Comment by redwall_hp
15 hours ago
We've had Yamaha Vocaloid for over two decades now, and Synthesizer V is probably coming up on a decade too now. They're like any other synth: MIDI (plus phonemes) in, sound out. It's a tool of musical expression, like any other instrument.
Hatsune Miku (Fujita Saki) is arguably the most prolific singer in the world, if you consider every Vocaloid user and the millions of songs that have come out of it.
So I don't think there's any uncharted territory...we still have singers, and sampled VST instruments didn't stop instrumentalists from existing; if anything, most of these newcomer generative AI tools are far less flexible or creatively useful than the vast array of synthesis tools musicians already use.
Miku is neat but not a replacement for a human by any stretch of the imagination. In practice most amateur usage of that lands somewhere in a cringey uncanny valley.
No one was going to replace voice actors for TV and movie dubs with Miku whereas the cutting edge TTS tools seem to be nearing that point. Presumably human vocal performances will follow that in short order.