Will Ai be the next big step in music?

[ksandvik]

The cool thing with Les Paul exploring technology in music was that he figured it out without the need to use some kind of pattern matching algorithm.

[Grizzellda]

Yes, from what I understand, Les Paul had something to do with developing the flanger, adjusting the flanges of a reel-to-reel tape machine, creating a whoosh!!!

[lobanov]

AI steals our skills, the need and opportunity to develop and learn, especially to learn in depth.

Could this be the next step in music?

And is it the end? Who knows...

[lobanov]

A gushing rant of a pseudointellectual.

The answers are wrong because we don't ask the right questions.

Yes, this is the best definition of AI I've met. "A gushing rant of a pseudointellectual". Brilliant.

[annode]

...as soon as babies can hold a shaker, you can see how much we love music.

I'd say the baby is using a tool, so as to have an effect on their world. Smart well intentioned people will find new ways to use Ai to enrich our lives. However, like the atomic bomb, it can bring peace as well as disaster.

at the moment, what we call ai, is just a pimped up google search, it can only return learned information, it can't use the information to innovate something new.
when in the distant future, we have actual ai, things may be different, but looking at the power it takes, we mere mortals may not be able to afford to use it

I'll definitely agree with you considering what I know about it all, which is limited. I've briefly previewed a few of the available programs that offer it in a way we all hate. I haven't seen one yet that uses music notation. Not a big deal to create it I'll guess, but the market is not there for that. I'll guess asking a Google or Microsoft agent a question concerning, and using music notation, it will speak the language. My point is...asking the right questions is the key. Not asking it for a guitar track resembling Van Halen. Not that YOU would ask for that Vurt, haha. The reason I mention music notation is to point out that without speaking a language that could carry the information we're after, what is the point of Ai then? I'll never ask it a question concerning microbiology or better yet physics math. If I could, it would give an answer but I don't speak math. So yeah, for the general population Ai is a glorified calculator.

I know about what your saying about the power appetite of these facilities. For me it's just about the music for now. Don't quote me...I think I heard that by 2030 Ai facilities will be using as much as 10 -11.7% of US energy produced.

[lobanov]

Almost everything new I hear anymore I can say instantly that it sounds like this-or-that from 20, 30, 40… years ago. Maybe we'll find out that we've just gotten to the end of music? I don't think so though—I hope not. The dreaded word, genera—ewe gross.

Everything seems new only to a child. When we grow up, it turns out that things that seemed unique or original to us are not, were not, and could not be unique and original. What is new is what you see for the first time.

We definitely overemphasize originality in general and the originality of specific works. Originality is a phantom goal that we chase all the time but hardly ever achieve. It is a trait of our culture.

[annode]

Almost everything new I hear anymore I can say instantly that it sounds like this-or-that from 20, 30, 40… years ago. Maybe we'll find out that we've just gotten to the end of music? I don't think so though—I hope not. The dreaded word, genera—ewe gross.

Everything seems new only to a child. When we grow up, it turns out that things that seemed unique or original to us are not, were not, and could not be unique and original. What is new is what you see for the first time.

We definitely overemphasize originality in general and the originality of specific works. Originality is a phantom goal that we chase all the time but hardly ever achieve. It is a trait of our culture.

I was a young adult when I went bonkers for XTC, Then I heard the Depeche Mode album "Songs of Faith and Devotion" for the first time and I became devoted myself. Two bands I consider my favorite all time bands even exceeding the Beatles for me, I don't think it's just when your young. I grew up going through puberty with the entrance of the Beatles in America and it changed me forever. But maybe so did Depeche Mode a little too. Having a band you can say musically speak to you is the thing too. They open my musical mind. Give me another good reason to be alive.

[jancivil]

Will someone come along and create a completely new music form with the assistance of Ai? History predicts they will, yes. So now we know.

What history? How? You're completely confusing things that are not like each other at all.
"So now we know." - the pomposity of that is laughable.

Everyone seems to be worrying about Ai imitating what we have already created. But lets get real

Yes, let's. "AI' can literally only imitate what's already there. You've concocted a fantasy.

[lobanov]

Almost everything new I hear anymore I can say instantly that it sounds like this-or-that from 20, 30, 40… years ago. Maybe we'll find out that we've just gotten to the end of music? I don't think so though—I hope not. The dreaded word, genera—ewe gross.

