Ted, as a musician I have always been completely anti-AI in my work. However, lately I've come to feel that the backlash against fake music and art will be so great that it will start driving folks back from screens to live music and arts, which cannot be faked. So AI might benefit us in the long term by the repulsion people will feel against it.Thoughts?
I’ve been becoming more and more aware of the implications of generative AI since you’ve been railing against the proliferation of AI slop.
Recently, I was mowing the lawn and listening to the “Release Radar” stream that Spotify’s algorithm recommended to me.
Normally, I’ll just take in the music without first looking at the artists, and if something comes along that I enjoy, I’ll stop what I’m doing to save it.
On this particular day, a track came into my AirPods that was so offensive to my musical senses that I stopped dead in my tracks, turned off the mower, and looked at my phone to see who the offender was.
For one thing, the intro sounded like a hundred library tracks that I’ve had to needle drop for corporate videos. I was waiting for the “Premiumbeats.com” voice to come in at any second. When the verse began and the overdriven AI rock voice kicked in (“singing” godawful lyrics), I knew I’d been had.
The band came up as a U.K.-based Indie pop group “Wild Front.” I like Wild Front, and have played them enough to know there was not a chance in hell the band created that train wreck of a song.
The producer is listed as Darrell Marlin. The publisher, RocsciNow LLC.
RocsciNow is part of a company called Global Media Bank, which identifies itself as an “AI-first, vertically integrated Content Creation and Media Publishing” business.
I submitted a report to Spotify (FWIW), and contacted Global Media Bank, chiding them for a.) flooding the market with AI slop and b.) mislabeling the track by using the name of an existing artist who had nothing to do with the “song”.
To their credit, the company responded promptly with thanks for directing their attention to the issue.
Their fix? The shi***y track can still be found on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. It’s called “Chasing Thunder”.
However, instead of using Wild Front as the band name, it has now been changed to…
Wild Front 5.
While there are much bigger issues in the world to be upset about, this one really got under my skin for some reason. Thank you for the opportunity to vent!
A great summary about AI backlash. While not really articulated in our culture, there is a vast difference between words and text: words not only convey meaning, they are meaning (as any serious poet would argue). And to propose that intelligence (artificial or otherwise) can come from a probability algorithm and not just humans is either due to deception or ignorance.
You may be right. We may be at a turning point. The AI wave may well be ebbing.
Nevertheless, I can't help but think of last century's painters who would go around complaining that the invention of photography allowed anyone to make portraits or landscapes pictures by just pressing a button. And that we were now flooded with thousands of uninteresting snapshots. And yet, among all the sloppy amateurs, there were soon great photographers, true artists, who knew how to make the most of this new technology…
The same thing happened later with the invention of synthesizers. Musicians complained that now anyone could play an instrument without years of training. Until the day some people realized that these devices could produce sounds that no traditional instrument could. And they invented new musical styles. The vast majority had very little talent. With a few exceptions.
Data poisoning, love it! We need to be able to protect our identities by flooding the internet with every possible variation of attributes of ourselves so that the real attribute values are un-discoverable.
I was concerned to read Chris Dalla Riva today claiming that an increasing number of people actually do like robot music. Dear god, please help us if so.
Ted, as a musician I have always been completely anti-AI in my work. However, lately I've come to feel that the backlash against fake music and art will be so great that it will start driving folks back from screens to live music and arts, which cannot be faked. So AI might benefit us in the long term by the repulsion people will feel against it.Thoughts?
I share your view on this. I think it’s already starting to happen.
Ted, another fantastic post, thank you.
I’ve been becoming more and more aware of the implications of generative AI since you’ve been railing against the proliferation of AI slop.
Recently, I was mowing the lawn and listening to the “Release Radar” stream that Spotify’s algorithm recommended to me.
Normally, I’ll just take in the music without first looking at the artists, and if something comes along that I enjoy, I’ll stop what I’m doing to save it.
On this particular day, a track came into my AirPods that was so offensive to my musical senses that I stopped dead in my tracks, turned off the mower, and looked at my phone to see who the offender was.
For one thing, the intro sounded like a hundred library tracks that I’ve had to needle drop for corporate videos. I was waiting for the “Premiumbeats.com” voice to come in at any second. When the verse began and the overdriven AI rock voice kicked in (“singing” godawful lyrics), I knew I’d been had.
The band came up as a U.K.-based Indie pop group “Wild Front.” I like Wild Front, and have played them enough to know there was not a chance in hell the band created that train wreck of a song.
The producer is listed as Darrell Marlin. The publisher, RocsciNow LLC.
RocsciNow is part of a company called Global Media Bank, which identifies itself as an “AI-first, vertically integrated Content Creation and Media Publishing” business.
I submitted a report to Spotify (FWIW), and contacted Global Media Bank, chiding them for a.) flooding the market with AI slop and b.) mislabeling the track by using the name of an existing artist who had nothing to do with the “song”.
To their credit, the company responded promptly with thanks for directing their attention to the issue.
Their fix? The shi***y track can still be found on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. It’s called “Chasing Thunder”.
However, instead of using Wild Front as the band name, it has now been changed to…
Wild Front 5.
While there are much bigger issues in the world to be upset about, this one really got under my skin for some reason. Thank you for the opportunity to vent!
A great summary about AI backlash. While not really articulated in our culture, there is a vast difference between words and text: words not only convey meaning, they are meaning (as any serious poet would argue). And to propose that intelligence (artificial or otherwise) can come from a probability algorithm and not just humans is either due to deception or ignorance.
As for the rest of the article, thanks Norm!
I've received offers to compose music to teach AI, and the thought made me shiver.
But never thought of teaching it slop. Thanks for the idea Ted. Get paid to slop AI itself!
You may be right. We may be at a turning point. The AI wave may well be ebbing.
Nevertheless, I can't help but think of last century's painters who would go around complaining that the invention of photography allowed anyone to make portraits or landscapes pictures by just pressing a button. And that we were now flooded with thousands of uninteresting snapshots. And yet, among all the sloppy amateurs, there were soon great photographers, true artists, who knew how to make the most of this new technology…
The same thing happened later with the invention of synthesizers. Musicians complained that now anyone could play an instrument without years of training. Until the day some people realized that these devices could produce sounds that no traditional instrument could. And they invented new musical styles. The vast majority had very little talent. With a few exceptions.
So… who can be sure about AI ?...
Data poisoning, love it! We need to be able to protect our identities by flooding the internet with every possible variation of attributes of ourselves so that the real attribute values are un-discoverable.
I was concerned to read Chris Dalla Riva today claiming that an increasing number of people actually do like robot music. Dear god, please help us if so.