AI bands like The Velvet Sundown represent the early tremors of a cultural earthquake that signals a future where machine-made content becomes so seductive and abundant that we lose the ability to distinguish between human creativity and algorithmic manipulation. A Skynet of the arts, if you will, or autocomplete for emotions. And that’s bad, right? Right?
Juliate•6mo ago
Given your take, it sounds more like... "porn of the arts"?
(as in, it mimics and exaggerates the thing but is always a caricatural, aimless distortion of the real thing, that can be only used as a tool for... something; but is still not the real thing - no moral consideration here)
Fade_Dance•6mo ago
I think it will just push creativity more past the boundaries. More avante garde, more uncompromisingly human and personal. I think that may be a neutral or even a good thing.
Most "creative" work in the real world is quite derivative (which AI generated content, by definition, is). This is especially true in the music space, where some genres like rock are so mapped out, and there is such an extreme deluge of content, that most of it may as well be copy/paste. Same instruments, same chords, same production chain, same song length, same themes for song topics. May as well be AI. That doesn't mean it's not "good", what I'm saying is that the sacred aura of creativity may sometimes be played up a bit.
That's not to say there won't be room for, say, great new rock music. There will be, and rising above the AI content will be not much different than rising above the millions of rock bands out there. That usually involves some sort of new novelty, getting ahead of the cultural pendulum, etc. But I mean rising above on a quality level not necessarily a net sales level. Popular music is already manufactured and commoditized.
I do hope that the counter reaction against all of this is more experimentation and breaking out of many of these creative boxes, which can be quite limiting. More proverbial toilets in the art gallery. More cross-discipline collaboration. In a world infested with AI generated music, maybe a small hobby-shop making their own creative instruments that look like Dr Seuss contraptions, and make$ for a cool live show with humans doing cool stuff suddenly has more appeal.
georgehopkin•6mo ago
Juliate•6mo ago
(as in, it mimics and exaggerates the thing but is always a caricatural, aimless distortion of the real thing, that can be only used as a tool for... something; but is still not the real thing - no moral consideration here)
Fade_Dance•6mo ago
Most "creative" work in the real world is quite derivative (which AI generated content, by definition, is). This is especially true in the music space, where some genres like rock are so mapped out, and there is such an extreme deluge of content, that most of it may as well be copy/paste. Same instruments, same chords, same production chain, same song length, same themes for song topics. May as well be AI. That doesn't mean it's not "good", what I'm saying is that the sacred aura of creativity may sometimes be played up a bit.
That's not to say there won't be room for, say, great new rock music. There will be, and rising above the AI content will be not much different than rising above the millions of rock bands out there. That usually involves some sort of new novelty, getting ahead of the cultural pendulum, etc. But I mean rising above on a quality level not necessarily a net sales level. Popular music is already manufactured and commoditized.
I do hope that the counter reaction against all of this is more experimentation and breaking out of many of these creative boxes, which can be quite limiting. More proverbial toilets in the art gallery. More cross-discipline collaboration. In a world infested with AI generated music, maybe a small hobby-shop making their own creative instruments that look like Dr Seuss contraptions, and make$ for a cool live show with humans doing cool stuff suddenly has more appeal.