4 ms·

What's the difference? The medium used to create it? "Making music" = soft tissues in our brain VS "generating music" = hard transistors in a chip?

adroniser 3y ago
You don't have much control over what is being generated. And if you did want to have fine control then what would be the difference compared to just dicking around on a synthesizer? A lot of the enjoyment of music comes from connecting emotionally with the artist. The artist had something to say based on their experience of life and adversity. You relate maybe because you've been there too. After all, you and the artist are both just human at the end of the day. This is why for instance I have a hard time believing in AI girlfriends or AI therapists. It's not that I don't think that an AI could learn to be empathetic and say the right things at the right time, it's that I think there is something about you the human knowing it is an AI speaking that would make you not be able to connect. It's the knowledge that they haven't had any life experiences like you. They haven't had adversity or struggle.
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  I agree about music. When it comes to girlfriends and therapists when the medium is text the connection could be faked with a large corpus and RLHF. Keep in mind that some people already have inflatable girlfriends. It aint pretty but may serve some purpose for disfunctional people. I’d get more worried if it becomes a bigger thing. When it comes to chat therapy, it could be an interesting mode of self discovery. My only worry is if the goal is to attempt to replace therapists altogether.
  - adroniser 3y ago
    Don't you think simply knowing it was an AI would mean you can't take it seriously? Or do you think this is just a cultural thing that will fade away in coming years.
    - lacrimacida 3y ago
      If it appears that it understands what you’re talking about, remembers past dialogue why not take it seriously, at least until you find serious flaws?
      - adroniser 3y ago
        I'm saying that it's always going to be in the back of your head that it's an AI regardless of how it acts.
        lacrimacida 3y ago
        If it’s like a mirror of how you act that makes it for an interesting tool. Nonetheless, a tool!
- saghm 3y ago
  >Are you making music, or generating music? > You don't have much control over what is being generated I don't understand this nitpick at all. What part of "make" implies fine-grained control over the output? Parents didn't have much control over what's generated when a child is, but by any reasonable definition of the word "make", the baby that comes out is "made" by the mother and (to a lesser extent) the father! > A lot of the enjoyment of music comes from connecting emotionally with the artist. The artist had something to say based on their experience of life and adversity. You relate maybe because you've been there too. I think you might be assuming that your experience generalizes a lot more than it does. I've been a musician for decades, and I'm constantly listening to music, and I don't need to know who did what to be able to enjoy a song. To be clear, there's nothing _wrong_ with that being part of your enjoyment, but there's nothing wrong with just liking to hear sounds that sound "good" without caring about where they came from.
  - adroniser 3y ago
    I am definitely generalizing. It does seem to be a common sentiment expressed when this gets brought up though. Whether it's just an instance of me clinging on to anything to distinguish from AI or if it's a legitimate problem remains to be seen I guess. And there definitely are songs I feel I just enjoy in their own right. As for 'make' I guess that just comes down to semantics.
    - saghm 3y ago
      How do you reconcile the fact that music from people who have done pretty despicable things can still be widely popular? You can certainly argue that enough people are willing to look past someone being a murderer or child abuser or something because they still can find some sort of human connection with the artist, but given how uncommon that sort of sentiment is in basically every other part of life, it seems far more likely that people just don't really think about it an artist at all when they listen to their music if the artist is someone they wouldn't want to connect with.
      - adroniser 3y ago
- p1esk 3y ago
