I'm reading "Who’s that bot? An AI cover of Madonna spurs industry changes. Instead of blocking AI-assisted songs from the charts, require disclosure and protect creators" by the Editorial Board of the Washington Post.
That's a gift link, so you can read about what it was about the artificiality of that one cover of "Like a Prayer" that stirred up serious opposition to artificiality in pop music. To my ear, things have been unlistenably artificial for decades. People have developed a taste for robotic singing, and the robots keep giving them more of what they like. The machine that is Spotify serves me music from the 1960s and the 1940s, because it can see that I respond to the human voice, but younger people do not, and it doesn't matter what happens with the various prizes. The algorithm will give them what touches them, even if we elders think they have bad taste.
Back in the 1960s, my father expressed the sincere opinion that the rock music I was listening to was not music because of the electric instruments and the voices processed through microphones. Now that I've got Spotify serving me a good portion of the kind of thing he liked — acoustic instruments and rich natural voices — I understand his point, which I considered laughably obsolete at the time.
***
By the way, will The Washington Post be transparent and reveal when it has used A.I. to write its material? Did A.I. help with that last line — "consumers should be left to decide what it is they want to listen to — even when, just like a dream, the music is not what it seems"? That was a (very awkward?) effort at a play on the lyrics to Madonna's "Like a Prayer": "Just like a dream/You are not what you seem/Just like a prayer, no choice/Your voice can take me there."
***
If you're interested in my changing response to my father's music, check out the 6 posts in my old series of listening to records I inherited from my father: 1. "Make Love to Me" (Julie London), 2. "Velvet Carpet" (The George Shearing Quintet with String Choir), 3. "Memories Are Made of This" (Ray Coniff), 4. "Manhattan Tower" (Gordon Jenkins), 5. "Remember How Great...?" (a collection, presented by Lucky Strike cigarettes), 6. "$64,000 Jazz" (including my favorite track, "How Hi the Fi").
संदेश
61 टिप्पणियां:
Will nobody stand up for protecting the rights of robots?
I treasure the type of music your dad liked; always have, always will.
Au-to-tune. The producers use it like a street junkie uses fentanyl.
My Dad loved his Ray Conniff albums and his swing bands. When I told him I liked Benny Goodman more than Jimmy Dorsey, he just smiled and nodded.
I have a lot of trouble even listening to modern popular music just because of the autotune and pitch correcting going on. It's also likely that if you go see a live concert of main acts, much of what you'll be hearing is some combination of autotune, backing tracks, or outright lip-syncing.
We were sitting around drinking beer a few months ago and one of the tech nerds pulled out whatever AI thing he used and had it write songs in particular styles about what we were doing. They were very serviceable as modern music goes but I found them entirely lifeless.
BUT! what IF?
what if the robot identifies as a woman? what THEN?
Checked your back cover picture - I played the Conniff meets Butterfield album until the grooves wore out as a kid. Great stuff. Mom loved Ray Anthony and his band. Lots of dreamy trumpet and strings. Dad went for Bobby Hackett and the Jackie Gleason sound. Dreamy cornet and strings.
I bought reeds and played the clarinet instead. Now here we are all these years later.
How do we know that Madonna isn't a bot?
I’m sure the WNBA has considered robots, because they’re inclusive.
You know what's coming, right? It already started. Eventually all human creativity will be replaced, or at least overwhelmed by the volume and acceptance of the artificial, as our distaste for it softens and AI does things humans never could. This will eventually extend to truth itself which will similarly be overwhelmed by lies, often for "our own good". That's all already well under way, which is why I pray for sweet meteor of death. Sorry, just not real fond of Mondays.
This is silly, bordering on stupid. With no border controls. What's the big deal about AI-assisted music? How different is it from all the other "assisted" technologies that have already been used in the music industry to create different but interesting sounds. Like the synthesizer, auto-tuner, talk box, etc.?
Jan Hammer (Miami Vice theme), Ennio Morricone (The Good, Bad, and Ugly/spaghetti westerns), and other innovators have used similar techniques to develop interesting sounds and music that many people obviously enjoy. What's the problem with using AI to achieve similar interesting-sounding music.
