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

[Neon Breath]

I would like to see an AI-powered labeling system implemented on all media using AI in images, artwork, music. Just like food companies that are required to indicate the presence of added artificial flavors and sweeteners on their packaging so everyone knows what they are consuming, authentic products or artificial ones. Crystal clear, then final choice to the consumer.

[BONES]

Music and music taste is always ego, what else could it be.

It could be entertainment, it could be a pleasant diversion or any number of things. Musicianship and performance is absolutely about ego but the music itself should be free of that, unless that's what you want it to convey. For example, the music my bandmate has been creating in Tunee is really good music that I think deserves to be heard. That doesn't change just because I've become involved in the process. There is no ego involved, just as there is no ego involved in listening to an album you like. OTOH, when I get up on stage to perform that music, that's all about ego and arrogance and other normally distasteful aspects of personality, because when I am up there I am a Rock God. But it's just a performance, it's not real, it doesn't translate to the recorded music.

Btw and the music genres I enjoy are various and different

I often associate that with people who don't really like music that much at all. In my dotage I've realised that a lot of music that used to actively shit me is tolerable these days but there is still comparatively little music that affects me the way that New Model Army's I Love the World or Killing Joke's Eighties does.

... as long as I don't have to be tortured by some artifacts caused by correction tools or ai

OTOH, the kind of music I can't stand is where it's all about the musicianship, where all they want to do is show how f**king clever they are instead of paying respect to the song they are murdering.

The standard of today's superpolished, soulless mix quality is pain to my ears.

You're talking about popular music, the mix quality is the very least of what makes that shite so f**king bad. It's soulless on every level.

I see every day how AI destroy business, culture, society, art more and more.

Really, all I see is how it helps me get my work done to a much higher standard in the limited time I have available to complete it.

There is a reason there is a new forum even here for ai topics, guess why?!

Because it's a hot topic that people are interested in, even if they aren't interested in learning anything about it before they open their fat yarps and make fools of themselves.

AI creates AI productions,
it must be labeled just like ingredients
of food.must be labeled.

I don't see how that works. You can't see by looking what is a can of food but, at least according to you, AI generated music is completely obvious when you hear it. It would be like insisting that they put food labels on apples and oranges.

AI is fastfood, I don't eat fastfood at all.

Well that confirms you're nuts. I eat it all the time. I had a kebab for lunch today (and yesterday). There's nothing better than a good meat pie or sausage roll for lunch, either, and I try to have fish and chips at least once a week. I'm not a fan of McDonalds but I love Hungry Jacks (Burger King) and Dominos pizza.

... who want to spend their last years of life on a certain level of decency and quality

Again, if there is such a vast quality gap, why won't people be able to work it out for themselves? As I've said, it's a tacit admission that the quality of AI music is largely indistinguishable from human made music. There is no other way to see it.

Ai doesn't create

No, it helps you create, assuming you are good enough to get the best from it.

it will turn humans into stupid slaves.

I don't know if you noticed but that ship sailed eons ago. i.e. People have always been stupid slaves, AI is not going to change that (unless it makes us famous and we can convince people to break their chains and free themselves, of course, but that's not going to happen, either).

To be clear, we intend to be open about our use of AI, as we are about using a DAW and softsynths (which has been equally controversial in the past). We're proud to use all those things and keen to promote them to others. If being honest about it puts someone off our music, that's their loss, not ours.

[twal]

AI is one thing. Dedication is another. Dedication is part of an artist's makeup. In fact, it is probably the sole thing that defines a musician. Without it; nonetheless, you are either talented or not. Either way, without passion nothing gets done.

I think people are afraid that musicianship will evaporate with ai, but most people who are uninterested in creating music -if could press a button to create it- could, would, and will, but won't for long. That leaves the rest of us to decide how we want to continue making music, evolve somehow, or stop.

AI was inevitable. It's part of humankind's evolution. It's a breaking point for us. It goes hand in hand with the ideas of power, the ideas of identity, the ideas of self- the ideas of purpose. These are the items on the current menu, either to be cooked or thrown out. A species' consciousness at its crossroads. A breaking point as said, or a breakthrough.

We have seen it all before (implementations of AI) mentioned in channelings, foreseen by programmers, murmured in movies...

The Matrix is not only a philosophical movie, but one using AI as literal and figurative representation of the human condition. Things are fake and real at the same time, and mostly upside-down in our minds either way. A future unknown. Always engulfed in a Destiny unknown. To be swallowed up by AI and lost inside the conundrum of consciousness itself, our place in it, and who we are in essence. For what we glean from it all?

Purpose...

[enroe]

I think people are afraid that musicianship will evaporate with ai, but most people who are uninterested in creating music - if could press a button to create it - could, would, and will, but won't for long. ....

Yes, this fear is justified. Because the bosses of the big record labels
of the 70s, 80s, and 90s had hardly any passion for the music itself.
They had passion and commitment to "making money." Everything
was subordinated to making money, including the music. That sounds
harsh, I know — but it's also in the nature of companies that have to
operate profitably in the market — or else they're out of business.

