do something different offline. But until then this is an excellent time to review known content. The worries of AI influence affect everyone and the opinions seem to reflect that, so for now I would prefer to spend my time seeing what defines the "individuals preference" rather than AI's. These last few years I've experienced more diversified content than I ever did before, I can't be concerned about what is AI or not when at this point I'm no longer convinced I understand what humans can really make. Until the day people just give up on AI media content it would be nice if more people raided the thrift store dvd bins or their old family cassette recordings. This world will be fine, I'm excited for the pressure pot we have made for creatives in this current culture and how it can only make generations that resist it from the foundation up. Awesome video too
As someone who works distributing royalties, the industry is adapting to the technology. Here are things we are talking about in the company: Copyright does not exist on 100% AI generated tracks, it is likely radio stations will use this to their advantage. However, use of likeness protections and royalties are likely to become a thing. There are going to be very niche genres created by AI. Great for individuals, but awful for people that like to categorize things. There will likely be a business model selling music to train AI. That also means more companies could build an AI model off of the tracks you provide. The perfect individualized radio station for you. Music awards will have new categories for all human and AI assistance. This will also translate into categories on Spotify, etc.
As a musician who's played instruments all of my life and played hundreds and hundreds of shows and concerts, I've waited patiently for the day when I can generate songs etc. just by thinking about them. That day is finally here! AI music is a great tool for musicians and enthusiasts as well. I absolutely love creating AI songs and I can honestly say that musicians have nothing to fear or worry about!
I was having fun with Suno AI, when, it just created the greatest song known to man. I am currently shaking in fear because of how hard it will be to recreate the song it made to sound real, the AI legit turned my song I made & entered into it into Ghost by Camellia!! It's so insane.
Why would that happen? Fans of indie music value authenticity and sincerity above pretty much anything else, so I would say more than any other music community, they are going to rally around human made music. I do see this filling up stock music libraries, and I’m fine with that. That was the crappy, generic corporate music that never had any heart or soul to begin with
@@pensive-penguin I'm not saying they will stop to get streams, but make them lower to the point they cannot live off their music Living off music nowadays is difficult as hell I can't imagine what it will be when AIs are more advanced
Is it art it is made by a machine? If it is made by an animal? Or a black man? Human involvement is not a sufficient or necessary criteria to qualify art.
@@LON009 Me personally, only when an AI can make something from its own perspective, experiences and inspirations will it be able to make art, so Detroit become human kind deal.
@@GatlingNG Ai is art when it is used as a tool to help foster creativity. It's not art when it's used to pump money out of normal people and into the pockets of corporations. Then it's a product.
I'm no purist and I have no issue with the creative use of autotune, quantized, samples, loops, and so on, but we must admit that in a way the use of technology not as a means but for technology's sake has put musicians in a tight corner. Once the replacement of human voice and beats in music became mainstream, it was only a matter of time before the whole process would become completely automated. That being said, they said that recorded music would mean the end of live music, they said that overdubbing and synths would mean the end of musicians, they said that sampling would mean the end of originality, and they said autotune would mean the end of vocalists. These fearmongers were exaggerating every time.
They said file sharing would destroy the music industry... and there's still a music industry... just not a very good one. Producers claim that band members aren't as good at playing their instruments as when they played for hours per day, 6 days per week. Sure, that's true, but people only care about money.
Very interesting. Almost everything that has be groundbreaking in music has involved using technology in an unintentional way. Never considered AI could be abused in the same way.
I disagree that "AI is here to stay." It is not a killer technology. it does not actually do anything better than people. Once the thrill wears off, it's going to be another junk tech like virtual reality, which has struggled to find a purpose beyond shiny gadget for like 30 years. It will be 'around' but its use will largely be a hallmark of someone who has very little else to offer than a gimmick.
What you are not factoring in is most people don’t care about if it’s better. Modern music is very flat and similar to everything around and before it. People listen to it. It will always be here. How popular it will be will wane and wax but AI is the worst it will ever be again.
@@Luka-qm6le no I'll tell you why it isn't. Because it's for superficial people who have nothing to say. It's a cheap gimmick it doesn't create real music. once the thrill wears off, people who don't really have anything important to say will get bored and move on to something else. They will never experience the feedback loop that a real musician does of finding their emotions working hard at crafting a song and then getting the praise for doing so. Ever. Musicians who are good at what they do don't have any innate talent there is no such thing. We simply decided we loved making music so much that we dedicated a huge portion of our lives to perfecting The Craft. That's because we had something we wanted to express with our skills. You don't put any effort into earning the skills then you don't get any reward. If you don't have anything important to say that would lead you to spend all that time honing those skills, after a few dumb fart jokes, superficial people who have no real point will move on. People who get tired of being made fun of and see the potential and want to make real music they'll invest time and learning how to actually play an instrument. And that's what will differentiate people like me from superficial people who have no real passion for it and nothing important to say.
When you mentioned the left turns, glitches and ugliness are the most interesting thing about using AI tools to create music reminded me of this Bill Hicks quote: “Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes.” .... Its cyberdelica
My biggest problem is that, for the most part, AI is taking over the world of art. Artists are complaining about it. The general public doesn’t care what artists think or have to say. They’re only going to start caring once it starts taking regular jobs (it is to a certain extent already). Artists are the group that are going to be saying that we were the people who tried to warn you but you won’t listen to us.
AI won’t replace humans but it will lower the bar of aesthetic standards by constantly aiming for the middle-but that’s been happening for decades anyway at the hands of corporate beancounters.
The text on screen at 2:49-3:00 is exactly on the mark. The problem with AI is that it exists in capitalism and so it is created through and gets used for exploitative and unethical purposes. That's the same problem that cell phones, computers, synthesizers, guitars and any other tools people have used for making music in the past hundred years have. But the tools still can be used for interesting artistic purposes, as well as exploitative ones. The problem is the system we live in, not any of the specific tools in themselves.
Let me put a few things in perspective…simply put human beings don’t like change so we will typically rebel, bargain, adjust then accept: - when digital instruments started to be introduced as early as the 70s. - CDs being introduced in the 80s/90s and the ability to burn songs onto blanks - 00s with file sharing (Limewire, Kazaa) - 10s with music blogs and TH-cam undermining radio stations and cable tv shows like TRL and 106 and Park - and as of today, in the 20s, AI music The reality is this…the technology is going to continue to get better and better everyday and as musicians, instead of scoffing it and being boomer about it (ie “it’s not real music”), finding ways to use it in YOUR music career. Because at the end of the day, it’s going to get to a point where you can show someone an AI song and they aren’t gonna know it’s AI unless you tell them. It’s a cool piece of technology and I’m personally open to seeing how to use it in the future.
On the topic of collage, which I love to do myself. Where the hell do you get your hands on all the cheap magazines? They are so hard to find now. Its like 20 bucks for a single new magazine now
Please stop with treating generative AI as just another tool. It isn't. The human artists that AI fed on are the tools. This is totally different from any of the earlier revolutions in music or arts.
Very interesting point about how artists use AI vs everyone else. It reminds me a bit about the debate around graphical fidelity in video games. Photorealism in games is impressive from a technical standpoint. It is the product of engineering more than artistry, in a way. But once you achieve graphics that are 1:1 with visual reality, what's left?
I don't think the most of the musician will accept this as an art since it is too easy process to call it an art, may be to people who create content like vlogs, and other things that may require few snippets of BGV might get satisfied and call it a art. However my opinion on this , is its less of the meditative process to call it the art by musician. No sense or feeling of accomplishment at all.
People who think AI will kill creativity forget that profit is far from the only motive for it. In fact, when profit becomes the motive, an artistic industry tends to stagnate in its mainstream while its fringes improve upon its failures (like the Video Game Industry with its AAA and Indie scenes). Even if mainstream art becomes fully AI generated stagnant slop, it won't stop creative weirdos from cropping up and doing their stuff. If anything, the "problems with AI" are arguably nothing more than the latest iterations of the problems of art relying itself on the money of people with little understanding and even less respect of it. Much like those problems, the best solution is independent artists carving their own path. If Gems can come out of the same medium that includes EA's sports games, I think creativity will persist like cockroaches in a nuclear apocalypse. The only way creativity dies is when humans die. So if anything, the strongest complaint about AI is its environmental impact.