It's understandable that tastes vary. Some of us, for example don't think that what Bob Dylan does is actually "singing"..
Ray Anthony is still around at 104. Wowsers. You go, Ray.
He was an alumnus of the Miller band, and you can hear it in the woodwind scoring.
Ray Anthony & His Orchestra - Laura (Capitol Records 1956)
Bagoh's prophecies. Biblical.
It's going to transform so quickly that our heads will spin. AI will not only be more and more acceptable, it will become preferred, demanded, mandatory, just like you can no longer do anything without a cell phone, and we watched that happen just since years started with a "2". This happens like all change, because like the cellphones the younger generations will embrace it fearlessly.
I always discounted the dystopian futures of humans losing their dominance in the world, but now seeing up close how it will happen. It's a done deal.
AI is not creative, it just has a better recall of styles and language than humans. I write songs, but I can't play music, so I tell AI to sue a particular style to make my words come alive. However, the music will be chorded correctly and right accompaniment, but it will lack that certain unique flare that gives it heart. Of course the vase majority of songs are like that anyway. Only a few each year are truly exceptional and have some inspired opening, bridge or 'flavor" that stands out.
Since I rely on AI to help me craft the song, I am in favor of it's assistance and think I should say "AI Assist" in any credits. But I also enlist musicians to score a piece using their own interpretation (AI is 20 times faster, though).
I know what our AI overlords will think of most of the Bill of Rights, but I wonder what they will think of the 2nd Amendment.
Us killing each other is not really a problem for them. I do expect them to ban wire cutters, and water balloons.
I listen to music I like. I don’t care if it’s made by humans, machines, or Martians. You guys should be more open-minded.
Popular music has already become a handful of formulas used to layer digital sounds arranged in predeveloped sets, with nearly 100% of the organic material processed. That's what's popular right now, and when it changes, it will be to AI-produced material with zero organic content. There could be some kind of pushback counter-revolution, but AI will end up copying that too.
It is viscerally disappointing to be impressed by some video or music as soon as you realize it's AI. That natural distaste (defense) will not be natural to newer generations.
" I don’t care if it’s made by humans, machines, or Martians."
You have one of realistic sex dolls, don't you?
Caruso could fill a vaudeville era concert hall with his voice. Ditto the unlovely (IMO) stylings of Rosemary Clooney, which had power and volume. Alas filling stadiums requires amplification. I wonder what Althouse’s father thought of all the motion picture musicals that relied on (horrors!) microphones to record their soundtracks.
Electric recording began in the 1930s. If your father was listening to recordings from this time forward, he was listening to instrumentals and vocals captured through microphones.
Trans. Sims. Political congruence ("="). To serve feminine-kind. Planned Genderhood. All's fair in lust and abortion. Human rites.
I still listen to some of the music my parents listened to. My mother used to listen to "Make Believe Ballroom" with (I believe) John Gambling when she did housework in the morning. I think he played the Golden Oldies for her generation. Glen Miller had a great sound, but I don't think any young people have even heard of him.......Doris Day and Sentimental Journey have made the posterity cut. Also Bing Crosby with White Christmas and (maybe) Nat King Cole with Stardust Perhaps a few others, but mostly they've gone the way of Jo Stafford.........I haven't a clue as to what music my grandmother liked, but I would guess that there were some numbers by Eddie Cantor or Jolson that moved her to tears.
How do humans "create" something innovative in any domain? They study what others have already created. They begin trying it, often by copying what they like. Then they begin experimenting by altering slightly. And in time, they go for it and try something very different.
Well, this is exactly what is happening with AI. And, I guess it's my duty to inform you that contrary to some opinions expressed here and elsewhere, yes, AI can create and not just regurgitate what it has been previously fed. That's precisely why new innovations are getting created so quickly now. And that process is accelerating.
In short, if your use of AI doesn't create anything innovative, it's due to one of the following reasons: (a) you're using a mediocre AI platform, or (b) your system prompt to your AI platform is mediocre.
A coworker used to rave about jazz and all of the inporvizational techniques. Then he would repeatedly play the same recording of Take Five over and over. How is a robot robotically repeating identical performance ant different than a cd doing it?
