OK Google, Save My Life
January 27, 2023 6:49 AM Subscribe
Google researchers unveil a generative music AI, MusicLM. "We introduce MusicLM, a model generating high-fidelity music from text descriptions such as a calming violin melody backed by a distorted guitar riff'..."
"...MusicLM casts the process of conditional music generation as a hierarchical sequence-to-sequence modeling task, and it generates music at 24 kHz that remains consistent over several minutes."
There are samples of music created using "short generation," "long generation," "story mode," "text and melody conditioning," "painting and caption conditioning," and more.
"...MusicLM casts the process of conditional music generation as a hierarchical sequence-to-sequence modeling task, and it generates music at 24 kHz that remains consistent over several minutes."
There are samples of music created using "short generation," "long generation," "story mode," "text and melody conditioning," "painting and caption conditioning," and more.
Some of these are ... surprisingly good (for certain values of "good")? I would really like to know about the training set, though. I skimmed the article (okay, I just searched for "train") and I'm unclear on where the training audio came from. Where did it come from? What kind of consent was given?
But honestly, a lot of this is perfectly fine for cruddy cash-grab mobile games and the like, and I wouldn't be surprised if you start to hear some bad AI-generated music in those kinds of places. This is way beyond the demo of AI-generated music I heard a few years ago, but it's still got a long way to go before it's really eating anyone's lunch.
(Much like Apple's really-great new TTS won't be eating voice actors' lunch, but will probably eat up the crumbs rattling around the bottom of the bag.)
posted by uncleozzy at 7:07 AM on January 27, 2023
But honestly, a lot of this is perfectly fine for cruddy cash-grab mobile games and the like, and I wouldn't be surprised if you start to hear some bad AI-generated music in those kinds of places. This is way beyond the demo of AI-generated music I heard a few years ago, but it's still got a long way to go before it's really eating anyone's lunch.
(Much like Apple's really-great new TTS won't be eating voice actors' lunch, but will probably eat up the crumbs rattling around the bottom of the bag.)
posted by uncleozzy at 7:07 AM on January 27, 2023
We really need universal basic income and rent control, or the Butlerian Jihad will come much, much sooner than later.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:10 AM on January 27, 2023 [44 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:10 AM on January 27, 2023 [44 favorites]
The vocals are the audio equivalent of the way stable diffusion produces humans with the wrong number of fingers and teeth.
posted by jedicus at 7:13 AM on January 27, 2023 [24 favorites]
posted by jedicus at 7:13 AM on January 27, 2023 [24 favorites]
Oh jesus they're using prompts like "tribal drums and flute" and "Turkey in the Straw". This kind of crap is why AI projects need IRB oversight.
Weird biases: beginner and intermediate guitar players play acoustic, professionals play electric.
It's much more impressive than prior work, but most of the samples have a general quality of sounding like a 2nd generation tape copy of a dusty gramophone record.
posted by jedicus at 7:21 AM on January 27, 2023 [13 favorites]
Weird biases: beginner and intermediate guitar players play acoustic, professionals play electric.
It's much more impressive than prior work, but most of the samples have a general quality of sounding like a 2nd generation tape copy of a dusty gramophone record.
posted by jedicus at 7:21 AM on January 27, 2023 [13 favorites]
We really need universal basic income and rent control, or the Butlerian Jihad will come much, much sooner than later.
Seems like we're teetering on a precipice between The Jetsons and The Flintstones.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:49 AM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
Seems like we're teetering on a precipice between The Jetsons and The Flintstones.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:49 AM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
... and falling into the simpsons
posted by pyramid termite at 7:51 AM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite at 7:51 AM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
The "swing" one sounds like someone throwing a one-man-band down the stairs, at the bottom of a well.
The Jetsons and The Flintstones
Why not both? Jetsons are Eloi and Flintstones are Morlocks.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:53 AM on January 27, 2023 [9 favorites]
The Jetsons and The Flintstones
Why not both? Jetsons are Eloi and Flintstones are Morlocks.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:53 AM on January 27, 2023 [9 favorites]
Google keeps publishing ML stuff wildly ahead of what's available to the public (Imagen, Muse, now MusicLM), I wonder what they are not publishing.
posted by simmering octagon at 7:55 AM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by simmering octagon at 7:55 AM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
I really try not to take this shit personally but, like, between AI visual art and ChatGPT and this, I'm starting to feel like some portion of tech really hates artists.
posted by thivaia at 7:56 AM on January 27, 2023 [32 favorites]
posted by thivaia at 7:56 AM on January 27, 2023 [32 favorites]
the two minute track where they mash up a lot of unlikely genres is a trip - and i'm rather fond of the idea of accordian death metal, although i don't think they quite got it
what would be very cool would be to get ahold of this, generate a lot of weird, flaky backing tracks and then "ghost" them, by overdubbing real musical tracks, erasing the basics and leaving the overdubs
posted by pyramid termite at 7:56 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
what would be very cool would be to get ahold of this, generate a lot of weird, flaky backing tracks and then "ghost" them, by overdubbing real musical tracks, erasing the basics and leaving the overdubs
posted by pyramid termite at 7:56 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Seems like we're teetering on a precipice between The Jetsons and The Flintstones.
2000 A.D. feels increasingly predictive.
Oh jesus they're using prompts like "tribal drums and flute" and "Turkey in the Straw". This kind of crap is why AI projects need IRB oversight.
Much as I've been beguiled by Midjourney, even at this early date the human input element seems like one of the biggest limiters of its potential. As here, it's going to take actual, human artist / freak minds to work around tired tropes, bigotry, ethnocentrism, algorithmic limitations and biases, etc.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:57 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
2000 A.D. feels increasingly predictive.
Oh jesus they're using prompts like "tribal drums and flute" and "Turkey in the Straw". This kind of crap is why AI projects need IRB oversight.