  Check out aiva.ai if you want more control over what’s being generated. Regarding the connection with an artist - I think it’s overrated. I don’t really care about Lady Gaga life experience to enjoy her songs. I have no idea who created half of the songs on my Spotify playlist. Artists create brief virtual life experiences through their songs. Songs I like usually remind me about something I have experienced or would like to experience.
- Kiro 3y ago
  > A lot of the enjoyment of music comes from connecting emotionally with the artist. The artist had something to say based on their experience of life and adversity. You relate maybe because you've been there too. After all, you and the artist are both just human at the end of the day. Absolutely not the case for me. The artist is just a name and I often don't know what the song is called. I have zero interest in the "meaning". It's all about the melody/harmonics, beat and production value for me.
  - brookst 3y ago
    Melody, beat, and production techniques are all ways to express meaning. Do you feel anything when listening to favorite music? Odds are that feeling, or something like it, are intentionally conveyed, even in instrumentals.
    - Kiro 3y ago
      Sure, but I would experience the same feelings if it was produced by an AI.
      - eman2d 3y ago
        [dead]
- vidarh 3y ago
  A whole lot of the songs people like have lyrics and music written by the someone entirely different than the artists people connect with the song. A lot of the time people don't even know the name of them.
thih9 3y ago
Not necessarily. If you hatch a songbird, feed it, take care of it and later record it, then you’ve generated music. If you resample it and arrange it into a new song, then you’ve added your input and made a new musical piece. And sure, this can get blurry at times.
- brookst 3y ago
  Why does that matter? And when we look at great songwriters, do we need to know their educational background and what music they’ve listened to in order to determine how much of their work is created out of thin air versus arrived at by reasoning over theory and inspiration from other work?
  - thih9 3y ago
    I guess it matters if/when it affects how much you’re enjoying the music or how you’re perceiving the author.
CharlesW 3y ago
> What's the difference? Because humans aren't actually doing the generating either, the answer gets clearer when the question is something like, "are you making music, or telling something to make you music?" Replicators are a good analogy. Ordering a meal from a replicator doesn't make you a cook any more than giving Midjourney an order makes you an artist.
- BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
  Replicators make from a prebuilt list. With these, you have to come up with the prompt. There might still be an art in the prompting.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
    A fancy replicator could also give you lots of knobs
    - BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
      If the number of different knobs is is sufficient to make it impossible that any one person could try all the combinations, manipulating the knobs could be an art. You could imagine eg cooking using that method.
xanderlewis 3y ago
Let’s look at the input required for each, in the context of computer-aided music production. ‘Generated’ music: typing a prompt and pressing the RETURN key (time required: ~10 seconds) ‘Made’ music: thinking about melody, harmony and rhythm and writing down or programming in each from scratch. Choosing sounds and MIDI instruments. Experimenting with different effects, tweaking every parameter precisely and playing around (using your ears for feedback) until you find something you like. Finally, mixing the tracks together so the whole thing sounds cohesive. (time required: ~1 hour, min.) To me, it seems hard to confuse the two processes. You may very well argue that the ‘AI’ is doing something analogous to human music production (well… architecturally it isn’t, but you could at least argue it’s equivalent in some sense), but arguing that the human who typed the prompt ‘wrote the song’ seems to be… to put it lightly, rather overstating it.
chupapimunyenyo 3y ago
Oh I hate those pseudo-smart replies like this. You clearly know when it's generating and the distinction between creating and making (composing) music. It's generating when you prompt the ai to do all the work for you. As simple as this, you don't touch the actual producing part yourself. If you commission a song to a producer to make for your game, you don't make the music. The producer makes it

