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Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

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Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#181

Post by DannyBee »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #11

From the article: > Each participating artist has partnered with us and will have a hand in helping us test and learn to shape the future of AI in music. Let me correct that: each participating artist has been given a wad of dirty cash in return for their help in training replacements for mass music. Notice that I said "mass music" -- people will always be able to create by hand, but it's clear that the ultimate goal…

"(3) At some point, it will be so advanced that it will hardly need anyone to create it, and Google and other big tech companies can use it to be an alternative to traditional musicians, who will not be able to compete and therefore will not be able to do what they love to survive."

What is your definition of "traditional" here - historically, both music and art were not full time jobs for most. It was a thing people with a passion for did as a side gig, with some (but not a lot) of people eventually sustaining themselves full time with art. Or it was done by already rich people who did not need to work and could afford to be people of leisure.

That was true even of organized things like orchestras, etc. Doing these as a full time job is a relatively recent thing, and even there, "surviving" has been limited to a remarkable few.

Even a decade ago, 30% of musicians had a second job. The 70% was not mostly "bands" but,again, permanent things like orchestras, etc.

Trying to forcefully keep jobs alive that don't need to exist is insanity, and rightfully gets pointed out as such in other contexts. This would be no different in this case.

Here, it's also totally non-obvious that if these things go back to "people pursue it as a side gig because they love it" we will be any worse off than we were in terms of quality of art/music, happiness, you name it.

Because that was the way of the past and art/music were not just fine, but most people even consider it better!

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#182

Post by ristos »

ristos wrote: post #145

There are still people that appreciate watching someone play a guitar or violin or piano, or make traditional art, because the character of the artist comes through. For example, with classical pieces, each musician plays the composition a little bit differently, and so their character comes through, their soul. I don't think a machine can really replace that, because there are still people that like to listen to liv…

Not sure why I got downvoted. There's a false dichotomy here... I agree that there are really cool things with this technology, opening up a lot of possibilities for music creation for those that aren't well versed in music composition to get their ideas out. I think that's great. Just like how electronic music allowed us to have digital recordings to play the same song cheaply over and over again, and also allowed people to create great tracks with only knowledge of music composition and no need to learn an instrument.

That still doesn't change some drawbacks, which is what you lose when you do that. It's mostly an economics thing. There's value to having artisanal products over industrial ones because of the craftsmanship involved. The artist or craftsman's personal touch ends up as part of the piece. That used to be common but now it's just a high end product for rich people to afford. There's a downside to these kinds of technologies, even if they bring benefits.

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#183

Post by phatskat »

coldtea wrote: post #106
seydor wrote: post #82

Wonder where the human fits in this new landscape. Composer? no. Performer? no. Music artist is more like a conductor now. Thankfully audience doesn't care because they need to worship a human in the end, so she 'll be receiving all the money anyway. The problem with these new BigTech companies is that they are accustomed to subjugating everyone. They deal with users and content, not with artists and creations. This…

> Composer? no. Performer? no. Not even audience, since few care for music with any real passion anymore among the masses (not even teens). It became a niche, or something you put in the background. As for "popular" concerts and festivals, they are more like country fairs...

Maybe I’m in a weird bubble, but I know plenty of people who love music with a passion. We travel for concerts, we go to festivals with lots of other passionate music enjoyers, heck we have our own yearly get together that’s about playing music with friends and family. The people I know who are into music are into music, and that’s most of my friends because those are the people I get along with - we make, play, and listen with passion, and there are a lot of us.

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#184

Post by datpiff »

microtonal wrote: post #176
datpiff wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guitar is literally the most mass-produced instrument in human history

I was quite surprised by this. I played some guitar in my teens and a good guitar was quite an investment (mid-late nineties). My dad is a bit of a guitar collector and it is surprising what guitars he finds for ~300 Euro, quite respectable quality. (Maybe it also has to do something with the lack of demand now , guitar music was still very popular in the 90ies.)

That agrees with my own experience.

I think the big changes that caused prices to drop was online shopping and the move to East Asian manufacturing outside of Japan. There are "store-brands" like Harley Benton that target below $150 for some instruments, the Internet is awash with positive reviews.

