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The real reason AI generated content is no threat

AI is really good at derivation. Not so great at groundbreaking. (Yet.)
If you feed an AI program all the music of Mozart's music, it can derive and compose a piece in the "style of Mozart." If you feed in all the bebop songs, it could compost a new bebop song. If you feed all the top 10 Billboard Hot 100 songs from the past year, it could make a new song that sounds just like a top 10 song. And it would probably do a pretty good job at that. It's good at deriving.

But if you feed in all the Jazz, or even all the music that ever existed up until July 1969, you'd be hard pressed to convince me that AI would be able to create Bitches Brew, which was recorded in August 1969.

I'd dare to say AI is doing what most musicians and songwriters are doing: Hearing music, and doing something that's essentially the same but slightly different within a set of parameters. A nice logical baby-step in the evolution of music. That's how genres slowly evolve over time, but are essentially the same too. Very few monumental and abrupt changes happen in music that make you go, "Where on earth did this come from!?!?!?"

Whether humans sit there and laboriously compose some same-same-but-different songs, or AI does it, does it really matter? Have fun doing it whichever way you prefer. The monumental changes in music will still have to come from humans defying the rules, breaking derivation, and progressing music into something new. (Until some brilliant programmers figure out how to make AI less derivative, which is not how computers like to work, AND a musician comes along who is brilliant at feeding that new AI just the right combination of source audio and prompts to make something groundbreakingly new.) And even then, most music-listeners are just regular people who passively take in whatever is fed to them, and probably won't be listening to the groundbreaking music anyway.

I hear a lot of ultra contemporary "groundbreaking" pop music that uses all the fancy new technology, and think, "wow, that's about 10 years behind the curve" when compared to what we've been doing in the underground electronic music world. That's where AI will be. "Groundbreaking" pop music that's [an amount of time] behind the curve of the countercultures. (Especially after the musical counterculture figures out how to "break" or misuse AI to make music. That's where the magic happens.)
 
This right here to me is the greatest competition. why pay an artist for copyrighted material when you can have an AI create it and have to pay no one?

You could. But who would then have to pay you to use it? It may be trendy to say you used an AI. But it has the potential to open a huge can of worms. The parts created by human parties would be copyrightable (is that an actual word?), but the machine generated parts wouldn’t. At least so far.

Might be fun seeing how you’d separate which parts were which if it ever came to trial.

Smartest strategy at this point would probably be to never acknowledge an AI was employed at all. At least until the legal morass AI creates gets settled.

Copyright aside, there’s also the issue of licensing. If the owner of an AI states your use of their AI is granted on condition of the user’s acceptance of a license which states title to any work generated by said AI remains the legal property of the AI owner…well, as you can see it can get even more complicated from a legal perspective.
 
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The rise in AI reminds me of "The Butlerian Jihad".
"We must negate the machines-that-think. Humans must set their own guidelines. This is not something machines can do. Reasoning depends upon programming, not on hardware, and we are the ultimate program! Our Jihad is a "dump program." We dump the things which destroy us as humans!"
Minister-companion of the Jihad

Yes, I know the Butlerian Jihad is fiction from Frank Herbert but so was Orwell's 1984 and look around you now........ It would seem that Orwell was right but had the year wrong. That said. There could be another reason.

aliens.jpg
 
Pretending one is safe because of a piece of legislation has cost a couple of million lives around the world in the 1940's. When the big boy changes the law, just because he always can, all bets are off. (Although I am sure attorneys will always manage to scrape a dollar from the ensuing mess).

Reality is under constant siege from legal fictions. But I think passing a law to grant legal status to a piece of software might be a bigger hurdle than one might think.

Still, politicians can be paid off. Corporations will continue to try to stack the deck. And regardless of the legal merits or lack thereof, it’s all just billable time when you’re an attorney.

I’d be willing to bet the ultimate outcome will be the stupidest decision it was possible to make if human history is anything to go by.
 
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I think that AI, at least in music production, will only make real music played by artists more valuable. No matter what AI can do, what makes us feel music isn't perfection, but the "mistakes" or natural human variations that make it feel real. For example, even though there is AI art, there's only one Mona Lisa, one of each Monet or Van Gogh. What makes music and art valuable or meaningful is the story and context around it, not just whether or not it is technically perfect. And to be honest, no matter how good AI is, people will always want to see and hear live music played by people. I think AI is moving too fast, however, I don't think it's as big of a threat as it appears to musicianship and the craft of music performance and songwriting. AI is nothing more than a tool that is limited by what human beings think of or create, at least for the time being. people thought DJs would kill live music but its quite the opposite now.
 