Much as I've been beguiled by Midjourney, even at this early date the human input element seems like one of the biggest limiters of its potential. As here, it's going to take actual, human artist / freak minds to work around tired tropes, bigotry, ethnocentrism, algorithmic limitations and biases, etc.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:57 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
The link to arXiv in the top comment doesn't work. Here is a link to the paper that works MusicLM: Generating Music From Text
posted by bdc34 at 7:59 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by bdc34 at 7:59 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm starting to feel like some portion of tech really hates artists.
On the one hand, this is a really interesting engineering problem, which is reason enough to do it (assuming you have engineer brain wrt ethics).
On the other hand, yeah, I do get the impression that there are a lot of STEMlords in tech who really don't think creative endeavors have inherent value and should be automated so they don't have to pay creatives.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:19 AM on January 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
On the one hand, this is a really interesting engineering problem, which is reason enough to do it (assuming you have engineer brain wrt ethics).
On the other hand, yeah, I do get the impression that there are a lot of STEMlords in tech who really don't think creative endeavors have inherent value and should be automated so they don't have to pay creatives.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:19 AM on January 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
My impression of this as a musician is, it might be fun to use this to generate samples as seed material to make actual music from. Weird vocals that aren't actually singing anything? Uncanny valley cello? Beats I can chop up and rearrange? It's not super exciting stuff but I could use it.
Maybe like with the image generation stuff, the best use for it isn't a straightforward jump to a finished product, but going to more abstract and weird places and involving actual human artistic skills... or perhaps embracing the creepy wrongness of the results.
The economics of art are already weird. I don't know how I would feel about this if I had a career making music for commercial purposes. Vaguely unsettled but not immediately threatened? There's a quality standard that this stuff isn't close to meeting yet; whether it's just a matter of time or whether there are inherent limits I don't know. But thankfully, I make the music that calls to me personally, almost nobody is buying it anyway, and that's okay because I have a day job. I'm not in competition with other musicians now, and won't suddenly also be in competition with robots in the future.
posted by Foosnark at 8:30 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Maybe like with the image generation stuff, the best use for it isn't a straightforward jump to a finished product, but going to more abstract and weird places and involving actual human artistic skills... or perhaps embracing the creepy wrongness of the results.
The economics of art are already weird. I don't know how I would feel about this if I had a career making music for commercial purposes. Vaguely unsettled but not immediately threatened? There's a quality standard that this stuff isn't close to meeting yet; whether it's just a matter of time or whether there are inherent limits I don't know. But thankfully, I make the music that calls to me personally, almost nobody is buying it anyway, and that's okay because I have a day job. I'm not in competition with other musicians now, and won't suddenly also be in competition with robots in the future.
posted by Foosnark at 8:30 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Welcome back to Microsoft Songsmith.
posted by JHarris at 8:36 AM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 8:36 AM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
~I'm starting to feel like some portion of tech really hates artists.
~On the one hand, this is a really interesting engineering problem, which is reason enough to do it (assuming you have engineer brain wrt ethics).
On the other hand, yeah, I do get the impression that there are a lot of STEMlords in tech who really don't think creative endeavors have inherent value and should be automated so they don't have to pay creatives.
I’ve worked with and around techies/devs quite a lot (as an artist/designer) and, yeah, can confirm there’s a deep-seated dismissiveness for creatives in-general (oddly, while massively consuming products—movies, games, comics, etc. that involve the work of mountains of artists, writers, musicians, etc.)
I, for one, will love to hear the howls of anger from their side of things the day some AI starts churning-out viable code and quickly learns to write updates for itself.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:36 AM on January 27, 2023 [19 favorites]
~On the one hand, this is a really interesting engineering problem, which is reason enough to do it (assuming you have engineer brain wrt ethics).
On the other hand, yeah, I do get the impression that there are a lot of STEMlords in tech who really don't think creative endeavors have inherent value and should be automated so they don't have to pay creatives.
I’ve worked with and around techies/devs quite a lot (as an artist/designer) and, yeah, can confirm there’s a deep-seated dismissiveness for creatives in-general (oddly, while massively consuming products—movies, games, comics, etc. that involve the work of mountains of artists, writers, musicians, etc.)
I, for one, will love to hear the howls of anger from their side of things the day some AI starts churning-out viable code and quickly learns to write updates for itself.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:36 AM on January 27, 2023 [19 favorites]
I really try not to take this shit personally but, like, between AI visual art and ChatGPT and this, I'm starting to feel like some portion of tech really hates artists.
I get the feeling it's closer to them not wanting to pay artists or deal with any messy "copyright" stuff that gets in the way of having a full hoard of content for any use case. For tech bros, Art is an annoying input cost that makes whatever movie/video game/album/book less profitable. A cheap, free* imitation is a godsend. Can ChatGPT write a script? No need to pay a writer, so profit margin goes up. Can AI build a storyboard or concept art? No need to pay a visual artist, profit margin goes up. Can AI make dead or fake actors appear on screen? No need to pay real actors, profit margin goes up.That's why BILLIONS of dollars are being shoveled into AI. It promises a greatly reduced, royalty-free input cost and greatly increased profit margins for media companies.
This music sounds like butt. ChatGPT writes like a complete dumbass. AI art is uncanny and soulless. That's ok for the financiers, though, because each step forward brings them one step closer to never having to pay an artist ever again. They're not trying to destroy artists as much as render artists obsolete.
Will they ever get there? Maybe. Will their idealized end goal make the world spiritually and creatively bankrupt? Absolutely. But hey, with infinite profit margins for the owner class, who needs creativity anyhow?
posted by Philipschall at 8:38 AM on January 27, 2023 [16 favorites]
I get the feeling it's closer to them not wanting to pay artists or deal with any messy "copyright" stuff that gets in the way of having a full hoard of content for any use case. For tech bros, Art is an annoying input cost that makes whatever movie/video game/album/book less profitable. A cheap, free* imitation is a godsend. Can ChatGPT write a script? No need to pay a writer, so profit margin goes up. Can AI build a storyboard or concept art? No need to pay a visual artist, profit margin goes up. Can AI make dead or fake actors appear on screen? No need to pay real actors, profit margin goes up.That's why BILLIONS of dollars are being shoveled into AI. It promises a greatly reduced, royalty-free input cost and greatly increased profit margins for media companies.