Great point and great examples! I'm also a fan of Holly Herdon and Oneotrix point Never and how they embrace technology in an artistic way without fearing or rejecting it like most musicians.
This video came out just in time for a university project I have about the future of AI and how it'll impact music. Couldn't have come at a better time and has become a really valuable resource!!! Thank you so much for the incredible work and standard of content :)))
Regardless of whether it's used to automate away creative jobs, or used in the legitimately creative ways you illustrate in the video, Generative AI is creating astronomical levels of energy use in an era where we need to figure out how we can use what we need with less and less energy. While there might be neat uses of this technology, it is simply a waste. It is not worth the cost to humanity.
You are so reactionary that you aren’t even listening to the point being made in the video. He’s not saying press a button and generate art; he’s saying take this new technology and learn how to exploit it as an artistic tool. That is a valid perspective. It’s really easy to just lazily complain about technological developments. It actually takes some critical engagement to consider how it could be used creatively
@@pensive-penguin it’s not reactionary - it’s being clear on the reasons why I engage with art in the first place. The vid is great and the creator has done a fantastic job of articulating the ins and outs of the topic… however - for me, I want art that is made by people, that reflects their unique take on the world, the complexities of their world view and human experience. If it’s manufactured by an algorithm - it might sound good, but there is no connection with all of these elements that draw one to art in the first place. Using AI as a tool is fine and can be a part of this process of course…
It's nice that access to samples and acapellas have become easier now with Stem cells and ai, but the fact that ai can now even remix your music in the blink of a minute or less as producers we're as good as done for. For now it's gonna be live performances that will get you paid or ads. The soul of music will be gone because good music comes from musicians with talent and good ideas. Everything will be automated now.
It won’t be long till your video style is created by someone using AI. They’ll make a years worth of content in a day and take a break. All while you struggle to keep up. Wonder if you’ll take the time to make a video defending AI then? It’s just ethical snags though right?
The best use of AI to me was what happened with "Now and Then" or the Revolver remix by The Beatles, where they used AI to separate elements from the songs, for example separate John's voice from the piano track, which was the biggest problem in 1995. Or the Get Back series, where they could individually clean certain previously unheard dialogue. In those cases, I think AI can be very beneficiary.
i'm generally not a fan of this kind of generative AI, mainly things like ChatGPT and Dall-E/Midjourney, especially recently hearing about how much power it uses up in the process of generating things. I do also agree that the most interesting it's ever been is when people twist it to make things it wasn't intended to make, or when all the results were fuzzy and unclear and creepy. Still makes my skin crawl, but I could at least be interested in that aspect of it then.
the issue has always been the way they train ai, if you pay the artist for using their works for training thats fine but i have a feeling almost non of the ai out there does.
I made so many weird abstract images with early image generators. Those were fun times, throwing bizarre strings of words at them and see what arrangements of shapes would come out. Now that image generators are targeting realism, it's much less interesting.
collage is a bad mental model >look up latent space or embedding space or “hidden factors.” no, when training a model doesn’t chop up songs or place them in a “file.” i want you to imagine a model listening to every blues song at training there will be a lossy process where a model will sort of create an embedding space of what it “learned” about blues music many think of ai as a lossless training process no, just like you would develop a sort of “blues music concept” if you listened to every blues song so does the model again please google “embedding space” or “latent space.” and gpt4? it’s embedding space is a high dimensional (12,288 dimensions) embedding space we are bringing the sand god to life
All he did was fence sit and say that Ai was interesting before it got good. Well guess what, it will keep developing and only get better. Like some other commenter said, I can't wait until an Ai video essay channel comes up so I don't have to wait so long for this channel to produce and upload videos.
@@TobusPls what on earth are you rambling about? Noah makes great short form music content. If you are equating him with some low-effort content farm, you are way off base
Greetings from São Paulo, Brazil. I absolutely love this channel. The narrative is strangely intelligent for today’s standards 😊 If you allow me to make a suggestion, I think it would be great to watch a video essay on Kraftwerk made by Polyphonic.
I think this is the first good defense of AI. I'm not convinced about all aspects of it (lots of comments already expressed what I'm thinking) but you really give a good argument for the creative opportunities for it.
Nice point with good examples. For me, art is about collage of cultural memes, the biggest concern for me is "did I understand the reference enough to resonation with the like minded." It's very possible to make something that would work without understanding, thus without intentions. But that would defeat the whole purpose of creating for me. I am drawn by art because the people behind it, I want to understand the connections. I create art because I want to leave breadcrumbs for people to understand the connections. I concern the most about the creative process, and find it meaningful to demystify it. I believe that the more one understand their creative process, the more they can improve it.
The question isn't is this the death of art but is this the death of the ability to make a living out of the commercial sale of art for any but an elite few. I am sure there will be amazing work in the "artistic" space but all the jobs that will be lost in stock photography, in jingle writing, in sound tech, etc is a concern. Not a death knell but we need to find avenues for, particularly amateur and lower grade professional, artists to make money
Feel free to tell me I'm old - I admit it. I know the times are moving forward and leaving me behind, because I found absolutely none of that visually, musically or aesthetically pleasing.
While I can definitely appreciate your more positive and creativity-forward perspective on AI, the fact of the matter is that AI as we know it is a plagiarism machine by definition. Sure, there are some AI models that are built on public domain images, but that shouldn't distract from the notion that most AI models most definitely aren't. Why write an essay or short story when you can just generate one in seconds? Why bother looking for public domain images or paying for the usage of one in a presentation when you can just generate some? Why commission artists for artwork when you can just generate an infinite amount of pieces? Why respect people's wishes when you can make an AI copy of their voice without their permission? Sure, AI can be a good tool to use, but the biggest problem really isn't figuring out positive ways to use it; the biggest problem is how to prevent people from using it in negative ways. I'm sure there are plenty of ways that AI can be used without stealing people's work, but the fact of the matter is that people will steal work with it anyway. l sincerely believe that, while the positives can churn out some really cool results, the negatives make AI the biggest threat to art of all kinds to date. And the worst part is, I don't know if law can really do anything about it besides getting rid of it entirely (which sounds unlikely).
Actually, this Beatles fan found the new song soulless and abandoned it after a minute. I haven't experimented with AI music but I might as well have. I took a real performance of mine and ran the MIDI data through different voices and processors in my Digital Audio Workstation (Logic Pro), as well as playing the data (not the audio) at different speeds. I only did one act of musical creativity, the original piece. Everything else was creative engineering choices. Are those others music? I think so. Are they listenable? Enjoyable? That's up to the audience to decide. The difference is that I'm doing this for fun and not trying to make any money at it. I imagine it's quite scary for session musicians or anyone who is actually trying to break into the business.
Technology has already overwhelmed the market with songs. On average, 120,000 new songs are uploaded to streaming services every day. Individual humans can’t keep, collectively is more than we realistically consume at any meaningful way. AI will exponentially increase the number of new songs that hit streaming services. This will make even harder for human artists to break through and be heard. The economic value of songs will be driven even lower, to the point that it won’t even be worthwhile for major corporations to use AI to replace songwriters and musicians. We need to adjust to a new world that is much like the old - regional music communities, live music, physical products.
I will say that AI can NEVER replace the actual real experience of live music, which makes me think that there is gonna be a giant shift towards live music in more creative circles, for better or worse we’ll have to wait and see
Great video! Your breakdown of how AI is transforming the music industry was super insightful. At Rocket Rebel Records, we're always exploring how technology can enhance creativity, and your points about AI's role in music production really hit home for us. Thanks for shedding light on how AI is shaping the future of music. Looking forward to more of your content! Cheers, Rocket Rebel Records
I’m not fucking listening to ai music. A lot of what makes music so inspiring and emotional is the fact that the sound came from another person. Having the sound be just some amalgamation of bullshit yoinked from similar pieces makes it stupid and meaningless
Funny part is I tried breaking it. I havent broken it yet, but it got me a paul mccartney ai song which I uploaded as a short bc I feel like it may violate rules if I upload the whole thing. Lol. To make ai more not bland, you got to add more to the prompt and in the lyrics of the song.