Projected onto the development of music with AI, this means that in –
probably newly emerging – music companies, people who are good
at prompting texts but otherwise lack in-depth instrumental or music
theory knowledge – that these people will use AI to produce masses
of new, even good-sounding songs – and thus dominate the market.
This is exactly what we are already seeing glimpses of with Spotify.

AI was inevitable. It's part of humankind's evolution. It's a breaking point for us. It goes hand in hand with the ideas of power, the ideas of identity, the ideas of self- the ideas of purpose.
...

Haja, you're taking a wide approach here. The polymath and writer
Stanislaw Lem already substantiated the thesis in the 80s that
biological human evolution will be replaced by mechanical AI evolution.

That makes perfect sense, because AI learns much faster, can optimize
itself much faster – and ultimately even reproduce itself much faster.
What does that mean for us biological beings ... well, what exactly?

[wagtunes]

Bones, you are my new hero. I couldn't have said what you said any better. I agree with you 100%.

Personally, I use AI where I'm lacking, vocals. Everything else I enjoy doing from scratch.

I somehow liked you, but now you plsy unfair by hiding your microphone, I mean, maybe I coild even give you a good piece of advise if I knew, but you prefer playing Mr. Secret..
You last post shows a disgusting side of you.

I'm sorry you don't like me anymore. Somehow I'll survive.

[Zeisner]

Out of interest I ran some LLM generated code through a platform that is specialized in detecting generated code.

You're comparing the pattern recognition mechanisms of AI with the pattern recognition of humans (which I was obviously referring to) despite how different they work.

[Zeisner]

You will see the point soon, cuz AI will be improved and it will get harder to detect ai.

Barely without the required money, hardware and software, data, knowledge, manpower and time. You underestimate the effort just to reduce the artifacts caused by lossy codecs. That's a tiny fraction of the issues but influences the detection and synthesis of tempo, rhythm, timbre, "artifacts" like the saliva in a singer's mouth, guitar strings interacting with the fretboard, the density of reverberation and stereo fields (Joint stereo!), the noise caused by low-bit chips, tape hiss etc etc etc. So you need a lot more uncompressed or lossless compressed data, way more than what exists on the web.

You also want to reduce artifacts caused by mastering and mixing and special effects and editing too so you need all the sub and group mixes and sends, all the inserts with all their variations, going back to the point when anything enters a mixer. And then you need all of that in all variations along the spectrum of technology used (Because of its distinct sound), from fully analog productions - which have been converted to digital after mastering - to full ITB. So you multiply again and again and again.

And then you only need tens of thousands of competent artists and audio engineers and forensic musicologists who finetune the model for years, working around the clock. Of course for free because nobody could afford paying them. And you need thousands of scientists to research the missing music music and psychoacoustic parameters to be used in the finetuning process, also for free.

Remains the question: How to get the required processing power and also solve the issues regarding energy consumption and heat and lack of materials? There is a possible solution in sight: Microscopic photonic processors! You only have to wait for a few more decades until they become a serial product, cheap and easily accessible in ludicrous amounts. No problem, right? And after all of that you might have a system that is able to produce music that sounds and feels good enough to fool every human. Creative, original, emotional, passionate, captivating, well produced. Maybe. Or you're still dealing with an error rate of 20 % instead of 0,001 % and producers have to call Max Martin's third clone to get the job done.

Again - flying cars. And not just flying cars but flying cars which enable you to visit the Moon colony we don't have either. It's all on the same page of great visions which only make sense as long as you don't think about all the details and steps you'll have to take. We don't even have latency-free aliasing-free amp plugins which null perfectly with the analog originals and people fantasize about a machine which can not only create music as good as one skilled and talented human, but as good as all talented and skilled humans on the entire planet individually and combined, a machine that can not only logically but also artistically combine the talent and skill of Beethoven, Vandross, Zappa and Front Line Assembly with the sound of Alan Moulder. And don't forget: It has to generate revenue too.

[wagtunes]

You will see the point soon, cuz AI will be improved and it will get harder to detect ai.

Barely without the required money, hardware and software, data, knowledge, manpower and time. You underestimate the effort just to reduce the artifacts caused by lossy codecs. That's a tiny fraction of the issues but influences the detection and synthesis of tempo, rhythm, timbre, "artifacts" like the saliva in a singer's mouth, guitar strings interacting with the fretboard, the density of reverberation and stereo fields (Joint stereo!), the noise caused by low-bit chips, tape hiss etc etc etc. So you need a lot more uncompressed or lossless compressed data, way more than what exists on the web.

You also want to reduce artifacts caused by mastering and mixing and special effects and editing too so you need all the sub and group mixes and sends, all the inserts with all their variations, going back to the point when anything enters a mixer. And then you need all of that in all variations along the spectrum of technology used (Because of its distinct sound), from fully analog productions - which have been converted to digital after mastering - to full ITB. So you multiply again and again and again.

And then you only need tens of thousands of competent artists and audio engineers and forensic musicologists who finetune the model for years, working around the clock. Of course for free because nobody could afford paying them. And you need thousands of scientists to research the missing music music and psychoacoustic parameters to be used in the finetuning process, also for free.

