alt Hacker NewsIt's really depressing that I have gotten into music composition right when this is happening.
All of these projects are basically just destroying entire fields of human creativity.
It doesn't seem so bad at first when the quality is mediocre, but as soon as they get good, then any human composition will be completely devalued, despite the enormous amount of knowledge, skill and effort that goes into producing one.
A composer who writes a piece of music themselves, instead of being recognised and admired basically becomes the equivalent of someone who bakes their own sourdough instead of going to the supermarket: a curiosity, someone who does things the hard way for their own amusement.
Graphic artists and bloggers were the first to suffer this, but it feels like it's just going to happen to basically every type of creative expression that can be represented digitally. It's just a question of how many months until that happens.
Replies
> but as soon as they get good, then any human composition will be completely devalued
I think it will take many more years until an AI is able to compose like e.g. John Williams and play a score and sound like e.g. the London Symphony Orchestra. So there is room left for human contribution. On the other hand, the majority of humans even before AI was not able to value good vs. bad musical composition and performance, and instead satisfied with the commercial slop the market was flooded over the last thirty years. Studies of e.g. Spotify consumer behaviour demonstrated for many years before AI that more and more people consume anonymous playlists never caring who composed or played the music, just using music for its functional purpose like a commodity. It's depressing, but that's how society develops.
> a curiosity, someone who does things the hard way for their own amusement
That development already started long ago. In the eighties and nineties, music schools florished and children wanted to learn instruments and play in bands or orchestras. That completely changed over the last thirty years. Musical instruments will be a curiosity in a decade or two people are going to watch in a museum, wondering why anyone would have learned these skills in the past.
Much like the restaurant industry, creative industries will probably bifurcate. Cheap (AI, drivethrough, takeout) for daily and most use cases, experiential (vinyl records, concerts, upscale restaurants) for special occasions, connoisseurs.
Who cares? The world is being handed an infinite creation machine that conjures entire worlds into existence, radically reshaping the future of the species and what our descendants will be able to do, and your reply is ~"they took our jobs!"
Figure out how to stand on the shoulders of giants like any of your predecessors of note.
I'm also saddened by the impact of tech on creative industries. But art always was something you do for yourself and to share with others, for some fundamentally human experience. Could an AI pray for you or ride your bike? I don't know anyone in my personal life who wants to listen to AI music, view AI art, or read AI books. I wish art careers were easier, but I don't think a career alone is the right reason to make art.