I have a very pragmatic view on music: all I care about is whether it sounds good or not. That’s it. That’s literally it. And from that standpoint the advent of AI music has been a major net positive for me.
You can choose to ignore that and come tell me about the ethics of using AI or how you care about the story behind the song and so on and that’s all fine but just note that you’re no longer addressing what I’m actually saying here.
I’m also not claiming it’s great - only that it’s good. I’ve yet to discover an AI song that I go back to like I do with many human-made songs but if I want to put on a playlist playing in the background then one consisting of entirely AI-made music reliably provides me well above average track after another whereas with organic music I need to sift through a ton of absolute crap to stumble upon the occasional good track that still rarely exceeds what AI is able to output. I can go on YouTube and put on a 2 hour playlist of Jazz House or similar and I don’t get the urge to skip a single track.
Currently I feel like where AI still trips is lyrics - they still are only plausible sounding nonsense once you actually start paying attention to it but especially for instrumental music it has far exceeded the level of a good average human artist.
Few examples of what I’m refering to: with vocals and without.
I’m quite careful with my choice of words and that was a deliberate one.
Humans are just as good at detecting AI music as we’re at detecting toupees: the bad ones stand out and the rest go undetected. Most of AI-made music is indistinguishable from organic ones purely based on the sound of it and the claim that a track is shit is often only applied retroactively after people learn it was made with AI. It’s an emotional reaction and thus not an objective one.
My problem with it is that there is no objectively good music. The whole premise was bad from the start.
I can recognize something as good even if I don’t personally like it. I’m not claiming that everyone will like all of the AI music in existence - I’m claiming that it has everything going for it that we expect from good music. Pretending that it’s all bad just because it’s made with AI as many people do is disingenuous.
What do you expect from good music? What is good music? What are you rating? The effort? The chords? The meaning? More than half don’t even work with AI…
That’s not really the issue. Your opinion is that AI music is subjectively good. Objective things aren’t opinions.
I don’t think “not technically bad” necessarily means objectively good. The artistry is in the intent just as much as the execution, so I think my post hoc disappointment at learning something was made with AI is regret at the time spent considering what is literally random noise with all of the “bad” parts taken out.
Actually objectively, rampant AI use is harming us more than it’s helping right now.
How did you validate your ability to recognize objectively good music?
My best friend’s band is objectively the best hardcore show you’ve never been to yet. :)
I mean if it’s the only one it IS objectively true… I need to stop typing “is” in italics.