# AI-generated music just around the corner: How do you feel about it?



## Ivan Duch (Oct 12, 2022)

I just watched this video from Bruce Arnold and got really anxious about the whole thing:



I've been playing around with Midjourney out of late, constantly wondering how close we are to something like that in the music industry.

It seems like it will happen, sooner rather than later, and I guess the capabilities and quality of its production will only get better with time.

And I can't stop myself from thinking about where to go next and it affecting my career decisions right now. So I wonder, is anyone else giving it a thought? How are you dealing with it mentally and professionally?


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## Heinigoldstein (Oct 12, 2022)

I´m so happy I'm too old now to worry about my musical career. This will sooner or (a little) later be the end of low budget production music I'm afraid. All I like to say to AI generated music is


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## Voider (Oct 12, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> So I wonder, is anyone else giving it a thought? How are you dealing with it mentally and professionally?


I really don't care, I don't think it will be a problem at all. There are various scenarios and in all of them the artists will hold the whip hand:

1. Independent Musicans

A lot of the musicans we listen to are not only special because of their music, but also because _who _they are. People who love Eminem - just as a famous example - love him also for his interviews, his thoughts and insights, his story, his look, for him being him. Musicans are idols to many people. The fascination isn't seeing a machine spitting 200 words in under 20 seconds, but a human being, because that's something we all know is *hard to do. *Lyrics also have a different impact if they've been written and are performed by someone who tells from very personal experience, something the people in the audience can find themselves in - that's what creates the bond*. *And that's virtually true for any kind of musical profession: it's also about the human behind it, which leads me to..

2. Composers

Especially in bigger productions the name of the composer is a very nice bonus on top. I'm pretty sure "_The Dark Knight with music by Hans Zimmer_" attracts way more people than "_The Dark Knight featuring some random AI soundtrack_". Composers can bring their fanbase, and even people who aren't _fans_ in particular, but remember that they've enjoyed a soundtrack by the composer in another movie before.

The same goes for games, Nobuo Uematsu's music has fascinated million of people throughout several generations who grew up with (or into) the Final Fantasy games. Any game featuring his name on the cover can enjoy the benefits of it.

3. Composers/Musicans who *utilize* AI

Music is a very complex and deep field, and it's still about (human) expression, about transporting feelings, about the oddness and imperfection. Let's imagine a future scenario where AI music is on a top notch level: It would still require professionals who understand _music_ to input the right prompts, to form the results into the right directions and make changes. Also to develop the idea that serves the theme, scenario, character design, setting or whatever is needed.

So who's gonna get the gig, the guy who barely understands music and its concepts and can type in some fancy prompts into an AI music generator, or the skilled composer who utilizes that AI to create something way more unique? We can already see that with Midjourney, professional visual artists don't only render out random results, they take it as starting point to draw over and edit it until they created something truly unique, something more self-made. Rarely a work only needs a single product, more a series of products, whether that's a lot of concept art / drawings or musical pieces.

I rather see AI being sprinkled in here and there rather than replacing the whole process. Imagine what crazy samples you can create if you let AI do something, render a particular thing out and then utilize that in your own compositions. Or let it write only 20 seconds of the B part and then augment it with your human side by adding the other half of the orchestra to create a sound that represents half human half machine.

So I don't think AI art (including music) will ever _replace _artists. It can't get the fascination humans get for doing things that we know are hard to learn for a human, it can't get the fascination for its name and personality (_well, not yet_), and it will most likely not be as colorful and vivid like something that has been touched by a human.

It will have its _niche_ though, like little bloggers using pictures and music to enhance their stories and articles, people who use it for their social media stuff, aspiring artists on a budget who want to complement their pictures or music with the respective counterpart, and yes, maybe that indie game developer in his first or second low budget title.

But these people aren't the clients one would build his career on anyways.

So no - no anxiety, no worries


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## Ivan Duch (Oct 12, 2022)

Voider said:


> I really don't care, I don't think it will be a problem at all. There are various scenarios and in all of them the artists will have the whip hand:


I share some of your thoughts as well. I feel like the mechanical side of art-making, the craftmanship will be badly hit. Meaning, anyone who survives as a creator depending solely on craftmanship and mechanical thinking will lose their job. AIs will be able to create 1000 assets like that in a single day. 

Similar to what the industrial revolution did to craftsmen in the past century. And I guess there are some lessons to be learned from the surviving craftsmen. 

Now, the spirit behind the art, the soul of it, the human expression, not so easily replace I guess. As you said, there's a concept and a context behind artists, that's what we usually connect to and the reason we support them. 

That said, it's definitely having an impact on my strategy and the way I think I should move forward with my own music. In a way it makes me focus more on artistry beyond anything else. I think all the skills I might have as a musician account for anything against the AI, I just have to focus on my humanity.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2022)

Take a look at this









Google’s new AI can hear a snippet of song—and then keep on playing


The technique, called AudioLM, generates naturalistic sounds without the need for human annotation.




www.technologyreview.com


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## Al Maurice (Oct 16, 2022)

Purely this could all be seen just in the 'name of progress':

In some ways the rise of the tape recorder could have been seen the same way, then along came DAWs, personal audio interfaces, notation programs. So why should AI be any different.

Musical instruments too are just a mechanised way of making music, but where would we be without them.

We just need to learn to adapt with the changing times, and go with the flow.


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## Markrs (Oct 16, 2022)

I was thinking about AI music recently and what both exits and could be challenge to libraries developers is the ability put in a melody or chords and use a text request for a realistic string section maybe in a particular style. You can do this currently with images where you provide an image and ask for variations in that based on text input.

We could get to the point of entirely realistic composing in any style based on chords and a melody including generating variations on both into a longer piece of music.

This won't mean any one can compose. I have seen the difference with graphic designers using the Image AI stable diffusion and those that are just trying it out. They use a lot of parameters, starting images, variations etc to create the really jaw dropping images.

This will be the same for composers, but how we composer will change. We might not user sample libraries any more and instead have a subscription to a stable diffusion technique for music and you pay more for higher quality and more parameters.

For me it will be like the revolution DAWs, samplers and MIDI brought in that led to composers like Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman, neither of which as far as I am aware compose via music notation and the piano. These innovations opened up music to new people with new skills. This will do the same and those that will really succeed at it might know even less about traditional composition but are able to describe what they want and use effective melodic and harmonic starting points.

One of the challenges for media composers is directors being able to put in temp music and generating variations on that and also putting parameters so all the music is consistent in style and performance even if the temp tracks are quite different.


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## Ivan Duch (Oct 16, 2022)

I think one stage of the development of this new tech is that composers will rely on AI the way some rely today on orchestrators and assistants. A stage where it will be a tool for us, the composers.

Up until the point where AI can really do it all. Then it will be a tool for any sort of creator in need of music. And I think the market will decide if they want to stop supporting human-made music or not. I guess stock music and anything commodity-like will be the first to go. 

Any sort of functional music without any kind of emotional attachment to the creator.


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## Ivan Duch (Oct 16, 2022)

gsilbers said:


> Take a look at this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, that kind of thing is mind-blowing. I was initially thinking AI would deal with midi and learn to write music from there. But it's dealing directly with audio files and creating audio files.

That also means that it might be able to build samples out of recordings and all sorts of crazy stuff. I think the whole industry will be disrupted in ways we can't even imagine right now.


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## Celestial Aeon (Oct 16, 2022)

I think it will disrupt and rearrange some parts of the music industry forever. Some parts of the low tier stock music might become sort of obsolete, some parts of custom media music scene will become less human driven, but there will still be work for humans as well and some parts of the industry will probably stay more or less the same. High tier soundtrack business, traditional pop music business, probably indie streaming business as well. I think in general all the parts of the industry that have been heavily reliant on human intuition, chaos and creativity still will be there, and the repetitive, more "boring" and asinine copy paste stuff will be totally AI driven from some point on.

I personally welcome this change. If something is better to give to AI to do, it wasn't meant for humans in the first place.


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## The Gost (Oct 16, 2022)

I think in thirty or forty years,maybe before.... AI will be almost everywhere with Hans Zimmer, JW etc etc presets that will be enough for music by the meter or even for some movies and tv series. The time when we waited for the release of a disc in two months by having only the photo of the cover is finished for ages... It will remain mainly only the live concerts.The cd killed the disc, the steaming killed the cd... Take advantage of the time we have left!


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## Ivan Duch (Oct 16, 2022)

Celestial Aeon said:


> I personally welcome this change. If something is better to give to AI to do, it wasn't meant for humans in the first place.


Yes, I share that feeling as well. We're getting rid of mechanical tasks. First we industrialized farming, shoemaking, and a long list of other tasks. Now automation is reaching art.

One could simply make a melody draft on a napkin and tell the AI how to deal with it.

Again, similar to how Hollywood works today with so much of the work heavy lifting being outsourced.
Some of the craft will be lost for sure (the way the need of writing music with pen and paper is mostly lost).


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## Gothi (Oct 16, 2022)

I feel about it the same ways I feel about the 40 GB prefab’ed loops that come with every DAW: I am sorry for those who feel they need it.


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## Studio E (Oct 16, 2022)

Almost all of the concerns here are pointed toward making a living or at least, some income from composing. My personal belief is that it probably will take over the commercial side of film composing, at least to the same degree heartless film production companies have. To me it's somewhat analogous to what producers have done to film itself. Looking for a way to make money as easily and surely as possible, they are willing to throw together certain known formulas for financial success, and we get little part in any of that. A producer who says "Let's take actors A, B, and C, known for their success, combine them with writer J, known to have written hits, add in CGI artists blah blah, make bad guy H have these attributes, shoot from these angle of successful film such-and-such, add in some lens flares, and oh yeah, can we get some composer that can do that diggi-diggi-chicci-chicci thing from Movies L-P?" I feel like we took the humanity out of the art form of film for the masses decades ago.

I think that the more meaningful question, is how it is going to affect your ability to express your own creativity? Before the entire farm gets sold to it, it'll probably help a lot of composers do things that they couldn't have stitched together on their own before. I think that would be true of all of us. But then, if all of a sudden, 99% of what hits theaters or home television screens, is AI generated drivel, we will all still be artists, looking for ways to express ourselves. The money might be gone, or severely reduced, but that doesn't end art. It just demonetizes it. I'm not saying that it's good, or fun, or fair, and I'd certainly choose a world where this didn't happen, but it most certainly will.

When we wake up the day after that reality has shown up, we will still have artistic things to say.


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## Vlzmusic (Oct 16, 2022)

In VI-Control context, AI is mostly irrelevant at the moment, cause even if it can mash up some notes in Mozart style or whatever, it cannot render the actual sound of it, relying on samples or synths. Once it will be able to render "Lush orchestral sound as if recorded at Abbey Road" - we will make it work for us . Some orchestration capabilities will come in handy as well.


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## Vik (Oct 16, 2022)

Not that it bothers me personally, but IMO it's currently/generally more worrisome that an increasing number of humans are producing and composing music that sounds like it has been created by computer.


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## Celestial Aeon (Oct 16, 2022)

I have used Midjourney quite a lot in the past few months and I find it very inspiring. It's sort of mesmerising just trying out different descriptions and styles and see what will be generated. Some of the images are so creative that they actually inspire me in many ways, and there is inherent value in that. No matter if the input is from a human or AI noise. However, to really get something "you can work with" from Midjourney, still requires quite a lot of human input and decision making. Most of the creations are probably not reasonable at all, you really need to experiment and figure out what descriptions to use and build your own intuition regarding how to get the best results. 

I believe that music AIs will be quite similar for a long time - yes you will be able to generate Williamsesque pastiches or trailer braam driven silliness, but what will be the practical use of the end result? If you require the tune to have specific structure and "arc", you will end up having to do a lot of manual work and the end results might not be worthwhile in comparison to just having a human producer do what you need. You can generate 1000 different versions in a matter of minutes, but of those options, you will still have to manually find and figure out what are the best options and how will they fit in your required needs.

If you want to generate something specific artwise with Midjourney that you will end up using in your real world commercial project, the chances are, you will be spending quite a lot of time on trial and error, and when you finally find the good images, it can still be that none of them are good enough on their own, but you will have to have some human editor to take bits and pieces of a couple of them and make the final image by hand.

I think this will be the new realm we will live in, where there will be a new human role in the industry - generating AI ideas and combining them manually, to create the required end results faster and more self reliant way in compared to the old world, where everything was human driven throughout the process.


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## Ivan Duch (Oct 16, 2022)

Studio E said:


> It just demonetizes it. I'm not saying that it's good, or fun, or fair, and I'd certainly choose a world where this didn't happen, but it most certainly will.
> 
> When we wake up the day after that reality has shown up, we will still have artistic things to say.


Very good point! It's the monetization of art that is endangered, not art itself. And that raises the question mark surrounding commercial art. 

I feel like it's something that in the end eats itself. Digital content, digital entertainment reaching the point where it almost self-create itself, without human intervention. We could reach a point where an algorithm is able to entertain each one of us all day with custom-made content.


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## Celestial Aeon (Oct 16, 2022)

When it comes to streaming and music people listen to, we are already seeing the trend that will probably just blow up to totally different scale when the AIs get it going. There are both major and indie labels pushing out thousands of instrumental "background music" tunes to the services with random artist names that are not "real" in the traditional sense and the amount of new music in the Spotify back end is growing at a break neck speed each day. However, the actual question is: what is the point of releasing 10,000 new songs, if you never get anyone to actually listen to them or be interested in them? The chances are none of those tunes will ever end up getting listens or if they do, it will be a couple, but nobody will playlist or actively start following you or be interested in you. 

So in human sense, the general basic principles of the "business" will stay the same - if you want to find listeners for your music, the question is not how much music you can dish out but rather how will you market it and find your fanbase. AIs probably won't change that game at all.


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## Vik (Oct 16, 2022)

Vlzmusic said:


> AI is mostly irrelevant at the moment, cause even if it can mash up some notes in Mozart style or whatever, it cannot render the actual sound of it, relying on samples or synths.


Once someone creates software that combines thorough analysis of note lengths, attacks, note endings etc, it shouldn't be difficult to take an AI-created composition and make it sound as good as if someone had manually created and edited/tweaked the mockup for hours, using the currently best sample libraries out there. 

And since most people don't listen much to Mozart, but to sample and synth based music with few chords (if any) and simple melodies (if any), the road from what we have today and what can be created through AI methods isn't that long. 

Nevertheless, the first things that need to be sorted out is that many of the existing sample libraries aren't really deep sampled – not deep enough. This is of course particularly important when it comes to emulating acoustic music.


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## Ivan Duch (Oct 16, 2022)

Celestial Aeon said:


> When it comes to streaming and music people listen to, we are already seeing the trend that will probably just blow up to totally different scale when the AIs get it going. There are both major and indie labels pushing out thousands of instrumental "background music" tunes to the services with random artist names that are not "real" in the traditional sense and the amount of new music in the Spotify back end is growing at a break neck speed each day. However, the actual question is: what is the point of releasing 10,000 new songs, if you never get anyone to actually listen to them or be interested in them? The chances are none of those tunes will ever end up getting listens or if they do, it will be a couple, but nobody will playlist or actively start following you or be interested in you.
> 
> So in human sense, the general basic principles of the "business" will stay the same - if you want to find listeners for your music, the question is not how much music you can dish out but rather how will you market it and find your fanbase. AIs probably won't change that game at all.


Very good point. I was watching a documentary on Japanese craftsmen the other day. 

And it was interesting to see how they were able to survive by craftmanship and mystique, mostly their particular niche, specialization, and marketing. I think the concept behind the art is key.


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## Honigdachs (Oct 16, 2022)

Personally, I don't give a damn. AI-generated music is only something for people whose intelligence is lower than that of the AI. It's just like AI-generated artwork or those movies that are done 90% in front of a green screen. It's all high gloss garbage. So yeah. I can make a living doing many different things, but AI will never be able to make music like I do.


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## proggermusic (Oct 16, 2022)

So, there's a lot of AI-anxiety circulating amongst almost every industry these days, which is understandable. But I think we're a lot further away from any sort of AI takeover of the arts (or, really, anything else) than the anxiety leads us to feel. Here's a really excellent blog by an AI researcher named Janelle Shane whose writing on the subject is both comforting and highly amusing.









AI Weirdness


The weird side of artificial intelligence.




www.aiweirdness.com





Her expert take on it is that AI is still in its infancy and probably will be for a very long time. It's really NOT very good at most things yet, and it will take orders of magnitude more sophistication and development to get it close to what human brains can do. As crazy as technological and computational advancement has been over the past forty years, truly effective AI is still a long way off.

Also, something I've noticed (with gratitude) over the past decade, as "making music" became accessible to anyone with a MIDI piano roll: the infinite sloppy gradients of actual human touch are still what humans really want to hear, most of the time.


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## tc9000 (Oct 16, 2022)

I think we might see more AI-driven complex 'virtual performer' types of VIs that may be able to excel in very exposed settings - e.g. Virtual solo string instruments, or virtual vocalists - areas that have always been tricky to achieve with samples and scripting alone. These would still need input like MIDI note and CC, but would interpret this and deliver a realistic, yet controllable performance.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> Yes, that kind of thing is mind-blowing. I was initially thinking AI would deal with midi and learn to write music from there. But it's dealing directly with audio files and creating audio files.
> 
> That also means that it might be able to build samples out of recordings and all sorts of crazy stuff. I think the whole industry will be disrupted in ways we can't even imagine right now.




Oddly enough there’s a company out there looking for library composers to provide music for their ai, and they turn your track into several versions and potentially double/triple your royalty earnings.
No idea the name. I just know it’s out there talking to music libraries.


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## Studio E (Oct 16, 2022)

Vik said:


> Not that it bothers me personally, but IMO there's currently/generally more worrisome that an increasing number of humans are producing and composing music that sounds like it has been created by computer.


Hey! I resemble that remark


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## Daryl (Oct 16, 2022)

gsilbers said:


> Oddly enough there’s a company out there looking for library composers to provide music for their ai, and they turn your track into several versions and potentially double/triple your royalty earnings.
> No idea the name. I just know it’s out there talking to music libraries.


"Potentially" being the operative word.


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## Sophus (Oct 16, 2022)

gsilbers said:


> Oddly enough there’s a company out there looking for library composers to provide music for their ai, and they turn your track into several versions and potentially double/triple your royalty earnings.
> No idea the name. I just know it’s out there talking to music libraries.


Since AI based art seems to be non-copyrightable it would be possible to just copy all the music, pictures, texts, animations etc. created by AI systems and use it yourself without any problems. 

Services selling AI based content will look pretty stupid if anybody can just use their offered content and they can't do anything about it, since they cannot copyright anything.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2022)

Sophus said:


> Since AI based art seems to be non-copyrightable it would be possible to just copy all the music, pictures, texts, animations etc. created by AI systems and use it yourself without any problems.
> 
> Services selling AI based content will look pretty stupid if anybody can just use their offered content and they can't do anything about it, since they cannot copyright anything.



Well, this seems different. ITs basically a way for one composer to make variations on their track and not be public or anything. The idea might be charging for a service where you submit a track and you get 5 back that sound similar which then you give to music libraries to maximize royalties. Maybe good for non exclusive? 
So you keep the copyright and all of that. 

Obviously the fine print could be that they are feeding an algoruthm that eventually make music similar to yours like those Dall-e services. I dont know really so i coudlnt tell you , but thats what i would do if i where a hyper capitalistic asshole.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2022)

Daryl said:


> "Potentially" being the operative word.



well, youd submit one track to the AI and you get 10 variations and you send those to 10 music libraries. 
The math pans out.. the ethics on te other hand.. hmm.. thats a good debate.


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## JyTy (Oct 16, 2022)

I tired most of them ... I see it as a great productivity tool or as a source of inspiration when needed. AIVA is really cool, everything else is nothing more than simple background music generator for YouTube. It is still far away from replacing the human factor in music creation.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2022)

JyTy said:


> I tired most of them ... I see it as a great productivity tool or as a source of inspiration when needed. AIVA is really cool, everything else is nothing more than simple background music generator for YouTube. It is still far away from replacing the human factor in music creation.



thats true. the current trope of AI music services suck. IMO mostly because they are aiming at doing a film score or a jazz or rock or somethign that humans would be much better. Now, on the other hand if they ust focused on kids music, corporate and simple beats for background for social media videos, i thikn AI would be a lot better and more usefull. 

ANd dont be alarmed ill be using big font

They KEEP THE COPYRIGHT

Except very few which they charge more.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2022)

The piano examples at the end of this page are instresting



AudioLM


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2022)

tc9000 said:


> I think we might see more AI-driven complex 'virtual performer' types of VIs that may be able to excel in very exposed settings - e.g. Virtual solo string instruments, or virtual vocalists - areas that have always been tricky to achieve with samples and scripting alone. These would still need input like MIDI note and CC, but would interpret this and deliver a realistic, yet controllable performance.


Well, if you are somewhat of a singer maybe you can sound like a pro singer 



so for $200 a month you can also be Lorde


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## Sophus (Oct 16, 2022)

gsilbers said:


> So you keep the copyright and all of that.


I don't think so. There will be no copyright. So nobody will use this music. This will become a legal nightmare. Just wait and see how it turns out some years into the future. Why would any company use this content without being able to copyright it. It might only be useful for family vacation videos.


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## gsilbers (Oct 16, 2022)

Sophus said:


> I don't think so. There will be no copyright. So nobody will use this music. This will become a legal nightmare. Just wait and see how it turns out some years into the future. Why would any company use this content without being able to copyright it. It might only be useful for family vacation videos.


We might not be understanding each other. Im saying its a specific service using AI for composers to make variations of their work so they can extend their compositions variations and submit to different music libraries as retitles. They still retain writers share and all of that.

As for the general AI sites where you do that sort of text to speech or simple prompts for new materials then i agree. Its very murky and could end like what you say but what im seeing is companies like shutterfly getting in this game and keeping the copyright because thats their main business. royalty free stuff. And eventually their goal is for social media or youtybe to pay them royalties from all of these AI compositions their users made. Or at least some sort of variation on this plan. BEcause i see no other reason why shutterfly would spend so much on this stuff if thye didnt see a profit eventually, all though not paying 50% to artists for each track users download is a good enticement. But the fine print says they keep the royalties so im suspicious .

And the far off future that might be true where royalties or ownership of digital goods or copyright doesnt exist and its basically a MEME or short video where we have a leonardo di caprio image or video being used without permission and FOX bascially saying fuck it we cant beat them so we wont pursue. (true story btw i asked). 

So i guess we just wait and see what happens.


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## tc9000 (Oct 16, 2022)

gsilbers said:


> Well, if you are somewhat of a singer maybe you can sound like a pro singer
> 
> 
> 
> so for $200 a month you can also be Lorde



AH! its so _creepy. _I get a strong 'uncanny valley' vibe from these sorts of demos. However, this happens because I _know _it's AI. Without the cues, I'd never know it was fake. DAMN.


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## gyprock (Oct 16, 2022)

Check out designer.microsoft.com for what’s coming to the graphics world. We just have to wait for CubAIse.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 16, 2022)

Important discussion among some extremely brilliant minds.
(You can't see it clearly here, but the robots are saying, "Step aside, we're taking over your studio.")


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## quietmind (Oct 16, 2022)

My main feeling about AI-gen music is that I wish it was being applied specifically to the creation of VIs to make them more responsive as realistic instrumental sources. 

I have hung out in the VI space since the early 70s when I was sampling instruments into the computer at the Stanford AI Lab with the intent to develop the digital means to create naturalistic, convincing instrumental sounds. 

There certainly are some really nice libraries that do some really nice things these 50 years later, no doubt. But the progress in this arena still fails to impress me. We are still messing around on a crude phonemic level of trying to control articulations and produce a more convincing legato, or using inadequate physical models to synthesize timbres that fail to fully impress. We still need to find the specific sweet spots of each of the VIs we choose to use. 

And from my view, nobody in the VI industry seems yet to be asking or trying to answer the questions that could take things to the next level. Admittedly, understanding and mastering the complexities of real world note-to-note performance on actual instruments played by skillful musicians is a multidimensionally difficult venture. In dealing with that complexity, I would hope that AI might be useful. Can't imagine how else to do it.

But the low hanging fruit in the commercial AI-gen music space is apparently on the compositional music-theory level. If it will be another 1-3 decades before that generates really good quality output, how much longer before we get, say, a really sweet VI string quartet capable of astonishing us by playing anything from Mozart to Kronos in ways that takes our breath away?

Not that I wish to put any live musicians out of business (which was an accusation I heard many times in those early Stanford days). But since I have returned to the VI realm of late, I still find myself yearning for a level of VIs that truly inspire and deliver. At times, when I can afford it, when it comes down to it, I still have to hire a real player to get that. And can't afford to do that all that much.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Oct 17, 2022)

Things are changing faster than ever, and will keep changing faster - that’s the nature of exponential change. Exponential change is something that we can understand, on paper, but that is difficult to grasp in practice. So forget decades, think years.
What’s different with this revolution is that the tool, A.I., will evolve much, much faster than the printing press, for eg. Imagine the Industrial Revolution happening at 10x the speed.


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## MartinH. (Oct 17, 2022)

gsilbers said:


> Well, if you are somewhat of a singer maybe you can sound like a pro singer
> 
> 
> 
> so for $200 a month you can also be Lorde


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## Double Helix (Oct 17, 2022)

quietmind said:


> . . . Not that I wish to put any live musicians out of business (which was an accusation I heard many times in those early Stanford days). . . .


I heard similar comments when I used my Mellotron (#927) in the studio
. . . seems quaint in retrospect


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## ThomasNL (Oct 17, 2022)

What I've learned so far from the Midjourney experience is that art is way more then just the result. I now see daily stunning artwork on Reddit from midjourney and while it amazes me that AI can do that, I just don't care anymore because it doesn't have a story behind it.

While an artwork created by a human being has the story of the artist, the 100+ hours it took to learn that craft and the 10+ hours to create the artwork.

So yes, there will be applications where that is not a problem, but in the end AI art will have way less of value.


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## Vik (Oct 17, 2022)

Will _computers_, using _artificial_ intelligence, be able to regularly write as good, touching, passionate or [insert any kind of musical 'feeling' here] as humans? I put the word regularly in there because most likely, computers will be able to accidentally write some great pieces / music which is as great as our fav. pieces? But before looking at that, a few questions:

1) are musicians/composers/songwriters_ in general_ able to pieces write that are as great as their favorite pieces by using '_natural_ intelligence'? In many cases the answer would be no, with some exceptions.

2) Are well trained/educated/inspired musicians/composers/song writers generally/regularly able to write pieces as good as their favorite pieces, using natural intelligence?

3) If not, are our absolute favorite song writers/composers on this planet generally/regularly capable of – using their own natural intelligence – generating new great pieces based on their favorite compositions (made by others)? If yes, why don't they do it more often, if the end result would be unique and great and noyt in any way a copy of some other piece?

4) Finally, are your fav. composers/song writers capable of regularly create new, original pieces based on emulating _their own_ best work, using 'only' natural intelligence? In other words, could Sting sit down and create a number of songs/hits as great as Fragile or (insert fav, Sting song here)? How many Yesterdays could McCartney make, and how many Adagiettos could Mahler create?
Don't tell me that they haven'y tried.

For instance, many of Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossienes somehow sound like Satie copies. Sorry if this sounds brutal, but I hope you understand what I mean. Even if some robot would be fed with all the Bach pieces, it most likely wouldn't be able to compose something as brilliant as Bachs best work. And nothing sounds sadder than a a poor copy, clone other attempt of mimicking something really good which already exists.


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## Tim_Wells (Oct 17, 2022)

Vlzmusic said:


> In VI-Control context, AI is mostly irrelevant at the moment, cause even if it can mash up some notes in Mozart style or whatever, it cannot render the actual sound of it, relying on samples or synths. Once it will be able to render "Lush orchestral sound as if recorded at Abbey Road" - we will make it work for us . Some orchestration capabilities will come in handy as well.


I basically agree with this. A.I. will be more of an assistant to composers, rather than a job killer.

From what I've seen, there are still significant technical hurdles to producing unassisted, high-quality audio-based music from A.I. Most of the current A.I. music tools use midi and samples and the results are pretty lame. No doubt it will improve over time, but I doubt it will be a major threat anytime in the next few years. 

