I have a very pragmatic view on music: all I care about is whether it sounds good or not. That’s it. That’s literally it. And from that standpoint the advent of AI music has been a major net positive for me.
You can choose to ignore that and come tell me about the ethics of using AI or how you care about the story behind the song and so on and that’s all fine but just note that you’re no longer addressing what I’m actually saying here.
I’m also not claiming it’s great - only that it’s good. I’ve yet to discover an AI song that I go back to like I do with many human-made songs but if I want to put on a playlist playing in the background then one consisting of entirely AI-made music reliably provides me well above average track after another whereas with organic music I need to sift through a ton of absolute crap to stumble upon the occasional good track that still rarely exceeds what AI is able to output. I can go on YouTube and put on a 2 hour playlist of Jazz House or similar and I don’t get the urge to skip a single track.
Currently I feel like where AI still trips is lyrics - they still are only plausible sounding nonsense once you actually start paying attention to it but especially for instrumental music it has far exceeded the level of a good average human artist.
Few examples of what I’m refering to: with vocals and without.
Initial response:
Hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahah
Additional response:
You just took a shit on human creativity and posed it as a discussion about whether human creativity should be shit on.
Wow. Horrible take. Unpopular for a reason. Upvoted.
AI music is objectively good
Asserting a point of view about art — an inherently subjective medium — all while claiming that it’s objective is probably one of the most blatantly idiotic things a person can possibly say and stand behind. And that’s not even mentioning how you’re literally on a community all about opinions.
Regardless you definitely posted this in the right place so credit where credit’s due I suppose. Enjoy your algorithmically-generated slop. A poorly-made piece of art with real human soul and intent behind it will always be infinitely better than even the best possible “creation” of the product of automated theft and assembly of human knowledge and creation.
Man this is the worst fucking take I’ve heard all week
Have my upvote
This is a very good unpopular opinion. It’s actually unpopular and outs the user as an AI bro who wouldn’t know how to make a decent beat to save their life.
who wouldn’t know how to make a decent beat to save their life
That is true and also completely unrelated to the discussion.
It is related to the discussion because appreciation of media comes from a basic understanding of it. Not saying expertise here, but knowing what it takes to make something allows you to appreciate it.
In addition, it kind of cements the belief that people who like AI art and consider it the same as non-AI art tend to be devoid of artistic appreciation.
If that’s the cartoon image that helps you to fit me into your “AI bro” category then by all means. Nothing for me to gain here even trying to convince you otherwise. I just don’t see what you’re hoping to achieve with this.
Not all posts here are discussions or arguments, they can just be a simple statement.
Your first sentence was a simple statement. Calling someone an AI bro who wouldn’t know how to make a decent beat to save their life, to me at least, is an insult.
That is true
OP seems to think it’s just a simple statement too. If they were an accomplished musician being told they can’t make a beat to save their life then sure, it would be an insult, but as OP readily admits across the thread they really do have no experience with or knowledge of music.
And do you? Something can be true and still be an insult. You’re also reasoning in the opposite direction because OP didn’t say he hasn’t had any musical training when that comment was made.
I would’ve been offended when someone made that remark to me as well, even if I didn’t play the piano. Because those two things aren’t related.
Feels more like insults - I just don’t see the point.
jesus man, music - art - is about feeling something. what the fuck
Unsettling is a feeling of sorts
that is insightful.
There’s no difference whatsoever between how a good AI song and a good organic one makes me feel. None.
This should be the test for having a soul. If there’s no difference there for you, we know there’s nothing like a soul in you.
make out with an atm machine? what, it’s got slots…
Do you have a point or are you just here to act like a smug jerk?
My point is, your taste sucks and you need better standards.
If you’re even a human, at this point I’m sure there’s lots of astroturfing by bots about bots for bot ‘art’, imho the only way to enjoy this garbage is if you’re a machine too.
contempt for copyright holders is a feeling
like, you dislike paying for people’s work so fuck the entire category?
