4 ms·

Quality never was the only or even the most important aspect of popularity in music and probably art in general. So I'm not sure your projection is valid.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
His projection is valid because it's not a qualitative problem, it's a quantitative one. Music may already have been turned into a commodity selected by traits other than quality, but tools like this bring the effect up to a whole new level, a whole new order of magnitude.
- kkzz99 3y ago
  Every tool that makes it easier to create art is good in my book. In years past you had to actually have the instruments and had to know how to work them. Now you can much easier learn to use simpler tools to get even better results, which just increases the amount of people that can actually realize their creativity.
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    But part of the whole point of listening to music is enjoying the expression of the people playing the instrument. Music is much more than just the final output of a machine, it's an expression of the soul. You may be able to create music more easily with this tool, but I guarantee it will be soulless, just like Google. The results certainly will not be better. They will be a hideous amalgam from a computer. Just listen to real music created by real people (preferably live) and you will know how hideous these results really are. Everything, even EFFICIENCY, has its limits to how much we should have.
    - soco 3y ago
      The sheer amount of pop music and its pop-ularity contradicts you a bit here. Because one can play live AI generated music just as well, hop around on the beat and prompt the viewers to put their hands in the air - a live performance is (arguably much) more than the music. But I may be wrong, maybe the pop assembly line is not the sign of commoditization I seem to see, and won't gain that much from AI support.
      - vouaobrasil 3y ago
        You are right. The pop assembly line is EXACTLY what you describe. However, that does not mean we should create new technology to make that assembly line even MORE efficient! Instead, we should work on changing and dismantling society so that it is LESS efficient.
    - tchaffee 3y ago
      The same arguments were made to dismiss rock music when compared to classical music. And a world without the Velvet Underground would be more soulless to me. I've heard soulless music performed by highly trained musicians playing on great instruments. And soulful music played on crappy instruments by untrained musicians. On average, the great music comes from the more trained musicians on the better tools. AI is just another tool. The vast majority of music is terrible. It will continue to be terrible. And a few geniuses will use AI the way Hendrix used the electric guitar. I'm excited to hear what that will sound like.
      - wilsonnb3 3y ago
        > The same arguments were made to dismiss rock music when compared to classical music Just because people were wrong in the past doesn’t mean they are wrong now. > AI is just another tool Not all tools are the same. A tool that changes how sound is amplified (like an electric guitar) is vastly different than a tool that can theoretically replace the human in the loop entirely. Someone playing a piano and someone playing an electric piano are much, much closer to each other than someone pressing the start button on a player piano is to either of them.
        tchaffee 3y ago
        That same argument has been wrong over and over again. So there's no reason to believe it's now suddenly a good argument unless given solid evidence. Distortion was just another tool, and first rejected as highly undesirable. It's literally "just" putting an electric guitar through a tube amp and turning up the knob. And it revolutionized music. It sounds amazing in the right hands. The more important point that I already made is the not all musicians are the same. Give a piano or a player piano to the vast majority of musicians and the output will be common and familiar. Give either to a musical genius like Hendrix and they'll manage to get something beautiful and new out of it. I'm looking forward to what the handful of geniuses out there will get out of AI. It's going to be fun.
    - darkerside 3y ago
      Is a photograph soulless? If people love paintings, they won't be replaced. But they will go to places photographs can't. We're going to find out who loves music, and who loves manufactured crap. Wait, I think we already know.
bambax 3y ago
You're right that pure formal perfection is not the only component in art; art has to mean something. But quality has always been a very important aspect of popularity in art as well as in music (see: Renaissance sculptors & painters, Baroque and Classical composers, etc.) Great art is when a unique, profound emotion or insight is expressed with great execution. AI helps with the last part; real artists should still provide the emotional seed.
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > Great art is when a unique, profound emotion or insight is expressed with great execution. Emphasis on unique
  - tchaffee 3y ago
    Can you give an example of a unique insight or emotion? A lot of the classic books I read, the greatest films of all time, and the most celebrated visual artists are unique mostly in style or execution, but all express the same basic universal human truths.
- criddell 3y ago
  > But quality has always been a very important aspect But what is quality? I used to think it was just degree of goodness, then I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and now I have no idea what it is (or what it isn’t).
  - coldtea 3y ago
    It doesn't have to be something that you can objectively measure to exist and people to be able to recognize it (even if not perfectly) - which is the whole point of Z.A.M.M. by the way.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  But effort itself is also a quality. The fact that a human took out a substantial fraction of their time on planet earth to create something is already a sign that at least one individual cared about the work: the creator. If art is like vomit then that initial round of validation is absent.
seydor 3y ago
Hm. It was before the 20th century maybe. People knew of artists by name, not by their social life and sex tapes. The pop culture paraphilia is a very recent thing.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  You're claiming that gossip and hero worship and celebrity didn't exist before the 20th century which is a wild claim that you'd need to back up with evidence. Humans haven't changed that much over the centuries.
  - kevindamm 3y ago
    ..but our ability to communicate quickly and broadly has.
    - tchaffee 3y ago
      That doesn't validate the claim.
- voitvod 3y ago
  Picasso died an inflation adjusted billionaire. Like most things I read outside programming on this board, it is people talking out their ass about things they don't know much about but they think they do because they are well paid to write javascript.

