[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.