I personally know two people who are doing exactly that after a mandate rolled out at their work, the measurement is "tokens spent" and since they weren't finding many cases that required a lot of tokens they simply started to run agent loops feeding each other.
Absurdly wasteful but Goodhart's Law almost never fails.
I still think you are missing entirely the point about music or any art in general.
It doesn't matter how technically innovative, or how much expertise, a model has, while an AI is not a consciousness that can express itself it will be hollow. There's no way around that.
If some form of AI becomes conscious, and can express itself through whatever art form it conjures for that, why would it even use music? Music is human, it's tuned to how our brains work and perceive sounds, I'd be much more interested to discover what art forms another form of consciousness that we can commuicate with can come up on its own.
I can't fully agree with the hollow part, when AI resonate with me about real-life issues (I understand it's just a machine without thoughts) it's pretty expressive and spot-on, and genuinely useful. I don't really see why it couldn't be the same with music, it can already write completely unique pieces that are very entertaining and full of emotions (even tho they are "fake")...
The brain perceiving sounds a certain way in the end is just data, that can be mapped as well, an AI can make us laugh right because it understands speech really well (and will be a thousand time better someday), what's the actual difference with music?
Let me give you another example, there is some Meme about older folks getting bamboozled by AI images right (especially doomsday stuff) which proves that it does trigger them genuine emotions, what's the difference if that image does actually exist or not (or let say a human photographed it).
What if that does not matter to someone? I know my opinion can't be common, but I cannot stand live music. I dislike the sound quality, the differences from the recording, the crowds, the cost, and more.
I know not everyone enjoys concerts, but it’s fundamental to my listening experience. That aside, I have no interest in music or art of any kind generated by AI. Other folks might, but I’ll have nothing to do with it.
The difference is the indelitable reality behind it.
You are confusing the topography of it with the substance, what's the point of something that is without substance? Without meaning? It's just fake, whenever you point to someone that an image that brought them joy is fake, generated by AI, it immediately changes the feeling they had. It doesn't bring the same awe anymore, awe is reserved to what is real. It might bring awe in the sense of "woah, a computer can do that" but that's a different feeling than being in awe of the story the image created.
How can it be full of emotion if it's created by something without emotion? It's just a mimicry of emotion, I really cannot understand how you cannot feel that knowing it's not created by another being; being real is the whole point, an emotion triggered by something not real, not experienced, transformed, and communicated by someone else is inevitably hollow.
Like: how can AI know what is to feel in love? Or to feel the loss of a loved one? Or to feel despair about something? Or to feel depressed? Or to feel extreme joy? Why would you listen to a song telling you a story to evoke an emotion on something that simply does not exist? There is no experience being transmitted, it's purely a hollow amalgamated mimicry of the experiences that were ingested but the output has absolutely no emotion, just a synthetic mimesis of it.
You are enjoying the mimicry, it's entertaining, but I really would like for you to ask yourself deeper questions about this rather than be impressed by the surface of it.
> The brain perceiving sounds a certain way in the end is just data, that can be mapped as well
I completely understand your point of view, but I can't genuinely agree with:
> How can it be full of emotion if it's created by something without emotion?
A nice crystal, a nice rock (something devoid of emotion or feeling) is used as art, it's also triggering emotions in individuals, this thing doesn't have a consciousness, nor understand anything, but still, it's able to change humans brain chemistry. AI that acts as a therapist, let say saying the EXACT same thing as a real therapist would, let even bring it further where the therapist is on vidcall to have a proper representation, and let say now it's 1:1 AI generated as in zero flaws (exact same, you'd think it's a human with exact same speech as that therapist), why would the experience not be transmitted? Ton of people say things that they don't really mean as well right, and those thoughts are transmitted successfully, felt or not.
AI can incur pain, emotion, distress, happiness and so-on. I genuinely try to think about what's behind, but what I feel is that in the end, humans aren't so magical, it's like watching a beautiful woman being all "fake" with heavy make-up, most humans can still appreciate it, despite knowing it's all BS. People lie as well, this is very deceptive, let say someone is saying he is so happy but in reality, he just isn't, you just felt something for him that were just false (a mimick), and this is kinda our normal.
What if you never knew, let say you are so fond of an artist/person but in the end, you discover it's 100% AI without human supervision, then what, those were real emotions you felt, not entertainment, you RELATED with that "person", you felt his pain.