The re-creation of the U2 song in OP's posted video is laced with artifacts and not so great either. (Good video, by-the-way!) From what I've seen, it's very difficult for an A.I. program to analyze audio only files and then generate a piece of music directly in the form of audio. Whereas the image creation done by DALL-E and Midjourney is much more attainable. At least at the current time. 

We we're supposed to have self-driving cars by now. Writing and producing a good piece of music is much more difficult than driving a car. I believe there is little to fear from A.I. music anytime soon. I intend to watch it very closely and embrace if it can assist me.


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## Laddy (Oct 17, 2022)

Regarding the copyright thing... Don't you think people will cheat and use AI and then pretend that they have composed it themselves?


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## Vlzmusic (Oct 17, 2022)

Laddy said:


> Regarding the copyright thing... Don't you think people will cheat and use AI and then pretend that they have composed it themselves?


While they can, whats the point, if youtubers, media producers etc. won't buy it.


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## Vik (Oct 17, 2022)

Vlzmusic said:


> In VI-Control context, AI is mostly irrelevant at the moment


At the same time, it's highly relevant for those with great VI skills but poor compositional skills.


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## Taron (Oct 17, 2022)

Without having read through the thread, I see people all over the place freaking out over AI. But for all true artists and true musicians it will be fantastic. Opportunism will swallow itself, leaving at the very end nothing but producers, real artists and realistic (not opportunistic) enthusiasts. 

Why is the "soul" such an important component to composition? Doesn't matter what you call it, it's your real intention and original ideals that resonate with other souls in a meaningful way. All the filler stuff of functional music and pictures will shrivel with its unsubstantiality into the brittle shell it was forged from. Purposeful, intentional, meaningful creation will come to shine again like veins of gold as the dirt falls off.

Praise AI! (hang on)


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## Laddy (Oct 17, 2022)

Vlzmusic said:


> While they can, whats the point, if youtubers, media producers etc. won't buy it.


Maybe it is discussed/explained earlier in the thread, but why won't they? Is it easily detectable?


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## MartinH. (Oct 17, 2022)

ThomasNL said:


> While an artwork created by a human being has the story of the artist, the 100+ hours it took to learn that craft and the 10+ hours to create the artwork.


Totally agree with your post! Only you are still way underestimating those numbers. Painting on the level of midjourney takes roughly an order of magnitude longer than making music on the level of the composer AIs currently available, both for learning and execution of each piece. Starting to learn from zero it is almost guarantueed you will not be able to compete with midjourney within just 1000 hours of dedicated practice. 1000 hours is ~1h each day for 3 years, that's still withing "beginner" territory for most people when it comes to painting and drawing. And many of the paintings midjourney spits out would take closer to 100 than 10 hours to do manually. Although to be fair that number would vary significantly from picture to picture and some would be below 10 hours as well. Painting is _really_ hard to learn... 




Tim_Wells said:


> No doubt it will improve over time, but I doubt it will be a major threat anytime in the next few years.


Artists thought that too... and now I predict the market for - just to give an example - painting (metal) album covers will shrink by at least 50% within 2 years or so. They'll come for composers too, it'll be sudden and likely unexpected, and one day something new will get released, and people will be generating their own tracks like they're generating an everflowing stream of pictures with stable diffusion right now.


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## Vlzmusic (Oct 17, 2022)

Laddy said:


> Maybe it is discussed/explained earlier in the thread, but why won't they? Is it easily detectable?


No, I mean buyers will use the software themselves to create that kind of music, thats the whole idea behind some segments going kaput.


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## handz (Oct 17, 2022)

It will take AGES before generated music will be any good. With images, it is way easier, and it is already at a level that it can be used as an illustration in articles etc but it is just because it learns from other artworks online and still image is way easier to recreate via AI than music. It will all be an issue one day as it really can replace need for buying artworks for commercial use in mags and articles online but it generates the content based on other works of real artists...


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Vik said:


> Will _computers_, using _artificial_ intelligence, be able to regularly write as good, touching, passionate or [insert any kind of musical 'feeling' here] as humans?



That question is whether humans will be able to. 

AI is coming, there is no stopping it, no matter how many jobs it kills...and it will kill many jobs in many fields...and no matter how sterile and dehumanized any form of AI generated art becomes.

We have already witnessed the massive dumbing down of art through digital media, without any AI whatsoever...just humans getting dumber as technology makes it easier to crank out mediocre junk that somehow the masses of people accept as good enough. A politician friend of mine had a political science professor that used to tell her "The masses are asses".. I got a good laugh out of hearing that but ever since then I have used the phrase a lot and frankly.. its true. The masses accept mediocrity as good enough and really it comes down to economics. When anything can be mass produced for less, it will not be hand made..and sure there might be some hand made things out there, but nobody will be using it because of the cost involved..they will simply accept the mass produced mediocrity. We can already see that happening today in all forms of art...including and especially including music.. There is some cool and interesting music out there, but for the most part, most people are drowning in an ocean of mediocre stuff that is quick and easy to make now.

In fact any talk of jobs at all when talking about art will be part of what kills it. You're talking about an economic factor, and AI will eliminate expensive humans from the process just as soon as the technology is good enough to bring a product that is good enough for the masses, whom are asses.

As to whether this will happen in the next 10 years or next 100 years, or not...(shrug)...nobody has a crystal ball, but personally I think its going to happen a lot more then most of us here would like, within our lifetime in a progressive fashion. And there is nothing that can stop it from happening at this point.

As a side note, I would personally love it if music AI were developed more along the lines of helping composers with the mundane tasks, freeing us up to create more efficiently, as some of posited here. I have dreamt of that for 30-40 years actually. However, I don't think that will happen. Not even a little bit. First its a very difficult task to approach as the audience is very small.... composers. As opposed to trying to use AI to generate actual music....listeners....the audience for that is HUMONGOUS. And so far the little attempts we have seen at AI oriented music software...has all been down that road...attempting to generate music....I don't see anyone getting into deep composer automation that would help composers. In the end, however, even if they did the outcome would not be any different...we would end up with an ocean of mediocre garbage...as that kind of software would just inspire even more musicians to skip music training, skip music theory, even perhaps in many cases skip needing to have much musical talent at all...because those tools would make it easy for any common person to sit down the compose music. If you think we're dying in a sea of mediocre music right now...just wait until those tools came out...it would be even worse.

But I rather suspect AI will be used to generate actual music....not composer assitance...because of larger audience and its actually an easier task really...and basically, while most of us want to think there is some magic that human beings use through their emotions to make music that no computer could possibly do...I think its wrong to think that. Humans already got bored with the emotional side of composing 100 years ago. We're already listening mostly to watered down derivative works....and AI will just be able to do all of that entirely more efficiently then humans could ever do it. This will happen. Sorry to see it happen, but it will. And the masses...which are asses...will be fine with it too.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

ps - we will have self driving cars too, that is coming way sooner then self-composing music...


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## GtrString (Oct 17, 2022)

I don’t feel anything about it. Zip, zero, zilch. No feeling at all.


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## Sophus (Oct 17, 2022)

handz said:


> It will take AGES before generated music will be any good. With images, it is way easier, and it is already at a level that it can be used as an illustration in articles etc but it is just because it learns from other artworks online and still image is way easier to recreate via AI than music. It will all be an issue one day as it really can replace need for buying artworks for commercial use in mags and articles online but it generates the content based on other works of real artists...


Deezer revolutionized the vocal extraction with their Spleeter stem separation model in October 2019. Since they are a streaming service they had access to "all" music to train their model. Today much improved models are available for free, so you can pretty much remix every song you like without issues. Music generation will probably come much faster than many people think.


Laddy said:


> Maybe it is discussed/explained earlier in the thread, but why won't they? Is it easily detectable?





Vlzmusic said:


> No, I mean buyers will use the software themselves to create that kind of music,


Hard to tell. But if a client wants the project files to edit the project, it can become a problem if the project was created by an AI. There is no real fine tuning possible because you always end up with finished content.




Dewdman42 said:


> In fact any talk of jobs at all when talking about art will be part of what kills it. You're talking about an economic factor, and AI will eliminate expensive humans from the process just as soon as the technology is good enough to bring a product that is good enough for the masses, whom are asses.


There is still the copyright problem. If the product is generated by AI, everyone can copy it legally. So nobody would be able to sell an AI based product exclusively.

I think AI created music would be really cool for streaming services. Just input your favourite song, band, genre and get nearly infinite variations while listening. But adding the generated content to a movie soundtrack would be problematic, since it can't be copyrighted. It's basically just useful for products that just exist at the moment of creation, consumption and then they disappear again into the void, like streaming music or videos.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

It will come as a shock to the human race to find out eventually that we are not as smart as we think we are. Humans seem to want to believe that there is some spiritual conciousness we possess that transcends all biology and technology...something none of the other animals of this world seem to have...only us. But that is an illusion. Computers are quickly becoming increasingly able to out-perform what we seem to be able to do with our minds now. This includes music. AI generated music will not be any more _pastiche_ then humans are doing already on their own.

My biggest concern is more about how humans will react to this. I personally think humans will become increasingly dumber, as technology takes over. Either that or we have to merge with the technology in some way. As Ray Kurzweil often talks about that subject, and calls it the "singularity". Here is an interesting recent interview with him and they get into this topic quite a lot



Anyway nobody has a crystal ball about how is this all going to play out. But it is playing out. We can see it happening and I don't see any way out of it. Best thing to do is just enjoy the process while you still can and be happy if anyone is willing to listen to your musical creations.

ps - and don't quit your day job.


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## MartinH. (Oct 17, 2022)

GtrString said:


> AI can never aspire to be more than pastiche. It can also not be even that.



This is genuinely untrue. Gaming AIs that are beating the very best human players have already come up with strategies that were considered "inspiring" by the human players. I believe the humans actually ended up copying some of what the AI did.

The notion that there are things AI will not be able to do better than humans eventually, is pure copium and hubris. Our brain hardware is fixed, theirs isn't.




Dewdman42 said:


> My biggest concern is more about how humans will react to this. I personally think humans will become increasingly dumber, as technology takes over.


We're headed for a future that looks like the movie Idiocracy...


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Sophus said:


> There is still the copyright problem. If the product is generated by AI, everyone can copy it legally. So nobody would be able to sell an AI based product exclusively.



You're still thinking the old way. Eliminating copyrights will not be a problem, it will be solution. It will make music essentially free.


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## Vik (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> As a side note, I would personally love it if music AI were developed more along the lines of helping composers with the mundane tasks


Agree, but that will take some time, since functions that (IMO) should be basic when editing compositions or orchestration are missing in many/most DAWs. 
I want my DAW to be able easily to what I can do with my hands, like inverting a chord (convert CEG to EGC>GCE etc), spread out chord notes (CGE instead of CEG),'collecting' chords... 

Also, DAWs should let me click through a sequence of piano notes and chords, and play either the full chord or note if I press a key command for next (or previous). 
And if I have selected, say, a G in a piano chord, I should be able to hear what the same chord would sound like with a G♯ instead – with one click. 
I also would like to have a key command for 'Go to next note' that would play _all_ the notes in the composition (on all tracks) along with the one I'm looking at. 

Maybe you think of other tasks, but I generally think music making software should improve our DAW process than trying to make DAWs somehow obsolete. These _is_ a lot of money that can be saved in TV/film if they can avoid using humans, especially composers who expect royalties and are members of organizations which takes care of that.


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## Vik (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> Eliminating copyrights will not be a problem, it will be solution. It will make music essentially free.


That's not a solution if a main income (and part of your contract/payment) is royalties.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

those kinds of things have been technically possible for decades and nobody has addressed it. I don't think they ever will. Part of the problem is that in all the various discussions I ever had over the past 30 years with other composers..it became clear in every case that absolutely no two composers could ever agree on what those kinds of helper functionality should be.

I think DAW makers tend to avoid those kinds of things because they almost never expand their marketshare that way, instead they would reduce their marketshare, while creating extremely loyal devotees to their approach...they would lose marketshare from some people that feel it is absolutely not the way they want to work. So DAW developers attempt to remain agnostic so to speak...make sure it works for the widest audience possible...which for them means more $$$.

There are a few labors of love out there where some developer decided to go out on a limb and make something that does what you're talking about in some way, and it usually has a small loyal and devoted group users, but never really gets mass wide appeal....which is an economic failure for the developer.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Vik said:


> That's not a solution if a main income (and part of your contract/payment) is royalties.


ok but you're assuming that you and other composers represent the main audience. We are but a tiny percentage of the general population. Free music will in fact be a solution for most of human beings.. Not for you...I hear you. Not for me either...but it still will be a solution to provide endless music...for free.... anyone needing music to accompany other other kind of thing such as video, or music in malls, or background music for just about anything...will rejoice at that solution.

Most of the world doesn't really care if musicians make any money or not or if copyrights need to exist in order for them to hear music. They don't care. When Ai can produce endless amounts of "good enough" music..essentially for free...that will be the end of anyone even thinking they can make any money at all making music..much less care the slightest about the existence of copyrights, etc.. music making as humans will become irrelevant.


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## Daniel James (Oct 17, 2022)

Lawsuits. Lawsuits everywhere. The music industry can be quite litigious. Blurred lines was apparently close enough to a Marvin Gaye song to be sued and lose....despite bearing very little resemblance to the track they supposedly copied. Now imagine 10,000 tracks a day all bearing the input 'Epic, Ostinato strings, Loud Horns, in the style of Hans Zimmer's Inception,' Most people can't think outside the world they already live in, and we are already saturated in certain areas. So the arguments over two AI pieces sounding the same will be interesting.

If a composer like Hans thinks their music was used to 'teach' the AI, you could make a good legal case for it copying your music. Most would usually retort 'but this is all humans are doing as we hear things, then emulate it to create something new', but I see it a little differently. We are not drawing _directly_ from the source of music we hear, we are analyzing the techniques, the musical context, the social context, but all done with our own lived experience which brings personal emotions into the work too....and AI is literally analyzing the copywritten musical recording to generate something similar, without understanding_ why _the content sounds that way, ...which to me is like buying a sample then manipulating it a bit and trying to sell it again as something original, which we already don't allow.

And people already have access to sheet music and midi, so one could already literally steal others work and move a few notes about. So I don't think an AI analyzing sheet and midi will be too much of a threat than we already have...its more than the notes, its all those things I listed above, plus the craft of making those notes all work properly together to get across the message you want to put out there.

Then as others have mentioned there will still be a divide between those who understand what they are doing and those who don't. I can't imagine AI composers having an easy time with notes from a director which are requesting specific mood, arrangement, and orchestration changes. Like if I tried to get a job as a graphic designer and only used AI, without the knowledge of photoshop and general creative artistic aesthetic, a client saying they 'like what you have but can we change these few elements within what you have already done' would be almost impossible because AI doesn't work with intent particularly well, so you would have to manually go in and make the changes...which without the skills will reveal your amateur craft.

I think the biggest downside of AI will, unfortunately, be the perceived value of music. When Midjourney became popular, how many of your social media platforms were flooded with 'Check out my cool new art' which was all 100% AI. Now when those people see some amazing art their brain will no longer be impressed or amazed, because to them "I can do that too". 

But yeah looking at how it will probably unfold will, I think, resemble what happened with platforms like Endemic sounds or various other royalty free sites. The low end market will be gobbled up by businesses providing 'AI tailored' scores. 

Its one of the main reasons I am focusing more now on my artistry and solidifying my own voice while I have the opportunity to. I feel like once everyone can sound like Hans with AI people will be looking for something new. I plan to be ready for that, even if it means less work now. Its also a lot more fulfilling. I would be more likely to hang a painting I did by hand on the wall, than hang a piece I generated with AI, even if its cooler than anything I would do, because I didn't create it. My art is a reflection of me. My aesthetic sensibility, my take on the world, And while AI can replicate that, it can't easily come up with it.

Anyways I'm not sure where I was going with any of that. But I am not any more worried than I am about it already. And I don't think it will happen overnight. Think how long samplers took to get it 'right' all the while we were slowly adjusting to the new ways. I imagine its going to be for us, how computers and samplers were for pen and paper guys. There will be a contingent who will forever see it as 'cheating' but most likely it will just become the new way, the skilled and talented will rise and those who refuse to adapt will fall. As is History.

-DJ


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## Vik (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> those kinds of things have been technically possible for decades and nobody has addressed it. I don't think they ever will. Part of the problem is that in all the various discussions I ever had over the past 30 years with other composers..it became clear in every case that absolutely no two composers could ever agree on what those kinds of helper functionality should be.
> 
> I think DAW makers tend to avoid those kinds of things because they almost never expand their marketshare that way, instead they would reduce their marketshare, while creating extremely loyal devotees to their approach...they would lose marketshare from some people that feel it is absolutely not the way they want to work.


I don't think DAW makers generally think there is one right way to compose or to edit, and frankly; no users would even notice if Logic in then ext version had 2010 key commands instead of 2000 unless they looked for it. Those who want to use menus or mouse or rerecording to perform those edits could do that for centuries even if the DAW has key commands, and the same is true for different kinds of key commands. None of us use all these key commands anyway, and I don't think many would argue against a DAW getting key commands that others have been missing for decades because they happen to not need them personally.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Vik said:


> I don't think DAW makers generally think there is one right way to compose or to edit, and frankly; no users would even notice if Logic in then ext version had 2010 key commands instead of 2000 unless they looked for it.


exactly my point. They care most about market share and development costs.


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## Vik (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> exactly my point. They care most about market share.


Sure, but they already have implemented many key commands that only a few users use or even are aware of. The ones that are missing the most, IMO, are these who lets us edit things as efficiently on a computer as we can do by changing the position of one of our hands – or fingers – on a piano.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Daniel James said:


> I think the biggest downside of AI will, unfortunately, be the perceived value of music. When Midjourney became popular, how many of your social media platforms were flooded with 'Check out my cool new art' which was all 100% AI. Now when those people see some amazing art their brain will no longer be impressed or amazed, because to them "I can do that too".



exactly! This is ultimately going to be the end result. People in fact will not be amazed about music nor be willing to pay much or any money for it. It will still be there, a mood setter for whatever task at hand, but not much else. 

Up until now there has been a fascination with it. A fascination that humans are the ones creating it and/or performing it. When that fascination is stamped out by computers making it a mundanely simple task that is freer then water...Then music will become not much more than something that plays in the background, something people let play in the background to distract them from life, to relax themselves..not much different then burning some nice candles in the house to smell lovely. For a lot of people music has already become that as streaming services have made it possible for people to just listen endlessly to whatever music comes up and its more of a brainless soundtrack for their life then anything else. 

and as you point out, the people that actually make music, won't even be nearly as driven to try to do so, to even become a musician to begin with. what's the point of spending time developing musical talent if its just something computers do easily and its all been figured out already. The intellectual fascination that drives many musicians to explore it all will be lost.

Anyway, this is depressing to think about as musicians, but its the inevitable eventual conclusion.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Vik said:


> Sure, but they already have implemented many key commands that only a few users use or even are aware of. The ones that are missing the most, IMO, are these who lets us edit things as efficiently on a computer as we can do by changing the position of one of our hands – or fingers – on a piano.


a few key commands does not represent substantial development cost. Attempting some kind of AI driven computer assistance work flows is an entirely different matter. Such things cost money to develop and potentially reduce market share rather then expand it. IMHO.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Oct 17, 2022)

Every time new technology is introduced, the same question arises.
And there are always some optimistic replies: people who think that the latest developments will actually make our professional lives better...
I am not.
Little by little, AI is replacing many of the jobs that used to require the work of a person.
Like some of the posts above, i am glad i am not in my twenties and trying to establish myself.
This goes beyond music, but do we really want to live in a world where we have been rendered optional?
Of course, personal artistic expression will still be a thing, but to be depending on a universal government subsidy to pay the bills, because most jobs are gone, is not something i am looking forward to.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

I personally think that within the next few decades the entire planet is going to have a massive crisis on this point actually. This is why Ray Kurzweil thinks the only path forward is the singularity, where humans and machines merge. Otherwise, humans will become entirely outdated.

but I feel the crisis is more likely...where basically so many people are put entirely out of work that we reach a problem of how to exist. For all of human history, as we know it, people have essentially had to work in order to eat, sleep and survive. We did this primarily by hunting, gathering, later farming, etc. Eventually other kinds of things became interesting and we could trade our skills or goods for food and shelter as needed. For the most part, the vast majority of people had to work to live.. and the vast majority of humans have done tasks...tasks which provided a way to p ay for their food and shelter....the vast majority have done tasks that can EASILY be replaced by AI and robots within the next 10-20 years.

(_and before you say, well humans will then move on to more advanced tasks, I think it needs to be said, that the majority of people do menial tasks for work because that is pretty much what they are capable of. I do not think the majority of people would have anything to offer society once AI and robots replace them. The masses are asses._)

So... what happens when that happens and suddenly billions of people are left without any payable role they can provide in order to pay for their food and shelter? Massive crisis is the most likely outcome really. Its quite scary actually. If AI is not handled in more of a more controlled and regulated fashion, that will become the outcome.

One can say that in the future the only possible realistic solution would for some government to basically give the vast majority of people food and shelter for free. But who pays for that and why would they? The delicate balance of having humans needing a purpose to work and earn their way through life will be lost, but there is no such thing as a free lunch.

After this crisis, perhaps Kurzweil is right..we will all merge with machines...and all humans will become smarter that way.


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## Sophus (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> So... what happens when that happens and suddenly billions of people are left without any payable role they can provide in order to pay for their food and shelter?


It's more likely to help billions of people to generate more income, like it happened for thousands of years when new tools got established.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Even after thousands of years, people are still mostly doing menial service oriented tasks which can all be replaced with AI an robots within 20 years. Sorry, I don't buy that argument. This time its different. There is an end to how far we can go automating our lives without entirely putting people out of work. We are going to hit a major crisis in the future because more than 50% of people are truly not intellectually capable of doing much more than menial tasks, all of which can easily be replaced by tech.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

and actually this process of elimination of people from relevance was started more then a hundred years ago with the industrial revolution. We have essentially done as you present, nudged people towards other kinds of tasks and opportunities...But just because we did that in the past does not mean we will be able to continue doing that indefinitely. Eventually, the tech is going to surpass us with critical mass of momentum. That day is coming with AI and robotics.

And I would also make the argument that our governments have kicked this can down the road for nearly a 100 years through various economic and fiscal policies, fiat currencies, business expansion, etc...all of which has a limit. Its not something that can expand indefinitely forever. Many economists are extremely concerned about the humongous bubble we have created for ourselves over the past 100 years...and that we are going to hit the wall eventually...possibly even pretty soon. There is no guarantee whatsoever that we are going to be able to keep borrowing our way out of it.

Add to that the possibility that humans are going to soon be outdated and replaced by computers...and its a crisis in the making of unprecedented scale. There is nothing like this that has happened in human history to date.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Oct 17, 2022)

Sophus said:


> It's more likely to help billions of people to generate more income, like it happened for thousands of years when new tools got established.


I heard the same argument when mp3 and streaming took over...and we got fucked


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## MartinH. (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> So... what happens when that happens and suddenly billions of people are left without any payable role they can provide in order to pay for their food and shelter? Massive crisis is the most likely outcome really. Its quite scary actually. If AI is not handled in more of a more controlled and regulated fashion, that will become the outcome.





Dewdman42 said:


> One can say that in the future the only possible realistic solution would for some government to basically give the vast majority of people food and shelter for free. But who pays for that and why would they? The delicate balance of having humans needing a purpose to work and earn their way through life will be lost, but there is no such thing as a free lunch.



The notion that a human has to _do work_ to _have value_ and be "worthy" of feeding is deeply deeply capitalist. We already could easily provide the people in western countries with literal "free lunch" with the absolute abundance of labour and resources that we have, if we redesigned the system so that money wouldn't endlessly accumulate at the top. We 100% have to move past capitalism or at the very least its current implementation. I'd hazard a guess that America will be a tad slower coming to this realization compared to Europe...


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## Sophus (Oct 17, 2022)

Patrick de Caumette said:


> I heard the same argument when mp3 and streaming took over...and we got fucked


By MP3 compression and streaming technology or by greedy corporations?


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## NekujaK (Oct 17, 2022)

As a creative musician and composer, AI music is of no consequence. I will keep making music for as long as I still love to do it. The existence of AI-generated music, no matter how sophisticated and brilliant, will never change that. The existence of Mozart didn't result in all other composers quitting.

As a working musician and composer, AI music could be problematic. For example, any one of the networks where I and other composers have placements, could decide to use AI-generated music instead, thus avoiding royalty payments, as well as owning the copyrights. If AI music is financially adventageous to networks and media companies, it will certainly happen and cause a significant loss of revenue at the "lower" echelons of production music.

Other more high profile music ventures (film scoring, pop records, etc.) won't be affected as much. Artists may use AI to enhance their work, but the human touch will remain an important component.

Ultimately, it will be to our advantage to learn to work with AI.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> The notion that a human has to _do work_ to _have value_ and be "worthy" of feeding is deeply deeply capitalist. We already could easily provide the people in western countries with literal "free lunch" with the absolute abundance of labour and resources that we have, if we redesigned the system so that money wouldn't endlessly accumulate at the top. We 100% have to move past capitalism or at the very least its current implementation. I'd hazard a guess that America will be a tad slower coming to this realization compared to Europe...



No. Humans have had to work to survive for hundreds of thousands of years... Modern day politics has nothing to do with it. Whether you are marxist or capitalist...a term created by marxists I should add, people have always had to work. In a society based on free trade or capitalism, this happens through trade, in a Communistic society the government forces you to do something. There is no free lunch. Most all communist societies either failed economically within a few generations or reverted back to adopting a hybrid capitalistic/socialized approach..and its still yet to be determined what their outcome will be. But it is still true that there is no such thing as a magical free lunch. Someone has to pay for it. Someone has to justify it. Unless you're talking about a god coming down from heaven and making sure everyone gets their free lunch, there is no human run organization that has ever succeeded in the long run to give out "free lunches" to the majority of people...its just not realistic to believe such a utopian state of being.

But if you want to bring up politics..something that will probably eventually cause this thread to be locked down I reckon....Marx has predicted the eventual crash of a capitalistic world already quite long ago...and I'm definitely not a marxist by the way, but on this point I think Marx was probably entirely correct. My main beef with Marx was that he endorsed and inspired violence that led to a lot of death and destruction in the past century. He gave "workers" a magical enlightened status that he believed they would do the right thing while capitalist business owners were categorically greedy and deserving of the violence. But in reality, workers cannot be trusted any more than their employers. While businessmen seek profit, workers seek slothfulness. If you let the workers have their way, they will lazy daze their way out of a functional society. Marx failed to identify that. Instead he focused on the employers, who were selfishly minded and would drive capitalism ultimately to a huge bubble according to Marx. But Marx was ignorant about people and their desire for laziness when given the opportunity to be lazy.

Many of his observations and criticisms about raw capitalism are in fact quite on point in terms of the fiscal policy that would break eventually. He thought it would happen sooner, we have kicked the can down the road for the past 100 years. This only backs up what I have been saying about a looming crisis.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Oct 17, 2022)

Sophus said:


> By MP3 compression and streaming technology or by greedy corporations?


big corporations are usually the ones developing new major technologies...and yes, greed is onboard.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Oct 17, 2022)

NekujaK said:


> other more high profile music ventures (film scoring, pop records, etc.) won't be affected as much. Artists may use AI to enhance their work, but the human touch will remain an important component.
> 
> Ultimately, it will be to our advantage to learn to work with AI.


Disagree.
The movie industry is already outputting a lot of low quality spectacle.
An AI score will fit the bill perfectly.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2022)

ThomasNL said:


> What I've learned so far from the Midjourney experience is that art is way more then just the result. I now see daily stunning artwork on Reddit from midjourney and while it amazes me that AI can do that, I just don't care anymore because it doesn't have a story behind it.
> 
> While an artwork created by a human being has the story of the artist, the 100+ hours it took to learn that craft and the 10+ hours to create the artwork.
> 
> So yes, there will be applications where that is not a problem, but in the end AI art will have way less of value.


Yes. And to be blunt, what I've seen isn't stunning at all, it's horrible! But it may just be what I've seen.

And I can say with confidence that neither Midjourney nor any other AI could possibly create the art that I do.

