So, my mother is pretty hopelessly addicted to shorts, right? (Facebook reels, Youtube shorts, Tiktok, etc.) And the other day she calls me over to watch one that had just come up on her feed. It was a kitten and a parrot playing. The parrot was talking and the kitten kindof batted at and nuzzled the parrot.
Cute as fuck. Sickeningly so. But something was definitely off. The parrot’s voice was wrong somehow. The cat was a little too… smooth. The way they moved just wasn’t quite right. Clearly an AI generated video. (The audio was probably a human speaking, pitched up and made a little squeakier via simple audio editing. But my point is that no cat and parrot had ever existed in front of a camera doing quite what this video depicted.)
My mother never considered it might be AI-generated until I said it was.
And… what’s the harm? As I said, it was cute. Who cares whether it was “real” or not if it made the dopamine squirt in my mother’s brain?
We’re kindof living in a post-truth world. It doesn’t matter whether content is “real” or not. If it feels good great. If you completely disengage your critical thinking skills and just assume it’s real (or even worse, define real/impactful in terms of what makes the dopamine squirt and not in terms of truth), it feels even better. Produces more of that sweet sweet dopamine.
A person who cares whether something is true/real/authentic may fall for it anyway and still be manipulated thereby. But one who doesn’t care, you don’t even have to manipulate. They’re already living a fantasy.
That’s how you get “alternative facts” and of right-wingers claiming “we white, cishet, christian, men are the ones who are really oppressed.”
Enjoying AI-generated music knowing it’s AI-generated is a red flag. Enjoying it and not realizing it’s fake is extremely concerning. Worst of all is enjoying it and not caring.
When my mother showed me that video, I felt sick to my stomach. Not because it was “too cute.” (Ok, a little bit because it was sickeningly cute, but mostly…) Because she’d been so easily manipulated. And because there were a few seconds before I realized it was fake during which I was similarly manipulated.
My mother also has a problem with blindly trusting Google AI overviews and it’s been a problem a few times.
Every AI-generated bit of media or information I consume makes me feel like I’ve been “tainted”, poisoned, unclean. I’m sure despite the care I’ve taken to verify sources and such, I’ve fallen for it in some ways, but it’s hard to know where/how specifically and what negative effects that will have on me at a later date.
And no, this problem didn’t start with AI, but AI certainly hasn’t helped the situation.
But to bring it home, what you asked wasn’t about AI-generated fake news or cat videos. It was about jazz.
Before AI-generated music like what’s referenced in the OP existed, we had autotune. And I think that’s similarly problematic for the same reason as AI-generated cat videos are. I think people using autotune blatantly to where they weren’t trying to hide it’s use but rather used it as a cool distortion effect was a hugely positive development specifically because it revealed the fact that it wasn’t real.
Maybe someday we’ll end up with an equivalent for AI-generated music. And if so, maybe I’ll be cool with “blatantly AI” music. But so long as we have music that fools people into thinking it was made by flesh-and-blood humans on physical pianos, upright basses, saxaphones, etc, it’s concerning as fuck.
If I ever fall for that shit, please slap me. And if I say I don’t care whether it’s real or not, shoot me.
So, my mother is pretty hopelessly addicted to shorts, right? (Facebook reels, Youtube shorts, Tiktok, etc.) And the other day she calls me over to watch one that had just come up on her feed. It was a kitten and a parrot playing. The parrot was talking and the kitten kindof batted at and nuzzled the parrot.
Cute as fuck. Sickeningly so. But something was definitely off. The parrot’s voice was wrong somehow. The cat was a little too… smooth. The way they moved just wasn’t quite right. Clearly an AI generated video. (The audio was probably a human speaking, pitched up and made a little squeakier via simple audio editing. But my point is that no cat and parrot had ever existed in front of a camera doing quite what this video depicted.)
My mother never considered it might be AI-generated until I said it was.
And… what’s the harm? As I said, it was cute. Who cares whether it was “real” or not if it made the dopamine squirt in my mother’s brain?
We’re kindof living in a post-truth world. It doesn’t matter whether content is “real” or not. If it feels good great. If you completely disengage your critical thinking skills and just assume it’s real (or even worse, define real/impactful in terms of what makes the dopamine squirt and not in terms of truth), it feels even better. Produces more of that sweet sweet dopamine.
A person who cares whether something is true/real/authentic may fall for it anyway and still be manipulated thereby. But one who doesn’t care, you don’t even have to manipulate. They’re already living a fantasy.
That’s how you get “alternative facts” and of right-wingers claiming “we white, cishet, christian, men are the ones who are really oppressed.”
Enjoying AI-generated music knowing it’s AI-generated is a red flag. Enjoying it and not realizing it’s fake is extremely concerning. Worst of all is enjoying it and not caring.
When my mother showed me that video, I felt sick to my stomach. Not because it was “too cute.” (Ok, a little bit because it was sickeningly cute, but mostly…) Because she’d been so easily manipulated. And because there were a few seconds before I realized it was fake during which I was similarly manipulated.
My mother also has a problem with blindly trusting Google AI overviews and it’s been a problem a few times.
Every AI-generated bit of media or information I consume makes me feel like I’ve been “tainted”, poisoned, unclean. I’m sure despite the care I’ve taken to verify sources and such, I’ve fallen for it in some ways, but it’s hard to know where/how specifically and what negative effects that will have on me at a later date.
And no, this problem didn’t start with AI, but AI certainly hasn’t helped the situation.
But to bring it home, what you asked wasn’t about AI-generated fake news or cat videos. It was about jazz.
Before AI-generated music like what’s referenced in the OP existed, we had autotune. And I think that’s similarly problematic for the same reason as AI-generated cat videos are. I think people using autotune blatantly to where they weren’t trying to hide it’s use but rather used it as a cool distortion effect was a hugely positive development specifically because it revealed the fact that it wasn’t real.
Maybe someday we’ll end up with an equivalent for AI-generated music. And if so, maybe I’ll be cool with “blatantly AI” music. But so long as we have music that fools people into thinking it was made by flesh-and-blood humans on physical pianos, upright basses, saxaphones, etc, it’s concerning as fuck.
If I ever fall for that shit, please slap me. And if I say I don’t care whether it’s real or not, shoot me.