I don't buy the usual argument that technology has already impacted music over the years. Those technologies still required someone to learn how to use them. We are at a point now whereby you can just type something and a song is spit back at you. And plus, I disagree with what you say: AI is not there to make our lives more convenient, but some people richer. This is what makes it 'inevitable'
I don't doubt that there's a lot of interesting potential in creative use of AI, you're highlighting a bunch of great examples. I fear that AI will basically kill artistry as a job. Yes, most artists don't strive to make background filler stuff, but the pure option of ending up there if you don't strike stardom is a very important insurance for those willing to do art, be it music, painting, acting, voice over or whatever. And losing all of that to generative AI makes it so that art can - even more than already - only be attempted as a hobby by the well-off.
What ai will do to music will separate people in to two group. The people who don’t care and those that do. The sad reality is people just want stuff. They will say they care until it’s a bother or they have to go with out. Just choose what’s important to you and find what makes you happy. As of right now it’s highly unlikely in anyone’s life time there won’t be art or music without ai.
plug for another rob sheriden project. there was a short lived NIN side project called how to destroy angels, featuring NIN's reznor/ross, reznor's wife mariqueen maandig, and rob sheriden. they have one album "welcome oblivion" which is ABOUT AI.
The way I see it, AI doesn’t change that much. When you go see a Marvel movie or hear the same strumming pattern in a commercial, you already think it’s soulless. AI doesn’t kill art because art is made for the sake of expression - not money. Laborers losing jobs because of a newly developed and more efficient technology is nothing new - it is unfortunate but that is the reality of life that no one is or should be exempt from; in the end you can only embrace it rather than waste time and energy getting angry at it. We shouldn’t be clutching our pearls for the “artists” just because their form of labor has some resemblance to the form of human expression known as art - Artists and artists are not the same thing. True art will remain as long as people will be walking on this earth, and art that wouldn’t be made without a monetary incentive will remain soulless and expendable.
In the mid 00's, Canibus made a song that mixes and matches bars for a total of 1000^6 bars, and he has been embracing AI recently, so I'm really excited to see what he comes up with.
I don't care if creative individuals have fun with AI, let them. What concerns me is how big companies will use it to screw over working musicians, like they always do. Remember when we all laughed at Metallica for making a big deal about Napster and then made fun of bands eho shunned streaming? Now people are getting paid pennies for millions of streams on Spotify.
Every time a cheaper way to do something is invented, the greedy pigs on top eat it up and make everything worse.
Let AI be the funky seasoning, not the main course.
Lars was right.
@@nmlssdude was making millions selling out stadiums and was worried about his cd sales
He was not right just greedy
@@nmlssonly partially. What Lars was actually fighting was Oversaturation vs Scarcity. The ever lowering bar into music was always going to devalue music and the lowering of the bar also caused Decentralization.
Centralization of the Music Industry is how those labels made real money. Now that record labels aren't integral to making professional sounding music means millions upon millions of people are making music. Napster was just s glimpse into what unrestrained sharing of data can do to art. Lars saw that it was hurting money. Now that the unrestrained sharing of data Is the norm. Not sure why artists think they can get paid well in an extremely oversaturated market without ripping off the commissioner.
@@TallicaMan1986Spotify being shitty isnt the same as Napster. Ideally napster still being around could of slowed down these streaming companies
Screwing around with AI is not 'creative.' It's mastrubation. I've never heard any AI-generated music that was worth a shit. It's also VERY destructive to the environment and is way too expensive. Once these companies start wanting their money out of these very expensive tehcnologies, the cost is going to favor people who just do it for real. And have, actual talent.
Don't lie to yourself, because the reason Ai was made and is now being pushed by many corporations is simple: make more money. Cut corners. Generate "art" without having to deal with an artist. And many people don't care, they only want more and more content to consume.
if people truly don't care about real art, then art itself is dead. i'd say it's more the fact that artists have been such stuck-up, posh assholes about it, after a few decades of acting untouchable by ai. either you support ai, and by extension support corporation's ability to replace artists that can't compete with the ai, or you support copyright, and by extension support corporation's ability to monopolize ideas from artists by legally taking ownership of their ideas and likeness. if the only reason you oppose the corporations making ai is because you want to make more money, then you're going to have to adapt to the ever-changing demands of the market, same as everyone else all throughout time. if you enjoy art for the sake of art, then whether or not corporations pay you for it, or buy an ai instead shouldn't matter to you.
@@davidlewis6728 The artists you describe sound like a sitcom idea of an artist. But anyway, you are right that art would be dead. We artists make art because we love to, but we also need to eat, so no money = no food, no rent, no life. We'll have to give up art in order to make ends meet, and we do already! Unless you're wealthy, most artists have to juggle part-time jobs to support their careers. But with Ai, it will certainly be worse than what it is now.
And yet, even with all this mess, we artists can't give in. "Adapt" worked when they changed from paper to a digital tablet to draw. Only thing that changed was the canvas. Now, what corporations want to change is the artist. We can't allow that.
@@LON009 you are stuck in the belief that ai is meant to replace the artist wholesale. you don't want to allow that, but the way you're setting the conflict up, there's nothing you can do to stop it. view ai as a tool, instead. use it to radically decrease the costs of creating art, use your own art to improve on it. consider getting involved in technologies that can (and have) improved artist's ability to monetize their work. nfts are unpopular for whatever reason among the vocal artistic crowd, but they've been very good for people who aren't blinded by the fearmongering, i'm sure they could be even better if more kinds of artists tried to use them. if there are any differences in value at all between ai art and normal art, people will pay more for it in it's absence. art is never going to die, and ai isn't going to change that. stop being dramatic. also, real life would almost be a sitcom if not for the depressing fact that it's real. then again, i guess most of them are most vocal on twitter and other such internet cesspools, so hopefully it's not actually as common irl. i'm in california, so there's not much difference.
Exactly
@@davidlewis6728 "NFTs are unpopular for whatever reason"
Yeah, I wonder why. A mystery for the ages.
Machine learning algorithms can be useful tools and assistants, but putting it on autopilot and letting it take control unsupervised will always lead to serious issues. It's going to be interesting to see what happens to those companies who are now embracing machine learning algorithms too early, too quickly, and too completely.
and it’s inbreeding too 🎍
The reason people say this is killing art is not about thy aesthetics, but rather the economics.
If Ai can make art that is indistinguishable and costs far less time or money, it will play the capitalist game better than human beings.
Artists will become even more stratified in an already stratified society.
There will simply be no viable way to make a living as an artist, even worse that it already has become.
If we want to really keep art alive and keep MEANINGFUL art flowing from people who spend a lifetime mastering their craft, then we must ditch capitalism for something far less insane.
Ai isn't going to get worse.
But our ability to keep up will
Surely when our ability to keep up with AI wanes, so will our interest in it.
Nothing will compare to watching a hard-working musician perform their art live and raw. I’ll take that to the grave
We don't care mate
@@juliaanfloress You don't speak for all people, only a soulless few
What if people performed AI music live?
@@juliaanfloressand we didn’t asked for your opinion
Hard agree.
As an artist, I'm pretty disappointed how you completely glossed over how artists and musicians will financially survive in an environment taken over by AI art and music. Big record labels and media corporations that are completely money hungry will do anything to not pay us. Also, there's a lot of us that have a massive issue with how these models are trained. A lot is taken without our permission- even Adobe has been in hot water lately (I wanted to bring that up since you said you used them). idk. If I saw an artist outsourced their songwriting to a genAI text model, I would absolutely lose all respect for them. What is the point of art if it's not human. Just bc a certain tech is new and shiny, doesn't mean it's the next big leap forward for the medium.
I completely agree. Using generative AI speaks volume on how you view and respect the labour that is the creative process.
Like, for instance, if a musician makes an album, and uses some AI slock on the cover. Well, then that just tells me they don't respect visual artists enough to pay some one to make the cover for them.
