Generative AI and the Musician – #LLM #NoAI

Does generative AI have usefulness? Maybe.

Generative In Tech

In my technology job, LLM (Large Language Models) and generative AI are all the rage. “This will change the world forever.” Really? And will that change be for the better?

Initially, I experimented with generative AI¹ at that tech job and a single post on this blog. These forays into LLM-land left a bad taste in my soul.

I’ve seen so many tech crazes come and go. I’m wondering if this is yet another one of those. It may seem exciting for people who work in certain fields, but I question its value every time people talk about it.

Generative in the Arts

Recently, I’ve been approached by several musicians about this offer or that. They claim to have an “easy way” to create a music video or even a song. When I ask if it involves AI, every one of them has to admit that it does.

I can imagine the attraction of making money by using generative AI based tools. But the “costs” outweigh the potential benefits for me.

In fact, I see significant danger from generative AI in the arts. LLM has already stolen so much content from real, human artists. And now, it threatens to be a fake maker of art, competing with people who create. Whether writing, graphic arts, music, or whatever, the human element is crucial to the art we make.

Mixed Up

Another trend I’ve noticed is artists who alternate between their own human-generated art and generative AI output. This makes me very uncomfortable. And my discomfort makes it tempting to discredit all of their output because the AI has tainted the human art forms.

So tell me: what do you think about mixing AI with art? Is that just fine with you? Or is art truly a human endeavor? Leave a comment below or reach out to me on social networks.

The images in this post are by Pixabay via Pexels.

1. I’ve used some music plugins that claim to use AI on tracks or settings that I later replaced. But when I’ve investigated, these plugins are not generating “new” content from the data gathered. Nor do they require live connections to an online LLM database. ↩︎