vouaobrasil 3y ago

His projection is valid because it's not a qualitative problem, it's a quantitative one. Music may already have been turned into a commodity selected by traits other than quality, but tools like this bring the effect up to a whole new level, a whole new order of magnitude.

kkzz99 3y ago
Every tool that makes it easier to create art is good in my book. In years past you had to actually have the instruments and had to know how to work them. Now you can much easier learn to use simpler tools to get even better results, which just increases the amount of people that can actually realize their creativity.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  But part of the whole point of listening to music is enjoying the expression of the people playing the instrument. Music is much more than just the final output of a machine, it's an expression of the soul. You may be able to create music more easily with this tool, but I guarantee it will be soulless, just like Google. The results certainly will not be better. They will be a hideous amalgam from a computer. Just listen to real music created by real people (preferably live) and you will know how hideous these results really are. Everything, even EFFICIENCY, has its limits to how much we should have.
  - soco 3y ago
    The sheer amount of pop music and its pop-ularity contradicts you a bit here. Because one can play live AI generated music just as well, hop around on the beat and prompt the viewers to put their hands in the air - a live performance is (arguably much) more than the music. But I may be wrong, maybe the pop assembly line is not the sign of commoditization I seem to see, and won't gain that much from AI support.
    - vouaobrasil 3y ago
      You are right. The pop assembly line is EXACTLY what you describe. However, that does not mean we should create new technology to make that assembly line even MORE efficient! Instead, we should work on changing and dismantling society so that it is LESS efficient.
  - tchaffee 3y ago
    The same arguments were made to dismiss rock music when compared to classical music. And a world without the Velvet Underground would be more soulless to me. I've heard soulless music performed by highly trained musicians playing on great instruments. And soulful music played on crappy instruments by untrained musicians. On average, the great music comes from the more trained musicians on the better tools. AI is just another tool. The vast majority of music is terrible. It will continue to be terrible. And a few geniuses will use AI the way Hendrix used the electric guitar. I'm excited to hear what that will sound like.
    - wilsonnb3 3y ago
      > The same arguments were made to dismiss rock music when compared to classical music Just because people were wrong in the past doesn’t mean they are wrong now. > AI is just another tool Not all tools are the same. A tool that changes how sound is amplified (like an electric guitar) is vastly different than a tool that can theoretically replace the human in the loop entirely. Someone playing a piano and someone playing an electric piano are much, much closer to each other than someone pressing the start button on a player piano is to either of them.
      - tchaffee 3y ago
        That same argument has been wrong over and over again. So there's no reason to believe it's now suddenly a good argument unless given solid evidence. Distortion was just another tool, and first rejected as highly undesirable. It's literally "just" putting an electric guitar through a tube amp and turning up the knob. And it revolutionized music. It sounds amazing in the right hands. The more important point that I already made is the not all musicians are the same. Give a piano or a player piano to the vast majority of musicians and the output will be common and familiar. Give either to a musical genius like Hendrix and they'll manage to get something beautiful and new out of it. I'm looking forward to what the handful of geniuses out there will get out of AI. It's going to be fun.
  - darkerside 3y ago
    Is a photograph soulless? If people love paintings, they won't be replaced. But they will go to places photographs can't. We're going to find out who loves music, and who loves manufactured crap. Wait, I think we already know.

bambax 3y ago

You're right that pure formal perfection is not the only component in art; art has to mean something. But quality has always been a very important aspect of popularity in art as well as in music (see: Renaissance sculptors & painters, Baroque and Classical composers, etc.) Great art is when a unique, profound emotion or insight is expressed with great execution. AI helps with the last part; real artists should still provide the emotional seed.

andsoitis 3y ago
> Great art is when a unique, profound emotion or insight is expressed with great execution. Emphasis on unique
- tchaffee 3y ago
  Can you give an example of a unique insight or emotion? A lot of the classic books I read, the greatest films of all time, and the most celebrated visual artists are unique mostly in style or execution, but all express the same basic universal human truths.
criddell 3y ago
> But quality has always been a very important aspect But what is quality? I used to think it was just degree of goodness, then I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and now I have no idea what it is (or what it isn’t).
- coldtea 3y ago
  It doesn't have to be something that you can objectively measure to exist and people to be able to recognize it (even if not perfectly) - which is the whole point of Z.A.M.M. by the way.
jacquesm 3y ago
But effort itself is also a quality. The fact that a human took out a substantial fraction of their time on planet earth to create something is already a sign that at least one individual cared about the work: the creator. If art is like vomit then that initial round of validation is absent.

seydor 3y ago

Hm. It was before the 20th century maybe. People knew of artists by name, not by their social life and sex tapes. The pop culture paraphilia is a very recent thing.

tchaffee 3y ago
You're claiming that gossip and hero worship and celebrity didn't exist before the 20th century which is a wild claim that you'd need to back up with evidence. Humans haven't changed that much over the centuries.
- kevindamm 3y ago
  ..but our ability to communicate quickly and broadly has.
  - tchaffee 3y ago
    That doesn't validate the claim.
voitvod 3y ago
Picasso died an inflation adjusted billionaire. Like most things I read outside programming on this board, it is people talking out their ass about things they don't know much about but they think they do because they are well paid to write javascript.