It's also pretty obvious why record labels are salivating at the thought of AI breaking through. No artist, means they have complete control, no mishaps, no bad publicity.
Artists using generative AI deserve scrutiny, harsh scrutiny.
He did mention early on how this wasn't going to be focused on the ethics of AI. Frankly, I'm tired of hearing the same talking points from both sides and it's refreshing to hear how artists can integrate AI into their workflow to expand their own boundaries, rather than replace them like industry and the fear-mongering seem to think they will. Yes, those are all legitimate issues you mentioned, but the legal and ethical consequences are still evolving and playing out, and it's what most people talk about in the polarized culture war he briefly discussed. It's not the only conversation to be had, though.
The issue here is every technology does the same thing. Machines have destroyed the manufacturing industry, administrative work, and so on.
While you feel strongly there are millions of people that are being born that will never.
You should absolutely not support it if you do not want to. Please just understand it will happen the wave is coming and is unstoppable.
@@kassemir you know, there was this artist who purposely replicated ai feelings to make an art peice, and i think that mimicking that style, (the same way one could add the sounds of radio static of record damage for effect) can be used well, but the enviornmental and corporate reasons are whats bad.
Generative AI music is a very granular collage which doesn't want to admit that fact, for copyright reasons. I'm okay with that - personally, I don't use restrictive copyrights - but I can see how it upsets people who make their income due to restrictive copyright law (i.e. commercial musicians).
It would be like if they developed an AI that makes artistically accurate Polyphonic videos. You'd wonder how it learned how to do that, and you might be a little bit miffed... especially if its videos were just barely good enough, and yet viewers seemed not to notice any difference, or care.
I - and I'm an artist who's used broken AI as collage elements since 2015 when that website went up that said "We will turn your line drawing into a 300px cat/handbag/shoe" - maintain that a greedy corporation can be stopped, but the scarier idea is that the audience won't care about the difference anymore. That they'll be fine with soulless work because it no longer occurs to them to judge by that metric. As an artist, that breaks my heart.
I have to disagree with you here: the main problems with AI "art" or "music" is not that they shouldn't be used in art production, but what use a person that thinks only about profit will make of it: people lose jobs because it's cheaper to just ask an AI to do a background image... Or sing for them. This means that big corporations won't give a damn about stealing your data for ai training, suppressing the work of independent artists who want to be paid, polluting through servers ever more and so on. It's true that we have always doubted of new technologies, but this is different, since the electric guitar or the use of samples never really showed a way to be abused for one's own gain. The beauty of a capitalist society, amirite...
remember kids, capitalism breeds innovation
as in more innovative ways to turn a profit
From what I’ve seen of AI art and heard of AI music so far, all they are replacing is the soulless, generic corporate art that was never special or unique to begin with. That’s great. Truly expressive, creative and provocative art will always be the domain of humans
@@pensive-penguin they replace soulless slop with soulless slop. It's not really that good of a change (I'm talking about the mere use of ai as a song generator and not as only a tool to enrich another song)
Even if some will use it in a creative way, AI is not used by most companies in that way. To compare AI to remix culture is simply an insult
"To compare AI to remix culture is simply an insult" thank you!!! That comparison is just absurd!
The argument of comparing any previous technology and it's advancement, in music or otherwise, is not really valid, since GenAi works in a completely different way from any other advancement that came before
yes, and the synthesizer worked completely differently than any instrument before it. People are people and we'll always seek out art we can identify with. No one identifies with a machine, et least, not yet afaik
The difference between this piece of technology and previous ones is big though and that's the corporate element. The invention of the electric guitar didn't the music industry could phase out guitarists, and while subsequent developments have attacked different jobs (who needs a drummer? Every instrument can be played on a keyboard) and basically made the producer the only vital job, AI can even dispense with that, with the job whose only core attributes are knowledge and vision.
Will it destroy music? No. Will some fringe people find interesting ways to use it? Of course.
But the fact that mainstream music uses fewer instruments, structures, chords and sounds from decade to decade shows exactly what happens when you lose the individual player, and this technology just advances that. A time when "a beat" and "a song" are interchangeable terms.
Thank you for a thoughtful comment, sir!
16:50 "Is this the death of art?"
It's not the death of art, but it is the death of the artist. As you say, we'll always make art, but in a capitalistic system where a human costs money & an AI essentially doesn't, human art is obsolete. We'll always make art, we'll always be creative, but artist will no longer be a viable career.
corporations killed art. This will decommodify it.
I think you‘re probably right and I think it‘s sad. But I also can‘t wrap my head around it on a meta-level. I may be pretty much alone with this question, but I wonder if art should have ever become a career option in the first place. If you look at history, most of the time it was just a hobby. Apart from a tiny minority of people who were paid by monarchs, oligarchs, etc., most people couldn’t make a living with arts until maybe 100 years ago. To me it seems like the freak accident of a century, where humanity was at its greatest and its worst at the same time is coming to an end and we‘re going back to a futuristic dystopian version of the middle ages.
Activism isn't a viable career either, and yet there are still activists.
@@MyNameIsNeutron so? Most activists don’t try to make a living with that. They have daytime jobs. Did you mean to agree with me? I don’t understand.
it's all well and good to say that generative AI will "remove the shackles" and "give artists a boost to their own potential", but lets be real. If you can just make top 40 hit after top 40 hit with only a couple prompts, labels are going to do that. e.g. With K-pop being the notorious performer mill it is, what's stopping major labels just making a "certified hit" and saving money by cutting out artists. If an executive sees the chart numbers be good enough to make comfortable profits with AI slop, that's what they're going to do. The main differences with samplers is an engineer HAS to mess around with said sample to make a good beat, a photographer HAS to look for that perfect photo to take, YOU mister polyphonic HAVE to research the topics for your essays and HAVE to look for subjects in your collages. RIP Nebula if I can just AI gen an essay on Pink Floyd.
i would love to look forward to the future creative uses of ai, but before i do some fundamental changes need to happen that i just don't see coming to pass. if ai can train and generate without killing the planet at an unfathomable rate, not provide giant companies with access to personal information, and not financially reward corporations more than/instead of individual creators, ill be happy. but the scale required to produce consumer ready ai incentivizes the opposite of all those things...i do really hope it can change though. the way those lyrics were written or the old beatles song being revived are really cool! i just want it to be sustainable
Balanced take
I agree with you, I don't see changes to favor individuals happening right now. Quite the opposite. I feel more advertised and sold to than ever before. It's a weird age of corporate greed at the expense of normal people we've let happen and it's getting worse. As you said it could be cool if the overall vibe right now didn't seem so dark.
As a visual artist I can already see a problem with AI as a tool of artistic creation- it replaces artistic intent with a kind of creative ennui. What I mean is that unlike the iteration that characterises human creativity, which is guided by intuition and is in that sense goal directed, the iterations of AI are mindless. As a result an AI image is never really complete- it's always possible to tweak the prompt one more time, to generate one more randomly different interation of that image- a process that is theoretically infinite.
The point being that human creativity is an emergent process- the Artist does not sit down before the blank canvas with an already completed image in mind that he then simply translates onto that canvas- that is not how it works. In reality art is born incrementaly as the process of it's creation unfolds- more simply put you cannot seperate the process of creation from the end result- they are one and the same.
But with AI there is no such process- each iteration of an image emerges from the black box of the AI fully formed and complete. Yes you can 'roll again' as the AI artists put it- you can tweak the prompt and the machine will generate a new variation of the image- but this new variation does not organically extend out from the first- it too is a fully formed and complete thing.
Humans misunderstand probability- we tend to think that if you toss a coin the results are cumulative- that if you got heads last time you have a greater chance of getting tails the next time- this is not so- every time you toss that coin the chances of either heads or tails remain exactly the same- randomness does not 'accumulate' that is why it's random.
So it's important to understand that trying to use AI to engage in creative iteration is futile because these machines are probability engines in which each iteration they produce is unique and in no way influenced by the iteration that came before- so you cannot in fact use AI to engage in creative iteration, that is not how it works.
