4 ms·

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 si

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.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    Well said. That's the idea I was trying to convey.
  - nabla9 2y ago
    But if the listener can't tell the difference? If you feel the human connection in a music that is not make by human, do you seek for seal for authenticity? I mean, pop artists already have meticulously crafted "he/she is real not a corporate product" PR and people feel it to be real. They talk how authentic they are and it's all planned and choreographed.
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      > But if the listener can't tell the difference? I think a listener can tell the difference. But for the sake of argument: if not, and if I fell for it, I would be absolutely furious and feel deceived. It would be like falling in love with a woman and discovering she's an android. But let me make a very human argument. A big part of why this is so important to me is that it feels like a line in the sand. Technology has already devalued humanity to a very disturbing degree, and is increasingly alienating us all not only from each other, but from ourselves as human beings. And much of the stuff I hear from the current LLM crowd is pretty overt about this and celebrates it. If machines are able to subvert and mimic the very essence of what it is to be human, then we have lost. What would be the point of even carrying on at all? > pop artists already have meticulously crafted "he/she is real not a corporate product" PR and people feel it to be real. A thing can be both real human communication and a corporate product, but I get what you're saying here. And that is likely why pop music is largely uninteresting to me. It's empty. It's junk food as compared to real food. As I said before, lots of people don't need to have a human communication in order to find value in music. They're fine with it just being pretty sounds. Others do need that connection. I'm just in that latter camp. As long as people like me exist, there will be a need for actual artists.

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.
- taylodl 2y ago
  Well said. That's the idea I was trying to convey.
- nabla9 2y ago
  But if the listener can't tell the difference? If you feel the human connection in a music that is not make by human, do you seek for seal for authenticity? I mean, pop artists already have meticulously crafted "he/she is real not a corporate product" PR and people feel it to be real. They talk how authentic they are and it's all planned and choreographed.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > But if the listener can't tell the difference? I think a listener can tell the difference. But for the sake of argument: if not, and if I fell for it, I would be absolutely furious and feel deceived. It would be like falling in love with a woman and discovering she's an android. But let me make a very human argument. A big part of why this is so important to me is that it feels like a line in the sand. Technology has already devalued humanity to a very disturbing degree, and is increasingly alienating us all not only from each other, but from ourselves as human beings. And much of the stuff I hear from the current LLM crowd is pretty overt about this and celebrates it. If machines are able to subvert and mimic the very essence of what it is to be human, then we have lost. What would be the point of even carrying on at all? > pop artists already have meticulously crafted "he/she is real not a corporate product" PR and people feel it to be real. A thing can be both real human communication and a corporate product, but I get what you're saying here. And that is likely why pop music is largely uninteresting to me. It's empty. It's junk food as compared to real food. As I said before, lots of people don't need to have a human communication in order to find value in music. They're fine with it just being pretty sounds. Others do need that connection. I'm just in that latter camp. As long as people like me exist, there will be a need for actual artists.