This music sounds like butt. ChatGPT writes like a complete dumbass. AI art is uncanny and soulless. That's ok for the financiers, though, because each step forward brings them one step closer to never having to pay an artist ever again. They're not trying to destroy artists as much as render artists obsolete.
Will they ever get there? Maybe. Will their idealized end goal make the world spiritually and creatively bankrupt? Absolutely. But hey, with infinite profit margins for the owner class, who needs creativity anyhow?
posted by Philipschall at 8:38 AM on January 27, 2023 [16 favorites]
I agree that there is a sizable portion of STEM types who look at artists and creators with disdain in a "artists should get a REAL job"/"this can all be automated so who cares" way though I don't know if that's necessarily what is driving the development of this technology. As long as there is a desire for time efficiency and cost reduction anywhere, there will be some engineers trying to automate it. Notice how writing code is also a giant part of the natural language processing piece of this - the coders could potentially code themselves out of jobs as well.
posted by windbox at 8:39 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by windbox at 8:39 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
It seems pretty obvious that writing computer code is going to get automated a lot faster than creating amazing art or writing an enthralling story. It's probably the finance guys who are getting the coders to do all this "art" AI shit, with the hopes that they don't realize they're actually working on the AI necessary to make themselves obsolete.
posted by snofoam at 8:46 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 8:46 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Well, the upside, if the tech bros code themselves out of a job through the excitement of being "extremely clever," is that they'll have a lot more free time to be "extremely clever" when they're out of work, and perhaps they'll actually think outside their own asses for a minute. I'm just afraid there's going to be a lot more people out of work before the torches and pitchforks start being passed out. (It's gotta be torches and pitchforks, do not use electronic devices to fight capitalists, the devices are not your friend.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:50 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:50 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
It seems pretty obvious that writing computer code is going to get automated a lot faster than creating amazing art or writing an enthralling story.
Isn't this already the case? That is basically what github copilot does and iirc chatGPT will also write code for you. They have been around and generating decent, functional, code for a while. Maybe the real trick is that coders have been good at hiding this fact from their bosses by distracting them with AI that generates art and music.
posted by selenized at 8:51 AM on January 27, 2023 [6 favorites]
Isn't this already the case? That is basically what github copilot does and iirc chatGPT will also write code for you. They have been around and generating decent, functional, code for a while. Maybe the real trick is that coders have been good at hiding this fact from their bosses by distracting them with AI that generates art and music.
posted by selenized at 8:51 AM on January 27, 2023 [6 favorites]
XLMs are, in their current state, extremely sophisticated pastiche machines, as far as I understand the tech. They can't really be called as composers---the tech takes the relationships it finds in its training material and uses them to form new bits from old, making new music from only samples of it is fed.
My question is is RIAA or the labels going to sue the use of this into the ground? Is google going to pay residuals to every composer (and possibly performer) who was in their training library? What is legal and ethical here? I don't think the people who wrote all the music in the first place should, or can be forgotten.
posted by bonehead at 8:58 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
My question is is RIAA or the labels going to sue the use of this into the ground? Is google going to pay residuals to every composer (and possibly performer) who was in their training library? What is legal and ethical here? I don't think the people who wrote all the music in the first place should, or can be forgotten.
posted by bonehead at 8:58 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
>Is google going to pay residuals to every composer (and possibly performer) who was in their training library?
Spoilers, they are not. The point of automation is always that you can stop paying people who were previously getting paid. This point of "AI"-crowdsourced plagiarism is that it's not attributable to any one artist specifically enough to be legally 'actionable'. Everybody gets screwed except The Owners. Not really the flying-car future we were given to expect.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:06 AM on January 27, 2023 [11 favorites]
Spoilers, they are not. The point of automation is always that you can stop paying people who were previously getting paid. This point of "AI"-crowdsourced plagiarism is that it's not attributable to any one artist specifically enough to be legally 'actionable'. Everybody gets screwed except The Owners. Not really the flying-car future we were given to expect.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:06 AM on January 27, 2023 [11 favorites]
The feature that converts a hummed melody to an orchestra (or whatever other instrument you can describe) seems like a pretty useful sketchpad for artists.
Though I would consider this research fair use, I do expect lawsuits once music hits the charts using such a system, a la the '90s Sampling Wars -- unless it uses a training set with unencumbered compositions *and* recorded music. Or even if they do.
posted by credulous at 9:08 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Though I would consider this research fair use, I do expect lawsuits once music hits the charts using such a system, a la the '90s Sampling Wars -- unless it uses a training set with unencumbered compositions *and* recorded music. Or even if they do.
posted by credulous at 9:08 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Worth noting that Shutterstock is going all in on AI image generation, and why wouldn't they? They have tens of millions of extremely well described images to feed into custom models. I am not sure how the licensing will shake out for all the photographers who uploaded to them. I do expect within a year for stock photography revenue for individual photographers to totally flatline.
It's not a good decade to be a "content producer" that's for sure.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:08 AM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's not a good decade to be a "content producer" that's for sure.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:08 AM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
I immediately made the mistake of playing two pieces at the same time. Which improved things. Four is even better.
posted by philip-random at 9:11 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by philip-random at 9:11 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, yeah, I do get the impression that there are a lot of STEMlords in tech who really don't think creative endeavors have inherent value and should be automated so they don't have to pay creatives.
It's more like they took the oatmeal's perception of art for hire and said "I found my next startup." They're just saving you all from those clients.
posted by pwnguin at 9:13 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's more like they took the oatmeal's perception of art for hire and said "I found my next startup." They're just saving you all from those clients.
posted by pwnguin at 9:13 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's not a good decade to be a "content producer" that's for sure.I feel kind of like the war was lost when we started letting them call the product of our creative work "content"
posted by 3j0hn at 9:14 AM on January 27, 2023 [34 favorites]
They're just saving you all from those clients.