To be an AI 'Artist' is to engage in a process of self deception in which artistic intent does not preceed creation but is subsequent to it- the work of the AI Artist is complete when his patience is exhausted and whatever random interation he has currently generated he then nominates as the intended result. He points to this image and says 'That is exaclty what I meant'.
In place of intuitively guided creative iteration we get a potentially infinite number of atomised discrete outcomes none of which really build on that which came before because they are the output of machines that operate in the realm of probability, a realm that is by it's very nature antithetical to the subtle incremantal process that we call Art.
It's like fishing in a murky lake; sometimes you might catch a small fish, but at other times it could be an old shoe or a rusted shopping cart.
you must've never herd of image to image generation. Here artistic intent preceeds creation. It's an inherently intuitively guided process the way I do it. I use Image to image for my visual art in the same way a singer would use autotune for pitch correction
@@omysack1 Before you can correct the pitch you must first have conceived a melody- and autotune cannot really help you do that.
I'd like you to have a word with the thousands of digital artists that lost their jobs in companies that later hired "AI specialists" to do their job. I personally know more than one and more than two and more than three of those cases.
And? They got layed off because they do sub par work and the company saw it as a necessary cut. Plenty of talented artists still have jobs
Instead of the knee-jerk reaction, maybe consider what he’s saying. What he’s commenting on - individuals learning how to twist and bend the tech to make interesting new things - can coexist with your concerns about how it’s being applied elsewhere
Artists are the most useless part of society grow up
"AI specialists"?
you mean, they fired artists, and hired artists by another name?
is that like when all the film photographers lost their jobs to guys with digital cameras?
@@arachnophilia427 it's not the same, because AI specialists don't need to understand the skill, just manipulate the AI to perform the skill. A digital camera and a film camera still make the same art and have the same basic principles. an AI tech doesn't do the art or understand the skill, it inputs to a machine to do it. I don't think I could ever call someone who inputs prompts to AI an artist.
This could be a really cool idea if it werent for the devastating consequences ai will have on small artists like myself. I don't stand a chance to follow my dream if a corporation can get a robot to do it for free.
Just saying dude, this comment section is really sharing the truth. For all the fun and creatively that can come from using AI, it comes at a horrible cost to many and unless there are fundamental changes we may be looking at much bleaker future
(and this is coming from someone that has been trying to champion AI as a helpful “tool” for the past couple of years… but I’m less and less idealistic as time passes)
The more you get into the weeds about a type of media you appreciate, and want to make it for yourself, the more you appreciate the smaller elements that contribute to the whole and thus want more control.
Complexity may seem intimidating but the tradeoff is honing and finding your voice.
Wheras if its all just autocomplete and made easy....the more trivialized and potentially less involved it is
I don't think he cares though. He literally called all the criticisms that artists around the world have towards AI "ethical snags" in the beginning of this video. How detached from reality can someone be to even say that?
I find AI art to be disgusting in a way that is hard to put into words. It’s like the fabric of reality being distorted. Like humanity is being pulled even further from its self. It’s deeply haunting and I find it very hard to find anything the be hopeful about with AI art. It just makes me sad. I feel like the only thing it’s good for is showing you how fucked up and twisted the world is becoming, I already knew about that I don’t need to see it more, I want something to smile about.
It's the idea of AI Art. If someone showed you a polyphonic video and called it AI, you would probably vomit.
@@AugustRx no it's the way it misconstrueds things in such a twisted way. I actually disagree with what I wrote now after thinking about it a bit more, I think AI can be used for good things but I just sometimes find it's twisted perception of the world to be so disgusting.
@@tatemcilwain1775 I agree with your first assessment, ai is just horrible in every way, and it’s scary, it’s just so horrifying, it literally has kept me up at night, I just hope something gives, that something will change
I agree with your original comment, even though I also agree AI can be used in interesting ways. But to be honest, the interaction of AI, art and capitalism just gets me into a really nihilist place. I feel it's like sacrificing and corrupting the essence of human creativity and expression on the altar of late stage capitalism just for the sake of the rich's profit.
What is CD distortion? I get the noise/warmth of Vinyl but I thought CD's were either pristine, or they skipped or wouldn't play at all.
I really appreciate hearing a different perspective on Gen-AI and art. I also find some of the more creative explorations intriguing. I’m not sure the value of Gen-AI as a tool outweighs the costs though; literally or figuratively. When it’s used as a smaller tool, it doesn’t really provide anything new or meaningful. People can already create more or less the same art without Gen-AI prompts or bases. When it’s used as the only tool, there’s little to no human input and it spits out a meaningless mess of stolen content. Neither scenario currently excites me, inspires me, or motivates me to think about or interact with the art in question.
I guess I’m not convinced yet that Gen-AI is actually art by any meaningful definition. And even when it’s relegated to being a tool, like a sampler, the environmental and social costs are way too high. It’s possible I’m missing something, but I don’t see the appeal or the value. I can see how it might save someone time brainstorming or experimenting, but isn’t that part of the fun? It’s not truly a convenience like being able to record or sample. It’s providing an idea or developing an idea; and I don’t see the benefit of removing that from the creative process.
I hope that Gen-AI as it currently exists isn’t here to stay. But if it is? Then I hope it stays relegated to being a small tool to save time and that we find ways to make it less detrimental to both nature and humanity. I don’t believe it will ever be as meaningful or transformative as previous technologies though. It’s a dumb and expensive machine using stolen assets to create profit for a small group of people who aren’t even artists and don’t care about or support art. It’s hard to be excited about that or anything that’s created using it.
As someone that plays several instruments and records his own music (as a hobby), I am saddened to see what´s gonna happen to music in the following years/decades due to AI. It´s futile to fight it though, people are gonna listen to AI generated music and they won´t care, sadly.
I also write and record my music... AI will by its nature is just at the moment stealing from pre recorded music on the net. I think it isn't producing anything truly origional... maybe when I hear a song that remotely compares to Lennons Imagine r something, I'll get depressed about it.
@@Brokenmono Man, what's saddening is that AI discourages people to learn instruments. Think about it, why put on hundreds of hours of work/concentration if you can just tell a software: create a song in a sad mood, in Gb dorian with a 4 chord progression, a solo that resembles Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing, etc. We're there already and it's gonna get much easier. Why bother learning an instrument? People care (understandably so) about the end result anyway. Sigh....
it's scary to me, very scary, I haven't even watched this video yet and I just happened to see your comment and I agree it's truly heartbreaking what ai is going to/ already has caused, and it's only going to get worse, I'm also a musician and a songwriter and it means everything to me, to think that a stupid machine is going to take it away from me, from everyone, I just try not to think about it, because that way I can pretend to have hope
im musician and singer and join u guys but lets never give up our hobie and keep up, because , im sure ai cannot bring something really new but we can
Excelent analysis. However, I guess your mind is so naturally inclined and culturally infused by the indie/progressive/R&R/experimental aspect of modern music that in your balance you may be overestimating the disruptive aspect of AI as a creative force for human beings while downplaying the pop/business/industry tide of conformism and consumism that it will allow and will be promoted.
polyphonic is a Hendrix and Floyd (and any 60-80s rock thing) meatrider dont expect him understanding the problematic momentum for the music rn with the AI
While i agree with the broader points this reads like dismissive of the labor issues and the understanding that corporations don't want AI to really break like this. Framing this as a way to hijack tech corps intentions would be a better sell than inadvertently that art can just adjust to the techbros ambitions but that's not so bad.
This framing also ignores the fact that AIs are currently running out of data to use. So it's not actually a fait accompli as you call it either. Again your broader points besides the framing ain't wrong but it's more like exploiting a corpse than the techbros winning here and we just have to suck it up.
More music is now produced in a year, than could be consumed by a single person in a lifetime. Anyone born today will have all the tunes they could ever need to hear, for essentially no cost. The future of music is bright for anyone, the future of the music business is bright for a small minority, as it always has been.