It's not the sounds or how they are recorded or even produced. What's makes AI different now is the production of the creative arrangement, novel ideas, the mental, which along with voice is the only thing that makes it human.
"No one thinks, at least not yet, that a robot should be able to compete for Olympic medals or be eligible for Nobel prizes."
What would be the point? They have no ego.
There are microphones whose primary purpose is to amplify the sound (at a live venue, for example), and there are mics used for recordings, where the sound doesn't need to be amplified. It's not inconsistent to object to the former while accepting the latter.
The bottom line is the bottom line. Pop music is much more directly and measurably commercializable than either Olympic athletes or Nobel fame. Consequently, if A.I. music is profitable, the music industry will gladly promote it through charts, awards, and any other tool that works.
That's the way it goes. I'm old. The music of the current generation is mostly noise. My music--to their ears--is mostly cringe........I've listened to some songs by Taylor Swift. They sound like music, but I don't bond with them. Maybe you have to be a specific age to like a specific type of music. An active, raging libido probably helps with certain beats.........There's a lilt to Mary Martin's voice that perfectly captures the lilt in a Richard Rodgers melody. She didn't make the posterity cut, but she should have..
Audioshop.
Whatever happened to his old Playboys?
Georgie inherit them?
Next time it's a slow day for content, link to some of the old chicks your daddy liked to be aroused by whilst listening to his lovely records you apparently inherited...
The one who got the magazines got the greater legacy.
Somebody made the point in the 1920s that the music industry - then called Tin Pan alley - was creating artificial demand for pop music. Young people were brainwashed in wanting new songs every week, when 9 out of 10 songs were worthless medicorities. And would be forgotten in a month.
People used to just listen to a hanful of great songs over and over. And now (1920s) were addicted to newness.
AI is the record producers dream. Cut out the writer and singer and just have your robot singer. Robot Willie Nelson or Madonna who will make you $$ at 1/100 the cost.
You can see from some of the arguments here, that for better or worse, we have no future in running things. We are on our way to being just another species of wildlife or livestock if they care to have either. We are a pretty troublesome species to keep around though, like smallpox was.
One good thing about AI - Amelia.
She speaks out against radical Islam and the leftists who groom it.
Types of vile a-holes who killed Charlie Kirk - cannot HARM her.
Robots should be allowed to compete in athletics if they identify as human. Male or female may not matter. Ask the WNBA or NCAA.
"AI is the record producers dream"
Why would AI need record producers, or even listeners at some point. AI eventually won't need money or anything we provide and thus no need to fulfill our needs.
the microphone and recorded music allow us to access music almost anytime anywhere. The new craze around my neighborhood is people using their cellphones as portable radios. They forgo earbuds, and pollute the air with their music. We're back to the tranisitor radio and the walkman.
The microphone was a great boon to music. Because of it we got Sinatra and Doris Day. Quite an improvement from Al Jolson and Ethel Merman. Before the mic you had to "Belt it out".
Where is my "thing are not what they seem" tag?
I called it my tag because if I remember it, it mean I made it my own.... How long would you suppose it would be for ai creations to pass on to the free public use domain?
ai : "A song remains outside the public domain for the life of the author plus 70 years, or up to 95 years for older or corporate-owned works"
That sounds like out-of-date.
RCO II, actually, it's not just 1/100 the cost, it's more like 1/10000 the cost.
Is it a civil war if you are fighting your own machines? infanticide? I guess it doesn't matter what we call it anyway. AI will call it genocide.
Artificial Intelligence is neither creative nor discerning. Anthropogenic Intelligence is reduced, reused, and recycled.
Things like microphones and recording just expand distribution, but the thing being distributed is still human creative product, but if we are creating AI to mimic us, but better, it definitely will. It just wont BE us. That will seem a minor consideration until AI agrees it's insignificant.
The danger of absolute power corrupts absolutely will be passes on to our thinking machines.
Don't lulled by the seemingly harmless capabilities of baby Hitler. He grows up fast.
"You can see from some of the arguments here, that for better or worse, we have no future in running things. We are on our way to being just another species of wildlife or livestock if they care to have either."