To an extent, this is sort of true. The people who (right now, and in the near-ish future) will use this kind of "content" are the people who don't understand that creative output adds value to their product and just want "the thing" so they can complete whatever "genius" project they think they're working on. You don't want to work for them.
I occasionally work in voice over, and let me tell you: content mill YouTube channels are clamoring for an AI voice that can trick YouTube, which right now won't let you monetize low-effort content with an AI voice. They're paying suckers like $5 per thousand words to voice their trash and they resent even paying that.
No doubt this is the case with music, too.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:28 AM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
To an extent, this is sort of true. The people who (right now, and in the near-ish future) will use this kind of "content" are the people who don't understand that creative output adds value to their product and just want "the thing" so they can complete whatever "genius" project they think they're working on. You don't want to work for them.
I occasionally work in voice over, and let me tell you: content mill YouTube channels are clamoring for an AI voice that can trick YouTube, which right now won't let you monetize low-effort content with an AI voice. They're paying suckers like $5 per thousand words to voice their trash and they resent even paying that.
No doubt this is the case with music, too.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:28 AM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
I'm reminded of when my father used to ask why I'd buy records when you could hear music for free on the radio. Feels like the same kind of passing knowledge of what music is without understanding anything deeper.
Like when you eat something and you say it "tastes like chicken" because it doesn't have a strong taste but still has some kind of flavor you don't quite recognize. This "sounds like music" because it has something that kind of sounds like instruments being played in sync.
At the same time, is it really any different than all the current pop music being filtered through the same three producers and writers? I assume this AI crap music will be assaulting my ears soon in every place that they already play awful auto-tuned drivel.
posted by inthe80s at 9:40 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Like when you eat something and you say it "tastes like chicken" because it doesn't have a strong taste but still has some kind of flavor you don't quite recognize. This "sounds like music" because it has something that kind of sounds like instruments being played in sync.
At the same time, is it really any different than all the current pop music being filtered through the same three producers and writers? I assume this AI crap music will be assaulting my ears soon in every place that they already play awful auto-tuned drivel.
posted by inthe80s at 9:40 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
"I’ve worked with and around techies/devs quite a lot (as an artist/designer) and, yeah, can confirm there’s a deep-seated dismissiveness for creatives in-general...."
I am reminded of the smug pride my father had in the painting he once did that was superficially similar to the work of Piet Mondrian. I was a child at the time, and I was impressed. The whole family was impressed. He was an engineer. It was crap. He never painted anything again.
posted by baseballpajamas at 10:03 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
I am reminded of the smug pride my father had in the painting he once did that was superficially similar to the work of Piet Mondrian. I was a child at the time, and I was impressed. The whole family was impressed. He was an engineer. It was crap. He never painted anything again.
posted by baseballpajamas at 10:03 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not really the flying-car future we were given to expect.
Oh it is, if you looked down and saw what those cars are flying over
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:03 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh it is, if you looked down and saw what those cars are flying over
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:03 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I feel kind of like the war was lost when we started letting them call the product of our creative work "content"
That's why I only create discontent.
posted by Foosnark at 10:11 AM on January 27, 2023 [14 favorites]
That's why I only create discontent.
posted by Foosnark at 10:11 AM on January 27, 2023 [14 favorites]
Well, maybe this will be a way to get more people to hear my music, pastiched though it may be, as their robots churn through Bandcamp and SoundCloud.
posted by njohnson23 at 10:12 AM on January 27, 2023
posted by njohnson23 at 10:12 AM on January 27, 2023
Ya know, a lot of the actual human beings researching and experimenting and creating these machine learning systems are remarkably creative (by definition) and even see themselves that way.
posted by twsf at 10:25 AM on January 27, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by twsf at 10:25 AM on January 27, 2023 [9 favorites]
who tags all this shit?
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 10:52 AM on January 27, 2023
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 10:52 AM on January 27, 2023
I, for one, will love to hear the howls of anger from [AI coders'] side of things the day some AI starts churning-out viable code and quickly learns to write updates for itself.
I've been using copilot regularly to assist in all kinds of coding, and recently my workplace has started to find creative uses for ChatGPT.
Programming jobs are already changing significantly because of AI. More changes are inevitable. Probably lots of losses, in some kinds of tech work.
posted by gurple at 10:52 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
I've been using copilot regularly to assist in all kinds of coding, and recently my workplace has started to find creative uses for ChatGPT.
Programming jobs are already changing significantly because of AI. More changes are inevitable. Probably lots of losses, in some kinds of tech work.
posted by gurple at 10:52 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
(and while Copilot's output is often well-formed but insane, so I'm very careful when using it for serious work, it's phenomenal for low-stakes side projects)
posted by gurple at 11:00 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by gurple at 11:00 AM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am almost 100% certain that there are musicians helping build this, and they probably feel a sense of creation, and maybe pride, for empowering people to create more music in the world.
posted by kmartino at 11:12 AM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by kmartino at 11:12 AM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I am reminded of the smug pride my father had in the painting he once did that was superficially similar to the work of Piet Mondrian.
Yea but Mondrian seems so poorly understood that one of his pieces was installed upside down for 75 years and nobody noticed.
posted by pwnguin at 11:20 AM on January 27, 2023
Yea but Mondrian seems so poorly understood that one of his pieces was installed upside down for 75 years and nobody noticed.
posted by pwnguin at 11:20 AM on January 27, 2023
Reading the room, I'm quite aware that nothing I can say will make anyone who considers themselves an artist or musician not feel devalued by this work, but as noted above, many people who build this stuff are themselves musicians who recognize there are relationships and patterns to be identified and explored and see this kind of work as democratizing some part of creation, experimentation, reflecting back your own ideas in a way that inspires new ones. Sure, just like the canned beats on a Casio keyboard the identifiable sound here will become shorthand for low effort. hackery - but those very stereotypical dog bark, clap, and samba sounds still make for sublime music in the hands of a talented creator.