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From where I'm standing, AI's threat to copyright standards is minimal and easily cured with updated rules and regs.

The real threat from AI that I see is mass displacement of workers in the manufacturing and service sectors. I was in on computer controlled machines when programming was crude enough all we could manage was an arc of 90 degrees, so if you wanted a circle you had to write four lines of code to produce four 90 degree arcs that all lined up into a circle, plus all the lead in and lead out movements. These days you pick a circle (or any number of preprogrammed shapes from a menu), define its center point and a radius or diameter, and the machine takes care of the rest without all the annoying little bobbles between lines of code we used to have to deal with. Imagine where we will be once machines can learn from their mistakes rather than relying on us to figure out what the problem is. As with any emerging technology, the longer machines are capable of critical reasoning as it applies to problem solving, the sooner they will render flesh and bone differential engines obsolete. Given most of our world economy is dependent on consumers building things for consumption, what will we do when we can produce fifty times more product than before, but only ten percent (or less) of us will have means to buy those goods.

Hopefully, we will have matter reconfiguration figured out by then and we can simply convert our waste into hearty, vitamin rich sustenance for a few cents’ worth of renewable energy. :D
 
The issue I raised isn’t whether an animal can do something that is arguably a creative work. It’s about ownership and the ability to have it copyrighted.
That is also not the issue I wanted to point out.... The question is: Who sold the artworks? Certainly not the monkey.
The person who received the money is, in my view, the former rightful owner or a thief.
 
From where I'm standing, AI's threat to copyright standards is minimal and easily cured with updated rules and regs.

The real threat from AI that I see is mass displacement of workers in the manufacturing and service sectors. I was in on computer controlled machines when programming was crude enough all we could manage was an arc of 90 degrees, so if you wanted a circle you had to write four lines of code to produce four 90 degree arcs that all lined up into a circle, plus all the lead in and lead out movements. These days you pick a circle (or any number of preprogrammed shapes from a menu), define its center point and a radius or diameter, and the machine takes care of the rest without all the annoying little bobbles between lines of code we used to have to deal with. Imagine where we will be once machines can learn from their mistakes rather than relying on us to figure out what the problem is. As with any emerging technology, the longer machines are capable of critical reasoning as it applies to problem solving, the sooner they will render flesh and bone differential engines obsolete. Given most of our world economy is dependent on consumers building things for consumption, what will we do when we can produce fifty times more product than before, but only ten percent (or less) of us will have means to buy those goods.

Hopefully, we will have matter reconfiguration figured out by then and we can simply convert our waste into hearty, vitamin rich sustenance for a few cents’ worth of renewable energy. :D
Call me old-fashioned or not keeping up with the latest developments. But I can't think of a machine that suddenly comes up with the idea of drawing a circle out of the blue.
- If a machine is not instructed it does nothing.
- In the end, a machine is only as smart as the human who operates it.
 
It would probably do a better job than the drummer's brother-in-law and you don't have to buy it beer.
The funny thing is, they will probably end up being jacked up on all oil like the super intelligent tanks from Ghost in the shell. And if you really love your tank, you'll get it an all natural oil!

I think AI music and art might be good for people, actually. It will make the artists jobs easier - whatever the medium. You need a rough draft? Or a storyboard? Or someone to sort thru hours of broll footage? AI can do it for you.

If we get the AI to be really good at this, I feel like it will become very hot to see a live performance, lets say. In the end, whats so special about AI content when anybody can make it?

But seeing a bunch of people play live? Now - that's special.

We might be heading for a big revival in live music and live shows, my crystal ball speculates.
 
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I’d say it’s more that maybe we can but might want to proceed cautiously until we get a better handle on the possible ramifications, scifi movies to the contrary. ;)

FWIW, the absolute reach of any system extends only as far as its connection to the physical world. Systems of any kind are seldom allowed to run completely unmonitored. And a simple on/off switch will shut down the most advanced system, scifi movies to the contrary. ;)

You took the blue pill, eh?

Lol.