And one more thing, why couldn't I teach an AI to transmit my own knowledge, speak to it for decades, write to it for decades, then just mimick everything, mimicking the "truth" about my innerself, why would that not be valid? Isn't exactly what the bible is doing (I'm not religious), people seem to find it valid.
Of course humans will adapt, the core issue is how we can avoid as much suffering as possible while these changes happen, that's always the point. No one wants to live a life during a transitional period in history where suffering is increased, as a species we should be working to alleviate that.
What's the point of progress if we keep repeating the same mistakes of leaving miserable people behind? Is that progress or just a repetition of the cycle with new shiny things?
RSA is not UBI, UBI literally means Universal Basic Income, it's not for no income/low income people, it's universal.
You are conflating the concept of UBI with social welfare, they are different things and it's a bit annoying to see the erosion of the UBI concept into social welfare, I've noticed an uptick of this the past year or so, no idea where it's originating from...
Agreed I butchered it, but what is the concrete difference right now for someone that has no job (so where UBI is relevant) with social welfare and "UBI" if in the end, that person gets a monthly income that is somehow guaranteed?
The concrete difference is simple: you don't have to spend most of your life convincing the government that you deserve to continue getting money. If you've ever interacted with a welfare system, you'll know. They work much better on paper than in real life.
The concrete difference is that the society around the person living in a UBI-society will be very different than one where there's only social welfare.
What's the point of listening to purely AI-generated music?
I don't mean music that has AI-generated stems as part of an arrangement, where a human actually created it and used AI for bits and pieces, I don't see absolutely any point on listening to purely AI-generated music. The fundamental essence of music is emotion, listening to something generated without emotion has no point, it might sound good but it's hollow and devoid of meaning.
I've tried to listen to it, it doesn't even make me "sad", it makes me feel... Nothing. I'm a hobby musician and I incorporated some AI-generated parts in some tracks where I mangled/processed them but my idea was exactly to express how hollow AI-generated music is without the human aspect.
> What's the point of listening to purely AI-generated music?
For formulaic music-as-a-product (McMusic™) it arguably makes no difference whatsoever whether it is totally machine-made or assembled out of vat-grown parts in the musack factory . This says far more about this category of music than it does about the value of machine-made music. Insta-pop, a large fraction of hiphop, supermarket country, plastic metal, there's plenty of formulaic thrash made by both man as well as machine. Even the supposedly man-made stuff was often half machine-made already before the advent of generative models so that other half did not make much of a difference.
If you're looking for music which makes you feel things (other than 'comfortably numb' to borrow a phrase from some real musicians) you're probably looking in the wrong area. It is the new music for airports, elevator music, hold-the-line music, slide-show-music, acoustical filler.
Many music that are in autoplay on Spotify are AI and I literally didn't know until I checked, the emotion was triggered successfully, I don't really see why only a human could be able to trigger you an emotion? Like if I'm at a party, let say I don't know the artist and everything is AI made and everybody is vibing, then what's "wrong" with it?
I think this is more of a musician side which I respect, but a lot of people would simply not care who created it (or what).
Most people don't care about music, as most don't care about art in general. People like entertainment though.
What you are describing is more akin to a form of hollow entertainment through the medium of music, a lot of pop music can also fall into that category (no, not all, there is also a lot of artistry is many pop artists/songs).
If AI-generated music triggers emotions on you then keep consuming it but knowing that it's a hollow form of the art, there's no one on the other side communicating with you, it's basically like having a conversation with a chatbot, it might sound human but you know that there's no one on the other side listening to you. AI music is the other way: there's no one on the other side telling you a story, or a feeling they went through, it's just a mimesis of it.
Music has served various roles throughout history. The whole notion of music being "art" and "invoking feelings" has not always been consistently true across the entirety of its history of various cultures. Painting, drawing, sculpting, and other visual arts have had a similar history as well.
We can take examples of some pieces from famous composers like much of Haydn's works, some pieces from Handel, Bach, Mozart, etc.. Some of their works were commissioned pieces for particular functions. Whether the music be for courts, dances, aristocratic displays, churches, and other events. Even on the battlefield music has been used to route troops, supply orders, and other forms of communication. My point is that there is not always a story to be told. Music can also be used to disrupt one's sense of time -- while on hold on the phone, elevators, etc.. I would not say the music in those instances are really telling me a story either.
Much like the visual arts. Emotion can be expressed in a piece, but pieces can also be functional in nature. There is a difference between figures in an instruction manual, portrait paintings, and a van Gogh piece.
