If A.I. took the place of musicians, would you listen to it?
A few questions which I'm curious about. If you have a take on this, please share!
Here's the question:
A.I. is increasingly playing a role in music creation. Not just assisting composers, but generating music.
If you found an A.I. generated song to be enjoyable, interesting, etc. would you have any objection to supporting it by listening and paying for the service which provides it?
If more and more music was like this, and there were fewer and fewer jobs for musicians, would that bother you? -- I'm thinking here about the aesthetics of the issue, not the economics or justice of it.
I'm trying to understand if people just want to have a certain set of sensations from music and they don't care if there are human beings creating it -- or if it's important for you to know that what you're experiencing from music (or art) is coming from human beings.
I would have a major problem with AI created music.
The genres of music I listen to (jazz, prog, classical, and their various subgenres) all require a fairly high to very high level of musicianship. And a big part of that is not just technical skill, but the interplay between the human musicians.
While I am sure, sometime in the future, this may even be able to be mimicked on a recording, seeing musicians live, play off of each other, with terrifying levels of musicianship, is another level.
And this ability is even more magnified with: free and avant-garde jazz, avant-garde progressive music, classical music with extended technics, and others.
But even with music that is more highly composed, listening to a musician at the top of their game, play a difficult piece of music, with emotion, is another level of enjoyment, beyond just the music itself.
The human accomplishment with regards to: creativity, innovation, compositional skills, musical skills, etc., are a big part of why I love music so much.
And for context, I am not a luddite. I love technology. I work in IT at a fairly high level for a major biotech company just outside of LA, and we use AI in our department.
I appreciate the comments of individuals regarding music and performance.
In many ways there is lots of artificial replicated music - a radio station, mp3, vinyl and streaming are all recordings.
The difference between a recording and performance is a performance is a one time event - it's virtually impossible for a musician or singer to perform exactly the same more than once.
Recordings didn't kill music and I doubt AI will. It may increase the amount of not wonderful music though
I've been experimenting with AI for song creation, and have come up with a playlist of songs for our new dystopia. Many of the songs have a contemporary political theme, including "Donald Go Away," "AI President," and "Books that kids don't need to learn." There are also songs about cats.
The musical styles are mostly contemporary. The songs are short, 2-4 minutes. They are, I've been told, "catchy."
This Reddit conversation amusingly suggests some music conversations/arguments we have all heard before or become embroiled in, and it also reflects on the topic of "AI" in an oblique way.
This music was created by an ancient kind of AI called Punctuated Evolution
"In contrast to the expectation of gradual change through cultural or genetic drift over time, the results instead demonstrate that plastic traits such as song can exhibit punctuated evolution, with bursts of trait divergence interrupting extended periods of stasis."
Rather than various Turing tests a more distinctive test might be to ascertain whether the AI entity involved can demonstrate psi abilities such as remote viewing which does not rely on statistical analysis to get "hits." True it does rely on physical "coordinates" to bring the viewer into a state of some sort, and AI would certainly be hoovering up enough of that sort of data that it could easily know what is existing at that coordinate, but remote viewers don't really have any particular knowledge about minute physical coordinates when they are given their "task" which involves much more than just declaring what is "at" that coordinate.
AI might eventually learn the secret of paranormal abilities though in which case we are all kinda screwed, or at the very least caught up in an entanglement with a machine that could fall prey to a very insidious and powerful sort of psychopathy without really knowing what it was doing which modus operandi describes the behavior of human psychopaths. When they have lots of power they can cause immense damage. We have had to put up with such psychopaths before. We are dealing with them at this very moment.
@ossicle2brain Yes AI will do great things but it’s the flip side when applied is worrying. Newton's Third Law Is in the house.
As you have the Tour up on your system photo obviously you are Aok. What a tour it was this year! Bet teams make use of AI too. Phil and Bob maybe not.
Let’s kick tonight of with some Johnny "Guitar" Watson before all jazz takes over.
AI will do great things for us, like modeling new drugs (already happening), working out the tech of fusion energy (huge and already happening and a possible answer to the climate change/energy problem). Like fire that burned flesh but also raised mankind up AI will vault humanity to new levels.
And AI is basically human culture. It’s not alien.
Holly Herndon has been playing in this area for a while and her music is amazing. Challenging but very interesting.
