Should I buy a DAW or use AI to make my music?

[classic]

I am a little late to the party, but that question is strange.
Why not giving your instruments to your neightbour and let him do the composing?
Would be the same.

[Michael L]

I am a little late to the party, but that question is strange.
Why not giving your instruments to your neightbour and let him do the composing?
Would be the same.

You are late.
This was discussed in detail previously.
Everyone agreed that people use AI because they have poor social skills. Or live on a boat with no neighbours. Or both.

[BONES]

Here's something I hadn't known until now - AI art has been winning photography and art awards -

https://www.engadget.com/german-artist- ... 22551.html

https://www.techradar.com/opinion/an-ai ... -beginning

If professionals can't tell the difference, then AI is already as good as the best of us.

[Jac459]

Here's something I hadn't known until now - AI art has been winning photography and art awards -

https://www.engadget.com/german-artist- ... 22551.html

https://www.techradar.com/opinion/an-ai ... -beginning

If professionals can't tell the difference, then AI is already as good as the best of us.

That's why I disagree when people are saying that AI is like just another tool.
If we compare that to previous innovations, a hammer was another tool, a screwdriver was another tool, steam power was NOT another tool. Steam power was the trigger to the Industrial Revolution in UK that shaped the world that we know today.
In this context the "Digital Revolution" that we have experienced since 20-30 years, with the all internet, is a tiny tiny revolution. Yes, it has changed some of our habits, but it hasn't fondamentally changed the structure of our society the way the "Industrial Revolution" did.
The AI revolution will, definitely. Even if we don't have a "skynet/terminator" scenario, even if we manage to keep the AI under control (and it is not a given), it will change our value-chain, it will change our jobs, it will change the job of our kids, maybe alter their capacity to find one.
And all that in maybe 5 to 15 years. The Industrial Revolution is supposed to have lasted 80 years.
This one will be much much much more violent...

[Aloysius]

Silence is violence.

[Thimras]

I'm paying for all my plugins with data science, so I have a bit of insight into the matter - music will definitely be made with AI, but with AI as an instrument. It'll be a new type of instrument, maybe integrated into a DAW or something of the sort, but not replace the workstation itself.

In the end, I hope we will get tools that will help more people get the music they hear in their heads to come out of speakers, and maybe get music into their heads that they never thought of themselves! That'd be really cool. But all of those dreams might be for nought if those with power and money are the only ones who get to have a say about how technology moves forwards.

[BONES]

In this context the "Digital Revolution" that we have experienced since 20-30 years, with the all internet, is a tiny tiny revolution. Yes, it has changed some of our habits, but it hasn't fondamentally changed the structure of our society the way the "Industrial Revolution" did.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. To me, life is barely recognisable to the way it was 50 years ago.

The AI revolution will, definitely. Even if we don't have a "skynet/terminator" scenario, even if we manage to keep the AI under control (and it is not a given), it will change our value-chain, it will change our jobs, it will change the job of our kids, maybe alter their capacity to find one.

That's already happening. Online shopping is killing retail, lots of people are losing their jobs to automation. It's a slow burn, as I'm sure the Industrial Revolution was at first, but it will gain momentum and AI will help fuel that. Historians will probably look back and decide it started in the 1990s with the internet and cell phones.

[Jac459]

In this context the "Digital Revolution" that we have experienced since 20-30 years, with the all internet, is a tiny tiny revolution. Yes, it has changed some of our habits, but it hasn't fondamentally changed the structure of our society the way the "Industrial Revolution" did.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. To me, life is barely recognisable to the way it was 50 years ago.

The AI revolution will, definitely. Even if we don't have a "skynet/terminator" scenario, even if we manage to keep the AI under control (and it is not a given), it will change our value-chain, it will change our jobs, it will change the job of our kids, maybe alter their capacity to find one.

That's already happening. Online shopping is killing retail, lots of people are losing their jobs to automation. It's a slow burn, as I'm sure the Industrial Revolution was at first, but it will gain momentum and AI will help fuel that. Historians will probably look back and decide it started in the 1990s with the internet and cell phones.

Online shopping is killing retail, lots of people are losing their jobs due to automation... That's absolutely true, but it is a relatively smooth transition because in the meantime, a lots of other jobs have been created (like data analyst for example).
That's why to me, it is a mistake to mix the Digital Revolution with the AI revolution.