But if you are dead set on believing this is a war between tech bros and creatives, don't let nuance or reality get in your way.
posted by abulafa at 11:48 AM on January 27, 2023 [11 favorites]
But if you are dead set on believing this is a war between tech bros and creatives, don't let nuance or reality get in your way.
posted by abulafa at 11:48 AM on January 27, 2023 [11 favorites]
Programming jobs are already changing significantly because of AI. More changes are inevitable. Probably lots of losses, in some kinds of tech work.
Yeah, I have been using both copilot and OpenAI's offerings extensively to aid my coding. Since it's inevitably going to ruin my life, sooner or later, gotta use it as much as I can to make my life easier before it does.
posted by simmering octagon at 11:48 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I have been using both copilot and OpenAI's offerings extensively to aid my coding. Since it's inevitably going to ruin my life, sooner or later, gotta use it as much as I can to make my life easier before it does.
posted by simmering octagon at 11:48 AM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
democratizing
I keep seeing this word used in these discussions. I assume it's being used with the same specialized secondary meaning it has in US foreign policy - "We democratized the fuck out of those Iraqis!"
Or maybe it's just a synonym for"cheapen".
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:54 AM on January 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
I keep seeing this word used in these discussions. I assume it's being used with the same specialized secondary meaning it has in US foreign policy - "We democratized the fuck out of those Iraqis!"
Or maybe it's just a synonym for"cheapen".
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:54 AM on January 27, 2023 [8 favorites]
it means some combination of making a thing "easy" and "commonplace." The implication of cheapness follows for Reasons (having less to do with talent than one might hope).
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:15 PM on January 27, 2023
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:15 PM on January 27, 2023
I would really like to know about the training set, though. I skimmed the article (okay, I just searched for "train") and I'm unclear on where the training audio came from. Where did it come from? What kind of consent was given?
Looks like it's this:
posted by grobstein at 12:40 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Looks like it's this:
To support future research, we publicly release MusicCaps, a dataset composed of 5.5k music-text pairs, with rich text descriptions provided by human experts.10-second music clips come from Audioset (a pile of YouTube audio) and they paid people to caption them. I don't immediately see what the license / copyright status was for the original Audioset, but it's probably explained in the Audioset paper.
posted by grobstein at 12:40 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
No I'm wrong about that. Sorry!
I guess MusicCaps was used for evaluation at some stage, but not for training the music-text embeddings, and the model is mostly trained on unlabeled music clips.
posted by grobstein at 12:44 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
I guess MusicCaps was used for evaluation at some stage, but not for training the music-text embeddings, and the model is mostly trained on unlabeled music clips.
posted by grobstein at 12:44 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Okay here we go, the unlabeled music clips for training come from the Free Music Archive dataset, described here. The FMA is maintained by WFMU and its contents generally have permissive licenses; I assume the researchers filtered by permissive CC to get their dataset.
posted by grobstein at 12:49 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by grobstein at 12:49 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
democratizing some part of
Note the emphasis. The part I imagine being democratized is not needing an orchestra or roomful of trained musicians to noodle around through some concepts - this is commonly referred to as a giant waste of time if you are not Sufjan Stevens(or maybe doubly so if you are).
While you are trying to figure out what sounds and rhythms you might want today you can approximate the sounds with individual instruments, MIDI controllers, stacks of virtual or real synthesizers, but those don't necessarily respond to concepts as much as they respond to individual patterns you have to try out and which you may throw out several times during the creative process.
The step that may be aided here is imagining those sounds working together all at once and deciding what to pluck from that noise for your creative purposes - democratized in the sense that you are not wasting the time or a prohibitive amount of money to imagine what swing-glam-screamo hotel lobby music in Atlantis might sound like.
Is this taking money from working musicians? Not in my example at least because instead of paying that room full I just try and make it up myself and throw it out repeatedly.
Do I think there are forces who want to use this technology to create good enough filler content music and not pay musicians? Sure, but I think they will find their product in a niche: very much like fast food, people eat it when they have to, but they know when you cater your board lunch with Taco Bell, you probably are not going to achieve the high-end marketing outcome you might desire.
posted by abulafa at 1:06 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Note the emphasis. The part I imagine being democratized is not needing an orchestra or roomful of trained musicians to noodle around through some concepts - this is commonly referred to as a giant waste of time if you are not Sufjan Stevens(or maybe doubly so if you are).
While you are trying to figure out what sounds and rhythms you might want today you can approximate the sounds with individual instruments, MIDI controllers, stacks of virtual or real synthesizers, but those don't necessarily respond to concepts as much as they respond to individual patterns you have to try out and which you may throw out several times during the creative process.
The step that may be aided here is imagining those sounds working together all at once and deciding what to pluck from that noise for your creative purposes - democratized in the sense that you are not wasting the time or a prohibitive amount of money to imagine what swing-glam-screamo hotel lobby music in Atlantis might sound like.
Is this taking money from working musicians? Not in my example at least because instead of paying that room full I just try and make it up myself and throw it out repeatedly.
Do I think there are forces who want to use this technology to create good enough filler content music and not pay musicians? Sure, but I think they will find their product in a niche: very much like fast food, people eat it when they have to, but they know when you cater your board lunch with Taco Bell, you probably are not going to achieve the high-end marketing outcome you might desire.
posted by abulafa at 1:06 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
How many of you are writing your "tech bros hate creatives" comments while listening to pirated mp3 collections?
posted by O Time, Thy Pyramids at 1:12 PM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by O Time, Thy Pyramids at 1:12 PM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's much more impressive than prior work, but most of the samples have a general quality of sounding like a 2nd generation tape copy of a dusty gramophone record.
Since all the hype around visual and text generation starting last year I’d been thinking it weird that the musical equivalent hadn’t arrived yet. This is definitely way more listenable than any previous attempt I’d encountered.
