4 ms·

Only the music matters, not who or how it is made. Anything else is just posturing. > So, the question that comes to my mind is: “What really separates humans

by nabla9 2y ago

Only the music matters, not who or how it is made. Anything else is just posturing. > So, the question that comes to my mind is: “What really separates humans from machines?” Well, for me, the answer is the soul. But if the soulless piece happens to be the most beautiful music there is? As a Buddhist who does not believe in soul, I welcome soulless music from AI.

2cynykyl 2y ago
People seem to like watching what other humans are capable of. AI can play X better than humans (where X = chess, go, tic-tac-toe, ...), yet we still prefer to watch human vs human. I think the same will happen with music too. We'll have a "certified AI-free" content labels on things. In truth, humans will probably take music in crazy new directions just to differentiate it from AI generated stuff....like visual artists did after the camera was invented. So it will be self evident if it was human vs AI.
- nabla9 2y ago
  In Asia people go to see artificial performers. But I agree. People listen playback just fine. The musical skill itself is relatively unimportant. It's the dancing, emoting, attitude, marketing that matters.
JohnFen 2y ago
It depends on what you get from music. For me, the important part of music isn't how beautiful or ugly it is (some of my favorite music is beautiful, some is ugly). It's the communication of human emotion and experience that I value. So yes, for me, it matters a great deal who made it. Even the most beautiful music in the world loses meaning and impact to me if it's made by machine. (Nuance here: not "made by people using machines", but "created by a machine instead of a human".) I know that I'm very far from alone in this, which makes me think that the answer to the headline question is "no, its not the end for musicians". Perhaps it will (or won't) reduce the number of them, but they will always exist because at least some people will always want that human communication.
- nabla9 2y ago
  If machine performs a piece and musician is just there for playback performance, you enjoy it until you find the truth?
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    I assume you mean "if a machine authors a piece of music"? A musician performing a piece of music created by another is not just there for playback. Two musicians performing the same composition will not produce identical pieces of music. The musician is inevitably adding their own layer of interpretation during the performance. So, at worst, it becomes communication from the musician to me rather than communication from the composer to me.
taylodl 2y ago
Music, like all art, is a form of communication and in the case of music, what's often being communicated are emotions and feelings - things today's machines simply lack. Without that shared experience, there's simply no connection. Music isn't the end product - it's the connection with the artist who composed it and the performer playing it. That is the essence of music. That is also why so many people push back on pop music: all too often it's lacking that connection as the "artist" is an assembly line of multiple people working on different aspects of a song. It's McDonald's, not Grandma. AI then will be successful at producing pop music and given most people's reaction to that genre I really don't think too many people are going to care. But musical artists? They'll continue to exist as they always have.
- nabla9 2y ago
  > what's often being communicated are emotions and feelings - things today's machines simply lack. Machines lack face but they can make a faces. Communication does not have to be 'authentic' to have equal or better effect. It's just patterns.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Machines are great at generating text, yet I've never seen anything generated indicating emotional depth. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's always a "poseur" aspect to the material. The same is true for all generated music I've heard thus far. There's a certain quality that's just off, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not going to be resolved with an improved algorithm.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    Everything is just patterns, but people value certain patterns more than others. For me, music is about an expression of humanness, not just about the patterns and rhythms of the notes themselves. A machine cannot be equal to a human in this space because the entire point of music (like all fine art) is human expression. Without that, music is just pleasing noises. To be sure, for some people, that's enough. But for others, that's just empty.

by nabla9 2y ago

2cynykyl 2y ago

People seem to like watching what other humans are capable of. AI can play X better than humans (where X = chess, go, tic-tac-toe, ...), yet we still prefer to watch human vs human. I think the same will happen with music too. We'll have a "certified AI-free" content labels on things. In truth, humans will probably take music in crazy new directions just to differentiate it from AI generated stuff....like visual artists did after the camera was invented. So it will be self evident if it was human vs AI.

nabla9 2y ago
In Asia people go to see artificial performers. But I agree. People listen playback just fine. The musical skill itself is relatively unimportant. It's the dancing, emoting, attitude, marketing that matters.

JohnFen 2y ago

It depends on what you get from music. For me, the important part of music isn't how beautiful or ugly it is (some of my favorite music is beautiful, some is ugly). It's the communication of human emotion and experience that I value. So yes, for me, it matters a great deal who made it. Even the most beautiful music in the world loses meaning and impact to me if it's made by machine. (Nuance here: not "made by people using machines", but "created by a machine instead of a human".) I know that I'm very far from alone in this, which makes me think that the answer to the headline question is "no, its not the end for musicians". Perhaps it will (or won't) reduce the number of them, but they will always exist because at least some people will always want that human communication.

nabla9 2y ago
If machine performs a piece and musician is just there for playback performance, you enjoy it until you find the truth?
- JohnFen 2y ago
  I assume you mean "if a machine authors a piece of music"? A musician performing a piece of music created by another is not just there for playback. Two musicians performing the same composition will not produce identical pieces of music. The musician is inevitably adding their own layer of interpretation during the performance. So, at worst, it becomes communication from the musician to me rather than communication from the composer to me.

taylodl 2y ago

Music, like all art, is a form of communication and in the case of music, what's often being communicated are emotions and feelings - things today's machines simply lack. Without that shared experience, there's simply no connection. Music isn't the end product - it's the connection with the artist who composed it and the performer playing it. That is the essence of music. That is also why so many people push back on pop music: all too often it's lacking that connection as the "artist" is an assembly line of multiple people working on different aspects of a song. It's McDonald's, not Grandma. AI then will be successful at producing pop music and given most people's reaction to that genre I really don't think too many people are going to care. But musical artists? They'll continue to exist as they always have.

nabla9 2y ago
> what's often being communicated are emotions and feelings - things today's machines simply lack. Machines lack face but they can make a faces. Communication does not have to be 'authentic' to have equal or better effect. It's just patterns.
- taylodl 2y ago
  Machines are great at generating text, yet I've never seen anything generated indicating emotional depth. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's always a "poseur" aspect to the material. The same is true for all generated music I've heard thus far. There's a certain quality that's just off, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not going to be resolved with an improved algorithm.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  Everything is just patterns, but people value certain patterns more than others. For me, music is about an expression of humanness, not just about the patterns and rhythms of the notes themselves. A machine cannot be equal to a human in this space because the entire point of music (like all fine art) is human expression. Without that, music is just pleasing noises. To be sure, for some people, that's enough. But for others, that's just empty.