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Yeah, it's only a matter of time before everyone has an AI composer on their phone continually creating works they are likely to enjoy. I wonder if it will feel

Yeah, it's only a matter of time before everyone has an AI composer on their phone continually creating works they are likely to enjoy. I wonder if it will feel formulaic.

echelon 6y ago
> creating works they are likely to enjoy This! This is the future I want to live in and help create. People are going to have all sorts of media tweaked to their interests. The system will have to be smart enough to introduce novel changes in interest so that it never gets boring, or so that people's interests can be expanded. If we're careful, we can characterize and destroy the filter bubble while we're at it.
- grawprog 6y ago
  I have to say, this sounds awful to me. Living in a tiny bubble world surrounded by only things I like honestly sounds horrible. How can you appreciate the things you like if you never have to experience things you don't like? Life isn't supposed to be a constant pursuit of cutting out any unwanted or negative things. It's about experiencing things in general. A world like you describe sounds pretty bland and lifeless to me.
  - Kiro 6y ago
    > Life isn't supposed to be a constant pursuit of cutting out any unwanted or negative things. It's about experiencing things in general. Says who? My goal is 100% to cut out all unwanted things. Even going so far that I only want things that I know bring me joy. Automate all chores and stop doing anything that I have the slightest doubt about. I'm at a stage now where I don't care if I never experience anything new. I could die happy continuing doing what I'm doing for the rest of my life.
  - echelon 6y ago
    > I have to say, this sounds awful to me. Living in a tiny bubble world surrounded by only things I like honestly sounds horrible. This sounds like the anti-rock and roll argument wearing a different cloak. > How can you appreciate the things you like if you never have to experience things you don't like? I doubt this would remove all displeasure and pain from life. We're a long way away from dopamine drips and AI overloads. > Life isn't supposed to be a constant pursuit of cutting out any unwanted or negative things. Life isn't supposed to be about anything. We're apes on a mote of dust in an infinite void. > It's about experiencing things in general. This increases diversity of experience. It's something new. People aren't going to stop making music because it got easier. That strikes me as a Luddite argument. > A world like you describe sounds pretty bland and lifeless to me. The world gets better every year. These arguments are, frankly, a nostalgia for youth. Times change.
- 1propionyl 6y ago
  At least as far as music is concerned, what you're describing sounds like a nightmare. 1) It would do irreparable damage to the social elements of listening to music. The question "have you listened to Foo, by Bar?" would be obsolete, because of course they haven't, it was generated just for you. 2) Any music with lyrics generated or tweaked by such a system would ring completely hollow, with the knowledge that it's not actually words a person wrote. Worse, if this is common enough, there will always be doubts about whether a purportedly human-written song was actually written by a human or not. 3) Put yourself in the shoes of an artist forced to confront that no one is actually listening to the song they wrote, but merely automatically generated variations on it which they did not compose and do not feel ownership of. > If we're careful we can characterize and destroy the filter bubble while we're at it. I do not understand how you reached that conclusion. I think the most likely outcome is the exact opposite occurring: a reinforcement of filter bubbles and social isolation. As a more general point: I've come to see the drive towards "personalization" (and by implication commoditization) of everything is a social sickness. It denies shared experience, and leaves us feeling more alone. As an example, one of the beautiful things about music is that because it stirs our emotions so directly, it allows us to participate in extremely meaningful shared experiences with other listeners. Music is a vehicle for communication.
- coffeefirst 6y ago
  This makes me sad. One of the last things in modern life that brings people together is live music. We can argue whether AI can actually produce art or merely a veneer of art, but there are far more talented musicians, writers, and filmmakers in the world than will ever be able to make a living at it. So why crowd them out by flooding the zone with machine-generated shit? Why customize the culture so much that there are no more common experiences, that every person is a musical island?
- tomc1985 6y ago
  This sounds like a horrible future. Nobody will be able to come together on anything and there will be few shared experiences if everyone lives in their own little bubble of AI-created garbage
zozbot234 6y ago
The SOTA "AI composers" don't feel formulaic - if anything, they feel a bit too random, much like noodling with little long-term structure.
tomc1985 6y ago
> I wonder if it will feel formulaic. OF COURSE it will feel formulaic. You will never get anything but as long as you're simply mashing different source training material together, which is all these things are doing
- lordnacho 6y ago
  What do real composers do? How often do you hear a song, or read a book, or see a painting, that wasn't heavily dependent on the artist taking in experiences and mashing them up into something new? Don't all artists take things they've come across and mix them up? What's the nature of novelty, is there some reason a machine can't make new things?
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    Humans are still way better at creativity then what is essentially a really large collection of random probabilities Why do you want to make artistry extinct?
    - lordnacho 6y ago
      I don't have a problem with artists, lol. I just think this pressure is going to come from AI, and it will change how we think about art. It will be the first time where we can test whether you need to be human to create art. If you look at history, art has been transformed more than once. First, when we managed to make enough food that some people could be full time artists. Second, when we invented mass media, which made most village artists unemployed while elevating a select few.