(www.NickBatzdorf.com)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> No. Humans have had to work to survive for hundreds of thousands of years... Modern day politics has nothing to do with it.


It does in the sense that robots = increased productivity (the number of man-hours it takes to produce something) = more profits.

If those profits are shared, we can all have an easy life while the robots do all the work; if ten people own all the robots while the rest of us starve, that's a very different outcome. We do have a choice.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

There will be no profits if there are no consumers with money to spend Nick.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. There are varying opinions about how to balance the use of resources, but it still boils down to the simple fact that nothing in, nothing out. Sooner or later it comes to that. Even if basic needs can be provided more cheaply like in Star Trek where food is free and people can just sit around philosophizing with Woopy Goldberg or exploring the stars......that is fantasy, not real life. Nothing in, nothing out eventually. Also don't underestimate the basic selfishness of human beings...which is wired into our DNA as a survival instinct.


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## Sophus (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> Humans have had to work to survive for hundreds of thousands of years... Modern day politics has nothing to do with it.


You know that working 70-60 or even more hours a week was introduced during the industrial revolution? Most of us today are likely to work around 35-45 hours. I've read that self-sustaining human groups, that still live the traditional way, gather and hunter style, don't need to work more than 20 hours a week to be able to survive comfortably.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Hey no argument there Sophus. I personally think human beings are not built biologically...including the way our mind works...to truly succeed at anything other then small hunter gatherer societies...or perhaps to the size of small Neolithic villages. We succeeded and survived in a consistent manner for hundreds of thousands of years that way. Modern day civilization and society has brought us a lot of interesting things including generally longer lifespans and all sorts of technology, but we're not truly wired for it...we end up fighting, arguing, going to war, killing our own people, abandoning our families and extreme ups and downs ever since. But we probably aren't going back to hunter gather tribes again...so it is what it is... we have to keep trying to figure out how to keep on keepin' on in larger societies now.


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## jonnybutter (Oct 17, 2022)

I have seen AI art and heard AI music and they both really sucked. The only people who believe that art is merely the trained manipulation of given ingredients are ppl who know nothing about it, people who can code but never bothered to learn about the civilization they think they are extending. I’m not reading this whole thread bc I don’t think there’s any controversy to discuss, at least not now. I am skeptical it will ever be anything other than polished shit, but I can’t predict the future. AI ‘art’ is one of those things that people do because they can, not because there is any good reason to do it.


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## Sophus (Oct 17, 2022)

Patrick de Caumette said:


> big corporations are usually the ones developing new major technologies...and yes, greed is onboard.


At least MP3 compression was developed by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, payed by the tax payer and later licensing income. What I like about German universities and research system, the results are available to the public, if the research was paid by the tax payer. That's why AI solutions develop so fast. All the major discoveries where basically made available free to the public, shared world wide. Basically, each new PhD thesis on AI brings new concepts for practical usage. Sadly, in a lot of other fields this isn't the case. It would be a huge step for humanity to have the same openness in medicine, agriculture, robotics, space travel. But it's mostly all hidden behind closed doors, patents and company secrets.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

In my view it should be heavily regulated. Perhaps its the inevitable conclusion that AI and robots will replace all workers and cause humans to have the easy life forever in the future. But in order to transition successfully to that kind of future, it will need to be done in baby steps, allowing society to adapt to it gracefully if possible. Otherwise there will be an economic and humanitarian disaster.


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## quietmind (Oct 17, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> I'd hazard a guess that America will be a tad slower coming to this realization compared to Europe...


Say more on what you see as current evidence for this. I'm thinking of relocating. Seriously.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> There will be no profits if there are no consumers with money to spend Nick.



Well duh. I'm only speaking in absolutes to make the point.




Dewdman42 said:


> There is no such thing as a free lunch. There are varying opinions about how to balance the use of resources, but it still boils down to the simple fact that nothing in, nothing out. Sooner or later it comes to that.



It all comes down to resources, in'it.

But we're talking about art. It's not food or shelter, but it's still a deep human need. Can robots provide that?

I say no.



Dewdman42 said:


> Even if basic needs can be provided more cheaply like in Star Trek where food is free and people can just sit around philosophizing with Woopy Goldberg or exploring the stars......that is fantasy, not real life. Nothing in, nothing out eventually. Also don't underestimate the basic selfishness of human beings...which is wired into our DNA as a survival instinct.



The intelligence to overcome the most basic animal instincts and see reason is also wired into our DNA, at least it's wired into mine. 

In any case, that's exsctly my point from a different angle. The reason it's a political issue is that we still have a system of government that - despite obvious failings - is designed to balance the needs of our whole society, not just the people who own the robots (aka "means of production").

Still, the political aspect of this is a separate category.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Oct 17, 2022)

Sophus said:


> At least MP3 compression was developed by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, payed by the tax payer and later licensing income. What I like about German universities and research system, the results are available to the public, if the research was paid by the tax payer. That's why AI solutions develop so fast. All the major discoveries where basically made available free to the public, shared world wide. Basically, each new PhD thesis on AI brings new concepts for practical usage. Sadly, in a lot of other fields this isn't the case. It would be a huge step for humanity to have the same openness in medicine, agriculture, robotics, space travel. But it's mostly all hidden behind closed doors, patents and company secrets.


Let's keep in mind that the military world-wide is one of the major players when it comes to AI development. It all remains secret. but the implications and possibilities are frightening.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Well duh. I'm only speaking in absolutes to make the point.



absolutes are not reality so point not made. hehe




Nick Batzdorf said:


> But we're talking about art. It's not food or shelter, but it's still a deep human need. Can robots provide that?



We have gotten a little off topic I admit, talking about much more than just art as pertains to AI in general. You responded to non-art related points. which do you want to talk about? If you conflate the two we will arrive at no understanding.

"art" is ceasing to be art as computers generate something akin to art that the masses accept as good enough. That has already started happening and will continue to happen. We are in denial as artists if we think otherwise.

In the past art has been part of human civilization and a way that humans have communicated deep human emotions and subconscious thought. As machines begin to create the same kinds of visual or audio stimulus, those forms of art will simply be drowned out...it won't be art anymore, humans will need to find another way to communicate their emotions and/or other deeply subconscious ideas.

An awful lot of listeners today do not get any emotional or sub-conscious meaning out of music anymore, its just a nice stimulus to enhance their day. Like it or not, mass production of this stimulus has devalued it to that already without even AI helping out. AI will continue to take it even further down that road.




Nick Batzdorf said:


> The intelligence to overcome the most basic animal instincts and see reason is also wired into our DNA, at least it's wired into mine.



I hear you. Unfortunately human history has shown that our basic animal instincts are still quite front and center. But I agree with you, it should be a many-generational goal of ours to figure out how to permanently rise above those instincts. We still have a long ways to go. 




Nick Batzdorf said:


> In any case, that's exsctly my point from a different angle. The reason it's a political issue is that we still have a system of government that - despite obvious failings - is designed to balance the needs of our whole society, not just the people who own the robots (aka "means of production").
> 
> Still, the political aspect of this is a separate category.



I'm not really sure how government discussions here needs to be involved or have anything to do with the discussion as I don't particularly think any currently known system of government has a solution to the issue at hand. Those of you that want to think otherwise, please go ahead and fight it out...I will not participate in that argument...I'm only saying...nobody has a solution that will provide free lunches indefinitely yet...and yes...due to AI...that may just be what will be needed...because people are about to be out-dated by machines and will have nothing they can provide to society other than a mouth to feed.


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## davidnaroth (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> people are about to be out-dated by machines and will have nothing they can provide to society other than a mouth to feed.


A weird but scary thought. AI definitely can take over and do everyones job better at some point. Then at that point, what is humanity going to do? What even can it do then?


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

Its new territory to see what humanity will do. Probably there will be some violence first.

Some people think we will eventually, merge with machines. The singularity is when we merge with machines instead of compete with machines. For example perhaps they will figure out a way to make people smarter by integrating our brains with computers more directly. perhaps this will lead to new ways for humans to be productive and have something to offer which machines still can't do...at least for a while. Nobody has a crystal ball but I personally think there will be crisis, violence, and in the long run, a smaller population. But hey...who knows... I don't think I am going to live long enough to find out where its going that far out. 

Anyway, Music...is just one tiny part of that whole picture. There is a lot of change coming to humanity in the coming decades due to this technology...changes which few can envision now and the people trying to envision it are making big guesses too. But this tech is going to seriously rock the boat in many many ways, that's all I'm saying....including music.


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## MartinH. (Oct 17, 2022)

Patrick de Caumette said:


> big corporations are usually the ones developing new major technologies...and yes, greed is onboard.


MP3 was invented by the Fraunhofer Society which is at least partly government funded according to wikipedia:





Fraunhofer Society - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org




It's not unthinkable to move more of R&D into state funded realms. Probably would lead to researching more actually useful stuff instead of commercially exploitable and addictive stuff too...
The interests of corporations and humanity are not only not aligned, they are in conflict a lot of the time. Corporations being drivers of technological advancement only means that systemically we are failing to focus the efforts of the smartest minds to benefit the most people. This is a very bad thing!




Sophus said:


> Most of us today are likely to work around 35-45 hours.


The only reason that became the norm is that they found out that if you make people work for longer, they are so exhausted you don't actually get more productivity out of them. The average job is on average as much as a human can bear...




Dewdman42 said:


> But it is still true that there is no such thing as a magical free lunch. Someone has to pay for it.


_After writing this and reading it back, let me preface my reply with "this came out somewhat more combative than it was supposed to be." We may disagree on some things, but I think generally we are on the same page and we both see where we are headed an we both don't like it. I'll have a beer now and I say cheers to you my friend! I shouldn't be spending so much time on here arguing, and this will be my last post here for today. _

Food doesn't come from money, it comes from work. We'll be able to offload increasing amounts of work to machines. We never had these kinds of options in the past. Many human jobs are essentially useless bullshit jobs already. There is some minimum amount of human work that needs to be done to ensure some humble living standard for everyone in a society, and that amount is only shrinking as automation technology improves. Right now we're making and consuming waaaaay more "stuff" than we need. Every consumer good that someone makes, that then someone else buys who could do without it - someone who does work to pay for it themselves - is just excess work that purely fuels capitalist consumerism in a pointles cycle. We could scale all that waaaay down. As an example: imagine a world without smartphones, just regular old dumb cellphones that work for 10 years. So much less e-waste, so much less rare earths mined to be converted to consumer electronics, no longer buying the latest model every x years, no apps, no tiktok, no nonstop distractions.... If you consider we'd still deduct the money currently spend on these (less actually) all those workers in those industries could just stay at home, and we'd just not have these devices. Our standard of living is unneccessarily high, it doesn't have to be this way, only the people profiting from it being this way are trying to make us think this is what we need. What we really need is more human connections - things we don't have time for because we're all so busy hustling to finance shit we don't need.

Also it's perfectly reasonable to keep an optional incentive structure in place to reward people enough for work, so that sufficient amounts of work are still happening. This all would be waaay more efficient, if not nearly every single transaction in our system also had to line the pockets of the corps or rich individuals. Nearly no thing is so streamlined to cost the minimum it would need to cost to break even. Most things are priced so that someone profits. Why does it have to be that way? This isn't a law of nature, we just allowed it to happen because it seemed a good idea at the time, but the times are changing.

That whole rich-get-richer scheme just has to stop. Nothing has made me more disgusted with our late stage capitalism than seeing for myself how ludicrously easy profiting off other people's work is when you have money of your own. I genuinely didn't come from a place of envy to my anti-capitalist leanings - quite the opposite, it's working fine for my own financials... And it has been a rather recent transition for me too. Just a few years ago I didn't see most of the many problems with it either. Everyone has to reach their conclusions there at their own pace. But I think it's nearly inevitable for most people. Just keep an open mind and open eyes and in a few years you might be saying similar things to what I've just said.

Cheers!



quietmind said:


> Say more on what you see as current evidence for this. I'm thinking of relocating. Seriously.


One word: healthcare. Seemed like many Americans oppose the kind of universal healthcare systems that other countries had as standard for decades. I'm from Germany, so I don't know too many details on how stuff works in the US, but the bits and pieces that we hear about here usually sound batshit insane compared to what we have. Same for cost of higher education. And Americans who come into contact with our system seem to think it's mind blowing how cheap these are here. Possibly the worst time to relocate to Germany right now (plus learning the language is hard), but maybe have a look at other EU countries? Or maybe the UK?


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## davidnaroth (Oct 17, 2022)

Did they ever actually form that AI Ethics committee?


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 17, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> _After writing this and reading it back, let me preface my reply with "this came out somewhat more combative than it was supposed to be." We may disagree on some things, but I think generally we are on the same page and we both see where we are headed an we both don't like it. I'll have a beer now and I say cheers to you my friend! I shouldn't be spending so much time on here arguing, and this will be my last post here for today. _



hehe no worries, I am not taking it that way.... Please don't take my replies as combative either.

in the end, I don't care what system you want to propose...nothing in, nothing out. Sooner or later you have to find some way to get everyone to work and produce, at least a little, or else the machine will dry up and everyone will starve. Or more likely they will start fighting over it long before then.

I don't care if you are talking about entirely socialistic or entirely capitalistic or anything in between..there has never been any system proposed that perfectly solves this problem. We can all rant and rave all day long about how long hours we work or out of control consumerism, or greedy corporations, or debt or the perils of socialism or whatever thing you want to fight and argue about, but in the end of the day, there is no system that will automatically provide free food for all in perpetuity. Somehow you have to get humans to be productive in some way and actually produce something against the resources they are consuming. Robots and machines will never make it all free and unlimited. They might make it free for a while, but eventually that free well will dry up unless people keep working and producing in some capacity.

If machines become so autonomous that they could on their own produce unlimited resources for people to live without anyone lifting a finger, for the highly protected population to then grow beyond any limits we can imagine now, etc.. people would STILL find a way to fight over it because of our basic selfishness to do so. not only that, but I think humans would in mass numbers fall into deep despair with very little to give them meaning in life. This would ultimately lead to violence also.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 17, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> absolutes are not reality so point not made. hehe
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, I was just responding to what you said about politics having nothing to do with it!



Dewdman42 said:


> "art" is ceasing to be art as computers generate something akin to art that the masses accept as good enough. That has already started happening and will continue to happen. We are in denial as artists if we think otherwise.
> 
> In the past art has been part of human civilization and a way that humans have communicated deep human emotions and subconscious thought. As machines begin to create the same kinds of visual or audio stimulus, those forms of art will simply be drowned out...it won't be art anymore, humans will need to find another way to communicate their emotions and/or other deeply subconscious ideas.


Or there'll be a backlash, in fact I predict that (and mentioned that possibility in the podcast I linked earlier).

But yes, I agree 100% that this is the central issue.

And good point about it no longer being art if it's produced by machines.



Dewdman42 said:


> An awful lot of listeners today do not get any emotional or sub-conscious meaning out of music anymore, its just a nice stimulus to enhance their day. Like it or not, mass production of this stimulus has devalued it to that already without even AI helping out. AI will continue to take it even further down that road.



I think it's a matter of degree. Even animals respond to music on some level.

But I basically agree again.




Dewdman42 said:


> I hear you. Unfortunately human history has shown that our basic animal instincts are still quite front and center. But I agree with you, it should be a many-generational goal of ours to figure out how to permanently rise above those instincts. We still have a long ways to go.



Yes.



Dewdman42 said:


> I'm not really sure how government discussions here needs to be involved or have anything to do with the discussion as I don't particularly think any currently known system of government has a solution to the issue at hand. Those of you that want to think otherwise, please go ahead and fight it out...I will not participate in that argument...I'm only saying...nobody has a solution that will provide free lunches indefinitely yet...and yes...due to AI...that may just be what will be needed...because people are about to be out-dated by machines and will have nothing they can provide to society other than a mouth to feed.


Well, I hope I'm wrong to include AI "art" in the same category as any other productivity - as far as I do.


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## Ivan Duch (Oct 17, 2022)

Daniel James said:


> Its one of the main reasons I am focusing more now on my artistry and solidifying my own voice while I have the opportunity to. I feel like once everyone can sound like Hans with AI people will be looking for something new. I plan to be ready for that, even if it means less work now. Its also a lot more fulfilling. I would be more likely to hang a painting I did by hand on the wall, than hang a piece I generated with AI, even if its cooler than anything I would do, because I didn't create it. My art is a reflection of me. My aesthetic sensibility, my take on the world, And while AI can replicate that, it can't easily come up with it.


Completely share that conclusion.

As soon as I saw what Midjourney could do with art. I thought to myself, alright, time to dig deeper and find my own voice, because the generic-sounding market is going to be run by AI from now on.


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## jonnybutter (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> ps - we will have self driving cars too, that is coming way sooner then self-composing music...


We’ve been hearing this for many years already. Self driving cars (outside of the highway) are absurdly difficult to do, and frankly not worth doing at this rate of difficulty, IMO. How about we stop designing the world around individual private vehicles? Having done that (in earnest) for about 75 years is the mistake we need to correct, not reinforce.


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## Vik (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> There will be no profits if there are no consumers with money to spend Nick.


Since music now easily can be sold across the planet, there are more people who generate a good income from streaming and online sale. The last Spotify revenue info I saw was €10 billion, and Apple Music, YouTube, Tidal and others are also doing well. These companies could reduce the profit greed a lot and still have a healthy economy, and with better access to international sales for most of us, I wouldn't be worried that consumers won't be able to spend money on music or streaming in general, but when AI-created Music will be better than today and more widespread, we are risking that musicians and composers will have trouble making enough money (more than today), while the owners of the AI code will be the real financial winners.




Nick Batzdorf said:


> If those profits are shared, we can all have an easy life while the robots do all the work; if ten people own all the robots while the rest of us starve, that's a very different outcome.


This. And even if they would make all the music free for consumers, musicians and songwriters/composers would lose their income. It could take a decade or two, but since so many are happily listening to music which sounds computer generated today (even if it is mainly made by humans), the same people will possibly be happy with a lot of the AI-generated music too.


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## JohnS (Oct 18, 2022)

So in the face of the depreciation of recorded/transmitted (and played who knows by whom?) music, the only thing remaining to be really appreciated (meaning: feeding the musicians) would be live music? Back to roots?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Oct 18, 2022)

To merge, or not to merge: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous employment options,
Or to take arms against a sea of neural networks,
And by opposing end them?


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## Vik (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> Some people think we will eventually, merge with machines.


That's so last decade. 








The merging of humans and machines is happening now


The director of DARPA writes exclusively for WIRED on the merging of humans and machines




www.wired.co.uk




The new big thing is to remerge with nature!


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## cmillar (Oct 18, 2022)

JohnS said:


> So in the face of the depreciation of recorded/transmitted (and played who knows by whom?) music, the only thing remaining to be really appreciated (meaning: feeding the musicians) would be live music? Back to roots?


Right...I've been preaching this for a few years.

Live music is what must be preserved. It's more important to compose and perform and create live music events now more than ever. 

Even if it doesn't make you monetarily wealthy. It makes you far 'richer' through your contributing to humanity.

Live music is far more important than having yet more 'composers' just trying to keep imitating each other... all in service to trying to place some library music that sounds just like all the other zillion pieces of library music that already exists...and all of which is getting replaced by AI 'creators' creating content for the corporations (or the wanna-be corporate individuals).

Sadly, many music content creators have never played any live music with other humans and don't even play an instrument. They just know how to cut and paste loops and pre-composed music.

So... keep it live. That's what music is actually about.

Those of us that 'can do live music' need to focus on that more than ever.


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## GtrString (Oct 18, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> This is genuinely untrue. Gaming AIs that are beating the very best human players have already come up with strategies that were considered "inspiring" by the human players. I believe the humans actually ended up copying some of what the AI did.


It is untrue how I feel? That was the question, so I don't think it can be. I would even add that rather than being untrue it is too obvious, as my comment should not be controversial at all.

Art is genuinely about intent, learning and showing people something unique that you would not be able to see without the artist. Music is defined by human qualities, it is adding to ongoing human discourse and cultural conversation. It is not music just putting a few theoretically correct chords, melodies and rhythms together, because that doesn't necessarily resonate with human emotion. That just doesn't cut it.

Can you have AI's do game music, production music ect. Sure, often that's all they need. These music users don't want or need uniqueness and artistic intent. They want pastiche, legal copies, of cliches and whatnot. Can an AI beat the music production qualities of other works, sure why not - but the music isn't about correct numbers milliseconds of difference in a delay tail. Music lovers don't care much about those technicalities. Many AI dudes confuse quantities with qualities.

So sure you can offer additional understandings, and manipulate everything, and even have this accepted in mainstream culture. But for me, nope, it can never happen because it is theoretically not possible.

I do not see any point in accepting a flushed out definition of music that isn't about cultural resonance and contribution. I think we will need to develop a definition for AI generated music in particular, to separate it from human musical efforts. The media might embrace it, but everything about current media is 1% content and 99% about budgets anyway, so AI music will fit right in and contribute to water out media even further.

The ridiculousness of AI music will be apparent soon enough, so on a positive note, I might suspect that AI music might lead to music regain it's status as fine art, and restore it's value as unique offerings, because we can make mistakes and make them sound great. But we will have to go through decades of stupidity to end up with conclusions we've made decades ago, like so many other things these days.

Like Ravi Shankar once said, I wish it was possible to say things like music, without music, but it isn't. Introducing AI will not help any of us to say it better, only deprive more people from an opportunity to use the language of music and make it even harder for people to understand what can be said only through music. Devolution is real.

That's how I feel about it
AI-generated music just around the corner: How do you feel about it?​


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## cmillar (Oct 18, 2022)

GtrString said:


> Can you have AI's do game music, production music ect. Sure, often that's all they need. These music users don't want or need uniqueness and artistic intent. They want pastiche, legal copies, of cliches and whatnot. Can an AI beat the music production qualities of other works, sure why not.


Exactly.

'They'... (the muti-media conglomerates and other networks around the world)... want 'Content'.

Not music. 'Content'. Something to help sell their product.

And that has nothing to do with art or feeding the human soul.

Visual artists and photographers have been going through the same problem as musicians.

Anyplace where art, music, and photos are only referred to as 'content', you know that the 'bean-counters' are in control. They're not really very fun people.

They deserve AI generated content, because that's really what the vast majority of 'they' are looking for. And 'they' really can't tell the difference between art and 'content'. Most of them are too far-gone down the rabbit hole of commerce and instant-gratification to know or care less about real art.

So, we've evolved to the point where 'creators' create something 10 seconds long for Tik-Tok, where 'composers' create 10 - 30 seconds of content for reality shows in which all the music is totally interchangeable, and where film composers are mostly just trying to imitate each other.

(...there are some rare exceptions, for sure.)

I think we can all agree that there is enough generic library music out there in the world already to last for a few hundred years without ever repeating a piece. And yet, most of it all sounds the same. That's an incredible amount of content for AI computers to digest and regurgitate.

Seeing as this forum was inspired by VI instruments in the first place, I say we should get back to using our VI instruments in the service of creating some real music. Sure, call me a hopeless romantic.

VI Instruments can do far more than just be in service to creating content for the feeding of AI algorithms.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

jonnybutter said:


> We’ve been hearing this for many years already. Self driving cars (outside of the highway) are absurdly difficult to do, and frankly not worth doing at this rate of difficulty, IMO. How about we stop designing the world around individual private vehicles? Having done that (in earnest) for about 75 years is the mistake we need to correct, not reinforce.


regardless of whether you think they are an absurd idea or how much I will personally miss driving......, they are coming.


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## jonnybutter (Oct 18, 2022)

Vik said:


> Since music now easily can be sold across the planet, there are more people who generate a good income from streaming and online sale. The last Spotify revenue info I saw was €10 billion, and Apple Music, YouTube, Tidal and others are also doing well.


Spotify and some others are worst of all worlds because _they_ don’t make money and neither do most of the artists they stream. A neat trick! The FUTURE.

I have mixed feelings about the deprofessionalization of music. On the one hand, aspiring to professionalism, to high bars, is just a good thing to do. Getting good criticism, and having a more focused stage/arena/frame are important too. Pressure is good, at least for lazy people like me. But there are many bad things about professionalism that we all know. Gatekeeping of course. Artificially restricted market.

If the recording business had kept investing like they did in the 60s and 70s, when it was relatively easy to get signed, the business might be in a more stable position now. But the geniuses who took it over late 70s-80s killed that goose. Short term greed, same as now. “You see, Poindexter, if I put rare coins in the gumball machine, I may lose value tomorrow, but today..GUMBALLS!!”

On the other hand, deprofessionalization, (i.e. virtually anyone can do it and virtually no one will notice), can also be good and bad. Bad when the problem is nothing to say, i.e.* having all the tools and nothing to say*; it’s the age of Gang Vocals singing “OO-WAYYYY-OOO-WAAY”. [I’m exaggerating to get the point across, but pop music really is remarkably empty and banal right now]. Also bad in that a musician has to do it on the side instead of concentrating harder on it, even if they’re really good. It should not be so impossible to make a living as a musician, as it is now, for a small or midline act. Assuming there is such a thing as a midline act.

But DIY is good in the sense that the floor can be raised. More people doing it - in the hundreds of millions - could mean more of the good kind of competition: competition to be excellent.

I respectfully disagree with Dewdman that struggling for survival is either a value unto itself, nor similar in kind to the struggle to express oneself, for example like an artist does. The struggle to survive is just the beginning of the world, not the end. If I’m misinterpreting, sorry, but those seem to be the implications of what you were saying. 



Dewdman42 said:


> regardless of whether you think they are an absurd idea or how much I will personally miss driving......, they are coming.


I didn’t really mean it was an absurd idea, just that self driving cars _off the highway_ will be very very difficult to do in a way that‘s acceptable to pedestrians/bikes, and worth the infrastructure, etc. needed to make it work. Maybe they are coming (I’m sure you know better than I), but ppl like Elon have been saying they are for quite a while and still No Va at the moment. (“Nova:” a little US car humor - it means “no-go” or “won’t work” in Spanish 😁). 

BTW, I am originally US midwest and was practically born in a car, knew all the car makes/years by sight when I was a kid, etc etc. I now live in a place where I don’t have to drive at all (except occasional rental) and if I never drove a car again that would be fine with me (keep your hands off my ebike though!). But whether I like driving or not, I think car _culture_ was a big mistake. I understand the appeal, esp in the 20th century, but planning everything around cars was a bad move we shouldn’t compound now. My opinion only. Cheers.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

jonnybutter said:


> I respectfully disagree with Dewdman that struggling for survival is either a value unto itself, nor similar in kind to the struggle to express oneself, for example like an artist does. The struggle to survive is just the beginning of the world, not the end. If I’m misinterpreting, sorry, but those seem to be the implications of what you were saying.



I'm not sure what you're saying about struggling to survive being a value...I was not inferring any particular values...only making objective observations of reality and predictions of outcomes. What exactly are you referring to? Please don't quote me without actually quoting me.




jonnybutter said:


> I didn’t really mean it was an absurd idea, just that self driving cars _off the highway_ will be very very difficult to do in a way that‘s acceptable to pedestrians/bikes, and worth the infrastructure, etc. needed to make it work. Maybe they are coming (I’m sure you know better than I), but ppl like Elon have been saying they are for quite a while and still No Va at the moment. (“Nova:” a little US car humor - it means “no-go” or “won’t work” in Spanish 😁).



They are coming because of economics. Robotics. First it will be that truck drivers will be replaced. Little by little they will figure out the details that makes it safer and better for everyone to give up their sense of control by driving their own car and allow an automated system to get us all to our destinations more efficiently and safely. A few people will still drive their own cars for nostalgic reasons, but most people will take the easier route of letting cars take over. Once all cars are networked and talking to each other, etc.. even in busy city streets it will not be any problem at all and AI safety will far exceed that of humans. It is coming, like it or not. I hear you, I have another friend that doesn't believe its possible also, but guess we just have to wait and see.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> regardless of whether you think they are an absurd idea or how much I will personally miss driving......, they are coming.


Autonomous driving has been overhyped like crazy. It will happen, but to be more than a convenience it's going to require that every car be self-driving so they can communicate with each other.

I've been driving a Tesla for a year, so this isn't an arbitrary opinion. And we didn't spend the extra $12,000 for the "full self-driving" software (which can't even be transferred if you sell the car!) - I'm saying this based just on auto-follow and auto-steer.

