[jameslk]

I might be in the minority, but I think this anti-AI sentiment is going to be generational. The next AI-native generation to grow up creating AI music, photos, videos, literature, code, etc will think it's silly why the older generation is so appalled at what they created and resistant to using AI to do it

I'm not placing a value judgement either way, but I do think there will be a divide in the ways things are done largely by generation. Both sides will have their arguments for why they do things the way they do it

[vintermann]

It's not that simple, I think. Music, literature, even photos and software sometimes, are interesting for their context - someone made them, for you, and they wanted to tell you something. They're interesting because we care about the person on the other end. But if there is no person on the other end, why should I care?

We can argue about this if you want. Long chain of comments back and forth. But ask yourself, if we did that, and it turned out I'd actually not read anything you wrote, instead just turned the whole thing over to a chatbot to argue for me - would it make a difference to you? I think it would.

The text on the screen might well be indistinguishable from whether I did it myself. Just as AI generated music might be indistinguishable one day, if not already. But just as you probably wouldn't want to argue with me if I don't even bother to read what you wrote, why should you listen to my music if I didn't even care to listen to it myself?

[lukajk]

AI writing, music, art is still extremely derivative. Unless that changes we will still need humans that provide the interesting aspects. If AI facilitates certain things the way that more powerful DAWs or raster graphics programs do then it's fundamentally no different

[cma]

Natural beauty doesn't need a person on the other end to be appreciated, as one counterexample.

[userbinator]

But if there is no person on the other end, why should I care?

There are countless people "on the other end" --- everyone who contributed training data, and of course the one who prompted the AI to generate the result. It's odd that this debate always ends up with one side thinking there's a machine autonomously generating music, when in fact AI-generated music comes from humans using AI to create what they want.

[torben-friis]

Suppose I ask my tattoo artist for a dragon. Would you agree that I created the tattoo?

If not, why then would asking the AI qualify as creation?

[troosevelt]

There is absolutely some form of creation there. The most basic models now are just prompts but somebody has to prompt them, there is a human being there prompting the song and then deciding to share it (a form of curation).

I'd imagine these will get more and more granular to where you're not just prompting but you are gradually building up songs and at that point I'd be surprised if people were still making this argument.

These things don't exist without human interventio.n

[torben-friis]

Some form of creation, maybe. In the same sense that choosing what restaurant to go to and what to order is an act of creation. Going ahead and declaring yourself the chef is, however, ridiculous.

[userbinator]

to where you're not just prompting but you are gradually building up songs

There's indeed a huge difference between asking the AI to just generate something with a short and generic prompt, and directing it far more specifically. To use the dragon tattoo analogy, it's the difference between asking for "a dragon tattoo" and precisely specifying exactly what type of dragon, what pose, colours, any other adornments, etc.

An example of the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_e8bQ6i43o

[djhn]

This is a fun analogy, even if it’s just novel to me.

With any kind of creative work for hire, from architecture to advertising, from jingles to commisioned sculptures, the client’s taste and budget, more than almost anything else, determine the outcome.

Take Cannes Lions as an example of a competition and awards ceremony that essentially exists to define what ’good taste’ means within that industry. The client’s team is prominently credited alongside the creative agency. They get to climb onto the stage for the speech and they have a voice on whatever video clip is made about the project.

Partly this is to encourage more ambitious and spendy work for the industry at large. But everyone involved certainly knows, that the same creative team, with the same creative idea, could have ended up making something much worse working with a different client team.

I can’t stand AI slop, yet I think I’ve unintentionally argued in favour of people creating it, as long as it’s… good by some measure?

[torben-friis]

>the client’s taste and budget, more than almost anything else, determine the outcome.

That's a curious take. So we should change history books to declare Sixtus IV as author of the Sistine chapel, since Michelangelo was but a vessel or his taste and budget.

Sarcasm aside, I can accept some agency and curation in the act of choosing what to ask for. But I think appropriating the act of creation without being required to even have a passing idea on how to actually execute it, that I can only conceive as an undescribable act of ego and entitlement.