Yeah, it's only a matter of time before everyone has an AI composer on their phone continually creating works they are likely to enjoy. I wonder if it will feel formulaic.

echelon 6y ago

> creating works they are likely to enjoy This! This is the future I want to live in and help create. People are going to have all sorts of media tweaked to their interests. The system will have to be smart enough to introduce novel changes in interest so that it never gets boring, or so that people's interests can be expanded. If we're careful, we can characterize and destroy the filter bubble while we're at it.

grawprog 6y ago
I have to say, this sounds awful to me. Living in a tiny bubble world surrounded by only things I like honestly sounds horrible. How can you appreciate the things you like if you never have to experience things you don't like? Life isn't supposed to be a constant pursuit of cutting out any unwanted or negative things. It's about experiencing things in general. A world like you describe sounds pretty bland and lifeless to me.
- Kiro 6y ago
  > Life isn't supposed to be a constant pursuit of cutting out any unwanted or negative things. It's about experiencing things in general. Says who? My goal is 100% to cut out all unwanted things. Even going so far that I only want things that I know bring me joy. Automate all chores and stop doing anything that I have the slightest doubt about. I'm at a stage now where I don't care if I never experience anything new. I could die happy continuing doing what I'm doing for the rest of my life.
- echelon 6y ago
  > I have to say, this sounds awful to me. Living in a tiny bubble world surrounded by only things I like honestly sounds horrible. This sounds like the anti-rock and roll argument wearing a different cloak. > How can you appreciate the things you like if you never have to experience things you don't like? I doubt this would remove all displeasure and pain from life. We're a long way away from dopamine drips and AI overloads. > Life isn't supposed to be a constant pursuit of cutting out any unwanted or negative things. Life isn't supposed to be about anything. We're apes on a mote of dust in an infinite void. > It's about experiencing things in general. This increases diversity of experience. It's something new. People aren't going to stop making music because it got easier. That strikes me as a Luddite argument. > A world like you describe sounds pretty bland and lifeless to me. The world gets better every year. These arguments are, frankly, a nostalgia for youth. Times change.
1propionyl 6y ago
At least as far as music is concerned, what you're describing sounds like a nightmare. 1) It would do irreparable damage to the social elements of listening to music. The question "have you listened to Foo, by Bar?" would be obsolete, because of course they haven't, it was generated just for you. 2) Any music with lyrics generated or tweaked by such a system would ring completely hollow, with the knowledge that it's not actually words a person wrote. Worse, if this is common enough, there will always be doubts about whether a purportedly human-written song was actually written by a human or not. 3) Put yourself in the shoes of an artist forced to confront that no one is actually listening to the song they wrote, but merely automatically generated variations on it which they did not compose and do not feel ownership of. > If we're careful we can characterize and destroy the filter bubble while we're at it. I do not understand how you reached that conclusion. I think the most likely outcome is the exact opposite occurring: a reinforcement of filter bubbles and social isolation. As a more general point: I've come to see the drive towards "personalization" (and by implication commoditization) of everything is a social sickness. It denies shared experience, and leaves us feeling more alone. As an example, one of the beautiful things about music is that because it stirs our emotions so directly, it allows us to participate in extremely meaningful shared experiences with other listeners. Music is a vehicle for communication.
coffeefirst 6y ago
This makes me sad. One of the last things in modern life that brings people together is live music. We can argue whether AI can actually produce art or merely a veneer of art, but there are far more talented musicians, writers, and filmmakers in the world than will ever be able to make a living at it. So why crowd them out by flooding the zone with machine-generated shit? Why customize the culture so much that there are no more common experiences, that every person is a musical island?
tomc1985 6y ago
This sounds like a horrible future. Nobody will be able to come together on anything and there will be few shared experiences if everyone lives in their own little bubble of AI-created garbage

zozbot234 6y ago

The SOTA "AI composers" don't feel formulaic - if anything, they feel a bit too random, much like noodling with little long-term structure.

tomc1985 6y ago

> I wonder if it will feel formulaic. OF COURSE it will feel formulaic. You will never get anything but as long as you're simply mashing different source training material together, which is all these things are doing

lordnacho 6y ago
What do real composers do? How often do you hear a song, or read a book, or see a painting, that wasn't heavily dependent on the artist taking in experiences and mashing them up into something new? Don't all artists take things they've come across and mix them up? What's the nature of novelty, is there some reason a machine can't make new things?
- tomc1985 6y ago
  Humans are still way better at creativity then what is essentially a really large collection of random probabilities Why do you want to make artistry extinct?
  - lordnacho 6y ago
    I don't have a problem with artists, lol. I just think this pressure is going to come from AI, and it will change how we think about art. It will be the first time where we can test whether you need to be human to create art. If you look at history, art has been transformed more than once. First, when we managed to make enough food that some people could be full time artists. Second, when we invented mass media, which made most village artists unemployed while elevating a select few.