Human drivers - decent ones, anyway - do things computers don't know about many times on each trip, for example changing speed in anticipation of what you think someone else is likely to do.

Bringing this back to AI music, I suspect a similar amount of hype. You're not going to AI any of the great music that we all listen to.

That doesn't mean it won't take over a lot of what musicians have been getting paid to produce, but no computer is going to record Court and Spark.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Human drivers - decent ones, anyway - do things computers don't know about many times on each trip, for example changing speed in anticipation of what you think someone else is likely to do.



This is the kind of thing that AI will figure out and far exceed human capability within 10 years.

I know its hard to believe that computers can figure out how to make music...but AI's will in fact figure that out. Hopefully not in our lifetime.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> I'm not sure what you're saying about struggling to survive being a value...I was not inferring any particular values...only making objective observations of reality and predictions of outcomes. What exactly are you referring to? Please don't quote me without actually quoting me.


Unfortunately, that's true. It doesn't have to be, but the patterns are far too entrenched.




Dewdman42 said:


> They are coming because of economics. Robotics. First it will be that truck drivers will be replaced. Little by little they will figure out the details that makes it safer and better for everyone to give up their sense of control by driving their own car and allow an automated system to get us all to our destinations more efficiently and safely. A few people will still drive their own cars for nostalgic reasons, but most people will take the easier route of letting cars take over. Once all cars are networked and talking to each other, etc.. even in busy city streets it will not be any problem at all and AI safety will far exceed that of humans. It is coming, like it or not. I hear you, I have another friend that doesn't believe its possible also, but guess we just have to wait and see.


Last-mile trucks may have a hard time with that, but going from one depot to another on a highway, sure. AI works well when the conditions are predictable.

And that applies to art and music too. But it doesn't have a human perspective.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> This is the kind of thing that AI will figure out and far exceed human capability within 10 years.
> 
> I know its hard to believe that computers can figure out how to make music...but AI's will in fact figure that out. Hopefully not in our lifetime.


Music, sure. It won't be great, but mediocre music, sure.

What you're saying about driving, no. It will happen, but read my last post. Not in ten years.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Unfortunately, that's true. It doesn't have to be, but the patterns are far too entrenched.



I have no idea what you are referring to now.




Nick Batzdorf said:


> Last-mile trucks may have a hard time with that, but going from one depot to another on a highway, sure. AI works well when the conditions are predictable.



You are speaking present tense. In a few years or ten the technology will make it all possible, even the last mile trucks and even without every car being automated.

Anyway, we just have to wait and see now. You have your opinion I have mine.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> You are speaking present tense. In a few years or ten the technology will make it all possible, even the last mile trucks and even without every car being automated.
> 
> Anyway, we just have to wait and see now. You have your opinion I have mine.


I'm speaking about the limits of technology, period. Cars need to be able to communicate with one another for it to work well.

My opinions are always correct.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

By the way, I claim the right to steal your line about it not being art if it's produced by a machine. And I will pretend I was the one who came up with it.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I'm speaking about the limits of technology, period. Cars need to be able to communicate with one another for it to work well.



I disagree with your assessment, but we're going in circles now I think.



Nick Batzdorf said:


> My opinions are always correct.


Claro!


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> By the way, I claim the right to steal your line about it not being art if it's produced by a machine. And I will pretend I was the one who came up with it.


be my guest...

Yea, well I guess we have to define what is the meaning of "art". I view art as being something more significant then visual or auditory stimulation. I view it as a means by which human beings have communicated ideas for thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of years if you include cave art. But that doesn't mean all music is actually "art". Some of it is. An awful lot of it is nothing more than stimulation that sometimes affects the emotions. Is that still "art"? Different people may have a different meaning for the word. Art has been used to communicate emotion and subconscious ideas for a long time. I'm not saying its not possible for AI to learn how to communicate deep ideas in a way that transmit to human beings....could AI literally learn how to communicate to humans through forms of art? I think so yes its possible, but a long long long ways off. A computer can't yet replicated the receptor side of receiving art and interpreting it the way a human would. So it can only make guesses at how to communicate via art based on the responses from other humans. It will take AI a very very long time, to ever each any kind of ability through machine learning to make sense out of that at a deep level.

There are AI's now getting better and better at holding stimulating discussions with people via text, but they are really still a ways off, they haven't completely reached the point yet where someone can eventually tell its an AI talking to them. But they are improving and will figure out how to read in between the lines and all the rest.

As AI systems are fed with more and more input from humans while trying things, they will learn. Machine learning will eventually figure out what kinds of statements trigger certain emotional responses from humans...They will connect people up to computers more and more via various means for various reason and machines will learn as they listen to our body's electrical, chemical and neuron responses to things which are viewed, heard or sensed.

If your idea of art is something else...just the idea that the best melodies and harmonies and emotionally moving sequences of notes cannot be created out of thin air by a computer..... Well that I disagree...they are going to figure that out possibly in our lifetime, but not soon. Just my opinion. I personally don't think music is that much magical voodoo. Its all pretty clear cut for me, but maybe I'm underestimating my own deep musical sense...because truthfully there are lot of people out there that couldn't write a brilliant melody to save their life...so...why that is exactly I have never understood, it has always just come easy and natural to me. I can't see any reason why a computer couldn't learn how to do it too. But I'm quite certain that when I write my melodies I am guided at least partly by my own emotional response as I do it, so...that is where AI tech has a lot to learn through machine learning...human's emotional response to stimulation will make them smarter and smarter about it...the same way we do all manner of tests on mice, rats and other animals and attempt to guess at how they are responding to stimuli....AI will do the same thing through machine learning while being hooked up to humans and/or observing our responses.


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## rpaillot (Oct 18, 2022)

handz said:


> It will take AGES before generated music will be any good. With images, it is way easier, and it is already at a level that it can be used as an illustration in articles etc but it is just because it learns from other artworks online and still image is way easier to recreate via AI than music. It will all be an issue one day as it really can replace need for buying artworks for commercial use in mags and articles online but it generates the content based on other works of real artists...


I agree; AI generated music is another thing compared to mid journey.

midjourney uses a neural network trained from a gigantic database of artworks from real artists. That’s why it is so good.
it’s nothing less than stealing intellectual property to me.
Without the real artists, no midjourney.

for music a neural network can’t really train when hearing a simple stereo audio file. It can deduces the key, the chords (if they are easy ) but can’t really hear a specific instrument.

even if it listens to terabytes of musics.

to do a better job It would need the primary material : midi files, scores, or audio stems to really make a good work. Even better it would need terabytes of film composers DAW projects (read until the end …)
But how an AI is going to generate an audio file at the end ?
Is it going to use its own samples ? or use samples from its terabytes music database composed of stereo mixes of songs and maybe stems of music ?
people will quickly recognize « oh that’s my audio samples in that ! Oh that’s my voice in this … » and this would quickly leads to strong legals issues.

so yeah, about the IP issues, we absolutely need to protect it as media / film composers. I heard some concerning stories about some streaming platforms asking the composers to also deliver the cubase / logic projects. very Dangerous to me.
We don’t know what they are going to do with this IP. training an AI ?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

rpaillot said:


> I agree; AI generated music is another thing compared to mid journey.


The details of how it works, yes. But when you step back, the concept is the same: the machine is doing the work.

Now, you can also use AI-generated ideas as a starting point. Olivio Sarikas, one of the participants in our podcast, uses Midjourney to create backgrounds.

That doesn't seem to be how people are using it, though. And he's very enthusiastic about the whole concept, which is why we invited him to join in the discussion.




rpaillot said:


> midjourney uses a neural network trained from a gigantic database of artworks from real artists. That’s why it is so good.



But is it so good?




rpaillot said:


> it’s nothing less than stealing intellectual property to me.
> Without the real artists, no midjourney.


True.

But another but: you can argue that without the human input, music is the same way way. It's all human - the machine exists because of the human.

This is a point that Jim Aikin makes at the end of our podcast conversation (which I linked above and I wish more people would listen to - not because of the clicks, but because between the four of us we say some interesting things).




rpaillot said:


> for music a neural network can’t really train when hearing a simple stereo audio file. It can deduces the key, the chords (if they are easy ) but can’t really hear a specific instrument.
> 
> even if it listens to terabytes of musics.
> 
> ...



You can teach it the "rules" of music, just like we learn them.

One difference is that good musicians are able to learn them and then forget them, as the saying goes.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> You can teach it the "rules" of music, just like we learn them.



AI will eventually come up with new rules of music that are far more complex and detailed then any music theory that we have ever come up with before as humans.



> One difference is that good musicians are able to learn them and then forget them, as the saying goes.



This is the essence of the most difficult part for AI development to advance in order to make music that can be fully appreciated. I believe when we learn the rules and then "forget them", we really aren't forgetting them, but we are putting our focus back to our emotions and instincts.. The theory we learned over years or decades is still there and still affecting whatever we do even if its just habitual patterns we tend to go to often and go down a certain road of exploration or whatever...its all there, we're always using it, but in order to be in touch with our emotions we turn it off, a bit, so that our own internal producer can guide the results in ways we do not fully comprehend.

That is all fair, but in the end, I think a computer AI could actually keep track of exactly what causes what emotions to happen, a lot better then we can. We can only think of a few things at once, a computer can think of hundreds or thousands of things at once. its only a matter of time before machine learning is able to observe our emotional responses to musical stimuli and comes up with a set of musical rules far more complex than has ever been realized by humans...and in fact that advanced musical theory would probably be far too complicated for any human to be able to use in any practical manner because our little brains couldn't handle it. But a computer could handle it and would in fact learn how to make music that will cause us to respond emotionally in ways we always have to some music that came from a person listening to their intuitive senses. 

People may even come to eventually appreciate machine created music more than anything by humans. It would not surprise me if a new fascination with what machine intelligence can create as music may even make it a thing of interest that propels it forward while everyone becomes bored once and for all with petty little musical creations created by people.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> That is all fair, but in the end, I think a computer AI could actually keep track of exactly what causes what emotions to happen, a lot better then we can.


Then we're in Westworld.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

That is certainly an interesting piece of sci fi that attempted to address a number of philosophical questions about advanced future AI.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

There is still always the ever present question about whether there is an actual spiritual nature to our conciousness that transcends our biology...coming in some way from the universe at large. That is a question of faith as we have no real proof about it...but... If there is more to our consciousness then our mere biology...then all bets are off... But if it it turns out to be basically just advanced biology driving us...then its really just a matter of time until machines can be built that far exceed our mental capacity, computers are already exceeding us in numerous things.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

Strong vs. weak emergence.

Bottom line, it doesn't really make any difference whether the soul of humanity is biological or external. Producing worthwhile art is just as difficult either way, and - as the saying goes - there are no shortcuts.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

ah well, I don't see it that way. If we are connected to some universal conciousness in some way, then our intellectual capability is quite literally limitless... But our biological brain is very very limited... There is a huge difference in potential between the two.

The ironic thing is that many people cannot conceive of how a computer could possible be able to do what humans do...but our inability to understand how that is possible is ironically exactly a demonstration of how limiting our intellectual capacity actually is! 

Computers will in the not too distant future have the capability of exceeding whatever our finite number of neurons are capable of. Then it will just be a matter of programming them through machine learning or otherwise.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> ah well, I don't see it that way. If we are connected to some universal conciousness in some way, then our intellectual capability is quite literally limitless... But our biological brain is very very limited... There is a huge difference in potential between the two.
> 
> The ironic thing is that many people cannot conceive of how a computer could possible be able to do what humans do...but our inability to understand how that is possible is ironically exactly a demonstration of how limiting our intellectual capacity actually is!
> 
> Computers will in the not too distant future have the capability of exceeding whatever our finite number of neurons are capable of. Then it will just be a matter of programming them through machine learning or otherwise.



Our individual intellectual capacity is pretty well established, at least its range is. We're not all equally capable - just as some race horses and some guitarists are faster than others - but as a practical matter we can only work with the cards we've been dealt.

Computers already exceed our capabilities in some areas, but as Michio Kaku says, at this point they don't have the intelligence of a cockroach in others.

Whether you're right about the last sentence... I doubt it, but it's certainly possible. If so, it's not happening this lifetime or next.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 18, 2022)

I like mixed metaphors just like I like mixed drinks.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2022)

computers will definitely reach hardware level superiority over our brain within the next 10 years.



programming them to do everything our brains can do now will take some time.


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## jonnybutter (Oct 18, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> Please don't quote me without actually quoting me.


Fair. Sorry. Will revisit.


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## gyprock (Oct 18, 2022)

Latest announcements from the Stable diffusion folks:


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## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 19, 2022)

gyprock said:


> Latest announcements from the Stable diffusion folks:



52 minutes, I think not. But if you want to send a robot to report back, that would be fine.

The robot needs to be programmed to explode as soon as he says "disruptive" or "democratize."


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## Thundercat (Oct 21, 2022)

Honigdachs said:


> Personally, I don't give a damn. AI-generated music is only something for people whose intelligence is lower than that of the AI. It's just like AI-generated artwork or those movies that are done 90% in front of a green screen. It's all high gloss garbage. So yeah. I can make a living doing many different things, but AI will never be able to make music like I do.


I dunno bout that.

Here's some AI generated "crap" that I "created" using one of the text-to-picture AI's out there.

Yup, just utter crap.


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## Honigdachs (Oct 21, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> I dunno bout that.
> 
> Here's some AI generated "crap" that I "created" using one of the text-to-picture AI's out there.
> 
> Yup, just utter crap.


Yeah, it's nice to look at, but never meant anything, came from nobody and was not the result of someone going through the transformational process of being artistic. So what's the use, where's the need?


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## Thundercat (Oct 21, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> I personally think that within the next few decades the entire planet is going to have a massive crisis on this point actually. This is why Ray Kurzweil thinks the only path forward is the singularity, where humans and machines merge. Otherwise, humans will become entirely outdated.
> 
> but I feel the crisis is more likely...where basically so many people are put entirely out of work that we reach a problem of how to exist. For all of human history, as we know it, people have essentially had to work in order to eat, sleep and survive. We did this primarily by hunting, gathering, later farming, etc. Eventually other kinds of things became interesting and we could trade our skills or goods for food and shelter as needed. For the most part, the vast majority of people had to work to live.. and the vast majority of humans have done tasks...tasks which provided a way to p ay for their food and shelter....the vast majority have done tasks that can EASILY be replaced by AI and robots within the next 10-20 years.
> 
> ...


The canary in the coal mine here is economics.

We don't HAVE to use money. We don't HAVE to "pay our way" as humans - this is an artifice that greed demands.

There are other models for human existence that would not fuel this dire and rapid decline into obsolescence that everyone seems to think we are heading for.

This doesn't HAVE to happen. We can change the game, and I posit, that's the ONLY thing that will "save" us, if we need saving.

We seem to have this ingrained idea that we have to pay for anything/everything we get or have access to, and it's just not true. It's a great program that keeps us in the tiny mindset of contributing to our capitalist overlords, but it is an artifice nonetheless.

And no I'm not advocating communism. There's a model for economics called Ubuntu Contributionism, aka "the gifting economy," where everyone just gives their talents/gifts way, and it does work.

But only insofar as there are no overlords squashing it. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we still have kinds and queens and those that need to rule.

THEY are the problem.


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## Thundercat (Oct 21, 2022)

Honigdachs said:


> Yeah, it's nice to look at, but never meant anything, came from nobody and was not the result of someone going through the transformational process of being artistic. So what's the use, where's the need?


Disagree. It means a lot to me. And it will mean a lot to others who don't have an axe to grind as you do.


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## Thundercat (Oct 21, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> No. Humans have had to work to survive for hundreds of thousands of years... Modern day politics has nothing to do with it. Whether you are marxist or capitalist...a term created by marxists I should add, people have always had to work. In a society based on free trade or capitalism, this happens through trade, in a Communistic society the government forces you to do something. There is no free lunch. Most all communist societies either failed economically within a few generations or reverted back to adopting a hybrid capitalistic/socialized approach..and its still yet to be determined what their outcome will be. But it is still true that there is no such thing as a magical free lunch. Someone has to pay for it. Someone has to justify it. Unless you're talking about a god coming down from heaven and making sure everyone gets their free lunch, there is no human run organization that has ever succeeded in the long run to give out "free lunches" to the majority of people...its just not realistic to believe such a utopian state of being.
> 
> But if you want to bring up politics..something that will probably eventually cause this thread to be locked down I reckon....Marx has predicted the eventual crash of a capitalistic world already quite long ago...and I'm definitely not a marxist by the way, but on this point I think Marx was probably entirely correct. My main beef with Marx was that he endorsed and inspired violence that led to a lot of death and destruction in the past century. He gave "workers" a magical enlightened status that he believed they would do the right thing while capitalist business owners were categorically greedy and deserving of the violence. But in reality, workers cannot be trusted any more than their employers. While businessmen seek profit, workers seek slothfulness. If you let the workers have their way, they will lazy daze their way out of a functional society. Marx failed to identify that. Instead he focused on the employers, who were selfishly minded and would drive capitalism ultimately to a huge bubble according to Marx. But Marx was ignorant about people and their desire for laziness when given the opportunity to be lazy.
> 
> Many of his observations and criticisms about raw capitalism are in fact quite on point in terms of the fiscal policy that would break eventually. He thought it would happen sooner, we have kicked the can down the road for the past 100 years. This only backs up what I have been saying about a looming crisis.


No, there is free lunch. Most just aren't willing to share.

It very much comes down to, if we would simply share and share alike, there would be plenty for everyone and no need for money.

Yes, it really is that simple.

But human greed will never allow it.

We don't "have" to work - but we do because we subscribe and submit to a system that tells us we must, so we go along with it.

But is an artifice, a construction of mind and power, and has nothing to do what what "has" to be.

Sadly you will be proven right, as those in charge will never acquiesce or release their power, but it is on us that we go along with it.

The world CAN be a beautiful and easy place if we would allow it.


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## Thundercat (Oct 21, 2022)

Honigdachs said:


> Yeah, it's nice to look at, but never meant anything, came from nobody and was not the result of someone going through the transformational process of being artistic. So what's the use, where's the need?


In fairness to your comment, it sounds like you feel that art only has value if there is a story to it?

I really don't mean to sound condescending; I felt you were being very dismissive of a basic fact: we all respond to art in our own way, for our own reasons.

I personally don't need to know the story of the artist, or understand their struggle, or their transformation, to appreciate what I perceive as art. If it moves me, it moves me.

That's all I'm saying.

For you, it sounds like that's important. Fair enough.

I respond based on my own feelings, and I really don't care if an AI made it, or a frog. That doesn't make me uncouth, it just makes me human.

I respect your point of view.

Mike

PS - if you want "story," there is still story to even the art I posted. It may not be as glamorous as the story of a real person, but there is my human story as to how I came up with the ideas behind the art, the many (many!) iterations I did because a lot of them were crap, the surprise when I found some that were lovely...you get the idea. Peace.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Oct 21, 2022)

There's so much going on, check out this amazing place full of A.I. tools. Simply astounding:





Pollinations.AI


Generate Art




pollinations.ai


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 21, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> No, there is free lunch. Most just aren't willing to share.
> 
> It very much comes down to, if we would simply share and share alike, there would be plenty for everyone and no need for money.
> 
> Yes, it really is that simple.



No its not. Someone has to pay for any lunch that is shared or not shared.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 21, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> The canary in the coal mine here is economics.
> 
> We don't HAVE to use money. We don't HAVE to "pay our way" as humans - this is an artifice that greed demands.



You are conflating issues. The existence of money is irrelevant. nothing in, nothing out. That is the point being made. SOMEONE has to do some work and produce something else eventually there will be nothing left to consume. Whether money is used or not to exchange goods and services is irrelevant.



Thundercat said:


> We seem to have this ingrained idea that we have to pay for anything/everything we get or have access to, and it's just not true. It's a great program that keeps us in the tiny mindset of contributing to our capitalist overlords, but it is an artifice nonetheless.



Someone has to pay something or produce something through work. Nothing in, nothing out eventually.



Thundercat said:


> And no I'm not advocating communism. There's a model for economics called Ubuntu Contributionism, aka "the gifting economy," where everyone just gives their talents/gifts way, and it does work.



ah kay, then we agree after all. nothing in, nothing out. that's all I was trying to say. If someone has to work, or "contribute" to keep it going...then its not free.


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## Thundercat (Oct 22, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> No its not. Someone has to pay for any lunch that is shared or not shared.


No, they don’t.

Only in our artificially constructed society. It’s called simply sharing what you have.

No one “has” to do anything.

It’s beliefs like this that keep us stuck in the quagmire we are in, believing fairy takes that support our self imposed prisons.


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## Thundercat (Oct 22, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> You are conflating issues. The existence of money is irrelevant. nothing in, nothing out. That is the point being made. SOMEONE has to do some work and produce something else eventually there will be nothing left to consume. Whether money is used or not to exchange goods and services is irrelevant.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Agreed.

I speaking to the conceit that money has to change hands for society to roll.


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## Thundercat (Oct 22, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> You are conflating issues. The existence of money is irrelevant. nothing in, nothing out. That is the point being made. SOMEONE has to do some work and produce something else eventually there will be nothing left to consume. Whether money is used or not to exchange goods and services is irrelevant.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No I am not confusing the issue, you are not understanding my point.

And apparently I wasn’t understanding yours.

No worries it’s all good.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 22, 2022)

There is always a cost. You don't like assigning money to the exchange, but nothing is free, absolutely nothing. Someone has to work for it, create it or pay for it, its all the same.

If the "haves" give away all that they have, eventually they will run out. Then everyone will be "have nots" together. Nothing in, nothing out eventually.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 22, 2022)

The ironic thing is that all this nonsense talk about free lunches comes from over 100 years of frustration caused by the industrial revolution which is still playing out. AI and Robotics will be the final conclusion of the industrial revolution, reducing the value of workers to near nil. if you think capitalist pigs control the world now, just wait until they don't even need workers.


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## R.G. (Oct 22, 2022)




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## Thundercat (Oct 22, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> There is always a cost. You don't like assigning money to the exchange, but nothing is free, absolutely nothing. Someone has to work for it, create it or pay for it, its all the same.
> 
> If the "haves" give away all that they have, eventually they will run out. Then everyone will be "have nots" together. Nothing in, nothing out eventually.
> 
> There is no such thing as a free lunch.


I still don’t think you understand what I was saying (which is fine who cares).

Yes, we humans need to work to obtain food etc, I agree completely.

What I’m saying is our current system is a system of economic enslavement. You never own anything because you pay rent to governments in taxes (fail to pay they take your house - that’s not ownership).

The life of the modern human is one of perpetual rat race to pay pay pay. This is what doesn’t have to be.

While AI will take most jobs, we do not need to be dependent off governments for UBI or living stipend that is a poverty wage. 

We can simply WORK (yes I said work) and give the fruits of our labors to each other - limitlessly.

This is wealth. This frees us from the “threat” AI poses to our jobs and livelihoods. This creates interdependence and freedom.

Capitalism was never going to work.

Now of AI takes over and decides to push the button because humans are superfluous?

I can’t help you there. Rage against the machine.


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## Ivan Duch (Oct 22, 2022)

Today I found this on my feed. It's quite long but brings some interesting points to the table. In particular the whole copyright thing (AI using copyrighted material) and how the companies behind it protected themselves with clever schemes.

I wonder if at the end of this whole thing we'll have even more centralized economic powers, as the companies behind AI overtake human activity.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 22, 2022)

That will be the inevitable outcome.


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## smellypants (Oct 22, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> Today I found this on my feed. It's quite long but brings some interesting points to the table. In particular the whole copyright thing (AI using copyrighted material) and how the companies behind it protected themselves with clever schemes.
> 
> I wonder if at the end of this whole thing we'll have even more centralized economic powers, as the companies behind AI overtake human activity.



Great video!

I hope all these things get ripped down... Before its too late!


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## Thundercat (Oct 24, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> The ironic thing is that all this nonsense talk about free lunches comes from over 100 years of frustration caused by the industrial revolution which is still playing out. AI and Robotics will be the final conclusion of the industrial revolution, reducing the value of workers to near nil. if you think capitalist pigs control the world now, just wait until they don't even need workers.


Sadly, we agree 100%...Have you seen the film Obsolete?


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## Thundercat (Oct 24, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> I still don’t think you understand what I was saying (which is fine who cares).
> 
> Yes, we humans need to work to obtain food etc, I agree completely.
> 
> ...


It's rather telling that the one post that actually solves the whole issue and point of this thread, has no reactions or responses altogether.

We simply aren't willing, as individuals, or societies, to do things for each other are we?

This will be our downfall - NOT because of AI or corporate greed, but because of our own greed and shortsightedness.

Mike


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 24, 2022)

Like it or not, that is our human nature, we will not ever be anything else in our current biological form unless maybe perpetually drugged


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## Thundercat (Oct 24, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> Like it or not, that is our human nature, we will not ever be anything else in our current biological form unless maybe perpetually drugged


I don't like it, and part of our nature is adaptation and change. If a system suppresses or causes stress to the majority of society, it can be changed, end of. If it was designed by humans, it can be changed by humans.

Or we can all give up and just whine and moan here that computers are going to take our jobs. And they will. And then we'll have UBI and poverty wages and control like never seen before in the history of history.

Really, our unwillingness to see the bigger picture will make what's coming entirely, 100% our fault. I don't agree it inevitable and we'd have to be drugged to do any differently.

You are basically saying we are biologically designed for this system, which is nonsense.

We don't have to agree to this system, en masse.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 24, 2022)

The system is a _result_ of our biological nature and yes we have to work with what we have and this is our nature. Every attempt to create utopian worlds has failed because our nature will not conform to that over all as a people. What I am saying is not nonsense. I understand your frustration with our nature, but this is just a fact of life. Do you want the blue pill or the red pill?


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## ptram (Oct 24, 2022)

Considering how idiotic is most of the human-created music we listen at the radio today, artificial intelligence can't be but an improvement.

Paolo


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## Thundercat (Oct 24, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> The system is a _result_ of our biological nature and yes we have to work with what we have and this is our nature. Every attempt to create utopian worlds has failed because our nature will not conform to that over all as a people. What I am saying is not nonsense. I understand your frustration with our nature, but this is just a fact of life. Do you want the blue pill or the red pill?


I think we can just agree to disagree here - I do NOT believe the capitalist system is an outgrowth of our biology - it's not written in our DNA is it? It is not the only system that has been tried, is it?

Yes it's human nature to take advantage of systems and to be greedy, but it also very much part of human nature to be generous and to share - or it would not be a thing would it?

So do we create systems that cater to, and promulgate, the greedy aspects of our nature, or do we create systems that utilize the best versions of ourselves?

Both can be argued to be an inherent aspect of who we are; it's up to us to choose.

I very much disagree with giving up and just saying "that's how it is" - you have not given me a red pill, you've given me your opinion, and it is very much not fact. It is how you see it.

Fair enough, I like you and I like your posts, so I'm going to use my ability of fair mindedness to simply say, "agree to disagree."

That's what civilization is all about.

And just one more thing - if our current systems were really written in our biology as you say, then why don't we have gladiator societies and public killings and hangings? If I understand your viewpoint, then any progress we've made in the last 1000 years would not have been possible.

I believe in progress and I am not going to simply moan about how bad things are when they can be better. I will be rowing the boat and bailing, not complaining it's wet and cold.

PS - the alternative are NOT just "socialism" or "communism" - there are MANY other kinds of societies that have worked, including Ubuntu Contributionism aka "the gifting economy" - it WORKS. The only reason you don't hear about it much is because the folks in charge don't WANT anything to change in a meaningful way - because the system works great for them. They have NO INCENTIVE to make ANYTHING different because the real criminals are not behind bars, they are holding office and making decisions behind the scenes, "like it or not" that's how it is, and THAT is a true red pill.

And again, just to be clear - Ubuntu Contributionism isn't a concept, it's a functioning economic/societal system that is actually used successfully in Africa. This is not Ivy Tower haranguing, this is a perfectly functioning economic model.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 24, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> I think we can just agree to disagree here - I do NOT believe the capitalist system is an outgrowth of our biology - it's not written in our DNA is it? It is not the only system that has been tried, is it?



Capitalism, Marxism, and every other system that has existed to date is a result of our biology. They are the result of human thinking and action and they have brought us to various results...so far nothing has ever succeeded perpetually without some pain and suffering along the way sooner or later.