Remains the question: How to get the required processing power and also solve the issues regarding energy consumption and heat and lack of materials? There is a possible solution in sight: Microscopic photonic processors! You only have to wait for a few more decades until they become a serial product, cheap and easily accessible in ludicrous amounts. No problem, right? And after all of that you might have a system that is able to produce music that sounds and feels good enough to fool every human. Creative, original, emotional, passionate, captivating, well produced. Maybe. Or you're still dealing with an error rate of 20 % instead of 0,001 % and producers have to call Max Martin's third clone to get the job done.

Again - flying cars. And not just flying cars but flying cars which enable you to visit the Moon colony we don't have either. It's all on the same page of great visions which only make sense as long as you don't think about all the details and steps you'll have to take. We don't even have latency-free aliasing-free amp plugins which null perfectly with the analog originals and people fantasize about a machine which can not only create music as good as one skilled and talented human, but as good as all talented and skilled humans on the entire planet individually and combined, a machine that can not only logically but also artistically combine the talent and skill of Beethoven, Vandross, Zappa and Front Line Assembly with the sound of Alan Moulder. And don't forget: It has to generate revenue too.

I stopped reading after this got just plain stupid.

[Zeisner]

Another very important factor why AI can't get much better at making music is the declining quality of training data. Humans are getting worse at making music for quite some time now. You don't even need the charts, just take a look at the Music Café here. Compare the examples over time. Not only does the music get worse, the production does as well. The human model already collapses and the AI model follows, both connected via feedback loop, training each other. The final result is just noise.

[DCrown]

Bones, you are my new hero. I couldn't have said what you said any better. I agree with you 100%.

Personally, I use AI where I'm lacking, vocals. Everything else I enjoy doing from scratch.

I somehow liked you, but now you plsy unfair by hiding your microphone, I mean, maybe I coild even give you a good piece of advise if I knew, but you prefer playing Mr. Secret..
You last post shows a disgusting side of you.

I'm sorry you don't like me anymore. Somehow I'll survive.

Wow, is it really so difficult to tell what microphone you use??? Your mic really must be a big secret for whatever reason or don't you use a mic and use
a straw instead?

[DCrown]

@Bones
"There is a reason there is a new forum even here for ai topics, guess why?!
Because it's a hot topic that people are interested in, even if they aren't interested in learning anything about it before they open their fat yarps and make fools of themselves."

No, the main issue is: you have to separate ai-free and ai like there should be platforms for ai and ai-free music. To mix it is terrible, that's why many a man is annoyed.
I see young colleagues using Chatgpt for writing business mails and presentations, they don't even notice how bad Chatgpt formulates sentences and it all has the same fingerprint of the same writer, so everything will be the same as far as a lot of things in business, art etc are concerned, no originality, no creativity, no variety, no personal progress, it can't get worse and more stupid.

[Zeisner]

I see young colleagues using Chatgpt for writing business mails and presentations, they don't even notice how bad Chatgpt formulates sentences and it all has the same fingerprint of the same writer, so everything will be the same as far as a lot of things in business, art etc are concerned, no originality, no creativity, no personal progress, it can't get worse and more stupid.

Just wait, you'll see.

[guitarzan]

Just checking out what Gemini can do with pipe organ. It generated some brighter more hyped performances, but I like this one the best for some reason:

apocalypse_fugue.mp3

[DCrown]

I see young colleagues using Chatgpt for writing business mails and presentations, they don't even notice how bad Chatgpt formulates sentences and it all has the same fingerprint of the same writer, so everything will be the same as far as a lot of things in business, art etc are concerned, no originality, no creativity, no personal progress, it can't get worse and more stupid.

Just wait, you'll see.

Yes, it will even get worse thanks to ai.
All the students in a cafe I would go sometimes with their laptops using Chatgpt or whatever to make ai write their task or examens.
Brains completely switched off.

A German told me
Leviathan: Symbol of chaos and destruction.

Leviathan - Nah T AI vel

Nah means close
Taivel is german pronounciation of devil

The AI-devil is close.
Well, it was four years ago he told me, AI was not a big thing then, AI-devil has already arrived, though!

[agharta]

The sad fact is that you'd get a more interesting dialogue with a chatbot than some of the rantings on this thread.
More civil too, as some of you are coming off as a bit unhinged.
It appears that AI is the flavour of the day that the dissatisfied use to project their frustrations onto.

I'm no fan of the heavy use of Auto-Tune or even the predominance of RnB as a style in popular music, but I don't need to lose my head about it.
'Old men' ranting about the (AI) Cloud is never a good look.

I'd rather use my time to focus on all the interesting music that is still being created and has been over the past decades.
I don't care whether people on here use AI or Auto-Tune or not.
It's none of my business.
I'm not going to get into a negative mindset over something I have no control over.
That negativity is the futile thing from my perspective, not using tool x or y to 'make' music.

Wake up, you're just battling your own demons in public over music production methods.

Peace
XX