5 ms·

Refining a request that generates music, is "making music" however you slice it.

by protocolture 1y ago

otabdeveloper4 1y ago
If so, then twiddling the radio knob is also "making music".
- visarga 1y ago
  You probably never prompted an AI model until you got something good from it.
- protocolture 1y ago
  Not really. The output of the radio knob has far less opportunity to create an original work.
  - otabdeveloper4 1y ago
    Literally nothing the AI outputs is an original work.
    - protocolture 1y ago
      That's a testable hypothesis. Go sample every AI output until you find one that doesn't have a previously created 1:1 analogue. Unless of course you mean "original" as in, some kind of wishy washy untargetable goal that's really some appeal to humanity, where any piece of information that disagrees with your hypothesis is discarded because it is unfalsifiable. Original might as well mean "Made by a human and that's it" which isn't useful at all. Whereas I use it to mean new or different.
      - otabdeveloper4 1y ago
        > Whereas I use it to mean new or different. Literally nothing AI outputs is new or different.
        I-M-S 1y ago
        That's like saying nothing that comes out of people's mouths is new or different because it's all been uttered before.
throwaway422432 1y ago
I messed around with Udio when it first cam out, and it wasn't just writing a prompt, and there's your song. You got 30 seconds, of which there might have been a hook that was interesting. So you would crop the hook and re-generate to get another 30 seconds before or after that, and so on. I would liken it more as being the producer stitching together the sessions a band have recorded to produce a song.
southernplaces7 1y ago
Trying to convince some tech people about how artistic creation works, and why it's more than just the right amount of "optimization" of bits for rapid results, is about as pointless as trying to make a chimpanzee understand the intricacies of Bach. The reductiveness of some of you is amusing, but also grotesque in the context of what art should mean for human experience.
- frozenseven 1y ago
  There's no magical line between "tech people" and "art people". The gatekeeping here is getting desperate as hell when you're now forced to cite Bach.
  - tummler 1y ago
    Skill is nature's way of gatekeeping. If you're too lazy to put effort into learning how to create an art so you can adequately express yourself, why should some technology do all the work for you, and why should anyone want to hear what "you" (ie: the machine) have to say? This is exactly how we end up with endless slop, which doesn't provide a unique perspective, just a homogenized regurgitation of inputs.
    - frozenseven 1y ago
      >skill >too lazy Again, I wholly reject the idea that there's a line between 'tech people' and 'art people'. You can have an interest in both art and tech. You can do both 'traditional art' and AI art. I also reject the idea that AI tools require no skill, that's clearly not the case. >nature This can so easily be thrown back at you. >why should anyone want to hear what "you" (ie: the machine) have to say? So why are we having this discussion in the first place? Right, hundreds of millions are interested in exploring and creating with AI. You are not fighting against a small contingent who are trying to covet the meaning of "artist" or whatever. No, it's a mass movement of people being creative in a way that you don't like.
      - tummler 1y ago
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
When I commission a painting and tell the artist what I want painted, am I in fact the artist?
- protocolture 1y ago
  Depends. This is a very old argument within artistic communities. In cinema, authorship has resoundingly been awarded to the director. A lot of film directors go deep in many creative silos, but at its core the process is commissioning a lot of artists to do art at the same time. You dont have to be able to do those things. Famously some anime directors have just been hired off the street. In comics things went the other way. Editors have been trying to extract credit for creative work for a long time. A lot of them have significant input in the creative process, but have no contractual basis for demanding credit for that input. It frustrates them. They can also just commission work, or they can have various levels of input in to the creative process, up to and including defining characters entirely. Really then, in your example, theres clearly a point where you have had enough of a creative input in the creation to be part of the artistic endeavor. One judge in china ruled in favour of the artist after they proved that they had completed 20 odd revisions of the artwork, before watermarking it. That is of course, assuming we only follow your strict, reductionist argument. Even for AI art, most generators these days take more than text input. You can mask areas, provide hand drawn precursor art and a lot of other things. And that also assumes no post processing. Not all AI generated items will be art. But what I find offensive, is the judgement that as a class nothing touched by AI could be considered art. Mostly because I lived through "Digital Art is not Art" and "Computer Games are not Art" proponents of both got overtaken by history and rightly shamed.
  - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
    I never claimed you can't use AI tools. I never claimed Digital art is not art. Don't imply I should feel shame for questioning the world around me. You can stop with the trying to silence your critics and position yourself as superior. If I ask a comics guy their favorite comic artist they aren't giving me back editors names. They will have favorite editors, or even editor artist pairs, but the artist remains distinct from that. I simply posited that commissioning a piece of work does not make you an artist. Having art generated for you to your taste is not 'making art'. Hiring an interior decorator to decorate my house does not mean I decorated. Ordering off a menu and requesting extra cheese does not make you part chef. A better blurring for your argument would be the use of session musicians. If I say I love The Beach Boys, how much of what I love is session musicians work versus Brian Wilson's? Is he the artist that I enjoy? But that gets back to it, doesn't it. We as humans want to connect art with it's creator. Why? Because art is some reflection of something. Art is 'life is a shared experience'. AI 'art' is not part of that shared experience. I want to connect with Brian Wilson. But I don't connect with some music critic who writes about Brian Wilson's music even though we both connected with the same artistic work, even if I learned about the work though the critic making my relationship to them just as important (I wouldn't know it without them). There being an artist in the middle improves/transforms it/means something (what it means is what is up for discussion). A pretty crystal is just as pretty as a piece of art, but it is not a piece of art. AI art might be more like the crystal. It might contain beauty/interest/capture attention. But it's not connecting with someone's creation, with intention. I have a local museum and I love exhibits that a specific curator there has focused on more than ones they didn't touch. But that doesn't make them an artist. AI 'artists' fall into that category.