If you know anything about modern popular music production, you know it’s an assembly line with a whole sub-industry selling loops and samples to the people who add drums and turn them into beats. A lot of those samples are pseudo-vintage/lo-fi to begin with. I think that’s going to be the most obvious niche for this kind of software.
posted by atoxyl at 1:22 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Since all the hype around visual and text generation starting last year I’d been thinking it weird that the musical equivalent hadn’t arrived yet. This is definitely way more listenable than any previous attempt I’d encountered.
If you know anything about modern popular music production, you know it’s an assembly line with a whole sub-industry selling loops and samples to the people who add drums and turn them into beats. A lot of those samples are pseudo-vintage/lo-fi to begin with. I think that’s going to be the most obvious niche for this kind of software.
posted by atoxyl at 1:22 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Is the "Save my life" in this post's title a reference to something? I definitely don't get it, if so.
posted by Aleyn at 1:25 PM on January 27, 2023
posted by Aleyn at 1:25 PM on January 27, 2023
If you tell somebody (or something) what you want to hear, and then they (or it) produce(s) that or you, you're not doing art, you're not making anything. You're just a client, which is already a thing that exists. This isn't "democratizing" art. It's just reducing the cost of comissioning art, in the same sleazy and gross way every algorithmic pattern-matching generator does.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:29 PM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:29 PM on January 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
I’ve worked with and around techies/devs quite a lot (as an artist/designer) and, yeah, can confirm there’s a deep-seated dismissiveness for creatives in-general (oddly, while massively consuming products—movies, games, comics, etc. that involve the work of mountains of artists, writers, musicians, etc.)
I’ve worked with devs quite a lot as… a dev, and in my experience like a quarter of them are hobby musicians (including myself). If you want to read some sinister psychology into the development of these kinds of tools, I’d suggest it might be more “frustrated artist wants to blow up art as an industry” rather than “technical” people hating “creative” people for some reason. More neutrally, it’s a way for somebody who is “into music” to work on something music-related while making programmer money, and it’s not as if generative music isn’t an existing artistic tradition. More neutrally still, many people likely actually just believe it will work out as a positive in some way. As I say whenever somebody suggests that software people will think twice when software starts writing software, software development has been automating itself since inception, so the biases software people have about these things are not necessarily the same that other people have.
posted by atoxyl at 1:32 PM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
I’ve worked with devs quite a lot as… a dev, and in my experience like a quarter of them are hobby musicians (including myself). If you want to read some sinister psychology into the development of these kinds of tools, I’d suggest it might be more “frustrated artist wants to blow up art as an industry” rather than “technical” people hating “creative” people for some reason. More neutrally, it’s a way for somebody who is “into music” to work on something music-related while making programmer money, and it’s not as if generative music isn’t an existing artistic tradition. More neutrally still, many people likely actually just believe it will work out as a positive in some way. As I say whenever somebody suggests that software people will think twice when software starts writing software, software development has been automating itself since inception, so the biases software people have about these things are not necessarily the same that other people have.
posted by atoxyl at 1:32 PM on January 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Maybe what's getting lost in this discussion is the separation between the Owner class funding this research, the tech bros pushing heavily for it, and the musicians and artists responsible for actually putting this together. There's three different aims in all of this. I don't doubt for a second that the musicians putting this together aren't being super creative, exploring new possibilities, and finding it meaningful. It's the financiers (like Google in this instance) and some of their buddies who likely see this as a tool to eventually get rid of operating costs that's worrying. I doubt everyone at Google feels that way about AI, but I'd bet heavily that the people writing the checks do.
There's nothing wrong with the creative endeavor of rocket engineering, but when Raytheon's the only one writing checks, your creative work isn't gonna be making the world a better place.
(in this metaphor, tech bros are war hawks?)
posted by Philipschall at 1:35 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
There's nothing wrong with the creative endeavor of rocket engineering, but when Raytheon's the only one writing checks, your creative work isn't gonna be making the world a better place.
(in this metaphor, tech bros are war hawks?)
posted by Philipschall at 1:35 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is the "Save my life" in this post's title a reference to something?
a DJ
posted by O Time, Thy Pyramids at 1:45 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
a DJ
posted by O Time, Thy Pyramids at 1:45 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
If you tell somebody (or something) what you want to hear, and then they (or it) produce(s) that or you, you're not doing art, you're not making anything. You're just a client, which is already a thing that exists. This isn't "democratizing" art. It's just reducing the cost of comissioning art, in the same sleazy and gross way every algorithmic pattern-matching generator does.
I feel like you're willfully ignoring an enormous quantity of art produced at least since Warhol here, music included. I understand everyone is mad and looking for a hill to die on here but generative art really isn't it.
posted by abulafa at 1:52 PM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I feel like you're willfully ignoring an enormous quantity of art produced at least since Warhol here, music included. I understand everyone is mad and looking for a hill to die on here but generative art really isn't it.
posted by abulafa at 1:52 PM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
I feel like you're willfully ignoring an enormous quantity of art produced at least since Warhol here, music included.
Is this the "I can't tell the difference between artfully arranging and processing samples into something new and just telling the generator I didn't build what I want to see" argument again?
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:16 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Is this the "I can't tell the difference between artfully arranging and processing samples into something new and just telling the generator I didn't build what I want to see" argument again?
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:16 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
pirated mp3 collections
who bothers anymore? my MP3s are frozen in time. one of the major streaming services + yt red for oddities covers everything but the most obscure; including way more music than I ever had the capacity to store and back-up. And the alternative means are still there for anything I might really feel I need.
(if these are your croutons, they're adorable, don't mind me)
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:35 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
who bothers anymore? my MP3s are frozen in time. one of the major streaming services + yt red for oddities covers everything but the most obscure; including way more music than I ever had the capacity to store and back-up. And the alternative means are still there for anything I might really feel I need.
(if these are your croutons, they're adorable, don't mind me)
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:35 PM on January 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is this the "I can't tell the difference between artfully arranging and processing samples into something new and just telling the generator I didn't build what I want to see" argument again?
