Are AI-Generated Songs Ethical? Let's Talk About It.

[koalaboy]

If the argument is simply 'stolen', then what will be the argument when models trained 'ethically' start producing music... "There's no way they could achieve that !" ??

Stolen wasn't or isn't my main concern or point, that's why I put it in parentheses, my main point is that it's not creative and the prompter should not be able to claim ownership in anyway.

But record companies often 'claim' ownership. Many musicians (and authors) use ghostwriters.

My point is, how do you know how 'creative' it is. There's a huge difference between taking output straight from a prompt, and then manipulating it.

Is sampled music 'less' creative than directly played ?

[eassae]

But record companies often 'claim' ownership. Many musicians (and authors) use ghostwriters.

My point is, how do you know how 'creative' it is. There's a huge difference between taking output straight from a prompt, and then manipulating it.

Is sampled music 'less' creative than directly played ?

If the artist agrees to give a record company ownership. I understand they are under tremendous pressure to do so, but they still have the choice. Ghostwriters are still humans writing music for a performer.

I do believe that sampled music is less creative(I would make exceptions for one-shots that can be played like instruments), taking elements from a prompt and manipulating them would be similar to sampling.

[Tiles]

AI does not steal. It also does not rely on a "database". That's not how AI works. It learns. Like you. Well not exactly like you. It's a super musician, knowing all songs made, knowing all instruments. And knowing what song is mainstream and what songs makes people happy. Hard to beat.

What does AI "learn" from?…a database of music. I don't believe that the majority of musicians that contribute to this database, at least knowingly(TOS fatigue), agreed to have their music used as input.

Again, this is not how AI works. You may have learned to read notes. Are you a thief now that steals other peoples musick by reading notes? You might know the pattern what makes a rock song. ABABC for example. Are you a thief now that steals other peoples song patterns? You know how to play a chord on a guitar. Are you a thief now that steals other peoples chords?

AI learns the rules. Not the songs. AI is technically simply not able to steal. There is no space in the weights for any content. And in fact there is no content in the weights. Else AI makers would have been long sued then. AI works offline too. Which is the proof that there is no database that it could access to "steal" from.

not creative

Creativity can also be an idea. And the decision to trash the one result and use the other one instead.

Creativity can also be to grab content from an AI generated song and remix it. Or to get insprired by some synths. So AI can contain and bring lots of creativity.

But creativity is not what is asked for. You ask for a song, AI delivers, following well known rules of how to write a song. No theft involved at any point.

It lies in the nature of things though that, following the common rules, AI comes sometimes pretty close to existing songs. Something that happens ways too often without AI too. That's the job of the user/creator then though to make sure not to break copyright with such generations.

claim ownership

I would never claim ownership over an AI generated content. I still prefer to write my songs in the traditional way.

However, when somebody writes the lyrics of a song, then he can claim ownership of the lyrics. When somebody generates the video for the song, then he can claim ownership of the video. And at one point it becomes ownership of the whole product. "The Music Video"

[eassae]

Else AI makers would have been long sued then.

There are several lawsuits, many that directly concern copyright infringement, against AI developers: https://sustainabletechpartner.com/topi ... -timeline/

[eassae]

…I went for a run and thought about this some more—my biggest gripe with AI in art is theft, not copyright theft, but theft from the user…

I'd say I spend somewhere between 50 and 120 hours on a 3:15 minute track. Some may say, WOW!, you really wasted your time—your music sucks… That may or may not be true ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But, in those hours I've developed skills, overcome problems, exercised manual dexterity by playing an instrument(in my case piano), employed abstract thought to create something concrete—basically I've been engaged at things that help me make progress in becoming a better human. Not to mention enjoying hours spent, and feeling like I've done something worthwhile with that time.

If I were to use AI to create music, it would rob me of almost all of those things—there is the initial ideation, but without the work, noting is personally gained in my opinion. You never get to run into something you thought would work but doesn't where you have to come up with a solution(changing your prompt slightly isn't the same thing); you don't develop skill, mental or physical; you don't get the value of spending time with a thing where it can evolve and possibly become something completely different from your original idea; you don't get the joy of stepping outside time(flow state, whatever you want to call it). In essence you are robbed of all the things that are components of a life well lived.

If there is life in your life, then there will be life in your art, and you can, without flinching, look another person in the eye and call it art.

Some may say, "well you don't have to use it, so be quiet, it won't effect you." But, I live in the world, and if I live in a world of underdeveloped human potential and am inundated with regurgitated dross that has no reason for existing, then it's going to effect me and everyone else for that matter.

[ghettosynth]

If I were to use AI to create music, it would rob me of almost all of those things—there is the initial ideation, but without the work, noting is personally gained in my opinion.

You are thinking about it as a binary choice, it's not. I use AI for my day job and I use it specifically to avoid tedium. It gives me more time to do the things that are worth my investment. Every task has an opportunity cost, you could be doing something else with that time. You have to decide what's not worth the time to develop more personal skill, but AI doesn't make that a new thing. I'm also certain you use a DAW, what a world eh? You can type your notes, or play your notes, or compute your notes in an environment that can take you back to any point that you had the foresight to save. You can switch out instruments for a midi track at any time. That is robbing you of the skill of manipulating tape, of punching in, of developing the skill to make a correct instrument choice a-priori, or, to learn how to salvage it in production when it does turn out to be incorrect.

