Comment by piva00
9 days ago
What's the point of listening to purely AI-generated music?
I don't mean music that has AI-generated stems as part of an arrangement, where a human actually created it and used AI for bits and pieces, I don't see absolutely any point on listening to purely AI-generated music. The fundamental essence of music is emotion, listening to something generated without emotion has no point, it might sound good but it's hollow and devoid of meaning.
I've tried to listen to it, it doesn't even make me "sad", it makes me feel... Nothing. I'm a hobby musician and I incorporated some AI-generated parts in some tracks where I mangled/processed them but my idea was exactly to express how hollow AI-generated music is without the human aspect.
> What's the point of listening to purely AI-generated music?
For formulaic music-as-a-product (McMusic™) it arguably makes no difference whatsoever whether it is totally machine-made or assembled out of vat-grown parts in the musack factory . This says far more about this category of music than it does about the value of machine-made music. Insta-pop, a large fraction of hiphop, supermarket country, plastic metal, there's plenty of formulaic thrash made by both man as well as machine. Even the supposedly man-made stuff was often half machine-made already before the advent of generative models so that other half did not make much of a difference.
If you're looking for music which makes you feel things (other than 'comfortably numb' to borrow a phrase from some real musicians) you're probably looking in the wrong area. It is the new music for airports, elevator music, hold-the-line music, slide-show-music, acoustical filler.
Many music that are in autoplay on Spotify are AI and I literally didn't know until I checked, the emotion was triggered successfully, I don't really see why only a human could be able to trigger you an emotion? Like if I'm at a party, let say I don't know the artist and everything is AI made and everybody is vibing, then what's "wrong" with it?
I think this is more of a musician side which I respect, but a lot of people would simply not care who created it (or what).
Most people don't care about music, as most don't care about art in general. People like entertainment though.
What you are describing is more akin to a form of hollow entertainment through the medium of music, a lot of pop music can also fall into that category (no, not all, there is also a lot of artistry is many pop artists/songs).
If AI-generated music triggers emotions on you then keep consuming it but knowing that it's a hollow form of the art, there's no one on the other side communicating with you, it's basically like having a conversation with a chatbot, it might sound human but you know that there's no one on the other side listening to you. AI music is the other way: there's no one on the other side telling you a story, or a feeling they went through, it's just a mimesis of it.
Music has served various roles throughout history. The whole notion of music being "art" and "invoking feelings" has not always been consistently true across the entirety of its history of various cultures. Painting, drawing, sculpting, and other visual arts have had a similar history as well.
We can take examples of some pieces from famous composers like much of Haydn's works, some pieces from Handel, Bach, Mozart, etc.. Some of their works were commissioned pieces for particular functions. Whether the music be for courts, dances, aristocratic displays, churches, and other events. Even on the battlefield music has been used to route troops, supply orders, and other forms of communication. My point is that there is not always a story to be told. Music can also be used to disrupt one's sense of time -- while on hold on the phone, elevators, etc.. I would not say the music in those instances are really telling me a story either.
Much like the visual arts. Emotion can be expressed in a piece, but pieces can also be functional in nature. There is a difference between figures in an instruction manual, portrait paintings, and a van Gogh piece.
Not to mention that this debate has been had countless times through out history, as well. It's always the same No Scotsman Fallacy. For example, some critics of electronic music have made a similar argument way before AI.
"It's not real music if there are no instruments."
"It's not real music if <racial/cultural demographic> creates or plays it."
"It's not real music if the music does not adhere to contrapuntal rules."
I think what angers people most is that as technology progresses, the gap between effort and accomplishment decreases. Thus there is some sort of clinging to a sunk cost fallacy for some. As if something being easy to create devalues all the effort one has put into something. Maybe it does? I do not personally think so. If anything, it allows greater access for people to participate in the arts -- something the arts have also had a historically rocky relationship trying to gatekeep.
The invention of the camera did not make painting irrelevant. It even opened a new door to the world of visual arts. I do not think AI music will make musicians irrelevant either, and perhaps new doors might open too.
1 reply →