Post #3771

Legendary Death Metal band Pestilence have come under some fire for using an AI generated album cover recently (which they then replaced with human-made art due to backlash). Their defence of their decision exposes the short-sightedness of musicians who go down this route. "Are we so caught up in the past that that we do not embrace technology?" And how about when that same technology is used to replace YOU, Mr Musician? How about when Spotify and streaming services start offering listeners a new 'generate your own bespoke music' option, and brain-dead consumers start opting for that instead of listening to your music? (I'm pretty sure this is coming, and Spotify et al will push it with glee because instead of the $0.00001 per stream they pay bands now, they get to pay $0.00000). How about when bands utilise AI generated drum tracks that are faster and tighter than your drummer who's spent 40 years honing his craft, but the listener doesn't care because he's too busy "embracing technology"? How about when bands use AI to generate their lyrics and fans praise them more than yours? How will you feel then? The point is - no-one will be able to contain AI, or limit it to the peripheral, more mundane tasks associated with a creative project. You can't defend it on the grounds that "it only does the meaningless stuff" or "the stuff humans can't afford to do", because the nature of this competitive society means that someone else will use AI outside of your self-defined limits to get ahead of you. And then it's just a race to the bottom, where the most famous 'musicians' are nothing more than extroverted pretty faces on social media who write a few prompts to generate music and images whilst sat on the toilet.