[iahds9uasd]

The tools and knowledge for making music are already unbelievably accessible. Anyone with an internet connection and a decent computer can read about music theory, learn to use a DAW, and get some basic virtual instruments. The same goes for producing art, which doesn't even require anything digital.

This does not augment the music making process in any way, it simply replaces it with what might as well be a gacha game. There's no low-level experimentation, no knowledge acquisition, no growth, and you can't even truly say you made whatever comes out.

It's not a tool for music creators, it's a tool for people who want slop that's "good enough".

[jononor]

Sure, with several hundred hours to spare one can make some songs in a DAW. Now one can make something as good/bad in maybe 1/10x the time. Or, given the same time investment, one can possibly make something better!

[iahds9uasd]

The goal of AI automating labor should be to give us more leisure time to pursue hobbies, not to fill our limited leisure time with low quality substitutes for those hobbies.

Making an activity in which the primary limiting factors for most people are the time, knowledge, and effort required (as opposed to expensive tools) into an effortless slot machine pull is enfeebling to human creativity and agency. Who will spend the hours of making bad music to get to the point where they become good if they can just rely on something else to generate music that's "good enough"?

There's something to be said about all this which is related to AI generated images that I rarely see brought up: people with specific skills play roles within groups, so AI making their hobby that they dedicated so much time to more easily accessible makes them lose social value, which might make them quit altogether.

The common response that "people should make art because they love it, not for attention" is a prescriptive statement that supposes there are more or less "pure" forms of performing an activity and also ignores that art is a form of communication.

[jononor]

"low quality substitute" and "effortless" are value judgements on your behalf. Many made similar judgements about DAWs and VSTs. And that is your right. But not everyone sees it in the same way - for some generative models are opening up a new world of possibilities.

I agree that the slot machine pull of current models is tedious and boring. I look forward to models/systems which better facilitate more creative control, directed exploration and iterative refinement.

[jimbokun]

> "low quality substitute" and "effortless" are value judgements on your behalf.

Accurate value judgements in this case.

[jimbokun]

That person would be making nothing. The AI does everything.

[chefandy]

Yes, there are a TON of free tools and endless instruction on using them. If you move your budget up to making one-time payments for things that cost less than one month using a subscription service, you get an astonishing breadth of new options. Beyond that, so many of the more expensive music making tools are one-time payments rather than subscription services. Buy Ableton once? You own it. You can get the latest version at a discount, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you from using the version you bought, in perpetuity.