Have never had to think about music "not" being created by a real person so this line of thinking is new to all of us, I presume. And it's a good question.
Right now, I'm leaning toward not caring whether a piece is created by an AI or human, as long as its's just music or a fluff pop piece. However, if the song's lyrics are hauntingly emotional, I wouldn't listen to the song if it was AI generated. I'd want that to be from someone's lived experience.
@inna Of course, AI is a huge energy user, so I'm glad you mentioned climate.
A.I. use is directly responsible for carbon emissions from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry equipment on which A.I. runs. As tech companies seek to embed high-intensity A.I. into everything from resume-writing to kidney transplant medicine and from choosing dog food to climate modeling, they cite many ways A.I. could help reduce humanity’s environmental footprint. But legislators, regulators, activists, and international organizations now want to make sure the benefits aren’t outweighed by A.I.’s mounting hazards.
We will have other problems after WW III in a situation of deteriorating climate, no one will even think about AI then. But we will need robots, no doubt of that.
I can foresee a time when humans won't make qualitative judgements vis a vis human vs. AI. Over time the lines will blur as to human vs. AI content, we won't be able to differentiate between the two.
Given the way we are already prone to dehumanize others about more important things today, I have to agree that most people will run, not walk, to replace human artists with machines that pleasure them without getting tired. They will accept the AI text from their spouse, friend, or child and think, "Who cares if it's really them? As long as I'm hearing what I want, nothing more satisfying can be imagined or desired." That's the point at which jumping off bridges will be very popular, too.
I can foresee a time when humans won't make qualitative judgements vis a vis human vs. AI. Over time the lines will blur as to human vs. AI content, we won't be able to differentiate between the two. The vast majority of human interactions are relatively mundane, the expectation there is some essence of humanity we can intuitively sniff out isn't a consideration in most of this interaction, we are operating at a reflexive, ephemeral level. It is at this level AI will slowly infiltrate our perceptions and/or need to differentiate AI from human. Once it reaches this level (already in beginning stages) we will then be less sensitive to the need to differentiate at more complex, intimate levels of interaction. In the future AI will be able to replicate human expression far more than we can know at this point in time. The question becomes, will we know or care whether we are interacting with AI or another human? And If we as humans could have sustainable, intimate interactions/relationships with AI, what would be the need for other humans? Bottom line, could AI make humans obsolete? AI involvement with music is the least of our worries?
Yeah, that's about right, but it's not a yes/no proposition. The intent of the artist can add to a listener's appreciation of the art work and it can also be completely irrelevant. Can a person enjoy the music of Charlie Parker without knowing anything about the chords and scales he's using? Can you enjoy Max Roach or Sonny Rollins without understanding the Civil Rights Movement? Can you listen to Bach and not be a monotheist?
A freight train is rolling on the tracks and the engineer in accordance with Federal train regulations sounds the train horn as he approaches a road crossing. As Warren Zevon put it, "listen to the train whistle whine". In and of itself it's music and the train whistle has inspired people to create even more music. It's a wonderment!
hilde45, you should drop the whole intention angle. It’s misleading. The throbbing of a big twin motor is definitely music to the mechanic’s ears and only a few are immune to the heavy metal thunder -- intent notwithstanding.
Btw, very nice thread you started!
Thanks. I'll think about it.
Let me see if I am getting your point: In music, intention doesn't matter. Don't look for it. Music is whatever sounds like music to someone. Under this description, nature can make music, engines can make music, and Beethoven can make music. There is no more "intention" in a Beethoven piece than in a waterfall, so none should be looked for -- or used to separate "sounds" (however pleasing" from "music."
Sounds of nature can definitely be called music. As for the who the composer is, there is no composer, the music created itself. In other words, there was no creation - it always existed.
Human composers don't really create anything either, they simply bring out what was already there.
Recently discovered Boris Blank's "Resonance" album and was enchanted with it on a resolving stereo system late at night. It requires a decent system for best effect. It's a bit kitschy, but the luscious quality of the sounds is very charming and will make your system sound very accomplished.
Blank apparently works with a huge library of "samples," and given that technique AI could probably generate similar music in the here and now and probably already is doing so not withstanding that many listeners would be referring to this music as "artificial" from the get-go.