Anybody with experience making sample-based music could tell you that you are drawing an artificial line here. I’m going to repeat my prediction from upthread here - I expect that the first commercially successful venture using this type of generator will be using it to produce customized royalty-free samples - an existing cottage industry which mainstream music production relies on extensively, and which grew to its present size as a result of the chilling effect that IP lawsuits had on actual sampling and crate digging.
posted by atoxyl at 2:37 PM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
Anybody with experience making sample-based music could tell you that you are drawing an artificial line here. I’m going to repeat my prediction from upthread here - I expect that the first commercially successful venture using this type of generator will be using it to produce customized royalty-free samples - an existing cottage industry which mainstream music production relies on extensively, and which grew to its present size as a result of the chilling effect that IP lawsuits had on actual sampling and crate digging.
posted by atoxyl at 2:37 PM on January 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
the only thing i'm mad about is that i don't have a copy of this program to run, but i'll get over it
posted by pyramid termite at 2:41 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite at 2:41 PM on January 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Google is ending the old 'user generated content' era by owning it completely. We're all free to leave.
posted by infini at 2:45 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by infini at 2:45 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Bookmarked for next week when the news cycle has put this one down and github actually loads the audio 😢
posted by pwnguin at 2:48 PM on January 27, 2023
posted by pwnguin at 2:48 PM on January 27, 2023
So far as generative sample materials goes, the "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" one sounds like it could be material sampled for the Ghost Dog score, just missing the RZA beats. (Or like Beirut took too much cough syrup during the Lon Gisland sessions.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:58 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:58 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Make an autechre song AI, I dare you
Maybe I’m missing the joke but wasn’t that a whole phase of their career already?
posted by atoxyl at 3:32 PM on January 27, 2023
Maybe I’m missing the joke but wasn’t that a whole phase of their career already?
posted by atoxyl at 3:32 PM on January 27, 2023
AFAIK they've never used AI just really good at making patches
If there's a joke it might be something about a reverse-Turing Test, that they make music so futuristic and advanced the machines can't come close (I don't actually believe that).
posted by symbioid at 3:46 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
If there's a joke it might be something about a reverse-Turing Test, that they make music so futuristic and advanced the machines can't come close (I don't actually believe that).
posted by symbioid at 3:46 PM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don’t think they ever used AI in the sense of “neural-network-based pastiche machine,” no. They are famous for their use of generative patches, though.
posted by atoxyl at 4:00 PM on January 27, 2023
posted by atoxyl at 4:00 PM on January 27, 2023
Apparently they're not releasing the model because it might regurgitate some of it's source material, which might be copyrighted.
posted by daHIFI at 5:15 PM on January 27, 2023
posted by daHIFI at 5:15 PM on January 27, 2023
Is this the "I can't tell the difference between artfully arranging and processing samples into something new and just telling the generator I didn't build what I want to see" argument again?
This mirrors a lot of what was said about each step of the development from synthesisers to computer based music production. It's not real music, you're putting drummers out of a job with that drum machine, you're putting orchestras out of work with orchestral patches, you just click a few buttons, let the arpeggiator make you a bassline, that's not real art, you're not a real musician, you never had to learn an instrument, the computer does it all for you.
And here we are again.
posted by Dysk at 12:50 AM on January 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
This mirrors a lot of what was said about each step of the development from synthesisers to computer based music production. It's not real music, you're putting drummers out of a job with that drum machine, you're putting orchestras out of work with orchestral patches, you just click a few buttons, let the arpeggiator make you a bassline, that's not real art, you're not a real musician, you never had to learn an instrument, the computer does it all for you.
And here we are again.
posted by Dysk at 12:50 AM on January 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
From the simulacrum to the simulation of simulacra, as predicted.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:11 AM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:11 AM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you tell somebody (or something) what you want to hear, and then they (or it) produce(s) that or you, you're not doing art, you're not making anything. You're just a client, which is already a thing that exists. This isn't "democratizing" art. It's just reducing the cost of comissioning art, in the same sleazy and gross way every algorithmic pattern-matching generator does.
Art that sells isn't art!!! /end rant
Which is kind of a weird twist in the thread, where there was sympathy for artists who fear their talents aren't valued enough to be paid.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:08 AM on January 28, 2023
Art that sells isn't art!!! /end rant
Which is kind of a weird twist in the thread, where there was sympathy for artists who fear their talents aren't valued enough to be paid.
posted by 2N2222 at 7:08 AM on January 28, 2023
This mirrors a lot of what was said about each step of the development from synthesisers to computer based music production. It's not real music, you're putting drummers out of a job with that drum machine, you're putting orchestras out of work with orchestral patches, you just click a few buttons, let the arpeggiator make you a bassline, that's not real art, you're not a real musician, you never had to learn an instrument, the computer does it all for you.
Every one of those things requires skill to actually make anything worth hearing. There is absolutely no parallel between carefully choosing and filtering and arranging samples and programming a drum machine and choosing the settings for an arpeggiator and typing "pop song" into a plagiarism automator. One involves effort and artistry and skill and the other involves a passionate loathing for people who put effort, artistry, and skill into their work.
Yes, people had a lot of stupid, bad-faith reactions to sampling, to synthesizers, to any number of tools. But they were tools! They could be used in skillful or in clumsy ways. They could only do what they were made to do by the hands that used them and the minds that guided them. The entire point of automatic plagiarizers is to eliminate skill and effort and artistry and musicians from the process altogether.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:11 AM on January 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Every one of those things requires skill to actually make anything worth hearing. There is absolutely no parallel between carefully choosing and filtering and arranging samples and programming a drum machine and choosing the settings for an arpeggiator and typing "pop song" into a plagiarism automator. One involves effort and artistry and skill and the other involves a passionate loathing for people who put effort, artistry, and skill into their work.
