[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