If AI replaces musicians, does the entire plugin industry die with them?

[Hipster Bales]

You can't just be condescending just cuz you're on a forum bro.

Except that's how real, actual people interact with one another in real life.

And what it he told you your buying decision was stupid? I don't think you'd like it.

Exactly!

[Hipster Bales]

You can't just be condescending just cuz you're on a forum bro.

Except that's how real, actual people interact with one another in real life.

And what it he told you your buying decision was stupid? I don't think you'd like it.

BTW Wag, have you seen my newest song yet?

[ghettosynth]

Get a room.

[Hipster Bales]

Get a room.

Who are you saying that to? Nevermind.

[BONES]

And what it he told you your buying decision was stupid? I don't think you'd like it.

I'd take it in the manner in which it was delivered. That's the problem with communicating this way, it's much harder to understand intent, we take what's written at face value. e.g. I got kicked off the Fruityloops beta team for calling JMC a "lucky bastard". He, being Belgian, didn't understand it was a friendly expression and got the shits.

I tell people to their face they bought the wrong thing on a very regular basis, just ask anyone I know who has an iPhone. I take great pleasure in showing them my Motorola RAZR flip-phone and telling them that it cost less than half what they paid for their phone, then asking them why they were stupid enough to spend a fortune or lock themselves into a ridiculously expensive contract when they could have had a way better and much "cooler" phone for half the money.

[havran]

I got kicked off the Fruityloops beta team for calling JMC a "lucky bastard". He, being Belgian, didn't understand it was a friendly expression and got the shits.

Perhaps you, as the most suave and cosmopolitan of Aussies, should have known that Belgians are generally serious and literal-minded.

That you say he "got the shits" about your own faux-pas says more about you than about him.

Let's break it down: You insulted his mother, and you implied that luck had more to do with his success than his own efforts, considerations, and skill development.

However, I think it would have been more characteristic of you to tell JMC: "There's no need to add that feature, because it has no place in my workflow and would just clutter the DAW."

[wagtunes]

And what it he told you your buying decision was stupid? I don't think you'd like it.

I'd take it in the manner in which it was delivered. That's the problem with communicating this way, it's much harder to understand intent, we take what's written at face value. e.g. I got kicked off the Fruityloops beta team for calling JMC a "lucky bastard". He, being Belgian, didn't understand it was a friendly expression and got the shits.

I tell people to their face they bought the wrong thing on a very regular basis, just ask anyone I know who has an iPhone. I take great pleasure in showing them my Motorola RAZR flip-phone and telling them that it cost less than half what they paid for their phone, then asking them why they were stupid enough to spend a fortune or lock themselves into a ridiculously expensive contract when they could have had a way better and much "cooler" phone for half the money.

But you would still stand by your buying decision. You wouldn't return it just because somebody said you were stupid for buying it. Or would you?

[BONES]

Perhaps you, as the most suave and cosmopolitan of Aussies, should have known that Belgians are generally serious and literal-minded. That you say he "got the shits" about your own faux-pas says more about you than about him.

Why would I have the first clue about that? I'm not sure I even know anyone who has been to Belgium. I mean, I almost certainly do but it's not a place anyone talks about when they get home, it's just another cut-and-paste European country, a tick on a checklist for the travel-obsessed.

[havran]

Perhaps you, as the most suave and cosmopolitan of Aussies, should have known that Belgians are generally serious and literal-minded. That you say he "got the shits" about your own faux-pas says more about you than about him.

Why would I have the first clue about that?

Because you seem to have internet access?

[havran]

If AI really does replace a large part of music creation, who is actually going to buy plugins anymore?

To get back on track here and answer the question as posed:

Recently the futurist Jaron Lanier wrote something along the lines that sometime soon we might be listening to music and watching movies that are auto-generated according to taste, by text prompt or by The Algorithms' observations of us.*

In that case, similar to arts and crafts shows where people go to buy things that are hand-made rather than factory-made, maybe some movies and music will be advertised as "made by humans, for humans".

Maybe there will still be a middle ground for home-studio music makers to purchase or barter for music plugins.

Maybe we will all lose our jobs and become involuted lotus eaters (if we can afford it and have enough transitional tokens), and the lessers and other remnants will end up cannibalizing the wealthy as they repose in their posh slumber.

Oh, sorry -- this was about music plugins.

I think there will soon be a divide between those who want to get chipped and those who don't, so those will be two different markets, and there might be further fracturing if there is competition among different chip OSes.

In general, maybe there will be a complete reconceptualization of "currency".
_____
* While the waste heat from the AI data centers cooks us all and messes up the weather patterns so that typical crops cannot be grown, and their power requirements result in electrical blackouts and brownouts anyway? Something does not compute.

[ksandvik]

I guess so, people like muzak in hotel elevators as well....

[BONES]

Because you seem to have internet access?

And that's the sort of useless information you think I'd be looking up now that Australians are blocked from PornHub?

[havran]

Because you seem to have internet access?

And that's the sort of useless information you think I'd be looking up now that Australians are blocked from PornHub?

Hahah, thank you. I could use some laughs these days. So strange to be living in a relatively placid place while everything else seems to be going to hell, whether overtly or subtly. We are all "On the Shore" somehow or other.

[BONES]

Our government has introduced new legislation requiring age verification to access porn sites, which has to be a good thing, right? But Porn Hub's response, apparently, has been to block access to Australians until they can get a verification system in place. The thing is, that system is certain to involve using passports and drivers licenses to verify your age, which I reckon will see a lot of dirty old (and young) men scurrying for cover.

[havran]

Thinking abstractly, if everything goes into a blur for a while and we each cocoon into our own self-selected or AI-advised dreamstates, maybe our (or our Cosmic substrate's) seeming interest in novelty and balance might bring new particularities into focus.

(No, I haven't read E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" from 1909 to make clever references to that -- despite all the books I own I'm really not much of a reader.)