The moment we outsource our creativity, we’re dead
So just because machines can produce some facsimile of something means suddenly your own human creativity is paralyzed? I really don’t get this. Nothing is stopping you from continuing to create
@@pensive-penguin he's afraid he won't be able to compete with the creative originality of a toaster. else, he thinks art is something the filthy, uncultured masses simply cannot comprehend. that seems to be the main mindset of anyone on this topic that isn't simply copying whatever they've been told to say.
@@pensive-penguin I mean, I think people will continue to make art. But, let's not kid ourselves. A lot of jobs and revenue streams will freeze up.
Let's take library music. A lot of musicians make a good chunk of their income from licensing library music.
But, if AI slock can replace that, then that revenue stream disappears.
It's a capitalist system. And, creatives are already under a lot of pressure to diversify revenue streams. It's naive to think nothing will change.
People will lose important income, and less people will be able to do creative work in the future. That's seems pretty obvious to me.
*outsource our creativity to non creatives
Let's just hope there is no future for it
Whilst it's interesting to hear some of the positive uses of AI in various creative mediums, it's sadly nothing compared to the negatives.
The biggest one I've seen come is the recent Pink Floyd video competition where an AI generated video one for Any Colour You Like. It was disappointing to see this in a competition where the artists had a chance of winning money and that some lazy guy (who could have put in the effort as he said he was a visual artist in his behind the scenes video) won it with complete lack of effort over the many other entries who did their work for no pay in this competition. This is sadly still the norm when it comes to using AI, and it's not a good thing to deny that.
In a lighter vein, it was nice hearing you recommend Mic The Snare. He's one of my favourite TH-camrs
On the other hand, people with no skills in videography are now able to compete in that market, pushing the envelope for videographers to make more creative content due to the increased competition.
The cheaper the thing, more massive will get.
I think ai music will become massive, but because it is cheaper to produce, for labels.
And humans will keep creating. Sometimes in the shadows, sometimes not.
This has had all the perfect makings of a counter shift. AI has made strides faster than even the initial days of the internet not because it's *good* but because so many people support it. This isn't going to stop just yet, we haven't had a movie in the theaters that's 100% AI after all. However I'm sure anyone can imagine at that point we'll be pretty tired of it, what happens with the rest of content creation however will be anyones guess. My guess leans on our future generations, live bands are fewer and far quieter, garage bands are broken up by noise bylaws regularly. Heck even TikTok has helped shape a belief that everything we try we must be good at day-one. It might be a small spark, and it will probably happen away from us both geographically and generationally, but I do genuinely believe a kid somewhere out there won't give a s*** about what they see/hear and try to do something different offline.
But until then this is an excellent time to review known content. The worries of AI influence affect everyone and the opinions seem to reflect that, so for now I would prefer to spend my time seeing what defines the "individuals preference" rather than AI's. These last few years I've experienced more diversified content than I ever did before, I can't be concerned about what is AI or not when at this point I'm no longer convinced I understand what humans can really make. Until the day people just give up on AI media content it would be nice if more people raided the thrift store dvd bins or their old family cassette recordings. This world will be fine, I'm excited for the pressure pot we have made for creatives in this current culture and how it can only make generations that resist it from the foundation up. Awesome video too
As someone who works distributing royalties, the industry is adapting to the technology. Here are things we are talking about in the company:
Copyright does not exist on 100% AI generated tracks, it is likely radio stations will use this to their advantage. However, use of likeness protections and royalties are likely to become a thing.
There are going to be very niche genres created by AI. Great for individuals, but awful for people that like to categorize things.
There will likely be a business model selling music to train AI. That also means more companies could build an AI model off of the tracks you provide. The perfect individualized radio station for you.
Music awards will have new categories for all human and AI assistance. This will also translate into categories on Spotify, etc.
As a musician who's played instruments all of my life and played hundreds and hundreds of shows and concerts, I've waited patiently for the day when I can generate songs etc. just by thinking about them. That day is finally here! AI music is a great tool for musicians and enthusiasts as well. I absolutely love creating AI songs and I can honestly say that musicians have nothing to fear or worry about!
the musician here is the ai and not you anymore
I was having fun with Suno AI, when, it just created the greatest song known to man. I am currently shaking in fear because of how hard it will be to recreate the song it made to sound real, the AI legit turned my song I made & entered into it into Ghost by Camellia!! It's so insane.
I LOVE how positive you are about this topic, but I think the main concern is putting indie artists out of a job
Why would that happen? Fans of indie music value authenticity and sincerity above pretty much anything else, so I would say more than any other music community, they are going to rally around human made music. I do see this filling up stock music libraries, and I’m fine with that. That was the crappy, generic corporate music that never had any heart or soul to begin with
@@pensive-penguin I'm not saying they will stop to get streams, but make them lower to the point they cannot live off their music
Living off music nowadays is difficult as hell I can't imagine what it will be when AIs are more advanced
You know the question “is art still art if it’s made by a machine?”, I wonder if that could be applied to music
even if it applies to music, shouldn't the answer be no? like for the art question and the music question.
Is it art it is made by a machine? If it is made by an animal? Or a black man?
Human involvement is not a sufficient or necessary criteria to qualify art.
Does the machine feel? If it ever does, yeah.
@@LON009 Me personally, only when an AI can make something from its own perspective, experiences and inspirations will it be able to make art, so Detroit become human kind deal.
@@GatlingNG Ai is art when it is used as a tool to help foster creativity. It's not art when it's used to pump money out of normal people and into the pockets of corporations. Then it's a product.
I'm no purist and I have no issue with the creative use of autotune, quantized, samples, loops, and so on, but we must admit that in a way the use of technology not as a means but for technology's sake has put musicians in a tight corner. Once the replacement of human voice and beats in music became mainstream, it was only a matter of time before the whole process would become completely automated.
That being said, they said that recorded music would mean the end of live music, they said that overdubbing and synths would mean the end of musicians, they said that sampling would mean the end of originality, and they said autotune would mean the end of vocalists. These fearmongers were exaggerating every time.
They said file sharing would destroy the music industry... and there's still a music industry... just not a very good one. Producers claim that band members aren't as good at playing their instruments as when they played for hours per day, 6 days per week. Sure, that's true, but people only care about money.
But it's always the end of something. And with Ai it may be the end of an essential part of music: artists!
"Of the 20s" to refer to the 2020s is alarming and disorienting.
How?
re: tampering with new tech to find new sounds - as I've heard, Bowie and Eno threw out the manual for the synths and just played with it.
the moment ai can recreate the music i make, thats how we know ai has taken over art.
I think it is close if not already here. I use Udio to make music/songs from my lyrics and it is stunning
Very interesting. Almost everything that has be groundbreaking in music has involved using technology in an unintentional way. Never considered AI could be abused in the same way.
I disagree that "AI is here to stay." It is not a killer technology. it does not actually do anything better than people. Once the thrill wears off, it's going to be another junk tech like virtual reality, which has struggled to find a purpose beyond shiny gadget for like 30 years. It will be 'around' but its use will largely be a hallmark of someone who has very little else to offer than a gimmick.
I hope you're right.
We can only hope…
What you are not factoring in is most people don’t care about if it’s better.
Modern music is very flat and similar to everything around and before it. People listen to it.
It will always be here. How popular it will be will wane and wax but AI is the worst it will ever be again.
if it's cheaper and easier than paying real people, it will stay.
@@Luka-qm6le no I'll tell you why it isn't. Because it's for superficial people who have nothing to say. It's a cheap gimmick it doesn't create real music.
once the thrill wears off, people who don't really have anything important to say will get bored and move on to something else. They will never experience the feedback loop that a real musician does of finding their emotions working hard at crafting a song and then getting the praise for doing so. Ever.
Musicians who are good at what they do don't have any innate talent there is no such thing. We simply decided we loved making music so much that we dedicated a huge portion of our lives to perfecting The Craft. That's because we had something we wanted to express with our skills.
You don't put any effort into earning the skills then you don't get any reward. If you don't have anything important to say that would lead you to spend all that time honing those skills, after a few dumb fart jokes, superficial people who have no real point will move on.
People who get tired of being made fun of and see the potential and want to make real music they'll invest time and learning how to actually play an instrument. And that's what will differentiate people like me from superficial people who have no real passion for it and nothing important to say.