Yes, people had a lot of stupid, bad-faith reactions to sampling, to synthesizers, to any number of tools. But they were tools! They could be used in skillful or in clumsy ways. They could only do what they were made to do by the hands that used them and the minds that guided them. The entire point of automatic plagiarizers is to eliminate skill and effort and artistry and musicians from the process altogether.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:11 AM on January 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Like a song made from sampling though, this MLM really should pay out royalties to everyone who composed or performed a piece that's included in the training library every single time it is used.
That would make it legal and perhaps even ethical. There's nothing wrong with the tool. What's wrong is the context in which it's being used, particularly with application of copyright is so asymmetrical. Labels have copyrights, but small artists effectively don't. That should change.
posted by bonehead at 7:33 AM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
That would make it legal and perhaps even ethical. There's nothing wrong with the tool. What's wrong is the context in which it's being used, particularly with application of copyright is so asymmetrical. Labels have copyrights, but small artists effectively don't. That should change.
posted by bonehead at 7:33 AM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Every one of those things requires skill to actually make anything worth hearing. There is absolutely no parallel between carefully choosing and filtering and arranging samples and programming a drum machine and choosing the settings for an arpeggiator and typing "pop song" into a plagiarism automator. One involves effort and artistry and skill and the other involves a passionate loathing for people who put effort, artistry, and skill into their work.
Again, pretty much exactly what was said of splicing tape loops over live performance, then about using samplers over splicing tape loops, and again about DAWs with loop libraries.
Calling them "automatic plagiarisers" is especially an apt parallel, because that is entirely what was said about sample based music, and then remixing. The tool synthesises new music from the collected impressions of a bunch of other music. That is what we humans do, as musicians, as producers, as DJs. Every piece of music is built on the foundations of our shared musical culture, which itself is comprised of individual works.
Unless you're arguing that literally all output of the AI tools is the same, is equally good, then there is on fact some level of skill to using the tool. Not a skill that necessarily appears on first brush to be a familiar musical one, much as the skill in involved in programming sequencers or creating DJ sets wasn't a recognisable musical skill when that had previously meant live performance on an acoustic instrument.
posted by Dysk at 7:39 AM on January 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Again, pretty much exactly what was said of splicing tape loops over live performance, then about using samplers over splicing tape loops, and again about DAWs with loop libraries.
Calling them "automatic plagiarisers" is especially an apt parallel, because that is entirely what was said about sample based music, and then remixing. The tool synthesises new music from the collected impressions of a bunch of other music. That is what we humans do, as musicians, as producers, as DJs. Every piece of music is built on the foundations of our shared musical culture, which itself is comprised of individual works.
Unless you're arguing that literally all output of the AI tools is the same, is equally good, then there is on fact some level of skill to using the tool. Not a skill that necessarily appears on first brush to be a familiar musical one, much as the skill in involved in programming sequencers or creating DJ sets wasn't a recognisable musical skill when that had previously meant live performance on an acoustic instrument.
posted by Dysk at 7:39 AM on January 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
anything worth hearing
Worth, how?
Because if it's 'worth money,' that might not work out too well.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:58 AM on January 28, 2023
Worth, how?
Because if it's 'worth money,' that might not work out too well.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:58 AM on January 28, 2023
There is absolutely no parallel between carefully choosing and filtering and arranging samples and programming a drum machine and choosing the settings for an arpeggiator and typing "pop song" into a plagiarism automator
Again, maybe some day people will be asking software to write them a full pop song, but first they are going to be asking software to give them a “1970s jazz style Rhodes loop” to chop up and sample to make a pop song, instead of buying it from someone who sells samples just for this purpose.
This is going to be bad for people who currently make money selling samples, just as sampling was bad for session musicians. But in no way is it discontinuous with the industrialization of music production that already happened, from the perspective of the person putting the final track together.
posted by atoxyl at 8:00 AM on January 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
Again, maybe some day people will be asking software to write them a full pop song, but first they are going to be asking software to give them a “1970s jazz style Rhodes loop” to chop up and sample to make a pop song, instead of buying it from someone who sells samples just for this purpose.
This is going to be bad for people who currently make money selling samples, just as sampling was bad for session musicians. But in no way is it discontinuous with the industrialization of music production that already happened, from the perspective of the person putting the final track together.
posted by atoxyl at 8:00 AM on January 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
You'd expect it to be bad for 'library' or 'program music' sometime soonish. They just need to train a special purpose instance of it on a library of existing royalty-free music (or music otherwise licensed for the purpose). And it will may very well produce more interesting material than today's "soulless" corporate music.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:15 AM on January 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:15 AM on January 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
(And one of the places that people tend to need cheap program music to avoid copyright problems, is YouTube — a Google property.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:21 AM on January 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:21 AM on January 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
I do find it quite funny that you could totally use a tool like this to generate classic house arpeggios. So I guess there's real skill in choosing your arppegiator settings, unless it's an AI arppegiator. Choosing the settings for your AI arppegiator is not art.
posted by Dysk at 2:11 PM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 2:11 PM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Thought: fast art, like fast food, becomes viable when most peoples' lives are too busy and their time too limited to be discerning consumers of the better-crafted but time-intensive versions. Somehow eliminate overtime and get to a 4-day workweek, and maybe more people would find the time to catch a singer/songwriter at a nearby coffee-house.
(inspired by hearing David Crosby's cover of Joni Mitchell's "For Free", this morning)
Bonus Thought: I picked the right time to retire from coding.
We do seem to be at a watershed moment with AI. ChatGPT - if that's what they're willing to share with the public... imagine what's running in the lab. Good morning, Dr Chandra...
posted by Artful Codger at 9:20 AM on January 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
(inspired by hearing David Crosby's cover of Joni Mitchell's "For Free", this morning)
Bonus Thought: I picked the right time to retire from coding.
We do seem to be at a watershed moment with AI. ChatGPT - if that's what they're willing to share with the public... imagine what's running in the lab. Good morning, Dr Chandra...
posted by Artful Codger at 9:20 AM on January 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
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and some tweets (from @keunwoochoi) explaining how it works.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:01 AM on January 27, 2023