Maybe there is a way to fix the AI problem!? (Let's talk about how we can handle this sh*t)

[BONES]

What will be interesting is, once all these data centers are built, power and water for cooling obtained, and the market can't support all that infrastructure, what's going to happen? If they keep going, what's going to happen when energy prices spike? "Sorry you can't afford to heat your home, the president needs to sh!tpost."

The thing is, infrastructure will evolve. Plugins that would bring your computer to its knees a decade ago barely use any CPU power today. If anything, the needs of AI will spur the next wave of computational development, making things like quantum computers more viable, etc. It will all level up in the end.

I can't speak for others, but to me, the process and act of making music is everything.

I'm the opposite - I like having new music to perform but I really get no satisfaction from the process. To be fair, though, I don't feel as strongly about it as I used to but I think that's because I am happier than I've ever been with the results. With our early albums, when they went out the door I was glad to see the arse-end of them, even though I was never completely happy with them. But our last three albums have been on a different level and I tend to keep listening to them, now and then, long after they've been released.

That's why I'm excited about working with AI - there is still a process but it's a different process and I don't find it to be as much of a grind as the "traditional" way of working. I think that's because it's sort of back-to-front - working in the old fashioned way, you were always chasing a result but when the AI spits something out, it gives you an goal to aim for. I'm excited from the start because I've already got the final thing in front of me, I just have to work out how to reconstruct it for our use. It's a lot like doing covers, which I always enjoy.

This is a misconception. What we call AI has no understanding at all. It's why it's likely to produce something nonsensical or flat out wrong.

People are equally capable of that. AI's understanding is a little bit different to human understanding but it is definitely able to interpret your wishes in the same way another person would. It's even capable of throwing in a pun now and again that you've sometimes got to be pretty sharp to pick up on.

It has no real understanding of right or wrong, good or bad.

You mean like your average drug addict or criminal. All very human.

It does not know pain, so how can it know the pain of something universal, like being rejected in a relationship? It can mimic it, but never 'know' it.

It knows it better than I do. After all, it's read every book in existence and some authors are very good at explaining those kinds of things. Nobody needs to be shot to or bitten by a shark to have some idea how much that's going to hurt.

An LLM that is trained on what people today think of art is going to be a static snapshot. It’s only chance on making something new is via random mixing of past examples. This is not intent.

I dunno, it sounds like the vast majority of music ever made to me. It is vanishingly rare that anyone comes up with something truly new, mostly music evovles slowly. The biggest disruption in my lifetime has undoubtedly been Punk but that wasn't about the music, that was about attitude and when working with AI, we provide the attitude, we direct the AI where to look for its version of inspiration.

As AI slop dominates training content, it will become lamer and lamer. Like an animal eating its own poop, ad infinitum. It won’t know the difference because it can never feel the urge to get laid.

Does it even work like that? I don't think they keep training once they are out in the wild and when they are learning, someone has to have control over where/what they learn from. e.g. You wouldn't waste time training a music AI on things about cooking or how to fix a side-valve V8. So I imagine it would be easy enough to avoid the scenario you're talking about. And if it is using the human feedback model explained above, then it's going to quickly learn to de-prioritise the "AI slop" if people don't like it.

Yes, I mean, I've hated the majority of the output of the music industry most of my life, and it seems to me that AI streamlines the approach of that big fat corporate industry.

Yep, I'm the same and I think most people are. In fact, I think anyone who says they like all kinds of music is really someone who doesn't have any passion for music at all.

I guess then the question remains as to what extent AI tools can be used within an indie approach to music making, and we're certainly going to find out as all manner of tools become available.

That's what's surprised me about it in the last few weeks. Tunee, at least, is very good at making listenable, interesting EBM/Industrial music. The vox are a bit samey, all Stabbing Westward and Nine Inch Nails, but they have a real dynamic, passionate character to them that's almost a caricature (as a lot of that music is). But it comes up with some great rhythms, killer basslines and interesting moments in the snogs that we really enjoy. As I said last week, if the stuff my bandmate has been sending me was something I'd heard in a club, I'd have been straight up to the DJ booth to find out who it was so I could go home and buy up everything I could find online. Honestly, it's all I've been listening to for the last couple of weeks and I can't get enough of it. It's the best new EBM I've heard in 10 years or more and if we can make it ours, it will be a quantum step up for us.