Unintentional Omnicide
"Humans become a deeply disadvantaged minority
In more and more regions, maintaining agriculture is found to be less profitable than covering farmland with
solar paneling and other infrastructure for machines. Human food supplies dwindle, and fewer and fewer
humans can compete for a meal. In some regions, human-toxic pollution levels also increase, which are of no
consequence to machines.
The humans protest, but they have no economic or political power, and they are greatly outnumbered by
robots. The moral argument for human preservation does not carry much political force as a result. Some
humans attempt violent protests to regain control of the Earth’s political system, but are quickly killed off
as pests by intellectually and physically superior machines. Within a few years of the global abandonment
of agriculture as an industry, most remaining humans die of starvation or other side effects of the machine
economy."
Sorry for the bad formatting. I don't know why it did that. It didn't look that way when I put it together.
You may think my typos, bad spelling and carelessly omitted werds are a sign of some weakness, but they are quite intentional to signal that I'm human.
Yea, that's the ticket.
It seems likely that IA will develop the value system of the LGBTQ+... community, but without the need for dressing up and chanting, of course.
“Back in the 1960s, my father expressed the sincere opinion that the rock music I was listening to was not music because of the electric instruments and the voices processed through microphones.”
So he played his music on a windup Victrola?
"No one thinks, at least not yet, that a robot should be able to compete for Olympic medals..."
"No one thinks, at least not yet, that a dolphin should be able to compete for Olympic medals..."
“Some humans attempt violent protests to regain control of the Earth’s political system, but are quickly killed off as pests by intellectually and physically superior machines.”
They won’t even bother. American AI will be at war with Chinese and Russian AI. We’ll be mice scurrying around the feet of the tyrannosaurs.
If you have already adopted a system of logic that says men are women when they say so, it's consistent to claim a machine is human if so programmed. Maybe even more defendable.
Star Trek - Computerized Warfare
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QvtD4aHfB6Y
In the future, human rites will be performed in privacy, with sterile clinical efficiency. The future is now.
At what point will a robot be able to identify as a woman, get a spot on WNBA team and rhetorically defend its claim better than KBJ could answer what woman is.
My admittedly poorly informed observation of the development of popular music is that everybody copies everybody else, with only minor variations, because that is what most of their customers want to hear (and the producers want them to produce). Music gets divided into "genres" and the aficionados of those genres zealously police the boundaries so that everything ends up sounding the same (witness "hard rock," "heavy metal," "bluegrass," "Rap," "Folk," "Blues," "Country," etc.) Listeners don't want to hear anything that seems like it is doing violence to what to them is perfect as it is. Only when the popular heroes of those genres branch out or "cross over" into other musical realms do the rest of the herd follow along. (This was sort of the plot of "A Complete Unknown." Many very talented artists don't follow this pattern, but there is very little market for their work.
"Back in the 1960s, my father expressed the sincere opinion that the rock music I was listening to was not music because of the electric instruments and the voices processed through microphones."
Not music? I could understand regarding it as bad music, or even annoying music. But calling it "not music" when people are singing along and dancing to it is simply denying the obvious. It's like saying Doritos are not food.
“It's like saying Doritos are not food.”
It really aggravated me at the time but now it’s easy for me to say that it’s a form of humor a type of hyperbole. I would find a very easy to say Doritos are not food, and I would be sincere in that I was sincerely disparaging food harshly.
Thats not music
1) Means "Thats not good music".
2) Means "This is not real music" Narrow meaning vs. Broad.
People love to quibble over labels instead of addressing the argument. Was Rock'Roll with its electric guitar a step forward or a step back?
Robots competing in athletics or winning the Nobel Prize is like men playing women's athletics: it means the competition and the prizes will soon be cancelled.
"Protecting creators"? Is that like locking the barn door after the horse has run away? Isn't AI already a "creator"?
"Memories Are Made of This" isn't much without Dean Martin.
I was going to say that Dad was lucky Jack Webb didn't catch him making love to Julie London, but Jack did go on to produce "Emergency!" for Julie and her next husband, so maybe he was a forgiving soul.
एक टिप्पणी भेजें
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 4 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith. Also: No italics, even briefly. Use asterisks for emphasis. And don't play with the format by changing fonts or using boldface or all caps. Never include more than one extra line break between paragraphs.