When you mentioned the left turns, glitches and ugliness are the most interesting thing about using AI tools to create music reminded me of this Bill Hicks quote:
“Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes.” .... Its cyberdelica
Balls
Nice
Radio Free Bolinas
My biggest problem is that, for the most part, AI is taking over the world of art. Artists are complaining about it. The general public doesn’t care what artists think or have to say. They’re only going to start caring once it starts taking regular jobs (it is to a certain extent already). Artists are the group that are going to be saying that we were the people who tried to warn you but you won’t listen to us.
AI won’t replace humans but it will lower the bar of aesthetic standards by constantly aiming for the middle-but that’s been happening for decades anyway at the hands of corporate beancounters.
The text on screen at 2:49-3:00 is exactly on the mark. The problem with AI is that it exists in capitalism and so it is created through and gets used for exploitative and unethical purposes. That's the same problem that cell phones, computers, synthesizers, guitars and any other tools people have used for making music in the past hundred years have. But the tools still can be used for interesting artistic purposes, as well as exploitative ones. The problem is the system we live in, not any of the specific tools in themselves.
I’ve more of people complaining about ai music than actual ai music.
Let me put a few things in perspective…simply put human beings don’t like change so we will typically rebel, bargain, adjust then accept:
- when digital instruments started to be introduced as early as the 70s.
- CDs being introduced in the 80s/90s and the ability to burn songs onto blanks
- 00s with file sharing (Limewire, Kazaa)
- 10s with music blogs and TH-cam undermining radio stations and cable tv shows like TRL and 106 and Park
- and as of today, in the 20s, AI music
The reality is this…the technology is going to continue to get better and better everyday and as musicians, instead of scoffing it and being boomer about it (ie “it’s not real music”), finding ways to use it in YOUR music career. Because at the end of the day, it’s going to get to a point where you can show someone an AI song and they aren’t gonna know it’s AI unless you tell them.
It’s a cool piece of technology and I’m personally open to seeing how to use it in the future.
On the topic of collage, which I love to do myself. Where the hell do you get your hands on all the cheap magazines? They are so hard to find now. Its like 20 bucks for a single new magazine now
When I pressed pause, you stopped talking. When I'll close Youtbe, you will not exist anymore.
The minute you say using AI is art, I lose any respect for your argument and stop listening.
AI in on itself is not art, i agree. However I think AI can be a tool for many artists to express themselves in new ways
you sound like a really open-minded person. Do you have any opinions on how using a mic isn't singing or using a DAW isn't music production?
Sounds like a you problem
Please stop with treating generative AI as just another tool. It isn't. The human artists that AI fed on are the tools. This is totally different from any of the earlier revolutions in music or arts.
Very interesting point about how artists use AI vs everyone else. It reminds me a bit about the debate around graphical fidelity in video games.
Photorealism in games is impressive from a technical standpoint. It is the product of engineering more than artistry, in a way. But once you achieve graphics that are 1:1 with visual reality, what's left?
I don't think the most of the musician will accept this as an art since it is too easy process to call it an art, may be to people who create content like vlogs, and other things that may require few snippets of BGV might get satisfied and call it a art. However my opinion on this , is its less of the meditative process to call it the art by musician. No sense or feeling of accomplishment at all.
Love the Everything Everything shoutout!!
People who think AI will kill creativity forget that profit is far from the only motive for it. In fact, when profit becomes the motive, an artistic industry tends to stagnate in its mainstream while its fringes improve upon its failures (like the Video Game Industry with its AAA and Indie scenes).
Even if mainstream art becomes fully AI generated stagnant slop, it won't stop creative weirdos from cropping up and doing their stuff.
If anything, the "problems with AI" are arguably nothing more than the latest iterations of the problems of art relying itself on the money of people with little understanding and even less respect of it. Much like those problems, the best solution is independent artists carving their own path.
If Gems can come out of the same medium that includes EA's sports games, I think creativity will persist like cockroaches in a nuclear apocalypse. The only way creativity dies is when humans die. So if anything, the strongest complaint about AI is its environmental impact.
Great point and great examples! I'm also a fan of Holly Herdon and Oneotrix point Never and how they embrace technology in an artistic way without fearing or rejecting it like most musicians.
This video came out just in time for a university project I have about the future of AI and how it'll impact music. Couldn't have come at a better time and has become a really valuable resource!!! Thank you so much for the incredible work and standard of content :)))
If artists start using the ai, its gonna change a lot of things . If its only "craftsmeb" then its not gonna change anything
Regardless of whether it's used to automate away creative jobs, or used in the legitimately creative ways you illustrate in the video, Generative AI is creating astronomical levels of energy use in an era where we need to figure out how we can use what we need with less and less energy. While there might be neat uses of this technology, it is simply a waste. It is not worth the cost to humanity.
Really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on this.
If art isn’ t made by humans - why listen-to/engage-with it?
I think the point he was trying to make was it is still art made by humans, just using AI as a tool.
You are so reactionary that you aren’t even listening to the point being made in the video. He’s not saying press a button and generate art; he’s saying take this new technology and learn how to exploit it as an artistic tool. That is a valid perspective. It’s really easy to just lazily complain about technological developments. It actually takes some critical engagement to consider how it could be used creatively
@@pensive-penguin it’s not reactionary - it’s being clear on the reasons why I engage with art in the first place. The vid is great and the creator has done a fantastic job of articulating the ins and outs of the topic… however - for me, I want art that is made by people, that reflects their unique take on the world, the complexities of their world view and human experience. If it’s manufactured by an algorithm - it might sound good, but there is no connection with all of these elements that draw one to art in the first place. Using AI as a tool is fine and can be a part of this process of course…
It's nice that access to samples and acapellas have become easier now with Stem cells and ai, but the fact that ai can now even remix your music in the blink of a minute or less as producers we're as good as done for. For now it's gonna be live performances that will get you paid or ads. The soul of music will be gone because good music comes from musicians with talent and good ideas. Everything will be automated now.
It won’t be long till your video style is created by someone using AI. They’ll make a years worth of content in a day and take a break. All while you struggle to keep up. Wonder if you’ll take the time to make a video defending AI then? It’s just ethical snags though right?
The best use of AI to me was what happened with "Now and Then" or the Revolver remix by The Beatles, where they used AI to separate elements from the songs, for example separate John's voice from the piano track, which was the biggest problem in 1995. Or the Get Back series, where they could individually clean certain previously unheard dialogue. In those cases, I think AI can be very beneficiary.
i'm generally not a fan of this kind of generative AI, mainly things like ChatGPT and Dall-E/Midjourney, especially recently hearing about how much power it uses up in the process of generating things. I do also agree that the most interesting it's ever been is when people twist it to make things it wasn't intended to make, or when all the results were fuzzy and unclear and creepy. Still makes my skin crawl, but I could at least be interested in that aspect of it then.
the issue has always been the way they train ai, if you pay the artist for using their works for training thats fine but i have a feeling almost non of the ai out there does.
I made so many weird abstract images with early image generators. Those were fun times, throwing bizarre strings of words at them and see what arrangements of shapes would come out. Now that image generators are targeting realism, it's much less interesting.
No matter how far technology goes, there’s always gonna be a kid with a crayon, or a stick in the sand
collage is a bad mental model
>look up latent space or embedding space or “hidden factors.”
no, when training a model doesn’t chop up songs or place them in a “file.”
i want you to imagine a model listening to every blues song
at training there will be a lossy process where a model will sort of create an embedding space of what it “learned” about blues music
many think of ai as a lossless training process
no, just like you would develop a sort of “blues music concept” if you listened to every blues song
so does the model
again
please google “embedding space” or “latent space.”
and gpt4?
it’s embedding space is a high dimensional (12,288 dimensions) embedding space
we are
bringing the
sand god
to life
Finally, someone with an interesting and nuanced take on this topic
All he did was fence sit and say that Ai was interesting before it got good. Well guess what, it will keep developing and only get better. Like some other commenter said, I can't wait until an Ai video essay channel comes up so I don't have to wait so long for this channel to produce and upload videos.