I mean, yarr matey, sail them seas and all yo ho ho, but is the solution to expensive publishing really to go whole hog on clanker bleep as a music genre?
Hey, I get it, you just have zero respect for the effort, creativity, imagination, or sacrifice that an artist has to put in to create a work thats any good. To you, art is merely a product. Who cares who made it, how it was made, or what it even means, or if there was any meaning at all.
I totally understand. I went to the store yesterday and they had this hand crafted chair made of high quality wood for sale for like $300. Fuck that! I’ll just go buy a cheap plastic piece of garbage chair pumped out by the thousands in a Chinese factory. I mean it’s just a chair, right? It has one job, who cares what it’s made of. “Quality, Shmality!” I say.
I just wish more people would understand this, like I entered this fighting game tournament last month. But I’m really ass at Street Fighter, so instead I wrote this bot that would play the game for me so I’d win with double perfect every time. Can you belive they kicked me out for cheating? CHEATING! What kind of shit is that? I just used a helpful tool to totally do all the work for me as my only contribution was giving broad parameters while the computer program makes literally every other decision. The audacity of these people! Don’t they understand this makes me a champion gamer?I wouldn’t really use quality as the differentiating factor but more meaning. Which fits more with the effort, creativity, and sacrifice you’re mentioning. Something can be mass produced and still be of a fine quality, but it usually won’t have much of a story behind it, nor does it usually have sentimental value.
That’s an interesting cartoon caricature you crafted there. I just don’t have any clue what it has to do with the topic at hand.
Or is it “BOOO!” that you’re just trying to say here?
I’m just saying I agree with you 100%, and I wish more people would get it.
Like I went to this museum because I heard this painting (The Bona Pisa? Lona Misa? Idk, something like that) was worth like two billion dollars or some shit. But you know, I’m an artist too! So I had Chat GPT create the same image and printed it out, then went down to the museum. I mean if they like the first one so much then they should pay top dollar for a percise copy, right?
But Noooooo! They told me it was garbage and to gtfo! Can you believe that shit? I mean my painting was a pixel perfect copy of the original, so it makes sense that it should be the exact same thing, amirite? It’s the end product that matters, right? I mean it looks exactly the same! I should be getting millions of dollars for this painting! What kind of bullshit this is that?
Fucking Luddites, right? I feel ya.
I want it to sound good
I like AI music
Buddy, no
What are you even saying? You arguing against my subjective experience as if you could possibly know better?
I think you couldn’t find good music if someone stuck it up your nose and gave it a good twist
I have no idea what you are you hoping to achieve by coming here trying to insult me other than to advertise to everyone what a mean jerk you are.
I’m sorry that you’re in pain but I’m not the cause for it nor does hurting others make you feel any better.
Lmfao sure. Have fun with your AI. Hope it fries your brains.
That for sure is an unpopular opinion and I also strongly disagree.
So, take my upvote ;-)
Apart from that, In my experience there is such an incredibly large pool of great music I haven’t even heard yet, that the avalanche of AI generated music does not even improve the useful quantity for an individual in a significant way, not even talking about the quality.
there is such an incredibly large pool of great music I haven’t even heard yet
This is also true but it’s a separate point. If someone was able to come up with a tool that could find all that music for me to listen to then I’d be all for it but currently the only way to discover that is what I stated above: sift through a mountain of junk to find the few gems hidden in between. Sometimes I just want to listen to good music instead of just remaining perpetually on the hunt for it.
Have your tried listening to the radio? There are millions of radio stations on the internet, and hundreds around you locally with FM radio. They curate music so they find the gems for you
Have your tried listening to the radio?
I have and I stopped for a reason. Well over 90% of what I hear there I’m not into. I don’t think I have a single human-curated playlist on my music library as I’ve yet to discover one that’s worth listening through in its entirety. This AI can do far better. And like I said: this isn’t for finding gems but only to have something to put on when I just want to listen to good music.
Someone pointed me to FIP (Radio France) recently, and it’s been great.