Refining a request that generates music, is "making music" however you slice it.

otabdeveloper4 1y ago

If so, then twiddling the radio knob is also "making music".

visarga 1y ago
You probably never prompted an AI model until you got something good from it.
protocolture 1y ago
Not really. The output of the radio knob has far less opportunity to create an original work.
- otabdeveloper4 1y ago
  Literally nothing the AI outputs is an original work.
  - protocolture 1y ago
    That's a testable hypothesis. Go sample every AI output until you find one that doesn't have a previously created 1:1 analogue. Unless of course you mean "original" as in, some kind of wishy washy untargetable goal that's really some appeal to humanity, where any piece of information that disagrees with your hypothesis is discarded because it is unfalsifiable. Original might as well mean "Made by a human and that's it" which isn't useful at all. Whereas I use it to mean new or different.
    - otabdeveloper4 1y ago
      > Whereas I use it to mean new or different. Literally nothing AI outputs is new or different.
      - I-M-S 1y ago
        That's like saying nothing that comes out of people's mouths is new or different because it's all been uttered before.

throwaway422432 1y ago

I messed around with Udio when it first cam out, and it wasn't just writing a prompt, and there's your song. You got 30 seconds, of which there might have been a hook that was interesting. So you would crop the hook and re-generate to get another 30 seconds before or after that, and so on. I would liken it more as being the producer stitching together the sessions a band have recorded to produce a song.

southernplaces7 1y ago

Trying to convince some tech people about how artistic creation works, and why it's more than just the right amount of "optimization" of bits for rapid results, is about as pointless as trying to make a chimpanzee understand the intricacies of Bach. The reductiveness of some of you is amusing, but also grotesque in the context of what art should mean for human experience.

frozenseven 1y ago
There's no magical line between "tech people" and "art people". The gatekeeping here is getting desperate as hell when you're now forced to cite Bach.
- tummler 1y ago
  Skill is nature's way of gatekeeping. If you're too lazy to put effort into learning how to create an art so you can adequately express yourself, why should some technology do all the work for you, and why should anyone want to hear what "you" (ie: the machine) have to say? This is exactly how we end up with endless slop, which doesn't provide a unique perspective, just a homogenized regurgitation of inputs.
  - frozenseven 1y ago
    >skill >too lazy Again, I wholly reject the idea that there's a line between 'tech people' and 'art people'. You can have an interest in both art and tech. You can do both 'traditional art' and AI art. I also reject the idea that AI tools require no skill, that's clearly not the case. >nature This can so easily be thrown back at you. >why should anyone want to hear what "you" (ie: the machine) have to say? So why are we having this discussion in the first place? Right, hundreds of millions are interested in exploring and creating with AI. You are not fighting against a small contingent who are trying to covet the meaning of "artist" or whatever. No, it's a mass movement of people being creative in a way that you don't like.
    - tummler 1y ago

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

When I commission a painting and tell the artist what I want painted, am I in fact the artist?

protocolture 1y ago
Depends. This is a very old argument within artistic communities. In cinema, authorship has resoundingly been awarded to the director. A lot of film directors go deep in many creative silos, but at its core the process is commissioning a lot of artists to do art at the same time. You dont have to be able to do those things. Famously some anime directors have just been hired off the street. In comics things went the other way. Editors have been trying to extract credit for creative work for a long time. A lot of them have significant input in the creative process, but have no contractual basis for demanding credit for that input. It frustrates them. They can also just commission work, or they can have various levels of input in to the creative process, up to and including defining characters entirely. Really then, in your example, theres clearly a point where you have had enough of a creative input in the creation to be part of the artistic endeavor. One judge in china ruled in favour of the artist after they proved that they had completed 20 odd revisions of the artwork, before watermarking it. That is of course, assuming we only follow your strict, reductionist argument. Even for AI art, most generators these days take more than text input. You can mask areas, provide hand drawn precursor art and a lot of other things. And that also assumes no post processing. Not all AI generated items will be art. But what I find offensive, is the judgement that as a class nothing touched by AI could be considered art. Mostly because I lived through "Digital Art is not Art" and "Computer Games are not Art" proponents of both got overtaken by history and rightly shamed.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  I never claimed you can't use AI tools. I never claimed Digital art is not art. Don't imply I should feel shame for questioning the world around me. You can stop with the trying to silence your critics and position yourself as superior. If I ask a comics guy their favorite comic artist they aren't giving me back editors names. They will have favorite editors, or even editor artist pairs, but the artist remains distinct from that. I simply posited that commissioning a piece of work does not make you an artist. Having art generated for you to your taste is not 'making art'. Hiring an interior decorator to decorate my house does not mean I decorated. Ordering off a menu and requesting extra cheese does not make you part chef. A better blurring for your argument would be the use of session musicians. If I say I love The Beach Boys, how much of what I love is session musicians work versus Brian Wilson's? Is he the artist that I enjoy? But that gets back to it, doesn't it. We as humans want to connect art with it's creator. Why? Because art is some reflection of something. Art is 'life is a shared experience'. AI 'art' is not part of that shared experience. I want to connect with Brian Wilson. But I don't connect with some music critic who writes about Brian Wilson's music even though we both connected with the same artistic work, even if I learned about the work though the critic making my relationship to them just as important (I wouldn't know it without them). There being an artist in the middle improves/transforms it/means something (what it means is what is up for discussion). A pretty crystal is just as pretty as a piece of art, but it is not a piece of art. AI art might be more like the crystal. It might contain beauty/interest/capture attention. But it's not connecting with someone's creation, with intention. I have a local museum and I love exhibits that a specific curator there has focused on more than ones they didn't touch. But that doesn't make them an artist. AI 'artists' fall into that category.