Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music::Audio created using Google DeepMind’s AI Lyria model will be watermarked with SynthID to let people identify its AI-generated origins after the fact.
People are listening to AI generated music? Someone on Bluesky put (paraphrased slightly) it best-
If they couldn’t put time into creating it I’m not going to put time into listening to it.
I think I’d rather listen to some custom AI generated music than the same royalty free music over and over again.
In both cases they’re just meant to be used in videos and stuff like that, you’re not supposed to actually listen to them.
Fun fact: Steve1989MREInfo uses all of his original music for his videos.
This is the ultimate YouTuber power move. Exurb1a and RetroGamingNow do it too!
A number of Youtubers do . . . and some of it’s even good, lol. John at Plainly Difficult and Ahti at AT Restorations are two that use their own music that I can think of off the top of my head.
Can it be much different from the mass-market auto-tuned pap that gets put out today?
The singers of that music actually have to use their voice to sing into a mic compared to someone on a computer typing in a prompt.
As much as I dislike modern pop music, I will definitely say they put in more work than the people who rely solely on an AI that will do all the work based on a prompt.
My own feelings on the matter aside (fuck google and all that) this has been something chased after for a long time. The famous composer Raymond Scott dedicated the back end of his life trying to create a machine that did exactly this. Many famous musical creators such as Michael Jackson were fascinated by the machine and wanted to use it. The problem was is he was never “finished”. The machine worked and it could generate music, it’s immensely fascinating in my opinion.
If you want more information in podcast format check out episode 542 of 99% invisible or here https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-4/episode-one-piano-player
They go into the people who opposed Scott and why they did, and also talk about the emotion behind music and the artists, and if it would even work. Because the most fascinating part of it all was that the machine was kind of forgotten and it no longer works. Some currently famous musicians are trying to work together to restore it.
The question then is, if someone created their life’s work and modern musicians spend an immense amount of time restoring the machine, when the machine creates music does that mean no one spent time on it? I enjoy debating the philosophy behind the idea in my head, especially since I have a much more negative view when a modern version of this is done by Google.
I feel like the machine itself would be the art in that case, not necessarily what it creates. Like if someone spent a decade making a machine that could cook FLAWLESS BEEF WELLINGTON, the machine would be far more impressive and artistic than the products it made
i mean, where do you draw the line necessarily between the machine and what it creates? the machine itself is totally useless without inputs and outputs, not to say art needs utility. the beef wellington machine is only notable on its ability to conjure beef wellington, otherwise it’s just a nothing machine. which is still kind of cool, I guess, but the beef wellington machine not making beef wellington is kind of a disregard for the core part of the machine, no?
That was a great episode of 99PI. Would love the machine restored.
IIRC, It’s not so much that it made music, but that it would create loops through iteration to inspire people. He wanted it to make full busic but it was never close to that
Yeah I think you’re right, and it was apparently actually random. The longer it would play a loop the more it would iterate. Such a cool thing to exist
This is the worst timeline
This is the worst time line so far.
Not yet.
Yikes. TIL you think music sounds good based on how much time went into making it, not how it actually sounds.
Can’t wait for you to hear something you like then pretend it’s bad when you find out it was made by AI.
This assumes music is made and enjoyed in a void. It’s entirely reasonable to like music much more if it’s personal to the artist. If an AI writes a song about a very intense and human experience it will never carry the weight of the same song written by a human.
This isn’t like food, where snobs suddenly dislike something as soon as they find out it’s not expensive. Listening to music often has the listener feel a deep connection with the artist, and that connection is entirely void if an algorithm created the entire work in 2 seconds.
What if an AI writes a song about its own experience? Like how people won’t take its music seriously?
It will depend on whether or not we can empathize with its existence. For now, I think almost all people consider AI to be just language learning models and pattern recognition. Not much emotion in that.
Glad you’re at least open to the idea.
“I dunno why it’s hard, this anguish–I coddle / Myself too much. My ‘Self’? A large-language-model.”
I noticed some of your comments are disappearing from this thread, is that you or mods?
I’m getting nuked from another thread
That’s a parasocial relationship and it’s not healthy, sure Taylor Swift is kinda expressing her emotions from real failed relationships but you’re not living her life and you never will. Clinging to the fantasy of being her feels good and makes her music feel special to you but it’s just fantasy.
Personally I think it would be far better if half the music was ai and people had to actually think if what their listing to actually sounds good and interesting rather than being meaningless mush pumped out by an image obsessed Scandinavian metal nerd or a pastiche of borrowed riffs thrown together by a drug frazzled brummie.
Lol, somehow you got the above commenter covering the sentiment that a song is better if it’s message is true to its creator…something a huge percentage of the population would agree with, and you equate that to fan obsession.
People on the internet are wild.