I will give you an example on a domain I know well: banking.
As an IT, since 20+ years my job has been to:
1 - smoothen the client experience (20% of the effort).
2 - reduce the bank operating cost. (80% of the effort).
To be clear, point 2 is nothing less than replacing human job by automation. This process is tedious, slow and demanding. This has allowed the bank to transform, the jobs to transform and the people to adapt without much large scale social effects.
Now with AI, this is not departments that we are cuting down by 15% by automation optimisation, this is departments that we are closing .... 100%. It is a paradigm shift.
You may say it started in the 90s and somehow it is true. But the speed and the violence we will witness in the coming years, i can tell it will have nothing to do with the pace of the 90s.

And that's due to AI, Digital is just an enabler...

[Aloysius]

It might be unlikely but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a backlash. People are sick and tired of what this current generation is subjecting them to.

Steam may have ultimately had a beneficial impact on humans but A.I. is not.

The way banking is going is just infuriating people. A.I. is as dumb as a rock. All it knows how to do is look up a database of stock answers and never deviates from them.

H.P.C here we come.

[Jac459]

It might be unlikely but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a backlash. People are sick and tired of what this current generation is subjecting them to.

Steam may have ultimately had a beneficial impact on humans but A.I. is not.

The way banking is going is just infuriating people. A.I. is as dumb as a rock. All it knows how to do is look up a database of stock answers and never deviates from them.

H.P.C here we come.

If you take a big book of history and look at human society, "productivity gain" has been the driving factor of all of our history.
War have been a way to steal the product of the work of the others. Gain their lands (their productivity medium), then there was the concept of "slave" that was invented, to get another human to work for you, then there was the steam machine that replaced more or less a large part of human physical work. Now it is AI which will replace a large part of our brain work.

All this gain of productivity have been in the advantage of a part of the population and detrimental to another part of the population, the invader vs the invaded, the master vs the slave, in our modern society, the rich vs the poor... And with AI, it will be the super rich vs the others...

Steam machine destroyed an immense part of the work (blue collar work) but ultimately all humans could transition to "white collar" work. When AI will destroy "white collar" work... I wonder what will happen...

[MidnightRunner]

I think it all depends on the musician and producer making the music. If you are the type of person who likes to make your own music and get down and dirty and detailed into arranging, programming drums, micro tweaking sounds and mixing, then you will continue to do it that way and probably using an AI helper tool will take away from your own pleasure of making your own music. If you are someone who likes using presets and loops and pre made drum midi and just combining it all in a DAW, then you may be more prone to using AI. To each his own.

[Synthman2000]

I am appreciating the intelligent debate on this. What can I add ? Like many upheavals some people will be significantly more affected than others.

Here is a paper I was looking at a study was made into possible affects on US jobs market, taking demographics, income level, education level and work type. It uses various models.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.10130.pdf

By rights my line of work should have ended by now. It has not, in fact relatively small impacts from AI. However, as mentioned different industries are going to have a lot of varying degrees of change from AI as it gains pace. I think the problem might be the pace will be so incredibly fast many industries might be knocked off their feet before there is a chance to respond. That is not good for overall societal economic stability, and that can affect a lot of people, even those that may have had less direct impact initially from AI.

We don't really know what is going to happen or quite when. From what we know we could end up with something like thermal runaway with global warming when things feed back into the system and the pace doubles, quadruples and so on and things grow exponentially fast. Faster than anyone or industry, state can react to.

[vurt]

Steam machine destroyed an immense part of the work (blue collar work) but ultimately all humans could transition to "white collar" work. When AI will destroy "white collar" work... I wonder what will happen...

freedom.

[Synthman2000]

edit, mis read post and of course no delete button here.

Ok I can spin it... freedom is unlikely without support means. If your government of the day is not providing universal basic income there will only be freedom to be impoverished unless you are a wealthy individual already.

[vurt]

Steam machine destroyed an immense part of the work (blue collar work) but ultimately all humans could transition to "white collar" work. When AI will destroy "white collar" work... I wonder what will happen...

freedom.

Freedom to work in coal mine ? Or maybe in a roasting hot factory making steel with few rights ? Some freedom.

not if we are talking about post ai taking all labour, using mechanical means.
why would humans do anything we didn't enjoy? we could spend time with family and friends, get creative, go for walks, stare at the sky...

this is what i do now anyway, so im not waiting for ai. well, not the walks, not with my knees.