AI created Music: Need to Know?

[pseudoid]

If a song -- that extremely engages you -- was generated by an AI:
1)Would you want to know in advance?
2)Would it change your reaction, if you found out that it was machine-created?
3)Should an AI-generated song be awarded equal awards?

A version of this question was asked to WSJ readers, covering all arts, including paintings, songs, novels and movies.
Some replies were interesting:
It isn't art. AI has no soul! How much did AI help? Unfair Competion. Only a tool. If it moves you; don't question it. I can tell the difference. SAG/Aftra. Mixed blessing.
Yes, we can remind each other that 'music' has been algorithm-ized many decades ago and we can chatter regarding some of the salient points in these 3 simplified questions.

My short answers would have to be:
1)Yes,
2)Yes, and
3)No.

 

[Soria Moria]

*Would you want to know in advance?

No.

*Would it change your reaction, if you found out that it was machine-created?

Yes.

*Should an AI-generated song be awarded equal awards?

In a category exclusively for AI generated songs sure. But it should be kept separate from non-AI music.

I have to say that there is definitely a lot of bias involving art when it comes to knowing if it's AI made or not. I have seen pictures that look really good and pretty paintings. Nothing about it sticks out as 'soulless' to me but the moment you know that it was that bias comes in. People say AI art is soulless but it's largely only when they actually know they're looking at AI art. AI art that creeps under people's noses won't be labelled soulless like this. In a few years it will have advanced so much that a lot of people will be left in the dust anyway.

 

[Doodski]

To create AI that completes art requires the programming and functional design by people so it would be a team collaboration.

 

[Timcognito]

What, you don't like dental chair elevator music? Think about what AI could do there.

 

[just1n]

Checkout Mubert. I put it on in the background while working and cleaning. Everything is created on the fly so no two people are supposed to ever be listening to the same song. It is very satisfying to listen to.

 

[dasdoing]

until we have true AI everything created by this generation is "algorithmic", so it doesn't really matter who created it since is not truly creative anyways.

 

[Doodski]

until we have true AI everything created by this generation is "algorithmic", so it doesn't really matter who created it since is not truly creative anyways.

It requires teams with decisive thinking and artistic flair using orders based musicality with math thinking and programming capability. It's so obvious... LoL...

 

[kemmler3D]

If a song -- that extremely engages you -- was generated by an AI:
1)Would you want to know in advance?
2)Would it change your reaction, if you found out that it was machine-created?
3)Should an AI-generated song be awarded equal awards?

A version of this question was asked to WSJ readers, covering all arts, including paintings, songs, novels and movies.
Some replies were interesting:
It isn't art. AI has no soul! How much did AI help? Unfair Competion. Only a tool. If it moves you; don't question it. I can tell the difference. SAG/Aftra. Mixed blessing.
Yes, we can remind each other that 'music' has been algorithm-ized many decades ago and we can chatter regarding some of the salient points in these 3 simplified questions.

My short answers would have to be:
1)Yes,
2)Yes, and
3)No.

No, Yes, No.

I really try to avoid saying things "aren't art" because every past attempt to exclude something from the category of "art" has failed. E.g. photography, abstract expressionism, even conceptual art are now all uncontroversially art, but people objected at first.

However, if a human being is not directly involved with the execution of the art, I am not sure I'm willing to call it art. The point of art is to communicate with each other more or less abstractly. Describing an idea and having the computer do the communicating for you is art in the way that an automated phone menu is customer service.

 

[Doodski]

No, Yes, No.

I really try to avoid saying things "aren't art" because every past attempt to exclude something from the category of "art" has failed. E.g. photography, abstract expressionism, even conceptual art are now all uncontroversially art, but people objected at first.

However, if a human being is not directly involved with the execution of the art, I am not sure I'm willing to call it art. The point of art is to communicate with each other more or less abstractly. Describing an idea and having the computer do the communicating for you is art in the way that an automated phone menu is customer service.