If your prejudice prevents you from using this tool to improve your own music, than I think that's a really sad state of affairs for you ("you" genrally, not "you" specifically).

interesting takes for sure...I understand ur viewpoints from ur arguments...it's definitely a complicated debate which clearly will continue as AI proliferates

That's what I find so perplexing about this debate - people are so caught up in the perceived negatives, and it is mostly just perception, they close themselves off to any possibility of there being any positive aspects to working with AI on music.

At this stage I'd like to thank you guys for finally taking some interest in discussing this subject. I was starting to think everyone was sticking their heads in the sand and hoping Ai would go away. It's not and whilst I agree that there are some seriously negative impacts, it's not going anywhere so ignoring what it has to offer would be stupid.

[chagzuki]

I was there around 15 years ago. It lasted for several years but I came out the other side more motivated, more focused than ever. It took 7 years to get our fourth album out, purely because I couldn't be arsed finishing it, but then that album spent two weeks at no. 1 on the German Alternative Chart, which got us onto one of the big festivals the following year. It was all the rehearsal we did for that festival that got me back into it and I've not lost the spark since, despite a few disappointments long the way. In the 8 years since that time, we've put out 3 more albums and two 4 track EPs, despite the f**k arounds of Covid and all the rest of it. In fact, this year is the first time we've ever managed new albums in back-to-back years. So don't lose heart, things can turn on a dime.

Cheers, Bones. It's heartening that you're doing your own thing to your satisfaction in what some might describe as 'senior years'. Amazing that it's 25 years since the early days of KvR. I'm a bit younger, but am crossing that threshold at which the question arises as to what style of seniority I want to aim at. The goal, as ever, is not to lose oneself amidst the tribulation.

[pepelogu]

When the calculator arrived I bet a lot of people got scared to loose their jobs, same thing when cameras were added to phones, certainly a lot of photographers got depressed and feared loosing their customers when everyone carried a camera, all the time. I bet very few actually lost their jobs in the end.

[BONES]

You'd be surprised. My band-mate's wife is (was) a professional photographer and after a 30 year career taking photos for newspapers, she now works 5 days a week in a warehouse. She used to get a bit of work doing weddings but even that's dried up because everyone wants video and drones at their wedding, they get plenty of photos from the guests.

Cheers, Bones. It's heartening that you're doing your own thing to your satisfaction in what some might describe as 'senior years'. Amazing that it's 25 years since the early days of KvR. I'm a bit younger, but am crossing that threshold at which the question arises as to what style of seniority I want to aim at. The goal, as ever, is not to lose oneself amidst the tribulation.

Mate, I don't even think about it. I am dimly aware that I have crossed the barrier from middle age to old age but I don't think it's affected me in any way. I'm old enough that I could retire and get the pension but I like my work, and I'm only doing two or three days a week, so I'll probably keep working into my 70s, unless something changes. The way I've watched some of my friends embrace their retirements, I can only imagine how much they must have hated working but I enjoy it. Being old is a state of mind, it's a choice people make. I choose to grow old disgracefully, which is so much easier in the age of political correctness than it would have been 20 years ago.

[vurt]

and I'm only doing two or three days a week,

that cant be good for your colon

[VOODOO U]

Why is it pathetic? You *think* you're way to an artistic expression and i *drink* my way to an artistic expression. We all have our ways.

You can't think without some form of artificial help and you don't see how pathetic that is? Really?

Talk about ignorance displayed in posts.

[BONES]

Oh, right, I've never tried any of that shit and rejected it as a complete and utter waste of time. IN my early days, everyone assumed I was doing drugs when I was making music, I found it such a narrow-minded, blinkered view that I felt sorry for people who felt that would be the only way they could do anything creative. 40 years later I still find that to be the case.

that cant be good for your colon

Actually, I eat so little these days that it kinds of works out OK (pun intended).

[zerocrossing]

When the calculator arrived I bet a lot of people got scared to loose their jobs, same thing when cameras were added to phones, certainly a lot of photographers got depressed and feared loosing their customers when everyone carried a camera, all the time. I bet very few actually lost their jobs in the end.

Consumer cameras have been around for a very long time. The only thing adding them to a phone did was create more photos, but if you're actually interested in taking a really good photo, I don't care what phone you own, a good DSLR or mirrorless is going to do a way better job, and someone who's studied how to use them is going to do better than a person who doesn't. When my daughter was 3, we took her to a professional photographer and got photos that would blow away anything I could take of her, and I studied photography in high school and college.