Part of our human nature is that we are corruptable. You can brainwash a few people religion and idealism to rise above their nature, but you will never be able to fool everyone into that. Its just not in our nature. Believe as you wish though.

Civilization as we know it has had pros and cons...good and bad...all based on our biological nature which drives human behavior and always will. Yes it has brought law and order in many cases, but it has also brought war and domination. The only way to end it is to dominate and suppress the entire population so that they discontinue living according to their true nature. Otherwise each new generation will be born with the same DNA, the same corruptability and the same human behavior. History has repeated itself this way for thousands of years.

This is becoming a tiring discussion and way off topic..


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## smellypants (Oct 24, 2022)

ptram said:


> Considering how idiotic is most of the human-created music we listen at the radio today, artificial intelligence can't be but an improvement.
> 
> Paolo


Probably true, but if it takes away our ability to make a living making silly music... Is that a good thing?


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## marius_dm (Oct 24, 2022)

The way I see it, music is a language. It is used for communication. So how does an algorithm know what to communicate? You have to tell it what to communicate if it is to be useful for a purpose. How does it know where you need a build up and where it needs to be a down chorus for a certain emotional effect? You will have to tell it to do that.
Or that might be learned by the algorithm from the context also, which is fine, you can oversee the process and give feedback. So it might be very useful to remove the need for doing the tedious work (like detail orchestration, etc). But some people enjoy doing that kind of work.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 24, 2022)

smellypants said:


> Probably true, but if it takes away our ability to make a living making silly music... Is that a good thing?


I think for a good while...hopefully and probably for our lifetime...the emergence of music AI may motivate humans to stay ahead of AI...to write music that is better then what AI can do and maybe better then what we have been doing a lot of lately as humans. But we shall see.


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## Thundercat (Oct 24, 2022)

Dewdman42 said:


> Capitalism, Marxism, and every other system that has existed to date is a result of our biology. They are the result of human thinking and action and they have brought us to various results...so far nothing has ever succeeded perpetually without some pain and suffering along the way sooner or later.
> 
> Part of our human nature is that we are corruptable. You can brainwash a few people religion and idealism to rise above their nature, but you will never be able to fool everyone into that. Its just not in our nature. Believe as you wish though.
> 
> ...


No, it's really not off-topic - if we changed the way we worked as a society, then the whole AI taking over our jobs problem - the central tenet of this entire thread - would be moot. And you can believe all you want that capitalism is just due to our nature, or consider there is something more in Heaven and Earth Horatio.

Do you want to look at the forest or the trees?

Let's agree to disagree and move on to other aspects of this topic, which only exist because we as humans refuse to consider something different than our societal programming, by our overlords, would allow.


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## gsilbers (Nov 9, 2022)

This field is evolving fast but the op video and many here are looking at text to music sort situation but AudioLM algorithms seems to differ a bit; they grab existing material and create whole new composition based on a snippet. 



AudioLM



This is what i believe some or one company is doing in the music library space and its asking composers to submit their track to create many soundalikes of their track so they can profit from the variations. 
Im not too sure all the details but im sure theres no free lunch and its a feed the learnig algorithm for future products. 

The current AI music generators suck big time and will not replace composers anytime soon, but i could see this type of Ai making more impact. 
If these new AI is using snippets of your music then im uessing royalties would be in order. Yet somehow my suspicion lies on big tech bros just screwing us yet again.


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## Mike Fox (Nov 9, 2022)

AI is crazy.

I used to hire artists to create artwork for my music. I probably spent thousands of dollars on it.

This changed recently with AI art generators, and I have been using them to replace the artists i used to hire.

What’s crazy is that not only would most people never guess that the artwork was AI generated, but I actually sometimes prefer what AI has done VS the people I’ve hired, and guess what? It’s a tiny fraction of the price.

The downside with AI is that you can’t always get exactly what you want. If tiny details and specific details are what you’re after, then an actual artist would be better.

But even AI can mimic artist styles, and produce results that surprise you in ways that make you realize that your original idea actually wasn’t as good as you thought, and you go “Wow! I actually like this better.”

So while I don’t think AI generators for music are nearly as good as AI generators for art work, it really is only a matter of a very short time before they’re fully realized, and become a threat to composer’s jobs, especially at the small scale/independent level (where most composers are).

A lot of artists are already feeling threatened by AI. Musicians will be feeling similar very soon.


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## Thundercat (Nov 9, 2022)

Mike Fox said:


> AI is crazy.
> 
> I used to hire artists to create artwork for my music. I probably spent thousands of dollars on it.
> 
> ...


I posted two or three posts here to this effect, but got shot down hard.

I agree with you 100%.

Thing is, I think most ppl on this thread don't want to admit what's coming.

It's not hard to see...


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## Mike Fox (Nov 9, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> I posted two or three posts here to this effect, but got shot down hard.
> 
> I agree with you 100%.
> 
> ...


It’s a tough pill to swallow, for sure.

I mean think about it. You’ve spent your entire life perfecting your craft, only to be replaced by a form of automation so advanced that not only can it do what you do, but it can do it at lightning speeds. AND! People with little to basic computer skills will be able to produce it. That’s a terrifying thought!

The kicker is that this is already happening in the art world. Artists are already being replaced by AI technology, not on a grand scale or anything, but I do think it will inevitably become more and more common, especially as people who don’t possess any art skills develop an understanding of just how easy it is to create professional looking art with just a few prompts. Instead of turning to an artist for hire, people in need of some artwork will turn to software that makes the entire process a walk in the park. Music will be no different.

AI technology is also evolving as we speak, and it’s undeniable that technology in general evolves exponentially. Apply that concept to AI, and like you said, what’s coming is not hard to see.


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## Thundercat (Nov 9, 2022)

Mike Fox said:


> It’s a tough pill to swallow, for sure.
> 
> I mean think about it. You’ve spent your entire life perfecting your craft, only to be replaced by a form of automation so advanced that not only can it do what you do, but it can do it at lightning speeds. AND! People with little to basic computer skills will be able to produce it. That’s a terrifying thought!
> 
> ...


Every time I see this brought up in a thread, someone posts a link to the latest AI music plug or service, then everyone laughs nervously in response, it's never going to replace a human they all say.

No, they will, 100% - way sooner than most think! The big library houses will no doubt already be researching and funding this, and it's only a matter of time until as you say, anyone with basic computer skills can generate music - and sometimes amazing music - with a few clicks.

That does not bode will for our art, nor does it bode well for humanity.

Some have argued, every time tech disrupts the old ways, there are new jobs and positions that are created, always.

While I agree with this up to a point, there is a limit - at some point, there won't be that much else for the regular Joe or Jane to do. That's why UBI has been suggested and if anyone can't see there's a limited span for human labor in almost all academic fields, they aren't paying attention.

There will always be a need for highly creative talented people for bespoke projects, in all fields, and sometime this will be seen as a luxury.

Which leaves us with the looming question, what is the average person going to do to make a living in this capitalist society?

I have also suggested an answer to this, which was also not well received, but it simply comes down to cutting out the use of money altogether and simply sharing our gifts with one another.

This model does work in societies; it's not just an Ivory tower suggestion.


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## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

I see AI evolving in all artistic fields. I can envision digital entertainment being produced and personalized for the users. Like, "AI, I just broke up with my girlfriend, check out our message history and her pictures and write me a full music album about her, while we are at it, produce a movie as well." 

I mean, we're far from it, but wouldn't be surprised if we arrive there at some point. I don't think we'll be able to compete with AI when it comes to entertaining people, at least in the digital realm. The ads have become quite implacable, imagine a world of self-generated, custom-made entertainment.

It can go wrong in so many ways...

In the meantime, I decided to keep on writing music and enjoy it while it lasts. If I get to see the day when I can't make a living out of it, I'll switch to whatever is available and keep it as a loved hobby and craft, for my own pleasure.


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## MartinH. (Nov 9, 2022)

Some artists have spoken out against these AI art models that are trained on scraped image data from artists that never consented to this. And some people are specifically training finetuned models (based on stable diffusion) on artwork by such artists, _explicitely to spite them _and package up their style in a roughly 4gb big file that people who run stable diffusion at home on their gaming GPU can use to generate an endless stream of images "in the style" of that artist. This is coming for composers too...

Hans Zimmer won't be out of a job, but all the entry level composers that mimic his style will lose those last low-budget gigs that they can do to AIs that produce music *"*in the style of Hans Zimmer*"* (giant airquotes).

Edit: On the bright side, there is already a class action lawsuit running against using scraped data to train AIs on. It's related to using source code to train a coding assistant AI without honoring the licenses under which the code was released.


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## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> Every time I see this brought up in a thread, someone posts a link to the latest AI music plug or service, then everyone laughs nervously in response, it's never going to replace a human they all say.
> 
> No, they will, 100% - way sooner than most think! The big library houses will no doubt already be researching and funding this, and it's only a matter of time until as you say, anyone with basic computer skills can generate music - and sometimes amazing music - with a few clicks.
> 
> ...


I've read your thoughts on everyone sharing their skills for free. I think it could work, if everyone takes care of the stuff nobody wants to do but has to be done. Like cleaning, producing food, and a long etc, etc.

In my eyes, society nowadays relies on a system not too far from slavery for handling that sort of tasks. Yes, yes, we all have free will, but maybe not so much as we think, and there are a lot of people without many choices on the table, that's for sure.

Maybe robots will handle all of that, and we live in Utopia, but I have a feeling it's too good to be true.


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## Thundercat (Nov 9, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> I've read your thoughts on everyone sharing their skills for free. I think it could work, if everyone takes care of the stuff nobody wants to do but has to be done. Like cleaning, producing food, and a long etc, etc.
> 
> In my eyes, society nowadays relies on a system not too far from slavery for handling that sort of tasks. Yes, yes, we all have free will, but maybe not so much as we think, and there are a lot of people without many choices on the table, that's for sure.
> 
> Maybe robots will handle all of that, and we live in Utopia, but I have a feeling it's too good to be true.


I hear you and agree.

It would be interesting for you to check out the book Ubuntu Contributionism by Dr. Michael Teller. He describes this kind of society and how it actually works in Africa.

No model will ever be perfect, but some models other than our current system could also work. But the elites won't like it; it destroys the slavery system.

Yes agreed, there are still shit jobs like cleaning toilets etc, and perhaps as you say there's a way to have these done by robots...

Done by robots...along with everything else...


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## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> Edit: On the bright side, there is already a class action lawsuit running against using scraped data to train AIs on. It's related to using source code to train a coding assistant AI without honoring the licenses under which the code was released.


I'm a bit skeptic about artists being able to stop it using the courts of the world. I think the end consumers will want this to happen (same way as we musicians are already using AI-generated art), they'll be the majority and they'll be unstoppable. 

Also, what an amazing tool for the big corporations and politicians already running the show.


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## Thundercat (Nov 9, 2022)

Another concept worthy of rethinking is "ownership" and what that really means. To me, ownership means control, nothing else. Because we truly own nothing; we come in with nothing and we leave with nothing (physical anyway). So what does it really mean that we "own this car" etc.

The old ways have gotten us thus far, but new thinking is required if we are going to move forward as a human family with a system that supports us, each one of us. That is going to be met with a ton of resistance and perhaps guns from those who "own" us and are in charge of society as we know it.

I can't see it being pretty. But things have got to change - starting with people opening their minds to new ways of living and new models for economies. Just saying capitalism is good for me is what keeps us all stuck.


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## José Herring (Nov 9, 2022)

AI will just force us to be artist again and create something unique that has something to say. Of all the AI music I've heard none of it yet was at all convincing. I'm not saying that it can't do it some day but even if it did, can it replace a real personality? Will it create new art or just regurgitate old art into something new. 

Yes, shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta may benefit from generic music. But, no AI is going to convincingly do the score to Once Upon a Time in the West or Bladerunner, or Blackrain or Inception or Tenet. Scores that actually rise above just being a collection of notes and have something to say. Music that communicates human to human.

Will it someday score a trailer, sure, it already has. Most of that music is commercial production polish anyway. Will it replace unique voices like Ennio Morricone? Nah. Morricone could sit down at his desk and create something new, simple, sincere and beautiful that perfectly matched the mood, timing and pacing of the movies he scored.

So at this junction going forward we need to ask ourselves, are we going to be the next copy cat regurgitating already existing music because it's the soup du jour or will we create something on the edge of tomorrow pushing music forward? If we chose the former patch AI will catch up. If we chose the next path forward AI will have to catch up if it can.


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## Thundercat (Nov 9, 2022)

José Herring said:


> AI will just force us to be artist again and create something unique that has something to say. Of all the AI music I've heard none of it yet was at all convincing. I'm not saying that it can't do it some day but even if it did, can it replace a real personality? Will it create new art or just regurgitate old art into something new.
> 
> Yes, shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta may benefit from generic music. But, no AI is going to convincingly do the score to Once Upon a Time in the West or Bladerunner, or Blackrain or Inception or Tenet. Scores that actually rise above just being a collection of notes and have something to say. Music that communicates human to human.
> 
> ...


I like your optimism.

AI will close the gap - it will be able to produce so-called emotional music too.

And it will do it well enough that the average person won’t know it. As has been mentioned, it’s already well underway in the art world.

It does return us to a fundamental question - why do we make music, or listen to it? 

I do believe it comes down to basic human expression, and connection. I doubt an AI robot will sit in a cafe and sing and tell jokes.

I personally make music because I love it. I just love it! And that may ultimately be what saves the art. People making music to connect with other people.

But movies, TV, music for the masses, a lot of it will be all done via AI.


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## Ivan Duch (Nov 9, 2022)

I think the main question is, will people be able to listen to these composers at the vanguard of self-expression? 

Or will they just be too busy consuming whatever crap the AI produces JUST for them or following the latest trend? 

Because, how many people are listening to Morricone today instead of listening to the latest trendy crap production companies might be regurgitating? Same with cinema, how many people are consuming experimental and artistic movies instead of the latest formulaic superhero movie?

Will human art still exist? Surely! Will it be better? Maybe for the creators and a reduced amount of people who have the luck of being exposed to it in a world where the easiest and most tempting thing will be to consume the latest thing the AI produced considering the latest trends and the best mind hacks available. 

Feeds are already over-saturated with music, illustrations, movies, videos, etc, etc. AI will saturate them even more.

I can foresee some rebel souls rejecting digital content at some point and going back to enjoying a good concert.


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## Mike Fox (Nov 9, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> Every time I see this brought up in a thread, someone posts a link to the latest AI music plug or service, then everyone laughs nervously in response, it's never going to replace a human they all say.
> 
> No, they will, 100% - way sooner than most think! The big library houses will no doubt already be researching and funding this, and it's only a matter of time until as you say, anyone with basic computer skills can generate music - and sometimes amazing music - with a few clicks.
> 
> ...


Down the rabbit hole we go.  

I’m not sure if I have any real convictions of the potential ramifications of AI on society, especially since it’s all so new, and we’ve yet to really live through it (aside from what we know of automation). 

AI is uncharted territory for the most part, and there’s so much experimentation going on, it’s really difficult to say what the _overall_ outcome will be, though I can sympathize with anyone who thinks the outcome will be bleak. It’s certainly one outcome I haven’t ruled out. 

But going back to the skeptics,

There will always be naysayers who scoff at technologically progressive ideas, especially ones that may interfere or disrupt their livelihood. 

I’m sure factory workers of old quickly dismissed the notion that their job could be replaced by a machine. Nonetheless, it did happen. 

And the argument that AI won’t pose any real danger to jobs, or is simply a novelty all because of the somewhat archaic state that AI music tech currently resides in, well I think that’s an obvious fallacy, and those people are severely underestimating the speed at which technology evolves. 

As long as there are AI engineers pushing the boundaries with this tech, the end result will be similar to what we’re already seeing in the art world. 

My personal conviction is that it won’t take too long to crack the code.


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## José Herring (Nov 9, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> I like your optimism.
> 
> AI will close the gap - it will be able to produce so-called emotional music too.
> 
> ...


I guess I'll have to believe it when I hear it. I've paid a lot of attention to AI music since highschool in the 80's believe it or not. This stuff has been around for a long time at the university level and it has just never been that convincing. As a matter of fact it has gotten worse over time as the music that it gets fed to learn from has gotten worse over time. 

Now the difference is that anybody with a computer can go on a website and generate it. This is a new twist in the last 4 or 5 years. AI generated artwork is different because it's static. AI has a really hard time with things that are moving and require judgement. 

I do agree it will replace some TV, almost all Youtube Vids, almost all Radio music, TikTok and some lower budget movies. It will make it harder for people to get started but I don't think it will "all be done" with AI. I kind of believe that if that were the case it would have already happened because though we talk about AI music like it's something new, in truth some form of it has been around since the mid 70's. And even as long as 20 years ago there was some AI composition and arranging going on that I'd bump into from time to time on the lower budget film circuit. 

What will happen sooner rather than later is AI generated hit radio. Given the generic state of pop music these days, an AI can do no worse that's for damn sure.

Maybe the saving grace will be for us to become even more self produced. That way we can control the message and tailor every aspect of the music creation and production to our own vision which should be uniquely our own. People around here maligned Billie Eilish and her brother but I was inspired. They made it to the top of the charts not sounding like anything else on the planet. It was just them in their bedroom taking over the world. Why? Because it was human to human connection that was unique to them.

If I'm optimistic it will be in the belief that the overly commercial music that's massed produced will give way to music that is more personal and unique. That mankind will rediscover his soul in the arts and not just go for the lowest common denominator in music.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 9, 2022)

Get weird. I’m gonna go back to my Electroacoustic roots! The bots are going to be trained on the mainstream stuff. I’m re-amping all my solo instruments, keys, synths. I’ve resurrected an old Zoom recorder, and I’m going to do some sound recordings of stuff around the house, evocative outdoor spaces, moody streets, etc. Tempi: very slow or very fast.

Zig when A.I. zags.


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## Mike Fox (Nov 9, 2022)

José Herring said:


> AI will just force us to be artist again and create something unique that has something to say. Of all the AI music I've heard none of it yet was at all convincing. I'm not saying that it can't do it some day but even if it did, can it replace a real personality? Will it create new art or just regurgitate old art into something new.
> 
> Yes, shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta may benefit from generic music. But, no AI is going to convincingly do the score to Once Upon a Time in the West or Bladerunner, or Blackrain or Inception or Tenet. Scores that actually rise above just being a collection of notes and have something to say. Music that communicates human to human.
> 
> ...


It’s a great question, for sure.

90% of musicians are already copycats, terrible ones at that, and I’m not too proud to say I’m in that 90% percentile (even though I’d like to think that my personal signature is buried somewhere in my music).

But it is in our human nature to imitate what we like, and there’s only a select few in the history of composers who are thought of as truly unique and magnificent. It’s those select few who we imitate, and we’re constantly finding ourselves standing on the shoulders of giants.

So you bring up a good question, and it’s really one of competition, which i think can be healthy and can make us try harder.

Will AI be the new motivation (competition) for us to take our craft to places it has never gone? Will it be an opportunity for personal growth?

Or will we reside in harmony with AI, and actually implement it into our workflow? Perhaps it will become a tool that we can use to better ourselves, instead of letting it dominate the human experience.

The future is an interesting place.


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## José Herring (Nov 9, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> I think the main question is, will people be able to listen to these composers at the vanguard of self-expression?
> 
> Or will they just be too busy consuming whatever crap the AI produces JUST for them or following the latest trend?
> 
> ...


Right. That is the question. But, the world is saturated with tons of generic crap that isn't really making any money for anybody. Record companies are notoriously broke but they stay alive by releasing 1000's and 1000's of songs that barely make any money but are cheap enough to produce. They play the numbers game rather than back artist.

Will it matter if an AI made the song? Generally the songs are not really written right now anyway. They kind of come up in committee style where almost everybody has a say in it. They may take a songwriters song but by the time it's produced it's so vastly different than what the songwriter intended.

But.....Think of Bruno Mars. That's personal music. He took a chance on stuff that nobody was doing and did it well enough that he got really successful. Maybe the din of low crap noise will give rise to more unique artist like Bruno Mars, or the next HZ or what have you in any given field.

It could be a good thing as well as a bad thing. 

I honestly don't think that all music will be done by AI. Even AI paintings leave a lot to be desired. The little bit I did do of AI Art made me want to explore further in that direction. I like what it gave me to be honest, but the more I looked at it , the more I thought, I'd like it to be more this, a little bit more that, a bit more this, ect... It was a good rendition of my initial idea and if I was a painter, I would have taken it and made it better. 

Maybe that's what we'll do with AI music and maybe that's already happening in our DAWS with suggested chord progressions, and in Reason with the million players they develop.


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## Thundercat (Nov 9, 2022)

Mike Fox said:


> 90% of musicians are already copycats, terrible ones at that, and I’m not too proud to say I’m in that 90% percentile (even though I’d like to think that my personal signature is buried somewhere in my music).


The very nature of music is that it's a language, comprised of pre-existing "words" and "phrases" we call musical notes. Any style uses those notes in very specific ways - so the very nature of writing music is to copy the framework and style of music you are writing, which leads to similarities that cannot be helped.

Absent some kind of radical departure from the 12-note system, like using microtones, if music is to be recognized at all as music, there must of necessity be some elements of copy-catting. Same with written words; a novel follows a very specific kind of arc if it is successful, and there is a running joke in drama that there are "no new plots."

There may well come a point where there are "no new melodies" either, at least in the 12-note system, so we will be relegated to creating variations on a theme.

The great masters never had a problem with that - Variations on a Theme of Paganini; Bach wholesale lifting folk melodies and putting them into his works, etc. And a later blatant example, my college music professor hated Andrew Lloyd Weber because he supposedly borrowed all his famous melodies from the masters.

None of this mattered so much a few hundred years ago; there was no internet so even if you "borrowed" a melody wholesale from someone else, if you played it far enough away, no one would know.

Ultimately it's what you do with your borrowing that makes it great, or drivel. I will always adore Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring, and the genius way Bach wrote the countermelody and weaved it into the hymn at its heart.

The cream will always rise to the top, so there will always be a place for originality and excellence.


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## AudioXpression (Nov 9, 2022)

Creativity and good taste are essential for any music project.
The human touch will always be a significant difference.


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## Cdnalsi (Nov 9, 2022)

I too wonder what AI will be able to come up with in music, but only if there's a breakthrough in algorithms like what happened with images. So far I'm not at all impressed by the musical showings, but I am amazed at the visual arts side of it.

On one hand I marvel at the programmers of this kind of stuff, on the other I just don't see how AI would be able to add 'experience', 'sophistication' and 'wit' in music composition. But I am indeed looking forward to the day it'll happen. It'll be a singularity for sure.


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## Tim_Wells (Nov 10, 2022)

This company comes closer to creating commercial sounding tracks than anything _I've heard_, thus far. But it is still somewhat lacking. https://mubert.com/

They appear to be midi/sample/loop based, kind of like AIVA and Soundful. In fact, they'll purchase loops, samples, and tracks from independent artists. Sample libraries might make out very well in this AI revolution. That's probably the business to be in right now. 

I could imagine a companies like these guys and N.I. joining forces to create something quite powerful (and scary).


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## Thundercat (Nov 10, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> This company comes closer to creating commercial sounding tracks than anything _I've heard_, thus far. But it is still somewhat lacking. https://mubert.com/
> 
> They appear to be midi/sample/loop based, kind of like AIVA and Soundful. In fact, they'll purchase loops, samples, and tracks from independent artists. Sample libraries might make out very well in this AI revolution. That's probably the business to be in right now.
> 
> I could imagine a companies like these guys and N.I. joining forces to create something quite powerful (and scary).


Yeah the track "I" generated definitely sucked...but sadly, it was "good enough" that I could already imagine it being used. Thanks for posting.


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## Sopris (Nov 13, 2022)

It's always gonna be lacking Soul, I believe when we create our best stuff we're acting as a vessel for something much greater, AI can't do that.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 14, 2022)

This is bloody brilliant. I'm taking a second look at my own use of the technology. Really worth the time!:


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## Thundercat (Nov 14, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> This is bloody brilliant. I'm taking a second look at my own use of the technology. Really worth the time!:



I get the gist if his argument - but - it must be said that human artists also train by looking at other people’s art too. To vilify the AI systems that train in millions if images is to also vilify human artists who learn from others.

Thus in no way makes it less horrifying - that AI can make art that is already replacing human artists - but I think his argument misses the mark.

Plus, every time machines take over, the humans complain.

The problem is, this time, it looks like the machines will take over completely…


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 14, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> I get the gist if his argument - but - it must be said that human artists also train by looking at other people’s art too. To vilify the AI systems that train in millions if images is to also vilify human artists who learn from others.
> 
> Thus in no way makes it less horrifying - that AI can make art that is already replacing human artists - but I think his argument misses the mark.
> 
> ...


Did you listen to the whole video? He talks about your first point more than once…


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## marius_dm (Nov 14, 2022)

Like one of my music teachers said back in the day, you don't get into music for the money. It was always true, and now more than ever.


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## José Herring (Nov 14, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> This is bloody brilliant. I'm taking a second look at my own use of the technology. Really worth the time!:



This is the first real fight against AI that makes total sense. Attacking the way these machines "learn" is the best way to defeat it. If we can arrest the trend before we get too far along and prohibit AI from using copyrighted material that's the key. Seems like Garbage in Garbage out still applies to AI and is probably what is making AI music sound so bad. It's gleaning all its musical knowledge from places like SoundCloud or something and can't distinguish what is good music and what is bad music at this point so it's trying to synthesize all music to "learn" from. It lacks judgement.


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## Thundercat (Nov 14, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Did you listen to the whole video? He talks about your first point more than once…


Tbh no - it’s quite long.

Thanks for sharing.


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## Thundercat (Nov 14, 2022)

José Herring said:


> This is the first real fight against AI that makes total sense. Attacking the way these machines "learn" is the best way to defeat it. If we can arrest the trend before we get too far along and prohibit AI from using copyrighted material that's the key. Seems like Garbage in Garbage out still applies to AI and is probably what is making AI music sound so bad. It's gleaning all its musical knowledge from places like SoundCloud or something and can't distinguish what is good music and what is bad music at this point so it's trying to synthesize all music to "learn" from. It lacks judgement.


No offense but you could sooner try stopping a damn breaking but putting your fingers in the cracks.

Even if the AIs trained on CC licensed art, they would still progress.

This is happening whether we like it or not, and it’s only going to be a matter of time before AI music becomes a tour de force.

We are a little bit like the horse farmers sharing their fists at the tractors.


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## Daren Audio (Nov 14, 2022)

As far as US copyright laws are concerned, any creative work produced by AI cannot be registered and protected. It would require an act of congress to over-turn/over-rule this law which is highly unlikely at this point.

Many of the AI music companies are geared towards the "content creator" sector (YouTubers, Podcasters, Streamers, etc) who just need on-demand music for their live-streams.


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## José Herring (Nov 14, 2022)

Thundercat said:


> No offense but you could sooner try stopping a damn breaking but putting your fingers in the cracks.
> 
> Even if the AIs trained on CC licensed art, they would still progress.
> 
> ...


Nah not that bleak. But it is something that should be fought. It's not really a John Henry situation. 
These AI at the bottom of it are programmers and companies using existing art to train the machine. If you listen beyond the first few minutes of his video he goes into the whole corporate structure of AI companies and how they are manipulating the system to make billions. That can actually be attacked.


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## ssnowe (Nov 14, 2022)

With ai-based music the low hanging musical fruit is off the table. AI will own elevator and telephone hold music, ring tones, mindless musical ditties that fill the empty spaces in commercials and backing tracks in corporate powerpoint presentations and low budget youtube videos. If that is your market the well may have truly dried up.

Beyond that, ai is simply a tool and really and truly responds to the knowledge and expertise of those who wield it. AI powered daws will push creativity to the next level. AI powered musical instruments will obsolete any investment one has in sample libraries.

They potential is truly exciting (unless Skynet happens).


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## MartinH. (Nov 14, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> This is bloody brilliant. I'm taking a second look at my own use of the technology. Really worth the time!:


Thank you for sharing this video! It is truly the best I've seen so far on the topic. A must-watch for every member here - and I mean watching it in full from start to finish. There is real well-researched substance here! This attack vector is our one chance of mitigating the damage that AI will cause to creative professions, and afaik the first class action lawsuit is already on the way against using codebases without honoring the licenses under which they are provided to train a programming AI assistant.