I can't take seriously the people who want to claim the title of musician without learning to play, be writers without having faced a blank sheet or even read others that much, etc.

[djhn]

I agree with the sentiment. And I think we’ve accidentally stumbled upon how the prompt-writer should be viewed: the buyer, or sponsor of the output. A punter, if you will, would be even more appropriate. The financial commitment is minor amd the process is largely a gamble.

[skyyler]

>the client’s taste and budget, more than almost anything else, determine the outcome.

that's interesting! why do advertising firms work with artists at all then?

[vintermann]

No, if you look at the actual AI generated music flooding the streaming services, it's pretty clear that they're not trying to create what they want in a musical sense. They probably don't even listen to the things they put out.

[card_zero]

People on both sides (which of course are not monoliths) are liable to imply that the AI was the artist.

Really what you get is a sort of conceptual art.

[jameslk]

This may seem like a foreign thing to you and I, having AI do all the work we normally do. The work is a fraction of what we used to do, so in no way is it authentic or worth our time

Now imagine you grew up using AI to make things. Your earliest memories were using AI to make funny songs, cool videos. All your friends and peers use AI to make things. In fact, most everyone uses AI to create anything. It's a fundamental part of everyday life

I doubt anyone who grows up using AI would really even think twice about it. AI is just... how you do it

[troosevelt]

People generally listen to music because they enjoy it. Is it because somebody is on the other end? I mean it's possible, but I think just liking the song is just as much if not more important.

You pretty regularly see comments by people that say they enjoy a song until they find out it was generated. That tells me it's not about the music but about something they believe about generated music.

Why do you suggest that people generating music aren't listening to it?

[customguy]

> That tells me it's not about the music but about something they believe about generated music.

Or it's something they know, namely there being nobody at the other end.

By your logic, a love letter you get from a real person and one that was generated would be the same thing, because "only the words should matter". To me it doesn't make sense to say that about music in precisely the same sense I assume you agree it wouldn't make sense about a love letter.

> Why do you suggest that people generating music aren't listening to it?

Because it's possible, and considering the vast amounts that get generated, a mathematical certainty that it does happen. Whereas people who compose music actually hearing what they compose, or if they're deaf, they experience it some other way. That is also a certainty.

Why this push to somehow "overcome" that? Why can't generated stuff be for people who like it, and the people who don't like it say that once, and that's the end of the discussion and simply gets respected as boundaries humans set for themselves?

[troosevelt]

> Or it's something they know, namely there being nobody at the other end.

But until they were told otherwise, they did not know and did not care.

> Why this push to somehow "overcome" that? Why can't generated stuff be for people who like it, and the people who don't like it say that once, and that's the end of the discussion and simply gets respected as boundaries humans set for themselves?

I'm not sure. I think it's close-minded but I understand and can respect the feeling. What I don't respect is when people start saying that people who like this music are somehow listening to something less human or other variatations that you can see in this very thread. For some reason, we as humans care about this, though you're right, we should just be able to accept both sides.

[cowsup]

I think there's a difference between music that people will cherish for decades to come, and music that will sell in the short-term. This isn't even me being an "old man yelling at cloud," you can look at what was charting in the 80s-90s and recognize some songs, but others just got lost to time. They were fine, but they weren't special.

AI music will fill the gap. The "song of the summer," the latest TikTok trend, and music that plays for department store ads, will be produced and distributed by labels, without the need of a particular artist whose image they have to worry about. How many times have labels, who invested a lot of time and money into artists, had to deal with the artist having an episode or scandal? AI eliminates that risk.

I think trying to avoid AI music will be like trying to avoid auto-tune, or digital instruments, or people mixing tracks in ways that are impossible to replicate with real-world instruments in real-time. It'll be common at first, harder later, and impossible/silly in the future.

[yunwal]

> The "song of the summer," the latest TikTok trend

These are 2 cases where you absolutely need a personality to go along with the song. Department store ads are probably already AI.