Lmao. Do you like rock iHeart radio. How about some hip hop iHeart radio. No maybe a little country iHeart radio
I cherish the hunt. Sometimes something I’ll pick up and listen to for three minutes to test, I’ll find it to be unlistenable nonsense, and then I come back to it again and again.
Anyway, that’s how I have both of Angine de Poitrine’s albums on vinyl now.
The hunt! YES! It makes finding something great even better!
Also, I’ve found that most music that sticks with me, that I keep coming back to again and again, I will have an almost kneejerk dislike of. But like you said, there’s something there that plants a seed in your brain, and calls you back to explore it deeper.
There’s websites like Music Map where you can put in a band you like and it’ll show bands that are similar in sound. It uses positioning and links to show similarities.
It’s not perfect but I’ve found a lot of bands that I didn’t know existed that sound great that I’d never heard of.
Just another tool in the box for you.
The thing is that there are very few bands that I like. I like individual tracks from multiple bands but rarely I stumble upon one that has more than one good song. If I randomly pick 1000 songs from my playlists there’s probably well over 900 individual artists there.
YouTube does a half decent job at recommending me music I like - much better than Spotify at least, but even then it constantly reguires me to get up and go change a track which is exactly the thing I don’t want to do when I put up music playing in the background while doing something else.
what are the bands that you like?
I already mentioned it here.
sift through a mountain of junk to find the few gems hidden in between.
That is true. I found a solid to find people on last.fm that were very adjacent to my eclectic taste and see what they hear what I don’t. Having scrobbled every song I heard in the last decade, the algorithm is pretty efficient.
Bandcamp works fine too for that. “XYZ bought new music”, then I go check what they bought and often buy it too.
But I never listen to music “in the background”. I either listen or I don’t. So maybe I grew more picky with every passing decade 😁
I have a very pragmatic view on music
You’re quite self aware in your assessment, you just don’t realize that being “pragmatic” about music is like being “efficient” about sex; you’re doing it wrong.
This is an incredible comment
Unpopular, yes, but also an objectively wrong use of objectively. Subjectively you find that music enjoyable, but objectively it’s a statistical average of the bog standard crap you can find on on basically any radio station. Nobody can stop you from enjoying that, but don’t think it makes your personal taste anything other than statistically average.
Quality can be recognized without personally liking it. I don’t mean good as in enjoyable to everyone but rather up to the standard that we expect from good music.
up to the standard that we expect from good music.
“Art is paintings of horses”-ass statement. Good music is a gestalt, not a simple sum of its parts. There are plenty of technically skilled musicians who make shit music, and plenty of shit musicians that make good music. There are musicians of dubious ability who make great shit music, or possibly shit great music, but either way do it with a purpose that elevates it above just being noise. There is no standard to be held to because art is not standardised - look at how The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Wire changed the face of music with art that was initially critically panned. Look at how the hip-hop and punk scenes dragged people who had never touched an instrument before into the limelight.
It is entirely possible for a theoretical person to recognise quality without liking it, but you don’t understand what makes music good, so you personally are not able to.
I can’t believe nobody’s called you out on not knowing what “objectively” means yet.
I just think people understand modern colloquial use, even if OP below erroneously declares it was intentional. In the same way we can parse “I could literally eat a horse right now” as, in fact not literal, we can likewise parse the colloquial use of “objective” in this case.
No. It’s not the same as “literal/figurative”. At least not yet. And it’s important that we don’t allow that to happen to these words as well.
Language directly informs our thoughts. Like literally, we think in our respective language, and controlling/molding that is an extremely powerful tool of control and oppression. Perhaps the most powerful. Read 1984 if you want someone to explain it much better than I ever could.
We cannot allow words like “objective” and “subjective” to colloquially mean the same thing. It will just continue making it more and more difficult for people to grasp what’s real and what is not.
I just don’t think that’s how it works, man.
The ministries of truth, peace, etc. didn’t control people’s thoughts by confusing the dictionary, they controlled them with social pressure. The point of twisting language the way they did was to goad people into following along: the idea being that the more people pretend to believe something like 2+2=5, the more they will actually believe it—or, the less their belief or not even matters. Because it’s safer to agree. Nobody wants to be abnormal. And it is “normal” to believe the war is for peace.