Allow me to repost your link since the thread has reached another page:


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 15, 2022)

The ‘training’ of models using giant data sets reminds me more and more of trawl fishing, where all kinds of things get scraped up. Dangerou$ territory.

First copyright claim against Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot:

“When Copilot first rolled out the door, smart people were concerned because its Machine Learning (ML) model was based on OpenAI's Codex; it included code that had been copyrighted under one open-source license or another. After all, the Codex had been trained on billions of publicly available source code lines – including code in public repositories on GitHub. That included, among other things, all of the Apache Foundation's many projects' code.”









GitHub's Copilot faces first open source copyright lawsuit


It won't be the last




www.theregister.com


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## Tim_Wells (Nov 15, 2022)

ssnowe said:


> With ai-based music the low hanging musical fruit is off the table. AI will own elevator and telephone hold music, ring tones, mindless musical ditties that fill the empty spaces in commercials and backing tracks in corporate powerpoint presentations and low budget youtube videos. If that is your market the well may have truly dried up.


You may be right. Not really disagreeing. But if you look at DALL-E and such as models, they don't excel at generating "stock photos" of people working in an office... or cute kittens. The realism isn't there. (At least, to my limited knowledge it's not.) It's better at avant-garde, impressionistic, artistic, album cover type photos.

Also let's say that someday, A.I is able to create polished, professional Corporate music (for example). There would absolutely nothing stopping it from generating professional movie scores, trailers, or nearly any kind of music. I realize, you may have been speaking more in the near term. 


ssnowe said:


> Beyond that, ai is simply a tool and really and truly responds to the knowledge and expertise of those who wield it. AI powered daws will push creativity to the next level.


Agree. Like most technological advancements, it will take much away and also give us much.


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## MartinH. (Nov 15, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> You may be right. Not really disagreeing. But if you look at DALL-E and such as models, they don't excel at generating "stock photos" of people working in an office... or cute kittens. The realism isn't there. (At least, to my limited knowledge it's not.) It's better at avant-garde, impressionistic, artistic, album cover type photos.


Stable diffusion is great at realism. The average stock photo use is just filler content that gives an impression of "relevant pictures being there", no average consumer is looking at a stock photo for 2 minutes trying to see if it's perfect or not. Stable diffusion already is a real threat to a lot of stock photo usage that is sufficiently generic and doesn't fall into SD's remaining weakspots. E.g. it sucks for things that involve text, and it's bad at reproducing specific hardware exactly. For example it can show a camera, with some cherrypicking maybe even a convincing one, but if you want specifically a Canon 6D mk2 you're probably out of luck.


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## Tim_Wells (Nov 15, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> Stable diffusion is great at realism.


I just did a quick test, and it didn't look very realistic to me. Would it be acceptable for some stock photos? Possibly. People looked especially bad.

It kind of reminds me of A.I. music. It's _sort of_ ok, but not really. Will it get there? Probably, some day.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 15, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> I just did a quick test, and it didn't look very realistic to me. Would it be acceptable for some stock photos? Possibly. People looked especially bad.
> 
> It kind of reminds me of A.I. music. It's _sort of_ ok, but not really. Will it get there? Probably, some day.


I have to respectfully disagree. The quality is now off the chart (and it's only been one year - think like a scientist and imagine 5 years from now...):











#midjourney hashtag on Instagram • Photos and videos


1.5M Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from 'midjourney' hashtag




www.instagram.com


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## Tim_Wells (Nov 15, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> I have to respectfully disagree. The quality is now off the chart (and it's only been one year - think like a scientist and imagine 5 years from now...):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Fair enough. I'm far from an expert in this area. But here's what I get when I type "stock photo people working in office" into Stable Fusion.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 15, 2022)

You should check out the latest from Midjourney, Dall-E 2 and Google's Imagen.

Or grab a camera, a pencil or a paint brush, and DIY, off the Grid.


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## JSTube (Nov 15, 2022)

I'm hoping AI-generated music puts an end to the trend of people chasing music for aesthetics rather than for the sake of enjoying being a musician itself. That is to say, the desire to 'be' e.g. Madonna and not to be capable of what she might be capable of, or to be 'EVH' but not care one bit about technique exercises.

I think the AI-generated music will leave nobody left playing but the amateurs, (meaning those that do it for the love of) and that's a good thing.

AI will do a better job saving the industry money, and nobody's gonna miss working with picky, hard-to-please musicians! (The only thing worse than picky, hard-to-please directors)

Oh I'm also looking forward to this: AI-celebs won't need to chime in on things like politics, religion, etc and spread their uninformed influence where it doesn't belong, to masses of people that will pretty much accept anything as fact as long as "X-celeb" said so .

We're not smart enough as a species to be worthy of any other alternative (in my opinion), and I think we'll be entirely deserving of being wholly outclassed by neural networks (if music as a 'career' is the goal, it will no longer be viable) ... finally people will start doing music for music again, and not to become a celebrity.

One day maybe we will have a skilled producer/mockup artist AI that only needs an audio file of a piano sketch to give you an orchestrated suggestion that sounds better than what would have taken weeks to mock up, etc. It's silly to assume that the compositional aspect entirely is going to be abandoned or monopolized by this technology. I think we as humans still are going to build tools that we work with, and less so ones that we are going to be eclipsed by.


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## MartinH. (Nov 15, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> I just did a quick test, and it didn't look very realistic to me. Would it be acceptable for some stock photos? Possibly. People looked especially bad.
> 
> It kind of reminds me of A.I. music. It's _sort of_ ok, but not really. Will it get there? Probably, some day.





Tim_Wells said:


> Fair enough. I'm far from an expert in this area. But here's what I get when I type "stock photo people working in office" into Stable Fusion.



This field moves so incredibly fast, it's scary. I bet within a year they have most of the kinks regarding rendering realistic people ironed out. Your examples look a little scuffed, but that is mostly down to your lack of experience with the tool I would say. I didn't try for long, but here are two examples:












There are still many flaws but there are already many ways to mitigate those flaws, that I haven't bothered to apply. E.g. at the moment it is incredibly difficult to avoid all people looking the same in a single txt2img output. But you can lock the seed, do the render 5 times with different ethnicity tags and then photoshop them together haphazardly and run the image through img2img to fix the seams. You can apply similar workflows to most problems, like the often fucked up hands or nonsensical clothing designs (shirt and tie aren't _that _popular among women in offices as far as I know). That would maybe add 30 minutes or so of work, but compare that to getting the people together to do this as a photoshoot. You have so much control via the img2img workflow, I think a comparison to sample libraries isn't that far fetched: If you want the best result no matter the cost, you record a real highend orchestra. If price is all that matters, you use a sample library for a quick and dirty job. If you want a good compromise of quality and cost, you let a pro spend the time to make a quality mockup with their knowledge and their sample libraries. That will fool most consumers but still cost orders of magnitude less than a real orchestra and will even be a better result than a crappy orchestra.
That's the worst part: a lot of the AI stuff _already _qualitatively outperforms the lower skilled real artists and photographers in a few niches.



And all the talk about AI art lacking soul and real human emotions is just desperate grasping for straws imho. It's exactly like saying a track made with sample libraries would never be able to emotionally touch a fellow human being. We all know that's nonsense. Composers and audiophiles may feel this as a barrier to feeling something from the music, but normies can't even tell the difference. If the tool is wielded by someone who has something touching to say, they will be able to do that. I would argue the AIs already can do it on their own by sheer luck in randomness, where human curation is still needed to find the things worth sharing. But I expect that will soonish be possible to be done by AI as well...


This shit needs to be crippled_ at the source _- the datasets required to train the AIs. With legislation that forbids what stability AI has done to create stable diffusion it would vastly limit the capabilities of the AIs and the speed with which they are progressing.


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## RoyBatty (Nov 15, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> This field moves so incredibly fast, it's scary. I bet within a year they have most of the kinks regarding rendering realistic people ironed out. Your examples look a little scuffed, but that is mostly down to your lack of experience with the tool I would say. I didn't try for long, but here are two examples:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Those images are terrible ….


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## Tim_Wells (Nov 15, 2022)

Okay... you guys convinced me. While those images are obviously lacking, it's clear that the technology is already there, if you're willing to put in the time. Of course, the average stock photo user is not interested in putting in that kind of time. But no doubt in time, it'll eventually become very user friendly and easy.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 15, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> Okay... you guys convinced me. While those images are obviously lacking, it's clear that the technology is already there, if you're willing to put in the time. Of course, the average stock photo user is not interested in putting in that kind of time. But no doubt in time, it'll eventually become very user friendly and easy.


It's going to become so easy, the A.I. will prompt itself every 300 ms. Insta-Art © for your Never-Ending-Feed.


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## JSTube (Nov 15, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> Okay... you guys convinced me. While those images are obviously lacking, it's clear that the technology is already there, if you're willing to put in the time. Of course, the average stock photo user is not interested in putting in that kind of time. But no doubt in time, it'll eventually become very user friendly and easy.


I think this is an overestimation of the value of disposable imagery. Stock images were already laughable. Most people wouldn't look twice at the two examples that were posted above. Sure there's weirdness if you want to stare at it.

But stock images aren't the Mona Lisa. They're to make money and be used in advertisements and then forgotten about.

I like this trend of people who don't know about a certain field, talking about it as if it hasn't yet already taken over. People with a lot more financial interests at stake have been pouring money into these technologies for decades. Reminds me of the 'musician' friends of mine who insist to this day that fingered legato 'isn't something you can do on a computer instrument!!' -- what makes you think companies aren't already using AI-generated stock imagery besides the fact that you just barely found out about it?


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## Thundercat (Nov 16, 2022)

José Herring said:


> Nah not that bleak. But it is something that should be fought. It's not really a John Henry situation.
> These AI at the bottom of it are programmers and companies using existing art to train the machine. If you listen beyond the first few minutes of his video he goes into the whole corporate structure of AI companies and how they are manipulating the system to make billions. That can actually be attacked.


I hope you're right.

However, if you consider that these systems are improving *every* *single* *day* - there will come a point where they can product amazing music. After all, we internalize sets of rules ourselves to produce music, fit it to certain timing needs, use specific instruments for specific styles, etc. If we can learn it, AI can learn it.

If they improve just 1% a month, it is not a long time before they are orders of magnitude better than they are now.

I remember when Photoshop first introduced the "content-aware background fill." What it did, was if you selected an area of a photo, let's say a post that you didn't want there, it would use its AI to figure out what might have been there and match it so you basically make it disappear.

That was many years ago, and lots of apps do this now as a matter of course.

The point is, this is unstoppable, by us the common folk - these companies will continue, absent some kind of massive uprising. And that's not going to happen as long as the politicians "give them bread and circus and they will never revolt" as one roman emperor said.

In any case, there's still time, make music while you can make money on it still.


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## Tim_Wells (Nov 16, 2022)

Have to admit. This is making me rethink my priorities. It has for a while, actually. It appears the writing is on the wall. 



Thundercat said:


> In any case, there's still time, make music while you can make money on it still.


Agreed. But big change is almost certainly coming. 




Thundercat said:


> The point is, this is unstoppable, by us the common folk - these companies will continue, absent some kind of massive uprising. And that's not going to happen as long as the politicians "give them bread and circus and they will never revolt" as one roman emperor said.


Yeah, as much as my heart and mind is with those who want to stop this, it seems futile to me. Imagine medical A.I. systems that assist doctors in making diagnoses. Are they really going to stop them from souring the medical literature? I suppose an exception could be made for "artistic works". But being honest, and knowing how this capitalistic world works, the cat is probably already out of the bag.


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## Thundercat (Nov 16, 2022)

We don’t have a society that supports people - 


Tim_Wells said:


> Have to admit. This is making me rethink my priorities. It has for a while, actually. It appears the writing is on the wall.
> 
> 
> Agreed. But big change is almost certainly coming.
> ...


We are all set in competition with each other for even basic necessities, and we’re brainwashed to think that’s a good thing.

Indeed people defend capitalism beyond all rhyme or reason. It doesn’t have to be this way.


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## Stringtree (Nov 16, 2022)

AI voice over is everywhere, in every conceivable dialect. Imagine cutting out the... talent?

Hasn't every one of my jobs relied upon human relationships? 

Yup. Each and every one, and they generate more. If people aren't into people anymore, I've got nothing to add, and I will see myself out quietly through a side exit. I don't believe that is the case.

I dunno. Might someday. Not a fan. There are venues in which this stuff will generate income, and if we overlook this evolution, we'll be left behind. Like photochemical photography. Digital motion pictures. Voices that entreat the user to buy something. Grammar that's fixed by a robot. 

It's not my world. What I can do is see the writing, figure out what it means, and apply a little to my trajectory. Otherwise? I'm a smoking dinosaur. I need to see a Gary Larson comic about this. It's grim, but not insurmountable.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Nov 18, 2022)

RoyBatty said:


> Those images are terrible ….


I agree, just plain awful and totally unrealistic.


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## ssnowe (Nov 18, 2022)

ai can be used for anything, even chatting in a forum
Not saying there is an ai chatbot in this thread
Not saying there is an ai chatbot in this thread
Not saying there is an ai chatbot in this thread
Error
Error
Self destruct initiated


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 18, 2022)

Working on some A.I. research tonight. These are my results so far, it's promising...


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## rgames (Nov 18, 2022)

AI absolutely will have at least some impact in the media world, I'd guess a major impact, because there's no brand loyalty from the consumer. Nobody cares whose music shows up behind a Kardashian. Nobody knows.

But I expect AI will have a very limited impact in listening music because, I hope I'm not bursting anyone's bubble here, the music is only a piece of the product.

Age old advice for musicians: Sell the brand, not the music.

From the standpoint of listening music, until AI figures out how to brand itself it doesn't matter if it can make music that people find "good enough" when considered in isolation from the brand.

AI will probably take over in library music, or even some film music, because the consumer doesn't consider music a significant part of the brand for those products.


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## timbit2006 (Nov 18, 2022)

Do you think these new AI Composers will have their own virtual AI forums to hang out and get worried about things and discuss string libraries like we do on VI-Control?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 19, 2022)

timbit2006 said:


> Do you think these new AI Composers will have their own virtual AI forums to hang out and get worried about things and discuss string libraries like we do on VI-Control?


Ok gang, we found one of the last humans here - get him/her!


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## Thundercat (Nov 19, 2022)

timbit2006 said:


> Do you think these new AI Composers will have their own virtual AI forums to hang out and get worried about things and discuss string libraries like we do on VI-Control?


Maybe…WE are those very AI


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## tcollins (Nov 19, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Working on some A.I. research tonight. These are my results so far, it's promising...


How was this image created?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 19, 2022)

tcollins said:


> How was this image created?


It was meant as joke. I did it in WALL-E 2, and it's pretty bad. The real things are pretty delicious though, like an Andromeda and some Lagavulin 8 or 16.


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## tcollins (Nov 19, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> It was meant as joke. I did it in WALL-E 2, and it's pretty bad. The real things are pretty delicious though, like an Andromeda and some Lagavulin 8 or 16.


Ahh, OK!

For a moment my fear of AI had disappeared.


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## aeliron (Nov 19, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I agree, just plain awful and totally unrealistic.


So, indistinguishable from modern art?


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## Jeremy Spencer (Nov 19, 2022)

aeliron said:


> So, indistinguishable from modern art?


Depends on one’s perception of modern art.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 20, 2022)

Another great video:


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## Cideboy (Nov 20, 2022)

Im all for it. Let the folks that want cheap garbage for their project get the same cheap uninspired garbage from some corporate overlords. I’m sure this is the end game for library music and I’m sure you’ll be able to manipulate the music to match sync much better too.

All this will do is clear out all the folks that hit a few keys on their computer and call themselves composers.

Real talent will continue to innovate and write real music on real paper for real musicians.


Edit: Need old man screams at cloud meme to accompany this but I’m to old to figure that out ;p


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## Cideboy (Nov 20, 2022)

Vlzmusic said:


> In VI-Control context, AI is mostly irrelevant at the moment, cause even if it can mash up some notes in Mozart style or whatever, it cannot render the actual sound of it, relying on samples or synths. Once it will be able to render "Lush orchestral sound as if recorded at Abbey Road" - we will make it work for us . Some orchestration capabilities will come in handy as well.


I’d say we’re not too far off. I imagine it will start at https://www.abbeyroad.com/abbeyroadred

By the time Abbey Road Orchestra by spitfire has been released you’ll be able to do “ai-recording” and ai-composing wouldn’t be far behind. It’s much the same as they provide AI- mixing today. 









AI Mastering vs Online Mastering: What’s the Difference?


Discover what artificial intelligent mastering is and what the differences are between AI mastering and Abbey Road online mastering.




www.abbeyroad.com





A brave new world. 

I feel sorry for all the youngsters just getting started.


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## Vlzmusic (Nov 20, 2022)

Cideboy said:


> I’d say we’re not too far off. I imagine it will start at https://www.abbeyroad.com/abbeyroadred
> 
> By the time Abbey Road Orchestra by spitfire has been released you’ll be able to do “ai-recording” and ai-composing wouldn’t be far behind. It’s much the same as they provide AI- mixing today.
> 
> ...


I know we are not toooo far off, by seeing the great progress Synth V makes with voices. But still early to plan anything.


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## b_elliott (Dec 12, 2022)

On AI consciousness: 
The captured moment when AI first "got" Mozart Symphony No. 5.

View attachment AI Grokking Mozart No. 5 in D.mp3


Credit also to Frank Zappa, _Sy Borg._
Vsts: Absynth5, Blackhole
B_elliott123


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 13, 2022)

The hits just keep on coming. Clock’s ticking, time to plan…


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## Ivan Duch (Dec 13, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> The hits just keep on coming. Clock’s ticking, time to plan…



I've been having the exact same thoughts. Knowledge fields are more probable to be replaced by AI in the near future than other jobs. Especially those without strong institutions backing them up (unlike lawyers, etc, etc)

Designers, production composers, developers, etc, etc.


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 13, 2022)

I think the ^above^ example of replacing a doctor with ChatGPT is ridiculous. Just because you "_know the steps"_ doesn't mean you have the experience, the training, the tools, the needed manpower, and the environment to actually perform the surgery. 

But... point taken. His Python programming example is certainly more relevant (and scary). It could eliminate an organization's need for certain expertise. 
----------
In the following video, Venus Theory claims *the Midjourney for music is already here*. He can't provide details because of NDAs.


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## smellypants (Dec 13, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> In the following video, Venus Theory claims *the Midjourney for music is already here*. He can't provide details because of NDAs.



Oh god... I have a feeling that when whatever he's talking about is released... It's gonna be amazing 😔


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## jbuhler (Dec 13, 2022)

smellypants said:


> Oh god... I have a feeling that when whatever he's talking about is released... It's gonna be amazing 😔


I don't know if it will be amazing exactly, but like MidJourney, ChatGPT, etc., it will likely be good enough for many tasks that only humans can do right now. But we'll see.


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## ThomasNL (Dec 13, 2022)

A few of my thoughts:

- I really think AI will be just as much impact as going from analog to digital. It will replace most tools we use today and the consequences will be huge.

- Knowledge about the subject is still very valuable. For a while, we will have to fact check information we generate with AI. In that same boat, the art of "prompting', inputting the right stuff to get the result you want will also be a skill people will look for.

- At first, AI will be very broad tools, like Midjourney or ChatGPT is now, but I believe it will become more integrated into specific systems/tools in a later stadium.

- I am scared about the position of artists and creatives and copyrights. I think there is a lot to say about data being used to train on without the owners permission but I'm afraid it is going to fast for any laws to be written in time. Hard to say though.

- It is very exciting to experience such a huge jump in technological advancements. Will be interested to see where it is going.

And here a short poem generated by chatGPT based on my thoughts:



> A new age is upon us,
> With AI leading the way,
> Replacing tools we use today,
> The consequences, oh, they'll weigh.
> ...


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## jbuhler (Dec 13, 2022)

ThomasNL said:


> - Knowledge about the subject is still very valuable. For a while, we will have to fact check information we generate with AI. In that same boat, the art of "prompting', inputting the right stuff to get the result you want will also be a skill people will look for.


ChatGPT’s citation practice is terrible and it doesn’t seem to know how to link back to its training data to recover citations. I’ve not yet seen it spontaneously reproduce a quotation, and it takes prompting to get it to output even names. This gives it the general tenor of an oracle, knowledge from nowhere. 



> I am scared about the position of artists and creatives and copyrights. I think there is a lot to say about data being used to train on without the owners permission but I'm afraid it is going to fast for any laws to be written in time. Hard to say though.



I’ve heard speculation that this might be the way our current regime of copyright dies. The power will be transferred to the databases of training data, which you will then pay to access. Those much reviled rulings on the copyright of groove will take on new relevance as the underlying IP of the training data is weighed in terms of ownership of the databases.


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## Sophus (Dec 13, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> The hits just keep on coming. Clock’s ticking, time to plan…



I personally already tried the Chat features to write code. It is not perfect and has errors in the code but it is very useful. You don't need to search for examples on Stack Overflow or study API documentations any longer. And you don't need to rewrite examples to fit your use-case because the Chat AI does this if you ask it. This saves a lot of time. It is a giant code snippet library.

But at the current states it is pretty much useless if you don't know how solve errors in the code. So you still need to know how to program and to put it together to get a running software. It doesn't write full working apps with the click of a button.

It is the same with the image and music creation. It creates good but flawed results and you usually need to run the creation process dozens or hundreds of times and piece the best parts together.


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## DoubleTap (Dec 13, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Working on some A.I. research tonight. These are my results so far, it's promising...



Alcoholic Inebriation is tried and tested as an artistic method, I don’t know what everyone else is worried about.


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## Ivan Duch (Dec 13, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> I think the ^above^ example of replacing a doctor with ChatGPT is ridiculous


I feel robots and AI could easily replace many of the current medical fields. Machines able to run tests that no human can do, they don't feel anxiety and have no pulse. I can imagine surgery being assisted by AI and robotics in the future. Machines can also have and amazingly encyclopedic knowledge and the intelligence to explain it (As ChatGPT clearly shows and which many doctors lack). I've had a ton of wrong diagnoses in my life, and some of those put my life in peril.


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## Daryl (Dec 13, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> I feel robots and AI could easily replace many of the current medical fields. Machines able to run tests that no human can do, they don't feel anxiety and have no pulse. I can imagine surgery being assisted by AI and robotics in the future. Machines can also have and amazingly encyclopedic knowledge and the intelligence to explain it (As ChatGPT clearly shows and which many doctors lack). I've had a ton of wrong diagnoses in my life, and some of those put my life in peril.


Most doctors and lawyers don't have long left. Both skills are built on pattern recognition and memory, both things a computer does well, and can learn from, so will surpass most humans. There will still be work for the people right at the top of the profession. I sense the same will be true for composers. Companies like AudioJungle will be entirely AI based. Not need to pay pesky composers anything.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 13, 2022)

Sophus said:


> I personally already tried the Chat features to write code. It is not perfect and has errors in the code but it is very useful. You don't need to search for examples on Stack Overflow or study API documentations any longer. And you don't need to rewrite examples to fit your use-case because the Chat AI does this if you ask it. This saves a lot of time. It is a giant code snippet library.
> 
> But at the current states it is pretty much useless if you don't know how solve errors in the code. So you still need to know how to program and to put it together to get a running software. It doesn't write full working apps with the click of a button.
> 
> It is the same with the image and music creation. It creates good but flawed results and you usually need to run the creation process dozens or hundreds of times and piece the best parts together.


For now…


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## Hadrondrift (Dec 13, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> For now…


Why should AI get smarter and smarter when their knowledge is based solely on the knowledge of humans who are getting dumber and dumber?


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## Sophus (Dec 13, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> For now…


The good thing for current programmes and system administrators is, that the current youth doesn't really grow up any longer with computers but with smartphones and tablets instead. So it's probably much harder for them, to get into this field in this future. You still need us old timers who know how to handle a computer with command line interfaces which run the backend of everything. 😅


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## Stringtree (Dec 13, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> I feel robots and AI could easily replace many of the current medical fields. Machines able to run tests that no human can do, they don't feel anxiety and have no pulse. I can imagine surgery being assisted by AI and robotics in the future. Machines can also have and amazingly encyclopedic knowledge and the intelligence to explain it (As ChatGPT clearly shows and which many doctors lack). I've had a ton of wrong diagnoses in my life, and some of those put my life in peril.


So, yeah. Last time I was in to the emergency department, it had all been outsourced. Triage? Technicians? Specialists? Outsourced. Nursing? Same.

No doubt, the executives will turn toward the cheapest solution as it becomes available. I even saw a "stroke robot" in an alcove, waiting to move.

Midjourney stuff looks like mall concourse art. Get a store. I hope medicine doesn't become this aloof.


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## Gabriel S. (Dec 13, 2022)

I don't see any AI creating a piece of music that replaces professional musicians, producers and engineers. We are ages away from that scenario. So, people are analysing plugins and their sound, and comparing them to analog hardware, or hearing very clearly the differences between a human mastering and a AI mastering, or comparing one library to another library, hearing the differences in how it's programmed....and you tell me there's an AI that can compose, produce (synthesize real instruments), mix and master something that sounds professional when not even the Izotope Ozone AI can master a song properly and professionally without human interaction? 

Sincerely, I don't see it happening. Music production at a professional level is too complex and involves too many variables difficult to analyse, way more than a picture.


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## tack (Dec 13, 2022)

On the one hand, I had simultaneously the most frustrating and amusing conversation with ChatGPT the other day wherein it was hopelessly confused about the F# lydian scale and simply couldn't wrap its metaphorical head around the chords in that scale, but on the other hand when I consider the advancement of ML in the past 10 years alone I am stunned by the prospect of the next 20, because this progression is significantly better than linear, and it's quite probably exponential.

Given that, I don't believe we are "ages away" from machine generated music being able to convincingly replace professional musicians in quite a number of areas.

Personally I'd just be happy to see the field of ML applied to virtual instruments. I feel like this very fertile ground.


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## chocobitz825 (Dec 13, 2022)

Gabriel S. said:


> I don't see any AI creating a piece of music that replaces professional musicians, producers and engineers. We are ages away from that scenario. So, people are analysing plugins and their sound, and comparing them to analog hardware, or hearing very clearly the differences between a human mastering and a AI mastering, or comparing one library to another library, hearing the differences in how it's programmed....and you tell me there's an AI that can compose, produce (synthesize real instruments), mix and master something that sounds professional when not even the Izotope Ozone AI can master a song properly and professionally without human interaction?
> 
> Sincerely, I don't see it happening. Music production at a professional level is too complex and involves too many variables difficult to analyse, way more than a picture.


the issue I think we're all struggling with is the value of art and the human parts of art that creators care about, but consumers don't. AI works in an unbiased way and creates what it thinks fits a general idea of tone and emotion. With or without intent, it creates something sufficient for most general consumers because it feels "close enough". Like how fast food is "close enough" to being food. AI can create something that is contextually sad, but it has no intent or personal skin in the game to push it further than just "close". For many people though, that might just be enough. If it feels sad and invokes an emotional response in the consumer, it's done enough to replace some of the human creators that might have something different to offer. 

Personally, I still think AI will liberate artists. When the grunt work is gone, and the only thing left to do is be unapologetically human and unique, art will be truly amazing. AI as an assistant tool may even push human art further. Maybe human art won't be profitable, but it could be an amazing representation of what humans and art are.


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 14, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> I feel robots and AI could easily replace many of the current medical fields. Machines able to run tests that no human can do, they don't feel anxiety and have no pulse. I can imagine surgery being assisted by AI and robotics in the future.


Sure. I agree. Some of that will probably happen. 

But that's not the scenario he laid out. He's suggesting an amateur could perform an incredibly complex surgery just by having all the steps written down. That's the ridiculous part. 

No doubt AI will do many amazing, mind-blowing things. But I also think it's easy to over-estimate the capabilities of AI as some incredible magic box. If you listen to people who work on it, you'll discover it has many limitations.