You are not seeing the possibilities and the contributions made by the people that program this beast. It would be a beast of a program handmade by people.

 

[kemmler3D]

You are not seeing the possibilities and the contributions made by the people that program this beast. It would be a beast of a program handmade by people.

You might even be able to convince me that the AI software itself is a kind of art, but the output, not so sure...

 

[pseudoid]

Checkout Mubert. I put it on in the background while working and cleaning. Everything is created on the fly so no two people are supposed to ever be listening to the same song. It is very satisfying to listen to.

So, there could never be music sharing.... boooooo!

 

[radix]

AI Generated Music With Real Human Fans

Frostbite Orckings' heavy metal music is created With AI

www.forbes.com

FROSTBITE ORCKINGS - official Webdungeon

orckings.org

 

[egellings]

If a song -- that extremely engages you -- was generated by an AI:
1)Would you want to know in advance?
2)Would it change your reaction, if you found out that it was machine-created?
3)Should an AI-generated song be awarded equal awards?

A version of this question was asked to WSJ readers, covering all arts, including paintings, songs, novels and movies.
Some replies were interesting:
It isn't art. AI has no soul! How much did AI help? Unfair Competion. Only a tool. If it moves you; don't question it. I can tell the difference. SAG/Aftra. Mixed blessing.
Yes, we can remind each other that 'music' has been algorithm-ized many decades ago and we can chatter regarding some of the salient points in these 3 simplified questions.

My short answers would have to be:
1)Yes,
2)Yes, and
3)No.

I'd be okay so long as I know who the author is. If it's machine-generated, then label it as such. I could still possibly enjoy it.

 

[pseudoid]

In the olden and darker days of computing power, this would have still taken much artistic talent, possibly some arts' education and years of honing such skills...

Not any more... ask an AI nicely; and it will do all the heavy lifting.
Good and bad news; I suppose.
Maybe I should not have been so judgemental about AI-generated music, as I originally posted.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I'd like to know how it's created. I listen to a lot of EDM and house. I think the line between some of these electronic genres and AI generated music is already blurred much more than we know.

 

[bluefuzz]

1. No
2. No
3. Yes

Generative, algorithmic or mechanistic techniques have been used for hundreds of years to create musical and visual art where the 'hand of the artist' is obscured or removed from the resulting 'art' in various ways – e.g. Arabic tiling patterns, Mozart's musical dice, mid 20th century serialism and constructivism, analogue and digital synthesis/sequencing etc. – AI is just another extension of those techniques. Like all art it is a product of human imagination and ingenuity and is thus niether more or less intrinsically worthy than any other method of creation. My only criterion for judging the result is 'do I want to look at, listen to or otherwise engage with it?'.

There can be all sorts of moral, philosophical and æsthetic reasons for liking or disliking a piece of art but the fact that it was 'made by a machine' is pretty far down the list IMO.

 

[Ron Texas]

In the US AI created works are not eligible for copyright. This is likely to dampen interest in using AI to create new works. I find this result strange as it takes a good deal of creativity to give the AI the right instructions.

 

[pseudoid]

In the US AI created works are not eligible for copyright. This is likely to dampen interest in using AI to create new works. I find this result strange as it takes a good deal of creativity to give the AI the right instructions.

Is this borne from the fact that the data -- used to generate what someone asks of AI -- is possibly based on IP of other data already in the infinite depository that is the web?
I have noticed a similar watering-down of Siri (et al), where it provides web-based references rather than directly answering questions asked.

 

[Ron Texas]

Is this borne from the fact that the data -- used to generate what someone asks of AI -- is possibly based on IP of other data already in the infinite depository that is the web?
I have noticed a similar watering-down of Siri (et al), where it provides web-based references rather than directly answering questions asked.

I can't even begin to answer your question. There are several lawsuits in progress regarding using copyrighted works to train AI's. The defense is to claim fair use.