What’s another example of this…
I don’t like the way that AI people insist that AI is a tool. Not that I disagree with them; there’s no twist of language. AI is, technically, an object which a person can manipulate toward some end.
I don’t like it because that’s not what they mean. When they say “tool,” they mean “not a disaster.” “No side-effects.” “To be used responsibly,” and that “the irresponsible get what they deserve.” Their insistance on the word “tool” is to close their ears and maintain the arrogant posturing that AI is our slave and we are its master. It is to imply shame or stupidity or incompetence for not agreeing with them.
But I can’t get any of that from the word “tool” alone. A tool is, like, a wrench. What does a wrench mean to me?
When was the last time it read the book? The entire point of Newspeak was to shape how people thought, and it worked like gangbusters.
To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to prevent people from being able to think critically. The Newspeak language thus limits the person’s ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will,[1][2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
You can’t grasp the concept of personal identity, let alone internalize it and actually have one, if the concept for it doesn’t exist in the language.
Orwell could not be more clear about this stuff. To the point where my teenage (before witnessing it first hand in the US) self found those parts to be boring and far fetched. Boy was I wrong.
From the book:
the lexicologist character Syme discusses his editorial work on the latest edition of the Newspeak Dictionary:
By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of The Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like Freedom is Slavery when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.[1]
I haven’t read the book in a while, no. But I’m not above disagreeing with Orwell.
You can’t grasp the concept of personal identity, let alone internalize is and actually have one, if the concept for it doesn’t exist in the language.
I just do not believe it works this way.
Think about the implications of this: how does our language have this concept of identity now when it didn’t used to?
What I see Orwell gesturing at in these paragraphs you’ve shown me is an intentionally poor education. A poor vocabulary would be a component of that, an important vector, but it’s not of the same kind as the colloquial usage of ‘literally’.
What you’re suggesting (charitably, I think) is that the corrosion of ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ leads to a person’s inability to distinguish lies, not to be able to rediscover the concept—and rediscover it quite easily, I might add—which I find ridiculous. You don’t need the word ‘lies’ to identify that something that was said is not something that was, even if you have trouble expressing it.
Or more to the point, people who believe that freedom is slavery do not believe so because they think those words mean the same thing. Either, they have never been taught what freedom is and don’t care to invent it, or they have been convinced that freedom is only the power to choose sin intentionally, which is a sentimental lesson, not a linguistic one.
The only thing that bothers me is the idea that words carry this moralistic baggage themselves, or the vague suggestion that a person unaware of the Orwellian state could still be led by the phrase “freedom is slavery” into the same lobotimized world view that its people have.
I mean you can think what you want, or even write a dissertation about it and have it published. But what I’m saying is established fact among people who dedicate their lives to this.
https://journal.ijarms.org/index.php/ijarms/article/view/757
https://www.academia.edu/721095/Orwell_and_the_Power_of_Language
And here’s Orwell himself defending his use of language as a means of control in the novel:
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
This last one is actually really interesting, I recommend reading the entire thing.
Oh, it’s that essay. I love that essay.
However, Orwell does not actually make the case for this in it:
You can’t grasp the concept of personal identity, let alone internalize it and actually have one, if the concept for it doesn’t exist in the language.
He certainly makes the case for a lack of intellectual hygiene, like having bad posture, leading to a lack of critical thinking, or clarity, but that’s not something I disagree with.
Think of it like this, okay: We haven’t invented wave-particle duality yet and I think, like a stupid person, that light is only a wave. How do you explain to me that a person, tragically, does not know what “literally” means, and so also cannot differentiate embellishments? Like, how does that process happen in the mind?
When a mom tells her daughter she was so hungry she ate “literally 50 cheeseburgers,” what is stopping this person from knowing about exaggerations? Do they forget? Do they never learn it? What is the actual mechanism?