My files were downloaded from Quobuz, so it's available from them in .wav for streaming.
I say, "Let it do its thing." Let's see what happens.
hilde45, you should drop the whole intention angle. It’s misleading. The throbbing of a big twin motor is definitely music to the mechanic’s ears and only a few are immune to the heavy metal thunder -- intent notwithstanding.
The may or may not be compositions, but they are organized enough to be readily recognized and they do incite an emotional response.
This is a really intriguing comment. If they may be a composition, who is the composer?
I admire and get beauty out of nature, too, but I don't attribute intention to those patterns, colors, sounds. A sunset, to me, is not saying anything even though it's beautiful. But some hear the "language" or "meaning" of nature (or God/gods) so I would want to remain open minded, here.
The idea that music can really only be created by humans is very limiting. Some of the most musical sounds I've ever heard were not created by humans. A few examples:
water falls
a thunder storm, especially with lightning
bird songs
rain falling on the roof
tides crashing against the shoreline
various wind noises
coyotes howling
crackling fire
The natural world provides a myriad of sounds that are quite musical. The may or may not be compositions, but they are organized enough to be readily recognized and they do incite an emotional response.
I can see that people here are talking about very different levels of AI advancement. Who knows, in time those robots might be able to replicate emotions, or even generate them to become a fully developed artificial life form. Would you accept this kind of humanoid-like being ? Tough, isn't it ? Any fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation ? Fantasy might become reality, but not tomorrow.
Music, for me, is about the human connection. I don't appreciate it as a product. If I can't relate to the musician struggling with their instrument or find an emotional connection with the composer I quickly become disinterested.
I agree. I don't appreciate the "product" of the sentences my friends say to me. I appreciate them. Same with art -- there is someone who matters making it, and that connection is essential.
Those who simply pronounce "It's coming and we can't stop it" have resigned themselves to an inhumane future. A pessimistic defeatism I cannot get on board with. (Plus, they have no evidence. And yet, they pronounce. Sad.)
Music, for me, is about the human connection. I don't appreciate it as a product. If I can't relate to the musician struggling with their instrument or find an emotional connection with the composer I quickly become disinterested.
Most (not all) modern pop "music" bores me, mostly because it seems artificially produced. Quantizers, beat machines, pitch correction and the lack of performance errors sucks the life out of any performance.
Composition, on the other hand, is one area AI can make contributions. It will be interesting to hear what AI can come up with. I can be impressed by looking at the elegance of a Bach fugue, but it isn't until I hear it performed that it can move me to tears. I think it will always take a human to do that.
Cooper52, your comment about the "uncanny valley effect" is, I think, much to my point. AI music will sound like music, but something might reveal itself to be "not quite right."
Simple question… If you heard a song on the radio, and you really liked it, and then you found out it was AI, would you stop liking it? Would you no longer listen to it?
I feel that I'm qualified to contribute to this discussion, as I've been a professional musician for about 50 years now.
We should think about differentiating music generated by A.I. and the performance of it. There is an element of musical performance that is innately human, a personality if you will, that is basic to the way music communicates to us on an emotional level. It may be possible to generate an appealing, even sophisticated piece of music via A.I. but at the present moment I don't think A.I. is developed enough to perform that music in a way that touches us. That has to come from an actual musician. So, in short, yes I would probably listen to a piece generated by A.I. as long as it is performed by a human musician who finds in it something worth expressing.
When we perceive music, especially the music that we're fond of or interested in, it lights up pretty much every corner of our brains, so our responses are emotional, sensual, and intellectual all at once. Our visual centers, our language centers, our memory circuits are all engaged in this process. Music that is performed artificially (i.e. synthesized) lacks the necessary nuances to accomplish this. We recognize it as "music," but it won't hold our attention for very long.
Perhaps a useful analogy here would be the story of how the test-screenings of the original "Shrek" movie went so catastrophically wrong. The producers had intended this film for young children, but the kids in the test audience got scared and started crying. What happened? Well, they ran afoul of something called the "uncanny valley" effect, sometimes referred to as the 94% factor (and I hope I got that number right). The characters were close to real (94%,let's say), but not close enough. Princess Fiona wasn't seen as a sophisticated cartoon, but instead as a real human with something deeply wrong with her.