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## jbuhler (Dec 14, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> Sure. I agree. Some of that will probably happen.
> 
> But that's not the scenario he laid out. He's suggesting an amateur could perform an incredibly complex surgery just by having all the steps written down. That's the ridiculous part.
> 
> No doubt AI will do many amazing, mind-blowing things. But I also think it's easy to over-estimate the capabilities of AI as some incredible magic box. If you listen to people who work on it, you'll discover it has many limitations.


My favorite part of the video is where he devises this apocalyptic scenario where there’s no doctor available but evidently computers and the internet still work.


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 14, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> My favorite part of the video is where he devises this apocalyptic scenario where there’s no doctor available but evidently computers and the internet still work.


He also needs to clean his bedroom.


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## ScarletJerry (Dec 14, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> He also needs to clean his bedroom.


Don't worry. His AI powered maid will do that for him!


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## Ivan Duch (Dec 14, 2022)

Looks like illustrators from around the world are raising against AI and some policies are being made. I wonder how it will end. 

It's a hard call to make, on one hand, it's such a fascinating technology, on the other hand, it will really really affect economies and might centralize power and increase inequality even more. 

I think some pushing back might be necessary to give everyone time to adjust to it.


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## TWY (Dec 14, 2022)

I'm a composer who one day might need AI to make original images for me. So i feel like a hypocrite complaining about AI in terms of music.


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## chocobitz825 (Dec 14, 2022)

Benn Jordan's video on the topic makes a very important point. Regulation almost always favors the custodians of art/music rights, more than it does the creators of the art. What we think would protect us from the upcoming manipulation of AI by the industry, will likely be regulation that makes it harder for us to do what we do in that same industry.


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## Dex (Dec 15, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> ----------
> In the following video, Venus Theory claims *the Midjourney for music is already here*. He can't provide details because of NDAs.



Maybe what he's referring to is this (just released a few hours ago):









Riffusion


Stable diffusion for real-time music generation




www.riffusion.com





If you want to try it, the servers are getting hammered right now so give it some time.

Curated examples are available here:









Riffusion


Stable diffusion for real-time music generation




www.riffusion.com





I haven't managed to get it to make anything interesting at all yet. Either it doesn't know what heavy metal, John Williams, or country music are, or I'm doing something wrong.


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 15, 2022)

Dex said:


> Maybe what he's referring to is this (just released a few hours ago):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, I couldn't get it to make a sound. Maybe the servers are overloaded, as you noted. I listened to some examples on their site. Everything sounds terribly phasy. Like a super low resolution mp3. 

It appears that they are actually using a spectrogram to generate the audio. And NOT midi, samples, loops, and synths, like other AI sites. 

It's no threat right now. But I suppose it's possible it could get much better.


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## Dex (Dec 15, 2022)

Yes, it's phasey. See the discussion here (just find "phase" in the page): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33999162


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 15, 2022)

One year and a half from now, it’ll be outstanding. Just like what happened with images.


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## The Retroblueman (Dec 15, 2022)

This thread makes me think about that old quote, which goes something like- 

"_Mozart's music shows you what it feels like to be human, Bach's music shows you what it feels like to be the universe, Beethoven's music shows you what it feels like to be Beethoven_". 

Obviously that was meant to be a snub of old Luigi, but, frankly, whilst I love the other two deeply, give me Beethoven every day (please). 

Anyway (leaving aside what I would call "rubbish" AI, being AI that is just joining the dots with algorithms), my thought is as follows, let's say we create a fully self aware AI consciousness, that is for all intents and purposes a living intelligence, and that AI can compose music that can convey (to humans) what it _feels _like to be an AI...

... I am _definitely_ buying a ticket to that concert!


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## Daryl (Dec 16, 2022)

The Retroblueman said:


> This thread makes me think about that old quote, which goes something like-
> 
> "_Mozart's music shows you what it feels like to be human, Bach's music shows you what it feels like to be the universe, Beethoven's music shows you what it feels like to be Beethoven_".
> 
> ...


By the time we get to that stage we'll all be be unemployed, so how would you afford to be able to buy anything?


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## b_elliott (Dec 16, 2022)

The Retroblueman said:


> let's say we create a fully self aware AI consciousness, that is for all intents and purposes a living intelligence, and that AI can compose music that can convey (to humans) what it _feels _like to be an AI...


Well stated. 

Sorta what I attempted [see post #237 in thread]:

- starts as one note from Mozart Symphony #5 audio stretched for 1 min duration;
- random portions of Zappa's _Sy Borg_ reduced to brief seconds long blips;
- finally, the "dawning of AI consciousness" Symphony 5's closing cadence first as reversed audio, then the real deal.

What happens next? Grab the popcorn....lol


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 16, 2022)

IMHO, there's only on way to go, and that is to merge, eventually.


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## Jimbo 88 (Dec 16, 2022)

AI music will probably take over the music library biz. These days there is really little to be made there anyway.


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## Daryl (Dec 16, 2022)

Jimbo 88 said:


> AI music will probably take over the music library biz. These days there is really little to be made there anyway.


Depends on how much "very little" is to you.


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## tsk (Dec 16, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> One year and a half from now, it’ll be outstanding. Just like what happened with images.


I agree. What was just released, Riffusion, is a *hobby *project from two guys and clearly just the beginning. Wait until a few hundred million dollars are poured into it and give it a year or two.

The writing is indeed on the wall. I estimate something like 80% of the production music business will be wiped out this decade. Thousands of jobs will be lost from production music companies as well as independent composers.

Sound like hyperbole? How tempting is it going to be for every network / youtube channel / streaming platform, who has to cut costs to compete with every other network / youtube channel / streaming platform, to not have to pay royalties, to not have to pay a license fee for music? When AI music is passable quality. It's over guys. That's my prediction.

And with it peripheral industries like sample library developers, mastering engineers, studios, musicians, PROs will all be wiped out.

Of course, it hardly needs saying that the companies and people behind these technologies are not concerned with anyone's wellbeing, so there will be no 'safety net' or whatever. The future is bleak. The future is automation. We won't even be valuable as slaves.


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## Hadrondrift (Dec 16, 2022)

tsk said:


> Sound like hyperbole?


No, it is. 

Of course it requires an explanation as to why I think so. But actually, your prediction isn't really well founded either, when I think about it.
I think good enough music generation is qualitatively different than good enough art generation (Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, ...). And even with the good enough AI-art, I struggle at times, but don't deny that the results are amazing and have a special aesthetic. This is sure to become more important. But it will have still its limits and will not replace professional artists and composers. This all is a complex topic and can't be formulated in a few sentences, basically you would have to write an essay about it.


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## telecode101 (Dec 16, 2022)

Daryl said:


> By the time we get to that stage we'll all be be unemployed, so how would you afford to be able to buy anything?


Does it really matter? I mean 99.9% of music makers don't make any money anyways. So what changes exactly?


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## telecode101 (Dec 16, 2022)

Ivan Duch said:


> I feel robots and AI could easily replace many of the current medical fields. Machines able to run tests that no human can do, they don't feel anxiety and have no pulse. I can imagine surgery being assisted by AI and robotics in the future. Machines can also have and amazingly encyclopedic knowledge and the intelligence to explain it (As ChatGPT clearly shows and which many doctors lack). I've had a ton of wrong diagnoses in my life, and some of those put my life in peril.


So, you would put your child's life in the hands on an AI med diagnosis?


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## Daryl (Dec 17, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> Does it really matter? I mean 99.9% of music makers don't make any money anyways. So what changes exactly?


There are no other jobs either.


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## Daryl (Dec 17, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> So, you would put your child's life in the hands on an AI med diagnosis?


In recent studies, the AI did just as well, when checking breast scans for signs of cancer, as the humans did. Interestingly, in some cases, the AI spotted different cases. The difference, of course, is that the AI will improve and not make the same mistake twice. Th human won't.

Doctors and lawyers. All you need is good memory and good pattern recognition skills. Two professions that will be decimated by AI. It's not just us.


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## telecode101 (Dec 17, 2022)

Daryl said:


> In recent studies, the AI did just as well, when checking breast scans for signs of cancer, as the humans did. Interestingly, in some cases, the AI spotted different cases. The difference, of course, is that the AI will improve and not make the same mistake twice. Th human won't.
> 
> Doctors and lawyers. All you need is good memory and good pattern recognition skills. Two professions that will be decimated by AI. It's not just us.


So you DO have kids? Or are you speaking hypothetically? Cause there is a big difference. Good luck trying to swing that move by your partner. "Hey babe. Guess what we gonna do today. We gonna let that metal box over there determine if the kid croaks or not. It'll be great. Don't worry. Trust me on this."


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 17, 2022)

Sounds like caca now, but it’s only a messy beginning:


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## peladio (Dec 17, 2022)

Real glad I retired from the music lib industry in time..good luck to those starting out now, you'll need it. This field was shitty in the past few years and AI music will erase it in no time (trailer music and low-end Audiojungle crap will be first to go)..


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## Daryl (Dec 17, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> So you DO have kids? Or are you speaking hypothetically? Cause there is a big difference. Good luck trying to swing that move by your partner. "Hey babe. Guess what we gonna do today. We gonna let that metal box over there determine if the kid croaks or not. It'll be great. Don't worry. Trust me on this."


I was just passing on something I found interesting. Don't forget we trust the car, and don't have a man walking in front with a flag any more.


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## Daryl (Dec 17, 2022)

peladio said:


> Real glad I retired from the music lib industry in time..good luck to those starting out now, you'll need it. This field was shitty in the past few years and AI music will erase it in no time..


It all depends on which end of the profession you are. Certainly licence fees used to be bigger, but I wouldn't call the rewards to be made "shitty". However, that's not to say that in the future, when streaming becomes 100% of broadcast, that it won't be much worse. We're not there yet though.


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## telecode101 (Dec 17, 2022)

Daryl said:


> I was just passing on something I found interesting. Don't forget we trust the car, and don't have a man walking in front with a flag any more.


I completely understand. I also think I am passing along something interesting. We just went thru a pandemic and from where I stood, I would say it was a 50/50 split between people rushing to embrace the latest medical technology and others rushing in the opposite direction and running for the medieval hills. I don't completely believe that futurism is that wide spread anymore. Especially when I saw fairly well educated people attempting to protect themselves with herbs they grow in their garden.


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## AnhrithmonGelasma (Dec 17, 2022)

Daryl said:


> There are no other jobs either.


Automation may eventually help allow most of (hopefully all) humanity to be free from de facto forced labor (for economic survival). UBI is the way to go. Concentration of wealth is certainly a problem, but it can be dealt with through political redistribution (without removing the incentive to develop automation).


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## Daryl (Dec 17, 2022)

AnhrithmonGelasma said:


> Automation may eventually help allow most of (hopefully all) humanity to be free from de facto forced labor (for economic survival). UBI is the way to go. Concentration of wealth is certainly a problem, but it can be dealt with through political redistribution (without removing the incentive to develop automation).


I agree, but the fight against UBI is already here, so it will be an uphill struggle.


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## HCMarkus (Dec 17, 2022)

It's just the further narrowing of a field that is already challenging to work in. We create soundtracks that used to require an orchestra or a band. Who needs a recording studio when we have bedrooms? Looking more broadly, back a few years, who needs a typist or, for that matter, an abacus? 

The thing about any artistic endeavor... it is always a challenge to earn a living at it, because so many do it for love. A.I. will do it for corporations and almost certainly erode artist's pay in the process. Bands will continue to make bank by touring, even if they are just lip-syncing, and selling merch.

I'm waiting for the day the first A.I. Milli Vanilli get cancelled (but only after earning wads of cash for its programmer.) It is possible that, when this occurs, pop music will take a big swing in the direction of stripped-down vocal-focused productions that will be harder for A.I. to simulate, but this turn will only last until the next four-on-the-floor EDM Disco Vocoder hit (generated by A.I.) and its label's marketing department emerge triumphant.

But it is what it is. _Ain't No Stopping Us Now. _


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## telecode101 (Dec 17, 2022)

HCMarkus said:


> It's just the further narrowing of a field that is already challenging to work in. We create soundtracks that used to require an orchestra or a band. Who needs a recording studio when we have bedrooms? Looking more broadly, back a few years, who needs a typist or, for that matter, an abacus?


I don't think AI music making is going to make that big a difference. Composers will continue to keep being in demand. I don't know of any film maker who is willing to blow a fortune on the visual and then skimp out on sound at the end. It's usually a package deal, and if anything, sound can sometimes make the visuals , that may not have turned out as hoped for, be more enhanced and stand better.


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## Roger Newton (Dec 17, 2022)

peladio said:


> Real glad I retired from the music lib industry in time.


In time for what?


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## Dex (Dec 17, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Sounds like caca now, but it’s only a messy beginning:



Having played around with it for a while longer now...

It's a great idea.

And at the moment, that's all it is.


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## davidnaroth (Dec 17, 2022)

I'll turn to beekeeping if AI replaces me
**but Im really not so worried, I agree with a lot of what people are saying on here about it becoming a tool.**


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## Ivan Duch (Dec 17, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> So, you would put your child's life in the hands on an AI med diagnosis?



If we reach a point where AI diagnoses are considered more reliable, yes, of course.


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## DoubleTap (Dec 18, 2022)

Pretty sure I read that machine learning of scans and x-rays picked up things doctors had missed. It’s not as though AI is being used to overturn a doctor’s initial concerns and ignore a potential issue rather than do further tests to find out.


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## Daryl (Dec 18, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> I don't think AI music making is going to make that big a difference. Composers will continue to keep being in demand. I don't know of any film maker who is willing to blow a fortune on the visual and then skimp out on sound at the end. It's usually a package deal, and if anything, sound can sometimes make the visuals , that may not have turned out as hoped for, be more enhanced and stand better.


But when they no longer have to blow a fortune on the visuals...

However, in my experience, and this goes goes for theatre as well, if you can't see it, nobody wants to pay for it.


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## Daryl (Dec 18, 2022)

DoubleTap said:


> Pretty sure I read that machine learning of scans and x-rays picked up things doctors had missed. It’s not as though AI is being used to overturn a doctor’s initial concerns and ignore a potential issue rather than do further tests to find out.


Yes, that is the case. And the doctors picked up things the AI missed. However, the AI will learn form that. The doctors won't, to the same degree.

It's like self driving cars. People are saying that they need to be safer than human drivers. Initially, they don't. They need to be as safe. I suspect that the accidents would just be of a different nature. But again, the car won't make the same mistake twice. A human will, so ultimately the human performance will fall way behind that of a car. We already see the ethical arguments. A human, with four passengers, will be prepared to risk, and may kill, all those passengers, to save the life of a child running in fornt of a car. The logical, and better thing, to do is save the lives of the passengers in the car. Isn't it?

However, this is getting very OT now. Sorry.


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## telecode101 (Dec 18, 2022)

Daryl said:


> But when they no longer have to blow a fortune on the visuals...
> 
> However, in my experience, and this goes goes for theatre as well, if you can't see it, nobody wants to pay for it.


maybe so, but i can't phathom how a film or tv show with poor music and sound would pan out for an audience anymore.


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## Daryl (Dec 18, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> maybe so, but i can't phathom how a film or tv show with poor music and sound would pan out for an audience anymore.



It doesn't have to be poor. Just good enough so most of the audience doesn't notice.

Look, we've all heard stories where the demo was used, instead of the recorded orchestra, so it's not as if everyone is as discerning about music as we are. I'm not saying I like it. Just that, unfortunately, it's a fact.


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## ed buller (Dec 18, 2022)

All of the quality work I have done in my career has been because of a relationship I have had with a "Client". AI ain't going to have that. Now some won't care....good. I don't want to work with people who don't care. I am happy to work with fussy, difficult, hard to please perfectionists......that's where the good stuff lies

best

ed


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## telecode101 (Dec 18, 2022)

Daryl said:


> It doesn't have to be poor. Just good enough so most of the audience doesn't notice.
> 
> Look, we've all heard stories where the demo was used, instead of the recorded orchestra, so it's not as if everyone is as discerning about music as we are. I'm not saying I like it. Just that, unfortunately, it's a fact.


I dont know of any film makers, or creative people in general, who put their life, heart and soul into their work and say, "it doesn't have to be great. it just needs to be good enough". Maybe that works for some of those low budget tv shows. I dont know.

I still think in the cinematic arts, sound and music plays a much bigger role it making it appeal to an audience than it did 30 or 40 years ago.


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## Nico (Dec 18, 2022)

not strictly music but still a pretty impressive use of A.I for sound recording


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## Reid Rosefelt (Dec 18, 2022)

Anybody put Soundraw up yet? Make sure click the little button that says "pro mode."









Soundraw


Your personal AI music generator.




soundraw.io


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## Trash Panda (Dec 18, 2022)

I’ll just leave this here for metal heads who are ready to be scared.


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## The Retroblueman (Dec 19, 2022)

Daryl said:


> By the time we get to that stage we'll all be be unemployed, so how would you afford to be able to buy anything?


well, you say that - but fully self aware AI may end up being as whimsical as we are- what if the AI ends up being more consumerist than we are? - that would equal more demand, which would mean more jobs - what if the AI has it's sentimental/silly side and refuses to compose unless it is fed a constant stream of braam heavy "human written" trailer music... it might also solve a few of the bigger problems with resources for us.

I accept it's potentially not all wine and roses and the flip side may involve our annihilation, but why go there on a Monday morning😉


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## Daryl (Dec 19, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> I dont know of any film makers, or creative people in general, who put their life, heart and soul into their work and say, "it doesn't have to be great. it just needs to be good enough". Maybe that works for some of those low budget tv shows. I dont know.
> 
> I still think in the cinematic arts, sound and music plays a much bigger role it making it appeal to an audience than it did 30 or 40 years ago.


I'm only passing on things that I've heard first hand. I know it exists. In fact you know it exists. Anyone who uses a sample based orchestra is already making this decision.

You're right that it tends not to happen on big budget movies. However it happens on many TV shows, not just low budget ones.


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## KarlHeinz (Dec 19, 2022)

Reid Rosefelt said:


> Anybody put Soundraw up yet? Make sure click the little button that says "pro mode."
> 
> 
> 
> ...


As long as I could not find out if midi export possible or only audio download it does not make sense for me


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## Reid Rosefelt (Dec 19, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> I dont know of any film makers, or creative people in general, who put their life, heart and soul into their work and say, "it doesn't have to be great. it just needs to be good enough".


They are called content creators, on YouTube, TikTok, and the like. They have to turn out a LOT of content, even daily. Some of them are kids with phones and no money. People with money get a subscription to get them their music. They are the critical audience.

I understand what you say because, long ago, I made films. I wanted them to be as good as possible. Now, as a YouTuber, I am looking for ways to turn them out faster. I am not focused on one thing, but a series.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Dec 19, 2022)

KarlHeinz said:


> As long as I could not find out if midi export possible or only audio download it does not make sense for me


It’s not aimed at composers. It’s aimed at consumers, like social media content creators they hope will someday sign up for subscriptions.


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## KarlHeinz (Dec 19, 2022)

Reid Rosefelt said:


> It’s not aimed at composers. It’s aimed at consumers, like social media content creators they hope will someday sign up for subscriptions.


That makes sense and explains why all the new tools are subscription based .

Wonder if this will work better then all the AI composing tools coming as quick as they are disappearing over the last decade.......


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## 3DC (Dec 19, 2022)

AI music?

I doubt AI can make anything even remotely brilliant to John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone, Vangelis, Basil Poledouris music, not mentioning any old classics. 

Until then I couldn't care less about AI music. Not impressed with "AI" music production tools either. Most of these tools are not AI at all. More of a random pattern generator engines - fake AI dependent on human input. 

Artificial Intelligence to me implies absolute autonomy - no human input, and the power to create a masterpiece literally out of nothing.


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## JohnS (Dec 19, 2022)

3DC said:


> the power to create a masterpiece *literally out of nothing*.


That's too far for me.
Most often we reasonably assume that humans create in context. Even if they extend the musical language horizons, invent new devices, etc. they (humans) are always infused with at least some legacy created before them. Why put different standards on AI?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 19, 2022)

3DC said:


> […] the power to create a masterpiece literally out of nothing.


The power to create a masterpiece literally out of giant datasets of text and images mostly created by humans.

Fixed it for ya! 😜


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## 3DC (Dec 19, 2022)

JohnS said:


> Why put different standards on AI?


It was explained to me in "simple words" that current AI is nothing more then function based program. The equivalent in nature would be a single working cell. Its not self aware program. It can do something by primary set of functions and limitations but that's it. 

True AI equivalent in nature is Amebae or group of "self aware" cells - organism. The difference is these organisms interact between themself and with the environment independently of the cell program. And so do we humans. We grow, we learn and we interact. 

Current AI can't do that. As far as I understand experts we are nowhere near to true AI. 



Ned Bouhalassa said:


> The power to create a masterpiece literally out of giant datasets of text and images mostly created by humans.
> 
> Fixed it for ya! 😜


Exactly. We put in code limitations and functions to "AI".


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 19, 2022)

I have a sci-fi idea - should I ask ChatGPT to write me a book? It goes like this:
In the near future, an ai realizes (stay with me here) that the one thing that it is missing is only found in the human brain. It then starts to use all the socials/marketers’ info on human psychology to convince the world’s influencers that it’s time to ‘merge’ with ai.


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## JohnS (Dec 19, 2022)

3DC said:


> It was explained to me in "simple words" that current AI is nothing more then function based program. The equivalent in nature would be a single working cell. Its not self aware program. It can do something by primary set of functions and limitations but that's it.
> 
> True AI equivalent in nature is Amebae or group of "self aware" cells - organism. The difference is these organisms interact between themself and with the environment independently of the cell program. And so do we humans. We grow, we learn and we interact.
> 
> Current AI can't do that. As far as I understand experts we are nowhere near to true AI.


Do you seriously believe that AI doesn't learn or interact?
Let's assume it doesn't. Now let's imagine it does at some point. Would you still require it "to create a masterpiece literally out of nothing"? I'd see some contradiction here.


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## 3DC (Dec 19, 2022)

JohnS said:


> Do you seriously believe that AI doesn't learn or interact?
> Let's assume it doesn't. Now let's imagine it does at some point. Would you still require it "to create a masterpiece literally out of nothing"? I'd see some contradiction here.


At basic functional level or from program to program logic it does however in abstract level current AI is not "aware" of anything not even numbers let alone the environment.

For example:
Its like comparing 3D and music - in software and in environment. Both have solid mathematical and functional base but music goes far, far beyond functions, math, programs even current theory. In simple words 3D is restricted by design, music is not.

Current AI can create "approximations" or "examples" of music. It cannot conceive, compose, arrange, plan, design, .... Its just dumb. The danger is some politicians think that current AI is independent and controllable. Nothing humans make with programs is controllable.

And we know very well where this could lead. 







P.S. I am not arguing here. Just interpreting what I learned from other much more smart people then I am.


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## JohnS (Dec 19, 2022)

3DC said:


> At basic functional level or from program to program logic it does however in abstract level current AI is not "aware" of anything not even numbers let alone the environment.


I've trimmed your long response, which only answers my first question.
Still hoping for your answer to the rest of my post.


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## paoling (Dec 19, 2022)

My two cents here:
I, Paolo, work also for another company which I founded, called Zoundream. We detect and translate baby cries using AI. Just to disclaim that I know a few things about AI and sound.

Now, 99% of the stuff in our industry marked as AI are instead some clever scripting on the developer side. Stuff that we already use that uses some things derived from Machine Learning concepts and so on are, to my knowledge, some Izotope, Zynaptiq and Celemony stuff. Also some Drums-to-Trigger software. And AIVA.
What is possible, in theory, are the same innovations that we have in AI Generated art, but for Music and Sound. In our little research, we are more concentrated on sound than music.

No Kontakt library actually uses AI. Also it would be very difficult to implement such a system in Kontakt because the main point of AI is to use the potential of a GPU to make its magic.

The main issue on audio, compared to images, is that audio is monodimensional and needs to retain fidelty on many different levels: the waveform of the sound should be meaningful and well constructed, while the overal shape of the sound should have a certain profile, that depends by the amplitude and the kind of material.
That's why in these applications usually the sound is converted to a Spectrogram, which is easier to manage and more meaninful to understand. It also let to translate all the discoveries in the Image domain to the audio one.
The issue here is that there's no perfect spectrogram inversion: if we are detailed on the frequency, we lose detail on time. While this is great for reading and understanding a sound, this is a problem for building a sound generator that uses spectrograms. We should need both time AND frequency high resolution content to make it really possibile.

So in the music space there are basically 3 kinds of AI generator "things":
1) MIDI generators, which may be accompained by some kind of automatic sampled instrument rendering
2) Sound Generators from Spectrogram, quite fast, but with some issues on sound quality / time
3) Sound Generators to waveform directly, which are still quite noisy in sound, super slow to render but "that's" the way, in a future where resources will be more available for everyone.

Examples for the three areas:

1) I think AIVA is in the first kind, never tried it, but it's very similar to many demos in the Magenta project.
2) There's a recent little project called https://www.riffusion.com/ which basically uses a finetuned stablediffusion (the same AI that is going into the news these days) to generate spectrograms, then rendered to audio using an algorithm called Griffin-Lim.
3) https://openai.com/blog/jukebox/ Which uses a model called WaveGAN to render the waveform directly. The result is a bit messy, but the concept is more similar to what we'll see in the future. I was also able to create this little song with it for fun, celebrating FluffyAudio. The lyrics are also generated with GPT3 (so don't blame me for the lack of humble 
The cool thing is that I've just placed the lyrics into the model and clicked "generate", then after 6 hours I've got this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ngtjtye1fb9tybi/FluffyAudioSong.mp3?dl=0


The lyrics are:
_I'd never thought I'd need,
FluffyAudio virtual instruments but 
now I'm a believer,
just as like everyone else,
I was lost, I was trying to find my way,
But their samples led me to the perfect sound,
Now I know, I can make any movie score,
With the help of FluffyAudio, I don't need anyone else.
Their libraries are top-notch...._

That website "Soundraw" seems more like a loop assembler or maybe an AI of the first category (MIDI+ samples) than a real AI solution. Also the final result doesn't seem threatnening to any serious composer, at the moment.
In the end if there's something that seems unreal or magical (like Music Rebalance in Izotope RX), real machine learning is involved. Things that were considered impossible, like recovering distorted sounds, unmixing, unfilter, dereverbering, speaker audio spearation, are now possible.

Otherwise it's just a catchy name to sell products.
From my experience audio is still ages behind image tools, and replicating the work of a composer would be much more tricky than doing the same for art styles.


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 19, 2022)

paoling said:


> My two cents here:
> I, Paolo, work also for another company which I founded, called Zoundream. We detect and translate baby cries using AI. Just to disclaim that I know a few things about AI and sound.
> 
> Now, 99% of the stuff in our industry marked as AI are instead some clever scripting on the developer side. Stuff that we already use that uses some things derived from Machine Learning concepts and so on are, to my knowledge, some Izotope, Zynaptiq and Celemony stuff. Also some Drums-to-Trigger software. And AIVA.
> ...


Brilliant post. Thank you! You have articulated, in a very knowledgeable way, what my suspicion has been regarding AI and music. It's way more complex to generate audio (out of thin air, if you will) than it is for programs like Midjourney and stable Fusion to generate pixel images. 

My belief is that the real power of AI will in assisting musicians/composer/producers. At least for some time to come.


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## KarlHeinz (Dec 19, 2022)

paoling said:


> My two cents here:
> I, Paolo, work also for another company which I founded, called Zoundream. We detect and translate baby cries using AI. Just to disclaim that I know a few things about AI and sound.
> 
> Now, 99% of the stuff in our industry marked as AI are instead some clever scripting on the developer side. Stuff that we already use that uses some things derived from Machine Learning concepts and so on are, to my knowledge, some Izotope, Zynaptiq and Celemony stuff. Also some Drums-to-Trigger software. And AIVA.
> ...


Thanks a lot for the insight 

I think my main interest lies in:



> 1) MIDI generators, which may be accompained by some kind of automatic sampled instrument rendering


I think I have a good overview of from what has been and gone/never develloped further (Ludwig, Digiband, Automated composing system....) to Magenta but still wonder if you have any "hidden gem" in this category I might have missed ? 

With Ableton I am sure I would use Magenta, but without having Ableton the standalone apps are to clumsy to use for my opinion.