In 1984, the answer I’m looking for would be the police.
1984 did feature people afraid to use their imagination for anything, but that was not solely the product of language. Some of it was the electric chair.
I just don’t like the confusion of Orwell’s ideas here—and he might disagree with me, smack me with a ruler and scold me for my lack of ‘gerunds’—this confusion of Orwell’s ideas with the very normal tides of our linguistic ocean. “Literally” has not actually gone anywhere.
I object to the death of literal, as well. These things only happen if we collectively allow it, and I’d rather not. Especially with the declining literacy rate.
You’re welcome to do so, honestly probably even right to, but know that unfortunately to the majority who have integrated the colloquial use you’re probably going to come off similar to the guy who insists on using the “Þ” instead of “th.”
I’m quite careful with my choice of words and that was a deliberate one.
Humans are just as good at detecting AI music as we’re at detecting toupees: the bad ones stand out and the rest go undetected. Most of AI-made music is indistinguishable from organic ones purely based on the sound of it and the claim that a track is shit is often only applied retroactively after people learn it was made with AI. It’s an emotional reaction and thus not an objective one.
My problem with it is that there is no objectively good music. The whole premise was bad from the start.
I can recognize something as good even if I don’t personally like it. I’m not claiming that everyone will like all of the AI music in existence - I’m claiming that it has everything going for it that we expect from good music. Pretending that it’s all bad just because it’s made with AI as many people do is disingenuous.
How did you validate your ability to recognize objectively good music?
My best friend’s band is objectively the best hardcore show you’ve never been to yet. :)
I mean if it’s the only one it IS objectively true… I need to stop typing “is” in italics.
That’s not really the issue. Your opinion is that AI music is subjectively good. Objective things aren’t opinions.
I don’t think “not technically bad” necessarily means objectively good. The artistry is in the intent just as much as the execution, so I think my post hoc disappointment at learning something was made with AI is regret at the time spent considering what is literally random noise with all of the “bad” parts taken out.
Actually objectively, rampant AI use is harming us more than it’s helping right now.
What do you expect from good music? What is good music? What are you rating? The effort? The chords? The meaning? More than half don’t even work with AI…
I can’t wrap my mind around this at all. Music is the result of people making music. If there is no artist, no perspective or feelings it’s just sounds.
Sure I can’t sing, so what I as an average person make could not even charitably be called music either, but that is not the point - I want to go to concerts and see bands play music, and want computers to do grunt work that people don’t want to do, so that more of us can do better things.
Using an AI to make musical sound just undermines all that. Tech in music being wielded by humans, yes that is music (DJs) and if machines ever develop sentience I will call their sounds music, but not before.
Have my upvote.
When I say music I mean sounds that are intended to sound musical, or melodic or whatever. A kid banging bottoms of pots and kettles with wooden spoons counts as music in this definition. I’m describing a kind of sound.
The sounds AI is able to produce are in some cases such that I enjoy listening to. I’m not a music connoisseur, I’m just a person who likes hearing some sounds more than others. You likely define music differently as well as consume it on a whole different level and that’s fine. I’m simply not that into music. I relate to food in a similar manner. It’s fuel - if it also tastes good, let alone is healthy, then that’s a bonus.
I simply view the gatekeeping and hating a bit silly.
I’m just a person who likes hearing some sounds more than others.
I know, right? Wtf is wrong with these people. It’s the PRODUCT that matters when it comes to music, not the meaning, message, artist or intent, right? Who cares who created the song, or what instruments the song was made with, or even what the song is about. All I crave is acoustic tones arranged in a pleasing manner. Message? Morals? Emotion? Bah, who needs that shit? If Hitler made a banger I’d still listen to it. I’m so glad you think the same!
I relate to food in a similar manner. It’s fuel - if it also tastes good, let alone is healthy, then that’s a bonus.
Wow! I also just shovel whatever disgusting shit someone places in front of my face directly into my mouth without regard for what it is, where it came from, or how it tastes! It’s so awesome to finally meet another human being who just mindlessly consumes whatever stupid bullshit that gets thrown in front of him without thinking just like me! Man we are so much alike it’s scary.
