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>And when you find me an AI that can do this, I'll happily concede the goddamn planet to them. We underestimated flaws, sloppiness, mistakes and changes in tem

>And when you find me an AI that can do this, I'll happily concede the goddamn planet to them. We underestimated flaws, sloppiness, mistakes and changes in tempo, stuff that makes us humans and we can relate to. Rick Beato, a music producer & youtuber that has a video series where he breaks some of this stuff down in "What makes this song great"[0]. I like Jimmy Page a lot, and I know he isn't known to be the best technical guitar player, but the songs he makes and plays (especially in live performances, with the whole LZ band of course), it's just magical. Can that be emulated? Maybe, eventually, down the line. But the question that will eventually arise: do we care more about the arrangement of notes, chords, instruments, or the story behind it? I don't have any doubt that machines might be able to produce music that's pleasant to hear, that gives you goosebumps, that will be #1 in some charts, and we will listen to it. But we relate to other humans too much to replace them, I believe we will always seek the human condition because we relate so much to it. How would an AI come up with Bob Dylan, that doesn't sing well, but it's bound to a time and place. A quick anecdote: an ex girlfriend of mine taught me how to appreciate a bit more of art, to go beyond the "it's pretty" you need context, the story of the artist, what was the status quo and what did they disrupt at that point in time. To have NFTs that are procedural generated, or trippy images made by an AI, might be technical achievements but of little value to my human experience. A cynic might say: "if you didn't know, you would be a sucker! One day an AI will create his own back story and produce art and you will be a sucker to eat it like it was the real deal! Maybe there's one already!" - so what? We are deceived on a daily basis, and we're easy to be deceived in some areas more than others, we even fool ourselves. The problem is that when you realize you're deceived, you empty the thing of it's value, and you move on with your life. Don't think too much of it just because it was able to fool a human. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFVpSjRUD2E&list=PLW0NGgv1qnfzb1klL6Vw9B0aiM7ryfXV_ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFVpSjRUD2E&list=PLW0NGgv1qn...

ilamont 4y ago
Here's a little thought experiment. Someone invents an AI that can create songs in the style of any band based on existing recordings as well as known market trends at the time. And you want Led Zeppelin 1970, at the heart of the British blues/hard rock/psychedelic period, because Led Zeppelin 1978 doesn't sound that good owing to the creative core shifting away from Page and the general floundering of "Classic Rock" artists at that time amidst the punk/New Wave movements. So your AI whips up a fantastic Led Zep 1970 album. And it sounds almost nothing like Led Zeppelin III, which was actually released that year. How could it? The inputs were Led Zeppelin I (composed and recorded late 1968) and Led Zeppelin II (composed and recorded while on tour in 1969) not to mention the other trends taking place in the British music scene, from Hey Jude to War Pigs as well as American influences like Jimi Hendrix and CSNY. Led Zeppelin III came out of left field, from a desire of the band to switch things up and take a break from what they had been doing for the first two albums. They did a lot of writing and some recording at an isolated farmhouse in Wales. It's more acoustic, and it's quite wonderful. I don't think any AI could pull it off even with some setting like "skew acoustic" because little of that existed in the band's earlier output, Page's Yardbirds work, or even the mid-60s studio musician sessions completed by Jones and Page in London. What the "Led Zeppelin 1970" AI would turn out is something more akin to the hard rock/psychedelic sound of the first 2 albums and reworkings of obscure American Delta blues songs. Would it be fun to listen to? Maybe. But it wouldn't represent the creative evolution and experimentation of the band, which comes about from 4 very talented people (and sometimes other out-of-sight creative forces) working together and sometimes making unpredictable discoveries, mistakes, and wrong turns.
- noduerme 4y ago
  >>Would it be fun to listen to? Maybe. But it wouldn't represent the creative evolution and experimentation of the band So.. I agree 100% but this is totally 1990s thinking. This is dinosaur stuff. The entire concept of authenticity has been deleted. Not authenticity itself. The concept of it as an important thing has been deleted. That is definitely no longer a valid defense of anything. That's what we believed in in the 90s. Human architecture, human flaws, mistakes, dwellings, ideas. Shit, it's the basis of western civilization. That's gone, my friend. When someone resurrects Led Zeppelin, it will be so promoted and splashed around that kids who never heard of them will think it's the coolest new band ever. The songs and avatars will be cartoons. The music - it won't even matter if it's stolen or not. No one will have heard it before so it'll sound amazing and original. This is the depressing thing about the music industry, and it's been this way for 20 years now. Pure manipulation of 99% of people. And the 1% who go find local bands, and go to shows, are locked indoors. Hoping and praying that some generation will show up who hate corporate rock and love underground punk / hip hop bands ... that's been a losing fight for a long time. But what we do have is a system that finds any band with 3000+ fans and co-opts it. Creative humans have almost no reach anymore outside old folks facebook networks.
  - potta_coffee 4y ago
    Your take is extremely cynical. I'm also cynical about pop-culture, corporate / media driven culture, what-have-you. But what I've done is just started ignoring it entirely. On the rare occasion I'm exposed to current music / movies, I don't even recognize the current "stars" anymore. There is so much good music out there being put out by random individuals with a laptop and a guitar.
noduerme 4y ago
>> The problem is that when you realize you're deceived, you empty the thing of it's value, and you move on with your life. Tell that to Nickelback fans. Or every 12 year old girl who thought Green Day was a punk band or Maroon 5 was a rock band. They pass on into their 20s and don't think back. They've never heard good music and that's the end of it. Now they're 40 and humming along. Not to get off topic here, but since you bring it up, music is the first place that programming people by computer has been manifest for the last 20 years. And basically no new music has been created since that wasn't a deeper iteration of what was already known to sell. Movies are only about 5 years behind the music industry. Books are just catching up, and art and code are imminent.