Everything seems new only to a child. When we grow up, it turns out that things that seemed unique or original to us are not, were not, and could not be unique and original. What is new is what you see for the first time.

We definitely overemphasize originality in general and the originality of specific works. Originality is a phantom goal that we chase all the time but hardly ever achieve. It is a trait of our culture.

I was a young adult when I went bonkers for XTC, Then I heard the Depeche Mode album "Songs of Faith and Devotion" for the first time and I became devoted myself. Two bands I consider my favorite all time bands even exceeding the Beatles for me, I don't think it's just when your young. I grew up going through puberty with the entrance of the Beatles in America and it changed me forever. But maybe so did Depeche Mode a little too. Having a band you can say musically speak to you is the thing too. They open my musical mind. Give me another good reason to be alive.

AI is a conveyor belt of music production. It could only have been invented by people for whom composing music is an "assembly line" job. Hard everyday job. But that's not the essence of music, of course. The essence of music is what you have written about.

It's theoretically possible that someone will learn to use AI to create real music (in the sense you have written). But that's not what this technology was created for, it was created to cheaply generate unlimited amounts of music-like environmental noise. By people who don't like music and don't understand what music exists for. You don't need to have the gift of prediction to see that. That is so evident.

We are waitng for 'hackers'. OK. We already have what to 'hack'.

[Zeisner]

We are waitng for 'hackers'.

Never heard of prompt injection? Can be used for all kinds of things like extracting unaltered training data. Just not creatively...

[lobanov]

We are waitng for 'hackers'.

Never heard of prompt injection? Can be used for all kinds of things like extracting unaltered training data. Just not creatively...

Are you serious? This is the same logic as AI itself.

[Zeisner]

Are you serious? This is the same logic as AI itself.

Well, that's how you have to hack LLMs because they are language-based.

[zerocrossing]

Will someone come along and create a completely new music form with the assistance of Ai? History predicts they will, yes. So now we know.

What history? How? You're completely confusing things that are not like each other at all.
"So now we know." - the pomposity of that is laughable.

Everyone seems to be worrying about Ai imitating what we have already created. But lets get real

Yes, let's. "AI' can literally only imitate what's already there. You've concocted a fantasy.

Well, this old dog hasn't heard anything that couldn't have its roots traced to what has come before in a very long time. I remember hearing King Crimson for the first time as a teenager and thinking of how unique it was, and then someone suggested I listen to Mahavisnu Orchestra and I was all... "oh." I've never heard a track from anyone here that wasn't easily traced to music that has come before. Welcome to the post-modern world.

In a sense, neural networks do actually work a lot like human cognition, and can appear to be more "creative" than most people, because most people's experience is very limited. If you ask it for common combinations, you will get stuff that sounds like everything that we already have.

I think all that is not actually important, though. What LLMs don't have, and will never have, is intent. My brain at rest will just compose a melody without a prompt. I wake up with an urge to eat. I will get the urge to procreate. I worry about the results of my procreating, and work to take care of them. No one has to "prompt" me. We all have a biological imperative to live. AI does not.

[jancivil]

The argument King Crimson isn't but rehashed Mahavishnu is preposterously reductive and materially simply untrue and unsupportable by any analysis. The most complex thing on KC's first album is the instrumental sections of 21st Century Schizoid man which has no signifficant resemblance to any Mahavishnu at any juncture in time. You may as well have said all complexity past a point is equivalent. {EDIT: In the Court of the Crimson King was released 10 October 1969. Mahavishnu was formed in 1971.)

Mahavishnu's roots include John's experiences with Miles Davis, and Indian Classical Music. The former is both strongly rooted in funk and rock in a way Fripp's roots only tangentially have any relation to; then the rhythms from ICM - deeply internalized; one may confer Shakti where everyone else in it is full-on Indian Classical - don't translate to anything anyone in Crim has done. To argue otherwise would expect a generality to replace specificity. These ideas are not those ideas. It may simply be you're out of your depth here.

The whole argument is a great example of false equivalence, lauching off of my remark. AI doesn't have an original idea, but all music that has any precedence is the same problem. JFC, man.

[Displacer]

IDGAF what the "true possibilities" of AI are. AI is consumption without curation. It's aggregation of data without interpretation. Call me a Luddite but there is no value in AI music whatsoever.

However I do agree that AI -tools- can be judiciously employed by musicians and probably should be, increasingly.