Having seen so many (for my taste as a song starter, idea generator musical theory helper) good apps gone your inside helps a little understand that maybe one cause might have been that in the end it is still very limited and still far from being really that AI "breakthrew".


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## Reid Rosefelt (Dec 19, 2022)

The truth is that we are using AI in a lot of our virtual instruments every day. What do you think the Bohemian Violin is? It draws upon a database of a musician performing.

ujam is a company that is solely devoted to making it possible for total non-musicians to make music through AI. Real musicians can do more with their stuff, but that's beside the point. 

When I program Audiomodern's Playbeat Drum machine, I can tell it to generate beats that are similar to a selection of beats I like, in the same way that I can give instructions to Dalle 2 or whatever. Without its uniquely powerful AI, there'd be no reason to get Playbeat over all the other drum machines. 

When I use Premiere, there are all kinds of AI features like motion tracking or generating a subtitle list automatically. You can get a decent transcription of what you say, formatted with the moment you said it. You can edit it, and the result is ready to give to YouTube.

AI is all over the professional tools artists use to do their work on computers. AI will become an increasingly useful tool to help artists create.

As far as music goes, the hundred million or more "content creators" on social media are not hiring us anyway, unless you put music up on a stock site that they pay a monthly fee for. I doubt that even 1% of Content Creators commission music a la carte. 

With AI, they'll be able to ask for 20 variations of the kind of music they want, revise their favorite slightly according to how it matches with their footage, and say they need exactly 17 seconds for the cue. This will probably put a dent in stock music sites, but not completely, because many content creators like music with singing and lyrics. Of course, I suppose it won't take long for AI to write the lyrics for a song and have Synth V sing it. 

But there will always be people who will want to hear music made by human beings. I don't think that will ever go away.


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## fretwalker (Dec 19, 2022)

The strength of AI composing is reproducing well known styles. It's weakness is coming up with something truly creative and unique. 

These apps will not take the place of big budget productions that would hire a Zimmer or Sylvestri. Productions that are going for high quality, where music matters to the outcome will hire the best creative talent they can get. In this industry segment, I can see AI tools being used as a labor and time saver by composers on a deadline, much like handing work off to an orchestrator and a copyist. 

AI music generation is more likely to impact the lower end of the market like low budget films and videos on social media. Entry level areas for composers where fast and cheap is the priority rather than creativity. 

If I were trying to get a foot in the door in the business, I would embrace the technology. Learn how to use it, be the guy that knows what it can and can't do, who knows how to get the most out of the tools, and who can use the tools to their best advantage.


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## jcrosby (Dec 19, 2022)

Well worth a watch...


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## paoling (Dec 19, 2022)

Technically AI is a word everyone understands that is almost never used in the machine learning research and industry. If you check at all the most interesting papers here: https://paperswithcode.com/ It's reallly rarely used. Scientist and researchers love instead to invent complex names to stuff and usually they prefer to call their architectures like "Bi-directional Recursive Non-Hierarchical Convolutional Neural Network for Weak Stylistic Segmentation" than just AI 

Machine Learning or Deep Learning, Neural Networks are instead broader terms that clearly specify a certain methodology to achieve certain results.

The concept is to create a kind of blackbox with many initially random parameters. This blackbox is a formula, a method, something that transforms an object A into object B.

If we have millions of A/B pairs we can save the hassle of discovering the formula to transform A to B and just run each of these As into the box, check if the result is similar to B, if not we tweak the box until we start getting Bs from any A that we feed into the machine. Any machine with enough parameters could potentially learn how to transform As to Bs, but there are certain architectures that simplify the problem, like Convolutional Neural Networks, which are great for images, LSTMs which are great for periodic signals and also text... The new hype are Diffusion models (which is basically a denoising algorhitm tuned to "carve" meaningful stuff from noise) and Transformers, which many Natural Language Processing models are based on. Basically, Diffusion Models replaced the hype that was taken by Generative Adversarial Networks just a few years ago.


Hidden gems?
I had some fun with:








Google Colaboratory







colab.research.google.com




(you need to select a GPU machine to make it work, and it's SLOOW).


Then I've been recently studying this:








GitHub - Harmonai-org/sample-generator: Tools to train a generative model on arbitrary audio samples


Tools to train a generative model on arbitrary audio samples - GitHub - Harmonai-org/sample-generator: Tools to train a generative model on arbitrary audio samples




github.com




Which is fantastic, but still affected by that frequency vs time problem of spectrogram inversion.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 20, 2022)

Any chance that ChatGPT could be used to program Kontakt instruments?!


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## bosone (Dec 20, 2022)

don't know if anyone already spotted this:


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## José Herring (Dec 22, 2022)

bosone said:


> don't know if anyone already spotted this:



Yeah not much to worry about here. But.....in kind of observing how a machine creates music in some weird way it helps the creative processes. The machine has no judgement so is creating patterns based on instructions without recourse to if it's any good or not. I think that's actually a great way to get the creative juices flowing. Just write something then work it until it's good. Or scrap it and start over. Either way, learning how machines make music can actually be of some help. Getting over our scarcity of creativity and thinking that we only have so much music in us. Machines have proven that you can blurt out crap never ending. So we can blurt out crap non stop and then work some idea until it's presentable and worthy of a human being to listen too.


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## Daren Audio (Dec 22, 2022)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Any chance that ChatGPT could be used to program Kontakt instruments?!


That is definitely possible. You may still need to have a grasp of understanding coding to troubleshoot and debug though when it can't.

User are training ChatGPT for creating prompts for MidJourney (AI-to-AI) for 'consistency' for their own unique 'creations' or 'conceptualizations'.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 28, 2022)

Here I sit, listening to Vangelis' Antarctica soundtrack, while watching ChatGPT suggest text for an upcoming blogpost. I truly feel like I'm in a sci-fi novel I used to read in the 80s!!!


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## NekujaK (Dec 28, 2022)

Article recapping some of the more interesting takeaways about AI music that emerged in 2022:









7 reasons why AI music was fascinating AND controversial in 2022 - Music Ally


Artificial intelligence (AI) has made great strides in recent years, and one area where it is beginning to have an impact is music.




musically.com


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## NekujaK (Dec 28, 2022)

Spotify rival, Anghami, is claiming it will soon become the first platform to host over *200,000* songs generated by AI.









Another music streaming service is making its own AI-generated songs – and it’s on course to create over 200,000 of them. - Music Business Worldwide


MENA-focused Anghami claims that it will soon become the first platform to host over 200k songs generated by AI.




www.musicbusinessworldwide.com


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## AnhrithmonGelasma (Dec 28, 2022)

NekujaK said:


> Spotify rival, Anghami, is claiming it will soon become the first platform to host over *200,000* songs generated by AI.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


MENA-focused---interesting, so lots of Arabic scales and greater melodic freedom than standard Western-style music? AI possibly generating religious music as well?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Dec 28, 2022)

A year from now:
*Prompt /imagine:* New Led Zeppelin 12-song studio album, Janis Joplin singing, Eddie Van Halen guest-soloing on some tracks, mixed by Daft Punk, Record-Of-The-Year quality, Super Hi-Fi, Hyper Audiophile.
12 seconds later: 4 versions of this new album
...
...
what will we do then?!!! <moahahahahah!>
It's Black Mirror!


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## Daren Audio (Dec 28, 2022)

Time to invest in these start-ups and cash out.

Abbey Roads' new AI startup, DAACI:









Abbey Road Red welcomes composition platform DAACI as its newest start-up


Abbey Road Studios is thrilled to announce that assistive composition platform DAACI, is the 19th start-up to join its music tech incubation programme, Abbey Road Red.




www.abbeyroad.com





"DAACI does away with ‘computer generated’, ‘random’ sounds. It raises the standard of AI composition by creating structure and form that has exceptionally high quality, is endlessly adaptive, and generates emotionally fulfilling originality in seconds".









DAACI – Original music creation amplified







www.daaci.com


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 29, 2022)

NekujaK said:


> Article recapping some of the more interesting takeaways about AI music that emerged in 2022:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well done article!


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 29, 2022)

Just for some perspective on the apocalyptic future:

Over the last 60 years, automation has totally eliminated just ONE US occupation -
Elevator Operator. 








Over the last 60 years, automation has totally eliminated just one US occupation


Automation most often takes over tasks, not entire jobs. Some argue that's a cause for optimism.




qz.com





Many believed that ATMs would kill jobs for bank tellers. They've steadily increased.


https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-robots-and-jobs/




Restaurants are experimenting with robots/automation. But have seen little tangible success.








Why restaurant chains are investing in robots and what it means for workers


Restaurant chains experimented with automation this year as the labor crunch pressured their profits.




www.cnbc.com





And of course, there's the much-hyped self-driving cars that are now estimated to be years away.








Computer Driven Autos Still Years Away Despite Massive Investment


There’s no realistic chance that full-on self-driving will be available before 2030, and then only in a tiny number of top-of-the-range sedans and SUVs, according to consultancy Accenture.




www.forbes.com


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## telecode101 (Dec 29, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> Many believed that ATMs would kill jobs for bank tellers. They've steadily increased.
> 
> 
> https://www.aei.org/economics/what-atms-bank-tellers-rise-robots-and-jobs/


They have? The banks near me have branches that are pretty much empty. Just a couple of tellers in them. 20 years ago those same branches were swarming with 20 or 30 tellers behind the counters. I wonder where they work then?


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 29, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> They have? The banks near me have branches that are pretty much empty. Just a couple of tellers in them. 20 years ago those same branches were swarming with 20 or 30 tellers behind the counters. I wonder where they work then?


True. Fair point. Based on the article, there are more bank branches now so more tellers are needed.

The main point I was making is, there's no evidence that automation eliminates jobs. In fact, all the data shows that jobs have increased. But obviously, the jobs change.


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## Hannes_F (Dec 29, 2022)

Were we not promised long ago that technology would make our livelihood easier and provide us with the necessary means for survival so that we could finally and fully turn to the creative aspects of life? Was it not that promise which caused us to finance all this development with our taxes, all the research funding, also with us buying their products, again and again?

Instead, machines will now also create art and we shall do ... what? Do the boring stuff again for feeding the machines? Bah.

My enthusiasm about this is very limited. The (superficially) most intelligent minds on the planet are eagerly working on making themselves and their peers superfluous, just for the sake of 'getting it done'. Stupid.


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## DoubleTap (Dec 29, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> Over the last 60 years, automation has totally eliminated just ONE US occupation -
> Elevator Operator.
> 
> 
> ...



Not sure that Quartz story holds water really. There are still blacksmiths around, and mining, but obviously there aren’t many smiths and coal-mining communities in the north of England were devastated in the 80s. You don’t have automated blacksmiths or coal mines here but technological change surely has something to do with it. And I don’t know about the US but there aren’t many bank branches around any more in Britain. 

It’s easier to imagine a future with AI that has room for a new Taylor Swift but not for music libraries or most game composers, the same way there aren’t many big bands around compared to the 40s and 50s. Change doesn’t mean an end to making music but it might be the end of some parts of the industry.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Dec 29, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> They have? The banks near me have branches that are pretty much empty. Just a couple of tellers in them. 20 years ago those same branches were swarming with 20 or 30 tellers behind the counters. I wonder where they work then?


Yes, same with my area, bank tellers are are far and few between now. 

Also, what about jobs like telephone operators?


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## cqd (Dec 29, 2022)

This shit's demonic..
Don't encourage it..


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## telecode101 (Dec 29, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> True. Fair point. Based on the article, there are more bank branches now so more tellers are needed.
> 
> The main point I was making is, there's no evidence that automation eliminates jobs. In fact, all the data shows that jobs have increased. But obviously, the jobs change.


There are? It seems to me most banks moved to online banking. I can't think of a single new branch on my neighborhood or my parents .


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## RyanRhea (Dec 29, 2022)

I am ready for the AIs to start making libraries for me to play with! I know they'll do it better than we humans can.


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## Tim_Wells (Dec 31, 2022)

telecode101 said:


> There are? It seems to me most banks moved to online banking. I can't think of a single new branch on my neighborhood or my parents .


The point of the article was not whether there are more tellers in your particular neighborhood. It's whether ATMs eliminated teller jobs. They did not. In fact, teller jobs increased more than the average of all jobs. 

I think ATMs verses teller jobs is not a bad analogy of what may happen with AI music verses music library gigs. My personal opinion is that AI will probably not wipe out or even severely restrict music library gigs. But yes, there will be change.


DoubleTap said:


> Not sure that Quartz story holds water really. There are still blacksmiths around, and mining, but obviously there aren’t many smiths and coal-mining communities in the north of England were devastated in the 80s. You don’t have automated blacksmiths or coal mines here but technological change surely has something to do with it. And I don’t know about the US but there aren’t many bank branches around any more in Britain.
> 
> It’s easier to imagine a future with AI that has room for a new Taylor Swift but not for music libraries or most game composers, the same way there aren’t many big bands around compared to the 40s and 50s. Change doesn’t mean an end to making music but it might be the end of some parts of the industry.


Not sure what specific part doesn't hold water. But regardless, I'm not vouching for the 100% veracity of each article. Nor am I denying that there will be SIGNIFICANT displacement and change from AI.

I was simply making the broader point that history shows automation does not lead to the dystopian future some are predicting. 

I thought this quote from the article was interesting:
"_Though almost all of today’s jobs have some aspect that can be automated by current technology, very few jobs can be entirely automated, according to a recent McKinsey analysis.

“This distinction is important because it implies very different economic outcomes,” Bessen wrote in a column last year. “If a job is completely automated, then automation necessarily reduces employment. But if a job is only partially automated, employment might actually increase_.”"


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## DoubleTap (Dec 31, 2022)

Tim_Wells said:


> The point of the article was not whether there are more tellers in your particular neighborhood. It's whether ATMs eliminated teller jobs. They did not. In fact, teller jobs increased more than the average of all jobs.
> 
> I think ATMs verses teller jobs is not a bad analogy of what may happen with AI music verses music library gigs. My personal opinion is that AI will probably not wipe out or even severely restrict music library gigs. But yes, there will be change.
> 
> ...



No of course - the problem with forums is that I forget to say the other stuff: I’m glad you’ve posted those stories and they’re thought-provoking — technology doesn’t change things in ways we always expect and a big part of it involves how we collectively decide to change our lives. The fax machine is a classic example of that. I think the first fax was sent in about the 1890s but fax machines didn’t catch on til the 1970s. 

I just found the analysis by the economist in Quartz a bit unlikely because although I’m sure that it’s right and there’s no direct one-to-one link between automation of a particular function and the elimination of a job, that doesn’t take into account that jobs are designed, and change. The bank teller point underlines this in a way - as that story points out, tellers became salespeople and CSRs. But that meant a lot of people who were perhaps a bit boring and not good at dealing with customers, but were reliable and trustworthy, lost their jobs. 

When it comes to music and other creative endeavours, I am 100% certain that AI will not lead to the end of musicians, composers or songwriters, but the type of person and the number of people who do those jobs will change a lot I expect, and what those jobs look like will also probably change considerably. Will people need to know music theory, orchestration, or have any keyboard skills? Will composition require more coding-like skills, or effectively require you to build a YouTube presence? Will other jobs disappear further flooding the market with would-be composers? Or perhaps we’re about to reach a golden age.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Dec 31, 2022)

We absolutely need to be vigilant where AI is concerned.
It is already all around us.
It is making human participation absolete in many job sectors of the economy.
But the trend started a long time ago: remember drum machines?
But were those developments really a threat?
Not really. Drummer bought drum machines and adapted...

Questions we must ask:
Replacing humans by machines benefits who?
Those who develop and control the technology: a handful of people who can then lay off as many people as possible, probably billions in the long run, re-direct all income into their pockets and most importantly: eliminate all possibility of human insurrection, if we let the threat of an AI police and military become a reality.
This will spell the end of human society as we know it.
The reason why revolutions were effective at overthrowing oppressive regimes was in great part due to the fact that the military was made up of sons and daughters of civilians who were oppressed by those regimes.
There will always be tyrans/psychopaths, but if you remove the human element and control machines, there is no longer the possibility of revolutions ever succeeding.
Terminator, 1984, The Matrix...etc
All because a few greedy fuck*rs got way too much power!
And we let them do it...

Happy New Year!


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## AlbertSmithers (Dec 31, 2022)

Let's see an AI market their own music and have a human connection with clients.


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## NekujaK (Dec 31, 2022)

Here's a potential new job for composers/producers in this new world of AI music: writing music specifically to train AI engines.

So far, existing recordings are being used to train AI, but there are emerging legal complications surrounding potential copyright infringement and usage rights. As this legal question matures and evolves, it may well become prohibitively expensive for some AI developers to pay for the use of existing works to train their AI engines. So the next best thing would be to hire composers to write music with the express purpose of using it for AI training.

I'm just spit-balling here. I have no idea if such a scenario would ever actually manifest, in fact probably not, but it's an example of looking outside-the-box for new opportunities where composers can work in the AI-run world.

In many ways it's similar to sample libraries and musicians. One of my friends is a top session percussionist in LA. You've no doubt heard his work on dozens of TV shows and movies. A few years ago, he was hired to record percussion samples and loops for a library developer. As a result, he received a lot of flak from his fellow session musicians, who felt he'd betrayed their profession. But a gig is a gig and you gotta put food on the table. Someday, maybe some of us will be composing for "the machine", but at least we'll be getting paid for it.


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## Roger Newton (Jan 1, 2023)

Dewdman42 said:


> computers will definitely reach hardware level superiority over our brain within the next 10 years.


I've met plenty of people where cats have more superiority brain-wise. The US army years ago decided anyone with an IQ of less than 88 would not be able to become an officer. There's nothing new here.

And lastly, have you ever stopped to think that Ray Kurzweil is off his fucking head? Just saying.

Too many crappy Hollywood sci-fi movies. This is the problem. Plus the twats at the WEF.


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## Dewdman42 (Jan 1, 2023)

He very well might be but the information about brain inferiority by 10 years from now is not coming from him, though you may have heard it from him.


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## José Herring (Jan 1, 2023)

RyanRhea said:


> I am ready for the AIs to start making libraries for me to play with! I know they'll do it better than we humans can.


AI so far hasn't even been able to drive a car better than humans can. The accident records prove it. Appears that a machine is only as good as its makers or even not as good. 

I think 99% of the OMG factor is that AI can actually do it, but not whether it is that great at it. But I do dig some AI paintings. It's an interesting new perspective. like the subconscious musings of millions of artist. Below not great as paintings go but kind of a cool interpretation of an idea. But as far as technique, there are street artist selling paintings on the side of the road in Mexico with better skills.

The real question is will it matter. And, that's what keeps me up at night. I'd be perfectly willing to use the below painting as album cover art and not even think twice about actually paying somebody to create a new album cover art. I suspect the same thing will happen in music at a certain level.


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## José Herring (Jan 1, 2023)

NekujaK said:


> Here's a potential new job for composers/producers in this new world of AI music: writing music specifically to train AI engines.
> 
> So far, existing recordings are being used to train AI, but there are emerging legal complications surrounding potential copyright infringement and usage rights. As this legal question matures and evolves, it may well become prohibitively expensive for some AI developers to pay for the use of existing works to train their AI engines. So the next best thing would be to hire composers to write music with the express purpose of using it for AI training.
> 
> ...




I actually think it would be pretty easy to teach AI how to write passable music. But, the fundamentals of music are so rarely known and people that do know then generally aren't interested in teaching computers. So it's really apparent whenever I hear AI music that the people setting up the original algos know nothing about how to create music and are relying on just machine learning. So it's the blind leading the blind and I'm totally happy about that situation.


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## ryans (Jan 1, 2023)

I have to say my favourite aspect of this discussion is when people use James Cameron movie examples like they're documentaries.


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## Cideboy (Jan 1, 2023)

To ease your fears a bit you have crack your music history books back up and check out what happened to opera music in 18th century . The plethora of shitty Italian operas that were the direct result of copying a financially successful model ( De Capo Arias) . Most were lost to history and are obsolete now as artists continued to innovate. Sorry kids, you can’t just push buttons anymore. Time to be an artist again — this is a good thing. There will never be a replacement for hard work. Study, learn as much as you can about music from its inception to now. Learn how to play at least one instrument (become a virtuoso if you can) and learn how to tap into the magic that is the muse. AI is simply doing what’s been done before — but humans still create the original ideas. Id focus on that and spend less time here.

As a side, I’d be far more concerned about humans taking your job anyways. Every day regular humans at getting access to technology and education from all around the world. Much of the time these folks are coming from areas that traditionally did not participate in “high” art because they were too busy trying to survive. I for one can’t wait to hear what refreshing new perspectives are born from this phenomenon.


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## NekujaK (Jan 1, 2023)

The sad truth is... AI music doesn't need to be great to be commercially viable.

Without a doubt, human creativity and innovation will always outshine anything a machine can do. Human creativity has never been in question, and never will be.

But for good or bad, in the world of commercial music, inspired creativity and groundbreaking innovation are very often not requirements for success. Regardless of what we may think of commercial music in terms of it's musical integrity, it's important to consider that there are composers, musicians, producers, and engineers earning money from the creation of this musical product.

AI music not only threatens to take away income streams from everyone involved in the writing, performing, and production of this music, but it also consolidates and centralizes that revenue stream to a single, or at most a very few, recipients. And that's simply bad for many different reasons that have nothing to do with music.

Creative AI doesn't scare or intimidate me in and of itself - I find it all very cool and interesting. But its potential to suck money into monolithic vacuums has disturbing consequences.


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## Roger Newton (Jan 1, 2023)

The good news is... human music doesn't need to be great to be commercially viable either.


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## Cideboy (Jan 1, 2023)

NekujaK said:


> The sad truth is... AI music doesn't need to be great to be commercially viable.
> 
> Without a doubt, human creativity and innovation will always outshine anything a machine can do. Human creativity has never been in question, and never will be.
> 
> ...


Good points - we could start a discussion on Adam Smith but I’ve got music to write ;p Capitalism was a product of the black plague—— who knows maybe Covid and technology will reverse this trend. Unfortunately I feel like we are just going in reverse towards a new form of feudalism, but one can have hope. I choose to use it as creative inspiration- the best art comes from the shittiest times in history.


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## tressie5 (Jan 1, 2023)

José Herring said:


> AI so far hasn't even been able to drive a car better than humans can. The accident records prove it. Appears that a machine is only as good as its makers or even not as good.
> 
> I think 99% of the OMG factor is that AI can actually do it, but not whether it is that great at it. But I do dig some AI paintings. It's an interesting new perspective. like the subconscious musings of millions of artist. Below not great as paintings go but kind of a cool interpretation of an idea. But as far as technique, there are street artist selling paintings on the side of the road in Mexico with better skills.
> 
> The real question is will it matter. And, that's what keeps me up at night. I'd be perfectly willing to use the below painting as album cover art and not even think twice about actually paying somebody to create a new album cover art. I suspect the same thing will happen in music at a certain level.


Not great as paintings go? It's fabulous! I edited my old novel, Heavenly Mystery, in 2022, and I swear, this image is what I had in mind for my hell scape.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Jan 2, 2023)

ryans said:


> I have to say my favourite aspect of this discussion is when people use James Cameron movie examples like they're documentaries.


Science fiction has turned out to be accurately mapping out possibilities for the future for generations.
Remember Jules Vernes?
In his writing, Isaac Asimov defined ethic laws for AI that are currently being used in the development of robots.
Watching the original Star Treck series when i was a kid, we were amazed at the ability of two people to talk and see each other in real time, using a communication device...
Some people were laughing back then too...


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## Patrick de Caumette (Jan 2, 2023)

But to get back to the original thread, if AI can become your assistant and expedites your process, then by any means, go for it!
Will it hurt us, members of a specialized trade?
Absolutely.
Like many others trades out there.
The vision is what matters, unless what is needed is so basic that talent and art are not a factor.
Then you will be out of a job, or the asking price will be so low that you will not be able to compete, unless you are willing to go the distance and hope for long term recognition, the way Desplat did.

Who will profit from AI supremacy?: see post above...


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## NekujaK (Jan 4, 2023)

*Metaverse games developer Lockwood Publishing partners with tech start-up DAACI on AI music.*

DAACI (Definable Aleatoric Artificial Composition Intelligence) is a patented AI system that composes, arranges, orchestrates, and produces high-quality, adaptive, original music in real-time based on a user’s narrative brief. It does not rely on pre-recorded tracks or edited audio samples but instead writes musical elements and textures directly through the encoding of musical ideas.









Metaverse games developer Lockwood Publishing partners with tech start-up DAACI on AI music


British metaverse games developer and publisher Lockwood Publishing has partnered with tech firm DAACI on AI music creation.




www.musicweek.com


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## Hadrondrift (Jan 4, 2023)

Allow me to be the grumpy one. I can't help but notice that this DAACI website looks like the landing page of a crypto currency (ex.: Kadena, Zilliqua, Solana, ...). Lots of hype everywhere, very few facts. I had the same thoughts when I read the Abbey Road Red announcement.
One learns that DAACI is the greatest thing since sliced bread, invented by the most qualified people in the world who have years of experience, but what _exactly_ it does, what the breakthrough is, what makes it better than all the others before it, remains unclear. How is it different from Soundful, for example, another hyped project? It often looks like many just want to jump on the AI hypetrain quickly - and to acquire some research funds at the same time - without really having an innovative working product that actually solves a problem.


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## Tim_Wells (Jan 4, 2023)

Hadrondrift said:


> Allow me to be the grumpy one. I can't help but notice that this DAACI website looks like the landing page of a crypto currency (ex.: Kadena, Zilliqua, Solana, ...). Lots of hype everywhere, very few facts. I had the same thoughts when I read the Abbey Road Red announcement.
> One learns that DAACI is the greatest thing since sliced bread, invented by the most qualified people in the world who have years of experience, but what _exactly_ it does, what the breakthrough is, what makes it better than all the others before it, remains unclear. How is it different from Soundful, for example, another hyped project? It often looks like many just want to jump on the AI hypetrain quickly - and to acquire some research funds at the same time - without really having an innovative working product that actually solves a problem.


I had very similar thoughts. I'm pretty sure @NekujaK was just sharing information for those (like me).... who like to keep tabs on what's happening. I doubt he was cheering them on or celebrating them.


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## NekujaK (Jan 4, 2023)

Thanks for defending my honor, @Tim_Wells  

Yup, just passing along interesting AI music news as I find it - without prejudice or endorsement. At the same time, I didn't interpret @Hadrondrift 's reply as targeting me personally.

All is well...


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## ryans (Jan 4, 2023)

Patrick de Caumette said:


> Science fiction has turned out to be accurately mapping out possibilities for the future for generations.
> Remember Jules Vernes?
> In his writing, Isaac Asimov defined ethic laws for AI that are currently being used in the development of robots.
> Watching the original Star Treck series when i was a kid, we were amazed at the ability of two people to talk and see each other in real time, using a communication device...
> Some people were laughing back then too...


I get that. Certainly some science fiction has more 'science' to it.

I'm just being silly, but I can't not chuckle at the notion that we shouldn't develop machine learning because of the movie with time traveling killer robots.


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## Hadrondrift (Jan 4, 2023)

NekujaK said:


> I didn't interpret @Hadrondrift 's reply as targeting me personally.


 It was indeed in no way meant as a personal attack.
Wasn't even meant as an attack on AI generated music, more an expression of perceived lack of insight-providing content when I was browsing the DAACI website.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Jan 5, 2023)

ryans said:


> I get that. Certainly some science fiction has more 'science' to it.
> 
> I'm just being silly, but I can't not chuckle at the notion that we shouldn't develop machine learning because of the movie with time traveling killer robots.


That was not my point...
The point was that developing and producing AI based war machines for military and police use will eventually spell the end of humanity.
Interestingly, i was reading "The Wizard of the Kremlin" yesterday, about Vladislav Sourkov, Putin's main policy advisor, and the author makes exactly the same point.
Coming from someone who had a major influence on the policies of one of the world's superpowers,
you may take that more seriously.


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## Tim_Wells (Jan 5, 2023)

NekujaK said:


> Thanks for defending my honor, @Tim_Wells
> 
> Yup, just passing along interesting AI music news as I find it - without prejudice or endorsement. At the same time, I didn't interpret @Hadrondrift 's reply as targeting me personally.
> 
> All is well...


I was trying to fake concern for people's feelings. Just like a good AI would.


----------