[cybercatgurrl]

this whole notion of not listening or reading yourself as an artist is rather silly. anyone who is serious about their craft whether AI or not is going to be constantly dogfooding

[philistine]

Why should the young kids pay 20-30-40 dollars a month for Spotify to listen to AI-made music when you can make your own AI-made music with but a prompt from a free tier?

The fact is, AI is a thermonuclear device that everybody has at their disposal. That changes the power dynamics completely, and it is incorrect to believe we will maintain our exact commercial relationships but + AI.

[lukajk]

If nothing else, to have a shared experience with other people. A lot of the value for people is derived from the fact that they can talk about the same song with someone else. If it's all individualized you lose that.

Also assumes all AI music will have perfect execution and there is no distinction between any of it outside of personal preference, otherwise there is a reason to pay to listen to something else that is higher quality than what you can make

[maplethorpe]

> If nothing else, to have a shared experience with other people. A lot of the value for people is derived from the fact that they can talk about the same song with someone else. If it's all individualized you lose that.

While I agree this is a valuable part of the human experience, I don't think the average person would recognise it as one. Without it, they might start to feel a general lack of connection to the people around them, but probably wouldn't be able to trace where it came from.

It makes me wonder what other human cultural experiences we've lost over the years, which are causing us a kind of collective mental anguish in their absence.

[munk-a]

And, depending on why you listen to music your relationship with AI generated music will probably shift. If it's a quiet day and I want to listen to something deeply I will reject anything AI generated as I want art that someone thought was important... but if I'm just craving background noise while I work then I care a lot less.

We're edging up on a big classical question: "What is art without meaning?"

[cybercatgurrl]

the problem is people don’t know what they want. that’s what the artists are for

[jjmarr]

The younger generation will split, as it always does, between AI-native and "hyperauthenticity" that rejects things even the previous generation accepted. Like how vinyl is outselling CDs.

Rather than focus on "Verified" streaming, I'd expect "AI reject" Gen Alphas to exclusively listen to live music generated through electromechanical devices.

[gyomu]

Heh, people have an interest in other people. Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran or whoever is cool these days are popular because they are real people with real lives and histories that can be related to, followed over time, etc.

Of course the music matters, but the persona of who creates the music and their lore matters just as much. There’s a reason why live events are the moneymakers, people care about physicality.

No one gives a shit about AI music designed to make money, there’s no story to follow or be inspired by there.

All this was already tried with “digital idols” etc in the 2000s, the only one that had any lasting success was Hatsune Miku by virtue of being “first”.

[amiga386]

I think you're conflating two things: fictional characters/personas, and attributing "music" to them.

People go wild for characters all the time, whether they be Batman, Pikachu, Colombo, Dora the Explorer, whatever -- have you ever seen Nyango Star drumming? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UYgORr5Qhg -- not to mention the entire VTuber scene, where people build the same weird parasocial relationships as other YouTubers do, but hiding behing an animated avatar and voice changer.

Hatsune is an odd one in that she's a character whose "voice" is a set of parameters for a vocal VST (Vocaloid) that you can plug into your DAW and have a synthesized singer along with your synthesized piano, drums, guitar, etc. But for whatever reason, the Japanese loved the character, so they rolled with it and you can now make 3D videos with the character as well as having her singing.

More to the point, the Gorillaz are a full touring band of VTubers, even though the people behind the animated masks are themselves pretty famous already. They have fans, including deranged ones that can't seem to separate the fictional cartoon characters from real people and imagine themselves as Murdoc's wife.

This goes back a long way, I was thinking Josie and the Pussycats, but Wikipedia reminds me that Alvin and the Chipmunks is probably the first.

It also makes me think of ABBA and their "ABBA experience", where they've "digitized" themselves. What it really is is wish-fulfilment and nostalgia; their fans, themselves in their 60s/70s, are thinking of their youth 50 years ago, and the actual members of ABBA also look 70 and not 20 anymore. So they've made a virtual replica of themselves from when they were in their prime, and you can go and dance to them if you want, while the real ABBA members water their garden and feed their cats at home.