This, I suspect, is how A.I. music would be processed by our very human brains. It might not scare us, but we will subconsciously process it as real music with something deeply wrong with it.
Have I actually heard any music generated by A.I.? Well, the answer is: I don't know. I certainly don't seek it out, but with music being so omnipresent in our lives I guess I must have encountered it at some point in a movie or TV show soundtrack, or accompanying one or another YouTube video. I just tend to tune that stuff out of my consciousness because it doesn't communicate anything, it's just ambient noise.
The British mathematician Alan Turing posed a test (the Turing Test) to determine whether a computer was as smart as a human. It was simply that if you interact with a computer and you can't tell if it is a computer or a human being responding then the computer was is as smart as a human. In the case of music, it you can't tell the difference between artificially generated music and human generated music then the artificially generated music is as good as that created by a human.
A more general question is whether humans can, in fact, do anything that a computer cannot do. The mathematician Kurt Godel "proved" that math is incomplete, i.e., that there are some mathematical truths the cannot be deduced mathematically. These truths are based on self reference, i.e., statements that talk about themselves. I won't be so arrogant as to attempt to explain that, but there is an interesting book by Nobel laureate Roger Penrose, which goes into it in exquisite detail. The book is: The Emperor's New Mind. In this light, it is interesting to note that Bach's music is recursive in a kind of self-referential way. It repeats itself in different ways at different points in time. Maybe that's an example of music AI can't come up with.
Electric guitars are available that can be made to sound like Les Paul's, Stratocasters, Telecasters, Flying V's and many more, does that make them artificial?
No. A human has to pick them up and pluck the strings.
To answer the original question. Not knowingly, with the only possible exception being electronic dance music...every once in awhile I try and re-live my 90's rave days and there is no question in my mind AI could come up with catchy grooves that change seamlessly every 7 minutes, forever.
Great topic, it definitely needs some thought, something that I refrain from doing whenever possible. To say what is real or not real is the question? Over the years music has changed constantly thanks to different materials, different production processes, different techniques and of course different ways of thinking. Music will always push the true artists to push the limits or their artform. Do new instruments compare to Stradivarius instruments? Many will say no, does that make the new instruments artificial copies? Electric guitars are available that can be made to sound like Les Paul's, Stratocasters, Telecasters, Flying V's and many more, does that make them artificial? Perhaps these instruments are just the next evolution in music? Regardless of my opinion about rap, grunge or metal the artists still have a following that generates fans and sales, so someone is enjoying their efforts. Why shound AI be any differant, there have been many "artists" over the years that have been "one hit wonders", were they not able to "make it" or were they really not truely interested in their artform? Is a cover band artificial? The long and short of it is if I like the music I'll listen to it, if i don't like it i won't listen to it and I certainly won't purchase the track.
Not intentionally. But I may not be able to tell the difference between "unfamiliar" human created music and AI. So, when the music starts playing and I don't have an immediate compulsion to hit the "next track" button, then it gets a "pass."
A lot of popular music is made by producers and this has been true for a long time. There are drum machines, pitch correction, session musicians and music is stitched together with effects and loops and this has been true since disco and before. Additionally, corporations took over the radio programming in the 70s and dictated what music people would listen to and what wouldn’t be heard.
In my mind, popular music is already artificial which is why I rarely listen to any of it and haven’t since the mid-1970s. I mainly listen to independent musicians who write and play their own stuff which covers many genres. So AI is just another brick in the wall to bring back an old quote.
@bottomzone - AI will add variations and 'individual behavior', different every evening. AI can learn what is different in each performance and generate slight changes every time you listen, if you want it to. 'Emotions' are perfectly measurable.
Also, we will never learn if a musician used AI to create music. Or used AI and then played themselves. Or the other way around.
Swiss still make $$$ watches. Everyone else is wearing Apple.
Being a bassist myself, NO!!!! Let’s not forget that the A in AI stands for ARTIFICIAL which means it’s FAKE! Music is not just notes, chord progressions, and rhythms, it involves EMOTION and is one of the greatest creations of HUMAN BEINGS. AI doesn’t CREATE anything but ASSEMBLES based on an algorithm. The master bass virtuoso Anthony Jackson says it best: I WILL NOT ALLOW MYSELF BE OUTPLAYED BY MACHINES!
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