base talk A.I. - A threat to the music business?

[ArtDeco]

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Writing cohesive and engaging text is one challenge for artificial intelligence, but in recent times we've seen a sudden rise in artificial intelligence in music.

 

Last year, we wrote about how legendary film director Peter Jackson had harnessed the power of machine learning to clean up and enhance video and audio tapes from the Beatles' Let It Be writing and recording sessions. This sophisticated technology not only allowed the visual portions of the tapes to be remastered into clean high definition, but there was also a unique audio utilisation. Likened to taking a baked cake and then splitting out just the whole egg, the technology allowed for multiple voices on a mono tape to be split, recognising each voice as a separate entity, giving producers the ability to remix them separately.

 

In 2023, this is set to be used by Sir Paul McCartney himself, as he uses AI technology to create what he terms 'the final Beatles record'. Vocals from a 1978 demo by the late John Lennon have been separated from the instruments on the track and cleaned up, allowing it to be used in a fully realised song, reuniting history's most celebrated songwriting duo one last time. 

 

Unlike the examples below, nothing about the vocal is artificially created, rather extracted from a source and cleaned. But what about writing new music? Well AI has us covered there too, often in unnerving ways.

Ed Sheeran and artificial intelligence get it on

Artist Ed Sheeran has had an interesting experience with artificial intelligence in music, with it rearing its digital head at his recent copyright infringement trial. Accused of borrowing the harmonic progression, melodic and rhythmic elements of the seminal 1973 Marvin Gaye hit Let's Get It On for his own 2014 hit Thinking Out Loud, Sheeran and the court were subjected to an AI-generated rendition of the soul classic by the plaintiff's musicologist. Laughter reported broke out in the courtroom when the clumsy computer voice robotically strained through the song, with Sheeran himself stifling a grin. It was hardly a flawless, soulful rendition. The Yorkshire-born songwriter ultimately won his plagiarism case, with AI perhaps playing a role in demonstrating that when given a series of musical laws, similarities are bound to crop up through time.

Artificial intelligence lets us hear impossible cover songs

Despite the clunky version of Marvin Gaye used at Sheeran's trial, artificial intelligence has proven itself capable of generating some phenomenally accurate cover versions that would otherwise be impossible.

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It's fair to say that if you played these AI-generated covers to someone who hadn't ever heard the Oasis songs (tough find, we'd imagine) they'd almost certainly be fooled into thinking they'd unearthed archive Beatles material, such is the convincing nature of the fit. Those naysayers who claim that Oasis was just a Beatle's tribute band might feel vindicated, but it's important to remember that AI is just breaking down sounds into melodies and copying them, songs from very similar styles. It also didn't write these songs, and for the time being there's no substitute for the human songwriter.

 

The AI generated covers don't stop with just these two bands either. Ever wondered what it would sound like to hear SpongeBob sing Radiohead? Or perhaps hear Barack Obama rap? Artificial intelligence has you covered.

 

Universal Music Group has labelled AI music 'fraud'and wants to see more widespread banning, going as far as to petition the larger music streamers such as Apple Music and Spotify to block AI platforms from using their songs to train the AI algorithms.

 

Source: https://www.morson.com/did-ai-just-prove-oasis-was-a-beatles-tribute-band

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Is artificial intelligence really a danger to the music business?

Edited yesterday at 10:25 AM by ArtDeco

[Vixen Eyes]

AI needs to be abandoned and wiped from the Internet. 

[sugarysunflower]

The executives are gonna love it

 

less employees, less overhead costs, more profits to the music fatcats 

[John Slayne]

it's a threat to us all

 

 

 

[Wicked]

AI bout to have me and my people locked up for crimes we didn't even do. That **** is coming for everything.

[Illuminati]

I think AI threatens visual art more than music to be honest, because a lot less people care to fill their walls with genuine art, to hire actual digital artists etc. Music is a more personal experience and AI could only "replace" background music, like soundtracks.

 

People will always have the appreciation for human involvement. We value the craft, the ideas and the artists. Even if artists themselves choose to secretly rely on AI (which I think is already happening, Woman's World was widely described as sounding AI-generated) I think it won't be long-term sustainable and will only prove that people desire authenticity.

Edited yesterday at 11:49 AM by Illuminati

[Princess Aurora]

AI should be banned from all fields except a few ones tbh

[popmusicisdead]

all of Ava Max's music sounds AI generated anyway. looking at her chart performance, i wouldn't be too worried

Edited yesterday at 12:04 PM by popmusicisdead

[Mr.X]

2 hours ago, Vixen Eyes said:

AI needs to be abandoned and wiped from the Internet. 

This

[Trent W]

I started doing music with ai prompts this last weekend

 

The things that come out are insane, but it's still generic

 

Some artists might find it helpful

 

What I do refuse 100% is to consider someone who does music with prompts only an "artist". Would

never stan a bedroom nobody who can only code in a laptop

 

I think only people who can perform live, play instruments and prove they can actually write a song alone will be considered artists from now on. 
 

[Velvet Night]

There will be things that AI can do well, however I don't believe it will make human artists obsolete. One thing AI will greatly struggle with is the meaning behind music. Music is essentially an auditory language that directly evokes emotion. AI may be able to replicate some of the simple technical aspects of music, but it will be a very long time before it can attach connotation and emotion into lyrics, or use a song structure to imply a meaningful concept in a novel way.

However, I think the hack musicians will be in trouble though…

[Europe]

Of course Universal Music Group doesn't like AI Music, but only because it is a threat to their business interests, nothing more . The fact is, competition is a good thing. Pop stars have been very subpar lately, throwing out super weak material which they can't even perfom. If AI makes them step up and do better, so be it.

[Relampago.]

I'm more concerned about other parts of life that AI will affect, but yeah music is one part of many things that are going to change drastically 

[Vixen Eyes]

1 hour ago, Europe said:

Of course Universal Music Group doesn't like AI Music, but only because it is a threat to their business interests, nothing more . The fact is, competition is a good thing. Pop stars have been very subpar lately, throwing out super weak material which they can't even perfom. If AI makes them step up and do better, so be it.

um no, its not about competition, etc. its unethical. AI steals already existing human-made creations to auto generate a "new" one without crediting who the AI generated one used content from.