Go back 150 years and even tape is cheating. What, you don't have to get it right the first time every time?

[eassae]

You are thinking about it as a binary choice, it's not. I use AI for my day job and I use it specifically to avoid tedium. It gives me more time to do the things that are worth my investment. Every task has an opportunity cost, you could be doing something else with that time. You have to decide what's not worth the time to develop more personal skill, but AI doesn't make that a new thing. I'm also certain you use a DAW, what a world eh? You can type your notes, or play your notes, or compute your notes in an environment that can take you back to any point that you had the foresight to save. You can switch out instruments for a midi track at any time. That is robbing you of the skill of manipulating tape, of punching in, of developing the skill to make a correct instrument choice a-priori, or, to learn how to salvage it in production when it does turn out to be incorrect.

Go back 150 years and even tape is cheating. What, you don't have to get it right the first time every time?

Ugehhh…A DAW is not equivalent to AI. A DAW is a tool that can allow a person to take recorded music to new heights if they have the skill and can be a compliment to a player. AI requires 0 skill.

There's definitely been skills traded over the years, and I (maybe)agree that musicianship is one of those that may have suffered in terms of numbers that can do it well, maybe not actually. IDK

Sometimes revelations lie in the tedium.

[ghettosynth]

You are thinking about it as a binary choice, it's not. I use AI for my day job and I use it specifically to avoid tedium. It gives me more time to do the things that are worth my investment. Every task has an opportunity cost, you could be doing something else with that time. You have to decide what's not worth the time to develop more personal skill, but AI doesn't make that a new thing. I'm also certain you use a DAW, what a world eh? You can type your notes, or play your notes, or compute your notes in an environment that can take you back to any point that you had the foresight to save. You can switch out instruments for a midi track at any time. That is robbing you of the skill of manipulating tape, of punching in, of developing the skill to make a correct instrument choice a-priori, or, to learn how to salvage it in production when it does turn out to be incorrect.

Go back 150 years and even tape is cheating. What, you don't have to get it right the first time every time?

Ugehhh…A DAW is not equivalent to AI. A DAW is a tool that can allow a person to take recorded music to new heights if they have the skill and can be a compliment to a player. AI requires 0 skill.

There's definitely been skills traded over the years, and I (maybe)agree that musicianship is one of those that may have suffered in terms of numbers that can do it well, maybe not actually. IDK

Sometimes revelations lie in the tedium.

AI is a tool. If you can't use AI to supplement your work in a way that it mitigates the tedium without erasing your agency, the problem isn't the tool.

[eassae]

AI is a tool. If you can't use AI to supplement your work in a way that it mitigates the tedium without erasing your agency, the problem isn't the tool.

I don't agree.

[eassae]

AI is a tool. If you can't use AI to supplement your work in a way that it mitigates the tedium without erasing your agency, the problem isn't the tool.

When you talk about your day job are you talking about a creative field that could be considered art, or art adjacent, or is your day job something else? I'm talking about art here.

[Saukar30]

Not to hijack the thread, but I have a different but related take. Ive been making music since the 90’s . For artists and myself. I have over 500 songs that Ive recorded but only released maybe a fifth of those. The others were either not mixed well, were incomplete, or I couldn’t find an artist for them.

For the past few months Ive been using Suno to give life to those songs in genres that Ive never could’ve done on my own. Now, using my music to train on, I have a bunch of music that atleast can be released or worked on further.

So in my opinion, AI generated music is what you want it to be. If it’s 100 percent generated I don’t think not should count, but if you’re infusing your own work into it it has now become a tool you can use.

Bear in my mind, unless the AI voices are top notch I wouldn’t release it. But I would definitely have singers redo it. Maybe bands too, but that may come later if I get some money. If Im doing Hip-Hop I can treat them as samples and recreate my recreations.

[ghettosynth]

AI is a tool. If you can't use AI to supplement your work in a way that it mitigates the tedium without erasing your agency, the problem isn't the tool.

I don't agree.

You don't have to. It's a statement that is true. AI is a tool and you don't know how to use it effectively. See the post above to understand how creative people do use it effectively.

[eassae]

See the post above to understand how creative people do use it effectively.

Just a shortcut without growth.

[Saukar30]

A shortcut, yes. But VSTs are shortcuts. DAWs are shortcuts.

Using AI to recreate my creations gives me an opportunity to learn how to do things that I couldn’t have learned years ago without spending every bit of the finances I have or moving across the country. Not everyone has that ability nor support. Again, it’s a tool that I use in conjunction with my other tools. I make good music without it, but it’s great to have.

[koalaboy]

See the post above to understand how creative people do use it effectively.

Just a shortcut without growth.

You seem to be upset that some people will achieve something without going through the hard work you feel you put in, and that it's detrimental to them.

Two points:

1) They don't care. If they wanted to go through the 'growth' then that's their choice.

2) Most of us already live in a society that is far easier and flexible to choose how we proceed than ever before. It's not the difficulty of the journey that 'builds' us - it's having the freedom to choose our destiny. If that is using AI for some, then that is fine.

Don't expect other people to want (or need) to live by your expectations of how things 'should' be done. You can choose for yourself, but you have no right to tell people how they should (or shouldn't) achieve their creativity - everyone is free to be creative in their own way.

Creativity - The ability to create.

Nothing in the definition states 'how'.