I don’t understand where they got any of that from, lol. It’s like they learned what a parasocial relationship is earlier today and they thought it applied here
I would kind of agree with this if it wasn’t kind of mean and half of it didn’t come out of nowhere, but then it also seems like what you think you value in your own music taste is whether or not something is new, seeing as your main examples of things that are meaningless or bad is “image obsessed scandinavian metal nerd” i.e. derivative and “pastiche of borrowed riffs thrown together by a drug frazzled brummie” i.e. derivative.
Ha no you are right, I was being a dick - i worked long enough in the music industry that it’s scarred my soul and just thinking of it brings up that bile…
But yeah I was just being silly with the band descriptions, I was describing some of the music I like in a flippant way to highlight the absurdity of claiming some great artistic value because Ozzy mumbled about iron man traveling time for the future of mankind - dice could come up with more meaningful lyrics than ‘nobody helps him, now he has his revenge’ is the sort of thing an edgy teenage coke head would come up with – it’s one of my favourite songs of all time, another example of greatest songs of all time is Rasputin by boney m, famously part of a big controversy when people discovered they were a manufactured band and again the lyrics and music are both brilliant and awful.
People obsess over nonsence all the time, it’s easy to pretend there’s some deep and holy difference between Bach and Offenbach but the cancan can mean just as much as any toccata if you let it.
Art is in the eye of the beholder, it has always been thus and will always be thus.
I can’t tell if you’re completely missing the point on purpose, or if you actually don’t understand what I mean lol. Who said anything about Taylor Swift?
You can replace her with whatever music you associate with, what I’m getting at is your connection to it isn’t real - it feels real but that’s because it’s coming from you, you’re putting the meaning in there.
If you could erase all memory of Bach from a classical obsessives mind then play them his greatest hits and say it’s from an AI they’d say ‘ugly key smashing meaningless drivel’ maybe they’d admit AI Brahms has some bangers but without the story behind it and the history of its significance it’s not as magical.
The problem I have is people are to addicted to shortcuts, ‘oh this is Bach people say he’s great so this cello suite must be good therefore I like it’ it’s lazy and dumb. (I use Bachs cello suite as an example because it’s what’s on the radio but you can put any bit of music as the example)
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Ok, boomer.
How’s that microwave dinner taste? Like an A for effort? Yeah, I bet.
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Lately in youtube I’m constantly been bombarded with ai garbage music passed as a normal unknown bands and it’s getting really annoying. What will happen when there’s an actual new band but everyone ignores them because you would think it’s just ai?
What will happen when there’s an actual new band but everyone ignores them because you would think it’s just ai?
Their music will speak for itself and elevate them above the AI that is making worse music.
You’re asking the wrong question. What happens when you hear something you like, then find out it’s made by AI and all of a sudden you have to pretend you never liked it?
A needle in a haystack is much harder to find if the haystack is the size of a truck. People don’t have infinite time to listen to music, and if it’s almost all the same, they’ll stop trying to find upcoming artists, ai or not.
We need an ai to listen to music and tell us what to like by playing it on repeat till we do. Just like the radio stations.
I think probably the vast majority of up and comers in the music scene come from, not just randomly going viral (which I don’t think will be a concern with AI music anyways since it will probably sound like shit for the next 50+ years), but probably comes from just trolling around and doing local shows in venues that they know will attract that people who like the noise. I don’t think it’s very hard to distinguish between AI and people in that context.
Music snobs have been doing this for decades, pretending to like the shittiest pink Floyd b-side because the normies don’t get it and acting like Abba’s entire catalogue isn’t solid bangers because disco isn’t cool, until it was again then they’d always loved it.
It’ll be just like it always is, Pete Seagar with an axe trying to stop Bob Dylan playing an electric guitar. I remember when people hated d&b and said it wasn’t real music and all that shit now they’re all telling bullshit stories about how they were og junglist massive.
People will use ai to make really cool things and a loud portion of the population will act superior by pretending it’s bad, time will pass and when the next thing comes along all those people will point at the ai music and say ‘your new music will never be as good as real music like that’ but the people listening to atonal arithmic echolocation beats to study to or whatever the next trend is won’t pay them any attention.
Yeah, I’ve noticed at a young age most people base their tastes in art around what their peers will accept.
As soon as their peers say AI is ok, they will follow suit.
Omg the AI voice describing a short is infuriating.
“This man was minding his own business not knowing he was about to change this child’s life…Watch how his interaction is measured…”
Dots Do not recommend this channel again
This raises the question of will AI style be the next big trend? Imagine if real painters started painting oil paintings that look uncanny and surreal like an Ai generated art, weird hands, or weird eyes. Imagine if a real quartet decided to play an AI generated piece of music.
thats like putting a watermark besides the Bill.if it is inaudible then you can just delete it
So basically it’s security through obscurity, since once people know they can and will edit it out, especially those who want to use it for deception.