I think AI represents a very different paradigm than the camera, though. It's one thing to go to a studio photographer and have them do a session with a person and to tell a computer to generate images of my daughter from a sample image. Will it stumble upon a few images that look good? Maybe, but that's not really the point, because what I want is to capture a moment of my daughter's life. This is the time, this is the record of the time, sort of thing. But AI can be useful on a phone when it takes multiple frames and applies an algorithm to them to form a composite image that's better than a single frame. I see my iPhone doing that all the time. I could see mastering a track being done with AI, though I once tried iZotope's plugin and I basically had to go in and manually fix what it thought was "good." Maybe it's gotten better. Not sure.

[bermudagold]

@BONES...so how do you feel now that you've been inspired by it if it all goes away cause of record labels?

viewtopic.php?p=9154088#p9154088

[enroe]

Thanks to the internet, there’s a generation that can barely read, has little contextual knowledge of world affairs, history, or really anything meaningful. I’ve seen this in young people. They’re, sorry to say, dumb and ignorant as shit.
AI is, from early studies so far, making it worse.
Now there’ll be a generation of musicians, songwriters who can’t play an instrument, write a song, just generate garbage by pressing a few keys, and inputing a few prompts.
Oh wait, we’ve already started down that road.
The world is getting dumber and dumber.
‘The machines that we build, will never save us, that’s what they say.’ Jimi Hendrix.
Glad I won’t be around to watch de-evolution run its course.

Well, I've noticed that, and so have we. It's truly apocalyptic, of course. But the
current world, for example the last major elections, confirms exactly this.

Nevertheless, hope dies last. I still hope that those dumbed down by the internet
and AI are a small minority.

[chagzuki]

Consumer cameras have been around for a very long time. The only thing adding them to a phone did was create more photos, but if you're actually interested in taking a really good photo, I don't care what phone you own, a good DSLR or mirrorless is going to do a way better job, and someone who's studied how to use them is going to do better than a person who doesn't. When my daughter was 3, we took her to a professional photographer and got photos that would blow away anything I could take of her, and I studied photography in high school and college.

I think AI represents a very different paradigm than the camera, though. It's one thing to go to a studio photographer and have them do a session with a person and to tell a computer to generate images of my daughter from a sample image. Will it stumble upon a few images that look good? Maybe, but that's not really the point, because what I want is to capture a moment of my daughter's life. This is the time, this is the record of the time, sort of thing. But AI can be useful on a phone when it takes multiple frames and applies an algorithm to them to form a composite image that's better than a single frame. I see my iPhone doing that all the time. I could see mastering a track being done with AI, though I once tried iZotope's plugin and I basically had to go in and manually fix what it thought was "good." Maybe it's gotten better. Not sure.

Professional photographers have lighting setups (and know how to use them), that's the part that can't be replicated by consumer smartphone cameras.
Having said that, I would imagine AI will easily be able to simulate those soft shadow lighting effects. It's already simulating the renaissance painting type styles which also use those lighting effects (invented them) and generating stylised images based on photographs of people.

[chagzuki]

Thanks to the internet, there’s a generation that can barely read, has little contextual knowledge of world affairs, history, or really anything meaningful. I’ve seen this in young people. They’re, sorry to say, dumb and ignorant as shit.
AI is, from early studies so far, making it worse.

It's not really true. Now we have access to information, universities post their lectures online. For people who don't like sitting with a book there's now the option of listening to audio from every conceivable source. And those that have no interest in such things now, in the past would simply have been consuming TV, music and film, i.e. pop culture, to the same effect.

When I look back at my degree, which was just prior to the internet really taking off, it seems utterly ridiculous. The system then was insular in a way it can't be now, those that ran the universities were lords of their insular domain, never challenged.

I would opt for the post-internet age without hesitation. Pre-internet seems like the dark ages to. me.

[Bombadil]

I know what I’ve observed.

[vurt]

who observes the observers?

[ghettosynth]

The FUD on KVR is simply off the charts. I find it funny how similar it is to ham radio boomerism. That's not intended to be an ageist statement so much as it reflects a commonly understood way of expressing this insular perspective driven by fear that is common among older people. I refuse to let this kind of thinking overtake my life as I get older.

The kids are ok, leave them alone. Almost none of you will ever have a career in music that can define your life, let it go. AI has many problems, but it is the most useful tech we've seen in decades, perhaps centuries. If you can't see that, it might not be the tech that is the problem. It's not going away, it may shift, it may even stall as we hit scaling limits, whether imposed by tech, or society, but it's not going away.

In short, there is no problem that the vast majority of KVR members will have any role in fixing. You are along for the ride whether you like it not, strap in!