Finally, another comment that can actually appreciate it instead of ranting the same old boomer Beato complaints. I loved what he said here
@@TobusPls what on earth are you rambling about? Noah makes great short form music content. If you are equating him with some low-effort content farm, you are way off base
@@pensive-penguin if Ai gets good enough that could happen. Will you be able to tell the difference? Do you not think theres a problem with that?
Greetings from São Paulo, Brazil. I absolutely love this channel. The narrative is strangely intelligent for today’s standards 😊
If you allow me to make a suggestion, I think it would be great to watch a video essay on Kraftwerk made by Polyphonic.
I think this is the first good defense of AI. I'm not convinced about all aspects of it (lots of comments already expressed what I'm thinking) but you really give a good argument for the creative opportunities for it.
Thank you.
AI doesn't know what I haven't thought of yet.
Ai needs to end honestly. At least stay away from art. Otherwise the end of art is near, while ai continues to steal from human art
Don't say that too loud or people will start calling you a "ludite"
It also needs to end because it is catastrophic from an ethical and environmental point of view, dislodged from any debate if it’s art or even good
your problem isn't AI, it's capital. hope this helps
@@punkser "Hope this helps" so condescending
You can't stop the progress mate
The future of AI music? I see mountains of lawyers as far as the eye can see.
Can't wait until Ai can generate video essays! I won't have to subscribe to Patreon or Nebula to enjoy new videos by replicas of my fave creators!
Yeah, and they can produce videos just at the click of a button! Sweet, I won't have to wait several weeks between uploads!
Touché
Nice point with good examples.
For me, art is about collage of cultural memes, the biggest concern for me is "did I understand the reference enough to resonation with the like minded." It's very possible to make something that would work without understanding, thus without intentions. But that would defeat the whole purpose of creating for me.
I am drawn by art because the people behind it, I want to understand the connections. I create art because I want to leave breadcrumbs for people to understand the connections.
I concern the most about the creative process, and find it meaningful to demystify it. I believe that the more one understand their creative process, the more they can improve it.
The question isn't is this the death of art but is this the death of the ability to make a living out of the commercial sale of art for any but an elite few.
I am sure there will be amazing work in the "artistic" space but all the jobs that will be lost in stock photography, in jingle writing, in sound tech, etc is a concern. Not a death knell but we need to find avenues for, particularly amateur and lower grade professional, artists to make money
I wish our politicians would get off their asses and require labeling for things that used AI.
Feel free to tell me I'm old - I admit it. I know the times are moving forward and leaving me behind, because I found absolutely none of that visually, musically or aesthetically pleasing.
While I can definitely appreciate your more positive and creativity-forward perspective on AI, the fact of the matter is that AI as we know it is a plagiarism machine by definition. Sure, there are some AI models that are built on public domain images, but that shouldn't distract from the notion that most AI models most definitely aren't.
Why write an essay or short story when you can just generate one in seconds?
Why bother looking for public domain images or paying for the usage of one in a presentation when you can just generate some?
Why commission artists for artwork when you can just generate an infinite amount of pieces?
Why respect people's wishes when you can make an AI copy of their voice without their permission?
Sure, AI can be a good tool to use, but the biggest problem really isn't figuring out positive ways to use it; the biggest problem is how to prevent people from using it in negative ways. I'm sure there are plenty of ways that AI can be used without stealing people's work, but the fact of the matter is that people will steal work with it anyway. l sincerely believe that, while the positives can churn out some really cool results, the negatives make AI the biggest threat to art of all kinds to date. And the worst part is, I don't know if law can really do anything about it besides getting rid of it entirely (which sounds unlikely).
Actually, this Beatles fan found the new song soulless and abandoned it after a minute.
I haven't experimented with AI music but I might as well have. I took a real performance of mine and ran the MIDI data through different voices and processors in my Digital Audio Workstation (Logic Pro), as well as playing the data (not the audio) at different speeds. I only did one act of musical creativity, the original piece. Everything else was creative engineering choices. Are those others music? I think so. Are they listenable? Enjoyable? That's up to the audience to decide.
The difference is that I'm doing this for fun and not trying to make any money at it. I imagine it's quite scary for session musicians or anyone who is actually trying to break into the business.
Technology has already overwhelmed the market with songs. On average, 120,000 new songs are uploaded to streaming services every day.
Individual humans can’t keep, collectively is more than we realistically consume at any meaningful way.
AI will exponentially increase the number of new songs that hit streaming services.
This will make even harder for human artists to break through and be heard. The economic value of songs will be driven even lower, to the point that it won’t even be worthwhile for major corporations to use AI to replace songwriters and musicians.
We need to adjust to a new world that is much like the old - regional music communities, live music, physical products.
I will say that AI can NEVER replace the actual real experience of live music, which makes me think that there is gonna be a giant shift towards live music in more creative circles, for better or worse we’ll have to wait and see
Great video! Your breakdown of how AI is transforming the music industry was super insightful. At Rocket Rebel Records, we're always exploring how technology can enhance creativity, and your points about AI's role in music production really hit home for us.
Thanks for shedding light on how AI is shaping the future of music. Looking forward to more of your content!
Cheers,
Rocket Rebel Records
I’m not fucking listening to ai music. A lot of what makes music so inspiring and emotional is the fact that the sound came from another person. Having the sound be just some amalgamation of bullshit yoinked from similar pieces makes it stupid and meaningless
Until you hear a song…..love it…and then find out it was entirely AI generated
Great I'm also starting to create music based on AI according to my music style to be able to save memorable things.
2:55 We live in a society!
I think AI could end tomorrow if nobody care about it,just listen to real music
Funny part is I tried breaking it. I havent broken it yet, but it got me a paul mccartney ai song which I uploaded as a short bc I feel like it may violate rules if I upload the whole thing. Lol.
To make ai more not bland, you got to add more to the prompt and in the lyrics of the song.
I don't buy the usual argument that technology has already impacted music over the years. Those technologies still required someone to learn how to use them. We are at a point now whereby you can just type something and a song is spit back at you. And plus, I disagree with what you say: AI is not there to make our lives more convenient, but some people richer. This is what makes it 'inevitable'
I don't doubt that there's a lot of interesting potential in creative use of AI, you're highlighting a bunch of great examples. I fear that AI will basically kill artistry as a job. Yes, most artists don't strive to make background filler stuff, but the pure option of ending up there if you don't strike stardom is a very important insurance for those willing to do art, be it music, painting, acting, voice over or whatever. And losing all of that to generative AI makes it so that art can - even more than already - only be attempted as a hobby by the well-off.
What ai will do to music will separate people in to two group. The people who don’t care and those that do.
The sad reality is people just want stuff. They will say they care until it’s a bother or they have to go with out.
Just choose what’s important to you and find what makes you happy. As of right now it’s highly unlikely in anyone’s life time there won’t be art or music without ai.
If you work with AI, you are part of the problem, and must be dealt with.
plug for another rob sheriden project.
there was a short lived NIN side project called how to destroy angels, featuring NIN's reznor/ross, reznor's wife mariqueen maandig, and rob sheriden. they have one album "welcome oblivion" which is ABOUT AI.
I'm willing to have my mind changed on this, but i'm pretty sure "welcome to oblivion" is about depression
The way I see it, AI doesn’t change that much. When you go see a Marvel movie or hear the same strumming pattern in a commercial, you already think it’s soulless. AI doesn’t kill art because art is made for the sake of expression - not money. Laborers losing jobs because of a newly developed and more efficient technology is nothing new - it is unfortunate but that is the reality of life that no one is or should be exempt from; in the end you can only embrace it rather than waste time and energy getting angry at it. We shouldn’t be clutching our pearls for the “artists” just because their form of labor has some resemblance to the form of human expression known as art - Artists and artists are not the same thing. True art will remain as long as people will be walking on this earth, and art that wouldn’t be made without a monetary incentive will remain soulless and expendable.
In the mid 00's, Canibus made a song that mixes and matches bars for a total of 1000^6 bars, and he has been embracing AI recently, so I'm really excited to see what he comes up with.
there is no future in AI music.