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Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

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Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#61

Post by lm28469 »

Baeocystin wrote: post #35
vouaobrasil wrote: post #5

From the article: > ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary. That ‘songwriter ‘you were talking to, Leon, who is using ChatGPT to write ‘his’ lyrics because it is ‘faster and easier ,’is participating in this erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself and, to put…

I strongly disagree. Even as imperfect as the current crop of LLMs are, I'm doing things today that year-ago-me would have considered firmly in the realm of science fiction. It's reinvigorating my creative drive across the board, and I love it. I'm getting to make the Interesting Choices that lead to Art faster and more freely than ever. Others will feel differently, and that's ok. I find myself not even mad at such…

> I'm doing things today that year-ago-me would have considered firmly in the realm of science fiction.

I've read an infinite amount of comment about that but never heard of a single convincing example

Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#62

Post by moffkalast »

RetroTechie wrote: post #28

Summarized: ChatGPT = bad. It will turn creativity into a worthless commodity. But take note: AI agents are tools. Complex tools. Tools with a personality. Right now, they're dumb. They're crude. They appear simple. But they won't stay that way. If you happen to be a lonely hacker toiling away in a basement somewhere: brace yourself for having a group of AI tools / friends. Each with a personality of its own that may…

> They may become companions for life, in one form or another.

And corporations will definitely exploit this parasocial emotional attachment to their product to extort people for all they're worth.

Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#63

Post by psawaya »

JoeyJoJoJr wrote: post #45
jklinger410 wrote: post #36

Sorry, the business side of art has already done this to artists. I recall a famous songwriter, unfortunately I cannot remember their name to prove this, who used free association word games to write songs. Because nonsense lyrics have helped propel otherwise mediocre songs to commercial success. He would write songs just by putting down words, free associating those words, until he had something that sounded interes…

Cedric Bixler Zavala of The Mars Volta would write lyrics by chopping up words and phrases from pages of medical books.

That explains so much.

Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#64

Post by ianbicking »

I certainly respect Nick Cave, but I don't think his impression of working with ChatGPT matches reality.

I haven't done song writing in particular, but I would think it would be more like a super powered rhyming dictionary... one that knows a bit about syllables and can look ahead by verses and not just sentences.

If you want to say something then ChatGPT can't decide what to say, what you feel, what expression will share what's inside you. But when you are searching for those things, when you have a spark you want to make real, it can greatly help in that search.

You could also be lazy and just settle for whatever ChatGPT spits out, satisfied that it rhymes. A lot of human-written songs don't offer much more than that. Maybe that's fine, obviously music is more than just lyrics.

We don't know yet if these tools will lead to greater forms of expression, more voices able to express themselves; or if it will devalue expression by creating art that has the form of expression with no person underneath being expressed. There's dangers... but it's too early to call.

Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#65

Post by fnovd »

buildsjets wrote: post #59
fnovd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Takes like this confuse me. ChatGPT is not stopping anyone from making art. It may stop you from profiting off of your artistic labors. Though, if you need a profit motive to make art, were you really making anything truly expressive and creative to begin with? We're seeing the same thing with the actors and writers striking. Sorry folks, if you're making me choose between embracing neoluddism or living with some art…

There is nothing un-artistic about wanting to both make art and to be able to afford rent, dinner, and pants.

There is a difference between "making money and making art" and "making money by making art". No one is entitled to having other people value their artistic output. I would argue that art created for the marketplace is less creative than art produced by a human's need to create for creation's sake. It's not un-artistic, but it is the kind of art that an AI can make better, faster, and cheaper.

Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#66

Post by Baeocystin »

lm28469 wrote: post #61
Baeocystin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Even as imperfect as the current crop of LLMs are, I'm doing things today that year-ago-me would have considered firmly in the realm of science fiction. It's reinvigorating my creative drive across the board, and I love it. I'm getting to make the Interesting Choices that lead to Art faster and more freely than ever. Others will feel differently, and that's ok. I find myself not even mad at such…

> I'm doing things today that year-ago-me would have considered firmly in the realm of science fiction. I've read an infinite amount of comment about that but never heard of a single convincing example

Having a fully-grammatical, open-ended conversation in a natural language with a computer was 100% science fiction until now.

Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#67

Post by consumer451 »

JoeyJoJoJr wrote: post #45
jklinger410 wrote: post #36

Sorry, the business side of art has already done this to artists. I recall a famous songwriter, unfortunately I cannot remember their name to prove this, who used free association word games to write songs. Because nonsense lyrics have helped propel otherwise mediocre songs to commercial success. He would write songs just by putting down words, free associating those words, until he had something that sounded interes…

Cedric Bixler Zavala of The Mars Volta would write lyrics by chopping up words and phrases from pages of medical books.

I thought the story was that he used the diary of their sound guy from when he was in a psychiatric ward...? At least for De-Loused in the Comatorium?

Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#68

Post by jklinger410 »

Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote: post #44
jklinger410 wrote: post #36

Sorry, the business side of art has already done this to artists. I recall a famous songwriter, unfortunately I cannot remember their name to prove this, who used free association word games to write songs. Because nonsense lyrics have helped propel otherwise mediocre songs to commercial success. He would write songs just by putting down words, free associating those words, until he had something that sounded interes…

If you’re thinking of Jeff Tweedy, it’s far more complicated than what you described.

I am thinking of Jeff Tweedy, and it was a big bummer for me to hear that from them.

Would love to be enlightened about why it's more complicated.

Re: Nick Cave on ChatGPT and the creative process

#69

Post by jancsika »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #5

From the article: > ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary. That ‘songwriter ‘you were talking to, Leon, who is using ChatGPT to write ‘his’ lyrics because it is ‘faster and easier ,’is participating in this erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself and, to put…

The entire argument shifts if you think back to the spirit of say, file-sharing in a college dorm in the late 90s.

A bunch of kids running local LLMs to generate art and entertainment doesn't sound dreary or scary in the least.

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