[darenr]

Yes but there will be AI personalities in the near future too that I predict will be just as popular as real humans. I don't think people care too much if a personality it carbon based or silicon based. it'll be us old farts that'll be the ones telling the AI to get off our lawns.

[vintermann]

Agreed, and it matters that even the most vapid pop star isn't just a product of our collective (or individual) desires. They're a real person existing for their own sake, and not just for our sake, no matter how much they cater to us.

[JoeDaDude]

This "human connection" is over rated IMHO. We create an image of a human musician and too often become disappointed fans because, for example, we disapprove of the musician's lifestyle (the expression sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll exists for a reason), or because of disagreement with the social and political causes the musicians support. Occasionally, fans follow an artist for their commitment to their art later to discover they sell out, like their style changes to pursue mass appeal, or they sell their work to become a jingle for sugar pops or similar. I think it is best to appreciate their creation and admit the person creating it may not be someone to place undue adulation on. To quote a film, I think it is best to "separate the art from the artist".

[darenr]

I replied earlier to the parent and meant this comment. I don't think people care too much if a personality is AI or not. we'll have pop stars that are AI, there will be actors that are AI with all the same fanbase that humans have today.

[m463]

I think you might be right. When it comes to fad and fashion, sometimes really weird stuff catches the public eye.

Thing is, I really wish there was a way to keep from getting buried in endless dreck.

Maybe it will end up just being genres... kind of like pop can be corporate and nobody really cared about the Milli Vanilli controversy because they liked the sound.

[darenr]

Yes but there will be AI personalities in the near future too that I predict will be just as popular as real humans. I don't think people care too much if a personality it carbon based or silicon based. it'll be us old farts that'll be the ones telling the AI to get off our lawns.

[meroes]

Which generations? Even the most low tech older Millenials are using AI more and more.

[shoopadoop]

Overwhelming abundance makes things boring. Just think of how you own ALL the games for your emulators and how it actually makes it hard to focus on actually playing them.

[basisword]

From what I've seen it's the youngest generation who are most anti-AI slop at the moment. I don't see that changing. People like originality and authenticity. AI is not either of those and never will be. That's not to say the biggest pop stars in the world won't be using it - but they're inauthentic anyway.

[randusername]

I could see this especially if the tooling gets sharper and we mature beyond full-auto maximum slop per unit time to more reasonable AI-assisted workflows.

The difference between the indescribably saccharine images that come out of chat UIs versus watching someone with some artistic skills driving the slick comfyui [0] nodal editor around.

I can't unsee echoes of DALE-2 horrors that color my perception of post-2022 digital art, but it will be normal to my kids.

[0]: https://github.com/comfy-org/ComfyUI

[sevenzero]

Anti AI sentiment regarding arts is the only correct sentiment. Art is about human expression which AI can never achieve.

[skapadia]

Much of the world believed in geocentrism for a very long time, yet we've known better for a long time now. Currently, this "Ptolemaic" idea of human intelligence being the center of everything sounds similar. What if human intelligence is not at the center? What if other forms, such as AI, emerge as the new "center"?

[hexasquid]

No machine could create the sublime human connection I get from Crazy Frog.

[sevenzero]

Finally a based comment on HN.

[cybercatgurrl]

incorrect. AI is a tool like any tool. it can be used as part of the workflow for anyone serious about their craft and anyone serious about their craft will put a lot of effort into and that is the only metric that matters

[sevenzero]

Nah using AI is simply stealing and going the lazy route. Fuck off.

[troosevelt]

That's a very gatekeepy standard for something which has for all of history been a subjective thing. What I think will fall by the wayside are dogmatic takes like these.

If I gen up then curate a bunch of tracks into a concept album, why is that not art?

[binary0010]

My younger friends/acquaintences hate ai significantly more than my genx/boomer friends. Could be my own bubble of course... Take from it what you will.