Not to mention that this debate has been had countless times through out history, as well. It's always the same No Scotsman Fallacy. For example, some critics of electronic music have made a similar argument way before AI.
"It's not real music if there are no instruments."
"It's not real music if <racial/cultural demographic> creates or plays it."
"It's not real music if the music does not adhere to contrapuntal rules."
I think what angers people most is that as technology progresses, the gap between effort and accomplishment decreases. Thus there is some sort of clinging to a sunk cost fallacy for some. As if something being easy to create devalues all the effort one has put into something. Maybe it does? I do not personally think so. If anything, it allows greater access for people to participate in the arts -- something the arts have also had a historically rocky relationship trying to gatekeep.
The invention of the camera did not make painting irrelevant. It even opened a new door to the world of visual arts. I do not think AI music will make musicians irrelevant either, and perhaps new doors might open too.
There, patterns of electrical signals are said to be good, and not bad, but at the same time "morality" gets dismissed. But ideas of good and bad are morality!
Note that moral ideas don't have to be correct. "I should burgle a house" is a moral idea, an idea in the domain of morality. 1920s disapproval of the seductive decadent jungle rhythms of jazz was moral (I guess we say "moralistic" to indicate that we don't agree). The opposite attitude, praising jazz, is also moral. Treating Dylan as a traitor for going electric was moral, and attending the metal love-in that was Ozzy's farewell concert was also moral.
Then, a couple of posts up the thread from you, there's an imagined scene of people "vibing" to music at a party where everything is AI made. This sounds disgusting, somewhere between vaping and using a vibrator, and so I think I have to grudgingly give it my full approval. These imaginary young people are enjoying the vibe that they have vaguely selected. Maybe they had some input about the genre, maybe implicitly. They're choosing not to turn it off, anyway, because they like it, they think the vibe is good.
You imply that everybody saying "It's not real music" is wrong. OK, kind of, but they're not completely wrong. It doesn't follow that just because of our long history of snobbery, therefore everything is real music. The snobs are doing gatekeeping, but they're also doing discernment, and participating in the kind of moral ideas that music and art is made of. It's such a pain to define art that I'm liable to be downvoted for trying: some people are certain that relativism is the way forward, and that it's a brilliant insight to throw our hands in the air and give up. You're quite right that it has to encompass lots of different things, and no one defining feature will withstand counterexamples, but it can still be defined in a vague way as a collection of optional qualities, under which we could say that an instruction manual is not really art, but arguably artistic or artfully made.
So, I'm not judging the AI music as art or not-art right now, but I'm saying that it's amenable to so being judged. Anybody claiming that it's good music is admitting the possibility that it might be bad music, and this is a moral matter, about the value of feelings, meanings, and affections. That even applies to good or bad elevator music, it's trivial background sound, but approval or disapproval of it is moral. This is not about its worth as patterns of signals, because that's reductive. Those patterns mean things, or matter to us in ways that we have preferences about, which are value judgments.
I wonder how much marketing copy has poisoned the "default" writing style of LLMs, it surely has those undertones of pitching a sale in an uncanny valley way.
Yeah, netsplits were really common; nickserv and/or chanserv not working for long periods making popular channels a hell without ops.
I think the centralisation is the issue, I could connect to a different IRC network with a community around the same topic/game. When Discord is down there's nowhere else to go.
There's the classic "bendy banana law" which British tabloids pushed a lot to paint the EU as an inefficient bureaucracy.
In reality it was a way to harmonise banana grading, no one was forbidden to sell abnormally shaped bananas, it would just be classed lower than the "Extra" class.
The distribution will go into services that compound the 5k-10k across society, not to individuals.
Education returns the investment to a nation at around 9%/year. Transportation infrastructure (especially if it's not only for roads in dense urban centres) also has a decent ROI. Investment in science, fundamental research that most private entities don't have the risk appetite for, has a massive ROI for a nation over time.
Providing public services and safety nets for a society also free up humans to take risks such as starting businesses, if you know you will be able to survive with dignity even if it all crashes and burns you are more inclined to try out that business idea instead of being stuck at a bad job. It makes bad jobs also more unattractive, requiring better salaries which reduces the gap between the haves and have-nots, this lowers crime, increases social cohesion, etc.
What exactly is the benefit for society of not taxing wealthy people out of 2% of their wealth? They mostly don't use that wealth to invest in risky ventures, they rely on banks for that.
Absurdly wasteful but Goodhart's Law almost never fails.
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