adroniser 3y ago

You don't have much control over what is being generated. And if you did want to have fine control then what would be the difference compared to just dicking around on a synthesizer? A lot of the enjoyment of music comes from connecting emotionally with the artist. The artist had something to say based on their experience of life and adversity. You relate maybe because you've been there too. After all, you and the artist are both just human at the end of the day. This is why for instance I have a hard time believing in AI girlfriends or AI therapists. It's not that I don't think that an AI could learn to be empathetic and say the right things at the right time, it's that I think there is something about you the human knowing it is an AI speaking that would make you not be able to connect. It's the knowledge that they haven't had any life experiences like you. They haven't had adversity or struggle.

lacrimacida 3y ago
I agree about music. When it comes to girlfriends and therapists when the medium is text the connection could be faked with a large corpus and RLHF. Keep in mind that some people already have inflatable girlfriends. It aint pretty but may serve some purpose for disfunctional people. I’d get more worried if it becomes a bigger thing. When it comes to chat therapy, it could be an interesting mode of self discovery. My only worry is if the goal is to attempt to replace therapists altogether.
- adroniser 3y ago
  Don't you think simply knowing it was an AI would mean you can't take it seriously? Or do you think this is just a cultural thing that will fade away in coming years.
  - lacrimacida 3y ago
    If it appears that it understands what you’re talking about, remembers past dialogue why not take it seriously, at least until you find serious flaws?
    - adroniser 3y ago
      I'm saying that it's always going to be in the back of your head that it's an AI regardless of how it acts.
      - lacrimacida 3y ago
        If it’s like a mirror of how you act that makes it for an interesting tool. Nonetheless, a tool!
saghm 3y ago
>Are you making music, or generating music? > You don't have much control over what is being generated I don't understand this nitpick at all. What part of "make" implies fine-grained control over the output? Parents didn't have much control over what's generated when a child is, but by any reasonable definition of the word "make", the baby that comes out is "made" by the mother and (to a lesser extent) the father! > A lot of the enjoyment of music comes from connecting emotionally with the artist. The artist had something to say based on their experience of life and adversity. You relate maybe because you've been there too. I think you might be assuming that your experience generalizes a lot more than it does. I've been a musician for decades, and I'm constantly listening to music, and I don't need to know who did what to be able to enjoy a song. To be clear, there's nothing _wrong_ with that being part of your enjoyment, but there's nothing wrong with just liking to hear sounds that sound "good" without caring about where they came from.
- adroniser 3y ago
  I am definitely generalizing. It does seem to be a common sentiment expressed when this gets brought up though. Whether it's just an instance of me clinging on to anything to distinguish from AI or if it's a legitimate problem remains to be seen I guess. And there definitely are songs I feel I just enjoy in their own right. As for 'make' I guess that just comes down to semantics.
  - saghm 3y ago
    How do you reconcile the fact that music from people who have done pretty despicable things can still be widely popular? You can certainly argue that enough people are willing to look past someone being a murderer or child abuser or something because they still can find some sort of human connection with the artist, but given how uncommon that sort of sentiment is in basically every other part of life, it seems far more likely that people just don't really think about it an artist at all when they listen to their music if the artist is someone they wouldn't want to connect with.
    - adroniser 3y ago
p1esk 3y ago
Check out aiva.ai if you want more control over what’s being generated. Regarding the connection with an artist - I think it’s overrated. I don’t really care about Lady Gaga life experience to enjoy her songs. I have no idea who created half of the songs on my Spotify playlist. Artists create brief virtual life experiences through their songs. Songs I like usually remind me about something I have experienced or would like to experience.
Kiro 3y ago
> A lot of the enjoyment of music comes from connecting emotionally with the artist. The artist had something to say based on their experience of life and adversity. You relate maybe because you've been there too. After all, you and the artist are both just human at the end of the day. Absolutely not the case for me. The artist is just a name and I often don't know what the song is called. I have zero interest in the "meaning". It's all about the melody/harmonics, beat and production value for me.
- brookst 3y ago
  Melody, beat, and production techniques are all ways to express meaning. Do you feel anything when listening to favorite music? Odds are that feeling, or something like it, are intentionally conveyed, even in instrumentals.
  - Kiro 3y ago
    Sure, but I would experience the same feelings if it was produced by an AI.
    - eman2d 3y ago
      [dead]
vidarh 3y ago
A whole lot of the songs people like have lyrics and music written by the someone entirely different than the artists people connect with the song. A lot of the time people don't even know the name of them.

thih9 3y ago

Not necessarily. If you hatch a songbird, feed it, take care of it and later record it, then you’ve generated music. If you resample it and arrange it into a new song, then you’ve added your input and made a new musical piece. And sure, this can get blurry at times.

brookst 3y ago
Why does that matter? And when we look at great songwriters, do we need to know their educational background and what music they’ve listened to in order to determine how much of their work is created out of thin air versus arrived at by reasoning over theory and inspiration from other work?
- thih9 3y ago
  I guess it matters if/when it affects how much you’re enjoying the music or how you’re perceiving the author.

CharlesW 3y ago

> What's the difference? Because humans aren't actually doing the generating either, the answer gets clearer when the question is something like, "are you making music, or telling something to make you music?" Replicators are a good analogy. Ordering a meal from a replicator doesn't make you a cook any more than giving Midjourney an order makes you an artist.

BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
Replicators make from a prebuilt list. With these, you have to come up with the prompt. There might still be an art in the prompting.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
  A fancy replicator could also give you lots of knobs
  - BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
    If the number of different knobs is is sufficient to make it impossible that any one person could try all the combinations, manipulating the knobs could be an art. You could imagine eg cooking using that method.

xanderlewis 3y ago

Let’s look at the input required for each, in the context of computer-aided music production. ‘Generated’ music: typing a prompt and pressing the RETURN key (time required: ~10 seconds) ‘Made’ music: thinking about melody, harmony and rhythm and writing down or programming in each from scratch. Choosing sounds and MIDI instruments. Experimenting with different effects, tweaking every parameter precisely and playing around (using your ears for feedback) until you find something you like. Finally, mixing the tracks together so the whole thing sounds cohesive. (time required: ~1 hour, min.) To me, it seems hard to confuse the two processes. You may very well argue that the ‘AI’ is doing something analogous to human music production (well… architecturally it isn’t, but you could at least argue it’s equivalent in some sense), but arguing that the human who typed the prompt ‘wrote the song’ seems to be… to put it lightly, rather overstating it.

chupapimunyenyo 3y ago

Oh I hate those pseudo-smart replies like this. You clearly know when it's generating and the distinction between creating and making (composing) music. It's generating when you prompt the ai to do all the work for you. As simple as this, you don't touch the actual producing part yourself. If you commission a song to a producer to make for your game, you don't make the music. The producer makes it