I'm not sure if demand has changed. Guitar music is less popular but it's much easier to learn right now.

https://reverb-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/v1457648516/C...

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#185

Post by phatskat »

datpiff wrote: post #135
wildrhythms wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for many people music is nothing more than 'something to play in the background'.

I'm sure this reads as very cynical, but a lot of the replies here seem to be written by people who do not like music, or don't place much value in it.

A ton of these comments are cynical or defeatist. It’s like they think that music is already a dying art and this is the final nail in the coffin.

There’s tons of amazing, wonderful music being made all the time, to a degree that is staggeringly incomprehensible, and nothing about AI generated music is going to stop people from making beautiful art “by hand”

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#186

Post by emanuele232 »

jerojero wrote: post #160
porkbeer wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not self expression when something else does the expressing.

Machines cannot express, as far as I know. They're sophisticated tools but still tools. If someone feels these tools help them express what they want, if they are satisfied, I would call that a form of self-expression. I mean, who am I to deny them that feeling?

this is getting philosophical, but maybe humans are sophisticated tools

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#187

Post by voidhorse »

ppsreejith wrote: post #99

Not sure I agree with the negative opinions in this thread. Surely, having an additional option to listen to the song you want to is a good thing? It's not like the choice to listen to human artists is taken away. Furthermore, a lot more people can now express themselves through music that were previously unable to.

In theory it is fantastic and yes this is great.

I think the negativity comes from the fact that our economic reality isn't currently structured to handle the consequences.

In an idyllic society, this might be all one needs to say about generative AI: "how wonderful, a new way to express ourselves!" I think the backlash stems from the fact that we do not live in such a society. Many people already barely scratch out a meagre existence through self-expression. Now major companies that posses far more power than individuals, that take people's work and data without doing due diligence or asking, that effectively impose the shape of the technical landscape from top down, are introducing tools that threaten the ability of people to survive.

It's kind of hard to paint a completely rosy picture when that's the way these tools are being developed and introduced.

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#188

Post by jacquesm »

bambax wrote: post #166
jacquesm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But effort itself is also a quality. The fact that a human took out a substantial fraction of their time on planet earth to create something is already a sign that at least one individual cared about the work: the creator. If art is like vomit then that initial round of validation is absent.

I don't think I agree with that. "A for effort"? Who cares if someone spent time on something, if the result isn't good? They wasted their time, which is their problem; but they shouldn't waste mine as well to compensate for that. There are even artists who don't actually make anything: they formulate an idea and then commission craftsmen to produce what they imagined. While the resulting oeuvre involves some degree…

Not an 'A for effort' but 'effort for initial validation'. It shouldn't lead to automatic approval but zero effort is less of a signal than some effort and probably a weaker signal than 'a lot of effort' assuming the basic skills are present.

Photography is interesting because it has very subtle parallels with for instance painting. One of the more interesting ones to me is that it ranges the gamut from 'technical documentation' through 'personal memento' all the way up to very high end art. The big thing missing in photography is spirituality, which arguably was the driver (and often the patron in a financial sense) of lots of great art in paint.

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#189

Post by hurryer »

KaiserPro wrote: post #134

To quote from 1984: > The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound. He could hea…

Most of today's popular music is heavily computer based.

Previous musicians said the same things, electric guitars are not musical instruments, synthesizers have no soul, music made on computer DAWs is artificial and of no value, ....

The kids will embrace 100% AI generated music, the parents will be "they don't make music like they used to", forgetting that their parents said the same things about their music.

Re: Google's advanced music generation model and two new AI experiments

#190

Post by ImaCake »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #8

The moment quality in art becomes commodified, what is popular will select on something other than quality. Look what happened to visual art in the earliest 20th century. Any art academy graduate could give you a beautiful painting, but nobody remembers any artists from the 20th century who simply made "beautiful paintings"

I would argue spotify is more consequential than a new tool generate music then. Spotify et al commodify the access to very obscure and niche music so people are now much more able to access or express themselves with whatever they want.

Maybe punk music was partly a consequence of mass media pop and rock music for these reasons too.

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