[NateEag]

> I want musicians to use AI to generate new sounds as part of composition.

As a onetime semi-pro musician, with decades of live performance and sound design experience:

I would rather burn my beloved instruments publicly and pee on the fire.

[phatfish]

It depends how it is used. If it is an assist which generates sounds/samples that a musician can edit themselves, that seems fine. But spewing out a final form track from a prompt would just be slop.

Integrating AI with existing tools to improve productivity is harder and requires effort and investment...

[NateEag]

As one whose musicianship involved a great deal of generating sounds and samples myself, via modular synthesis and the occasional use of a programming language for DSP, I assure you I find that idea of using genAI for an assist on that front offensive.

Could you use the bullshit machines to generate sounds that were nuanced, musical, and original, with enough time and effort?

Maybe. I'm not sure original is something they can do, but it's not totally implausible.

I would strongly recommend learning to use other tools for that purpose, instead of feeding the plagiarism monstrosities.

[echelon]

The aversion people like you have for AI is uncomfortable to me.

I understand your entire world model is shaped by your past and that this machine is changing the fundamentals.

As an outsider to music, I'm excited that I have access to something I previously did not through the use of Suno and other tools. I'm excited that I can come in and just try things and not hit a skill wall or quality barrier that would cause me to quit with the limited time and effort a working adult has. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but just never had the time for.

Attempting to learn costs thousands of hours before you can even start to feel good about it, and I don't have that time. Life is short and I'm already thinking about the end.

I used to be sympathetic to folks with your view, but now that programming and engineering are impacted by this - I'm in the crosshairs too. I'm subject to the same forces.

I've decided I love this tech even more. Claude Code is a tool, just like all of these other tools.

This rising tide of capabilities is so awesome. This is the space age stuff I dreamed about as a kid, and it's real and tangible.

So no, I won't restrict myself to your set of pre-approved tools. I'm going to have fun and learn my way.

And it is fun.

You can keep having fun the way you like to. What other people do shouldn't be ruining the fun you have, and if it is, then you should reevaluate why you do it.

[rustystump]

I think he meant more like a synth. You could take recordings and process them using ai. At least this was my takeaway

[NateEag]

I spent years deep in modular synthesis, making my own patches, sounds, and effects processors then using them to perform music.

Taking away the precision, control, and serendipity afforded by modules and cables, or a programming language, and telling me "Just describe what you want and the plagiarism machine will spit out whatever correlates with that description on average" would destroy everything I love about synthesis.

[rustystump]

U are arguing against a person who isnt there. I also have done similar and my mind was not thinking specifically prompt the whole output. I think people have this kneejerk to anything that isnt total negativity of ai in the creative space. It is only a tool.

[NateEag]

The nuclear bomb is only a tool.

Ditto nerve gas, and the rack.

Tools absolutely _can_ have moral valence.

Beyond that, they can also be more or less effective for a variety of purposes.

I spent decades to achieve solid competence at a few different skills, and my experience of genAI thus far is that it can easily give the user the delusion of mastery, ensuring the user does not develop true skills, trapped in the false belief that they can do everything they want to or ever would want to.

The process of struggling to learn new skills showed me new worlds of possibility I would never have discovered or explored without first developing those skills.

There are very legitimate reasons why so many artists and musicians hate genAI.

[rustystump]

The escalation is weird. A comparison to violence and the atomic bomb is silly.

Like i said before, you are talking past me as if i were some other person. I agree there are many legitimate reasons. I never said there werent.

This is that knee jerk reaction. Violence and atom bombs. There is so much ai llm or otherwise that is already deeply embedded in our lives some bad but some of it is actually good. Which is my point. Not even the atomic bomb wasnt without some positive use of the technology.

[NateEag]

Edge cases are useful examples. If I had picked less controversial, weaker ones, people would be more prone to dispute that tools can have moral implications of themselves.

You are absolutely right that I have a deep-seated hatred of LLMs being used for any of the manifold purposes I think they are manifestly unfit for.

My reaction is not knee-jerk, however - I have been watching the LLMs evolve since about 2019, letting my opinion form slowly while attending to them and seeing their capabilities improve.

I have concluded they are one of the rare tools whose worst uses are so awful that it is better to develop societal norms against their use and forgo the few benefits rather than risk their worst consequences.

I have very little hope of that happening, humans being what we are, but it is the perspective I have developed after a lot of slow, careful thought.

As far as arguing past you, I don't think I'm arguing at all.

I have shared my opinion, experiences and perspective, and that perspective is certainly very harsh on genAI.

As far as I can see, I have not written anything that disputes anything you've claimed it written, prior to this comment.