Comment by tengbretson
3 hours ago
That used to be true of autotune too. It was either tastefully hidden, or obvious and trashy. Then projects like 808s and Heartbreak and Tha Carter III put it front and center and it's been a legitimate tool ever since.
I didn't know if generative ai has a strong enough signature to go through the same evolution, but I wouldn't be shocked if it did.
It’s autoslop can become an adjective for Generative AI content whether it’s hidden or not. It’s so AI - can mean different things to different generations - derogatory for Gen Alpha and like a good thing for older generations
Autotune is legitimate as a surgical tool, used as little as necessary so you can't ever hear it, not when it's front and center as they have tried to do in the 2010 era of awful.
AI is still in the 2010 autotune phase, where more is better.
“Death of autotune, moment of silence”.
Nah, they were still keen to let people know it made you a clown.
Autotune, and quantization in general, is a legitimate artistic choice though. It's like using a ruler. It's not strictly required either.
AI is literally the exact opposite of that. We had been building software with ruler-like precision even when it was unnecessary and got in the way. That's the only reason we ever wanted AI to begin with.
One mistake people keep making is the assumption that arbitrary and probabilistic imprecision ("wisdom of the crowd") is automatically equivalent to artistic or experienced/curated choice. It's absolutely not. Another mistake is that approximations are always enough to satisfy all problems, or at least "real world" problems. That's obviously not true either. That's flat out ignorance.