ilamont 4y ago

Here's a little thought experiment. Someone invents an AI that can create songs in the style of any band based on existing recordings as well as known market trends at the time. And you want Led Zeppelin 1970, at the heart of the British blues/hard rock/psychedelic period, because Led Zeppelin 1978 doesn't sound that good owing to the creative core shifting away from Page and the general floundering of "Classic Rock" artists at that time amidst the punk/New Wave movements. So your AI whips up a fantastic Led Zep 1970 album. And it sounds almost nothing like Led Zeppelin III, which was actually released that year. How could it? The inputs were Led Zeppelin I (composed and recorded late 1968) and Led Zeppelin II (composed and recorded while on tour in 1969) not to mention the other trends taking place in the British music scene, from Hey Jude to War Pigs as well as American influences like Jimi Hendrix and CSNY. Led Zeppelin III came out of left field, from a desire of the band to switch things up and take a break from what they had been doing for the first two albums. They did a lot of writing and some recording at an isolated farmhouse in Wales. It's more acoustic, and it's quite wonderful. I don't think any AI could pull it off even with some setting like "skew acoustic" because little of that existed in the band's earlier output, Page's Yardbirds work, or even the mid-60s studio musician sessions completed by Jones and Page in London. What the "Led Zeppelin 1970" AI would turn out is something more akin to the hard rock/psychedelic sound of the first 2 albums and reworkings of obscure American Delta blues songs. Would it be fun to listen to? Maybe. But it wouldn't represent the creative evolution and experimentation of the band, which comes about from 4 very talented people (and sometimes other out-of-sight creative forces) working together and sometimes making unpredictable discoveries, mistakes, and wrong turns.

noduerme 4y ago
>>Would it be fun to listen to? Maybe. But it wouldn't represent the creative evolution and experimentation of the band So.. I agree 100% but this is totally 1990s thinking. This is dinosaur stuff. The entire concept of authenticity has been deleted. Not authenticity itself. The concept of it as an important thing has been deleted. That is definitely no longer a valid defense of anything. That's what we believed in in the 90s. Human architecture, human flaws, mistakes, dwellings, ideas. Shit, it's the basis of western civilization. That's gone, my friend. When someone resurrects Led Zeppelin, it will be so promoted and splashed around that kids who never heard of them will think it's the coolest new band ever. The songs and avatars will be cartoons. The music - it won't even matter if it's stolen or not. No one will have heard it before so it'll sound amazing and original. This is the depressing thing about the music industry, and it's been this way for 20 years now. Pure manipulation of 99% of people. And the 1% who go find local bands, and go to shows, are locked indoors. Hoping and praying that some generation will show up who hate corporate rock and love underground punk / hip hop bands ... that's been a losing fight for a long time. But what we do have is a system that finds any band with 3000+ fans and co-opts it. Creative humans have almost no reach anymore outside old folks facebook networks.
- potta_coffee 4y ago
  Your take is extremely cynical. I'm also cynical about pop-culture, corporate / media driven culture, what-have-you. But what I've done is just started ignoring it entirely. On the rare occasion I'm exposed to current music / movies, I don't even recognize the current "stars" anymore. There is so much good music out there being put out by random individuals with a laptop and a guitar.

noduerme 4y ago

>> The problem is that when you realize you're deceived, you empty the thing of it's value, and you move on with your life. Tell that to Nickelback fans. Or every 12 year old girl who thought Green Day was a punk band or Maroon 5 was a rock band. They pass on into their 20s and don't think back. They've never heard good music and that's the end of it. Now they're 40 and humming along. Not to get off topic here, but since you bring it up, music is the first place that programming people by computer has been manifest for the last 20 years. And basically no new music has been created since that wasn't a deeper iteration of what was already known to sell. Movies are only about 5 years behind the music industry. Books are just catching up, and art and code are imminent.