Yeah I don’t think AI has intent yet.
Of course you should listen to whatever you like, that’s not in question. I like to hear the waves at the beach, thunder, rain. None are music but are lovely sounds.
“it’s just sounds”
So, straying from the conversation about AI music being good or whatever. This is the part of AI music that perplexes me the most. So like… Audio is a wave. You can take a sine wave, and a square wave and layer them on top and you get a sine wave with some square edges because it’s both sounds. Different frequencies for different pitches, all of that.
When AI makes music, is it just drawing that wave? If so, that’s fucking crazy. Like I could understand if it used some ingested music theory to write chords and a melody, then turn them into MIDI, then run those through a synth plugin. But AI doesn’t have a synth plugn. It just knows what a synth plugin sounds like through analasys of sound waves, right? Like AI can’t “hear” music. It doesn’t know what a cello sounds like. It just knows what the sample point values of a waveform of a cello sounds like. But then if you tell the AI to add an instrument. Let’s say an electric guitar. It knows how to re-draw that wave to actually make that sound. To add reverb? To add compression? Then more instruments?
If that’s how it actually works, that blows my god damned mind. No human could ever write a song by drawing a line on paper and scanning it in. I suppose they could, but it would be some avant garde experimental thing, not something that sounds like actual instruments. Like I don’t think a human could ever figure out how to draw the sound of fingers sliding down the frets of an acoustic guitar between the actually strumming of a guitar.
It’s fucking bonkers.
Not even waves just ones & zeros, creating a map. Yeah it’s crazy.
I do wonder if the visual representation of music sounds like that would look like art.
See music notes as letters and different type of sound (trumpet, piano, guitar, etc) as a style of writing.
LLMs being good at processing text, music is adjacent to this. Music styles tend to have common elements between them and the LLMs can be trained on the similarities and to predict them, just like text prediction.
Just sucks the ai learned it by stealing. Valid take though, I guess. It feels a lot like saying, “factory farming is great for me. All I care about is meat that tastes decent. That’s it.”
Factory farming isn’t a bad analogue as it’s the only morally indefensible behaviour I knowingly partake in. Though personally I’m unconvinced about the unethicality of AI, but that’s not what this thread is about.
You’re unconvinced that accelerating climate change is unethical. Yowza you’re really starved for attention aren’t ya?
What actually sucks, imho, is that the only way to reach the target is to steal the stuff and (most importantly) not get caught until your product is too big to fail. Then later you can just throw some hundreds of investor millions at a lawsuit and continue business as usual.
Systems that guide towards stealing and buying off the courts are not great.
Lemmy showing again it can’t handle any diverging opinions on ai, and moreover completely missing the point of this community.
While I don’t personally share your opinion, I don’t fault You for it. And I certainly agree that the output is getting better, just as it is for other generative areas like images and video. There will come a time when it will be impossible to distinguish unless explicitly stated by the creator. It’s inevitable.
Once again, the general populace can’t handle someone saying that not ALL genocides are bad!! Eventually, everyone will be participating in genocides! It’s inevitable!
AI is objectively terrible in every way for society. There are basically 2 redeeming qualities that only marginally improve on what we already have. Everything else is IRREDEEMABLY EVIL.
i will not entertain arguments otherwise because those people are objectively STUPID.
Whatever helps you cope. Be well.
Ahh yes, we must accept every view point and opinion that goes against our rational thinking because someone thinks it’s valid. I love when people argue that X is a hive mind when they show more instances of blindly believing what they’re told.
He never told you to accept them though. You can not agree with someone and still be civil about it.
Yup. I don’t agree with his AI music take either. But Unpopular Opinions of all communities should be one where people are civil about, you know, unpopular opinions. If anything, saying it’s “objectively good” is the thing worth criticizing here, because that makes it seem like a claim, rather than an opinion.
yep, ai generated music has uses such as elevator music that never repeats and has no end
