Speak for yourself! There is only one thing that scares me more than composing music, and that’s paying somebody a few bucks in fiverr to do it for me.
Although I suppose royalty-free stock music is the norm nowadays for most commercial uses, which takes it a step further, anonymizing the composer entirely...
That's by choice though?
And that's the point: The difference is the replacement of 1 flesh-and-blood composer with 1 virtual composer, with the consequence being the lost business of the former. The artists studied were never part of the transaction in either case.
Now, the long-term consequences for artists - e.g., reduced supply on the low end as they're out-competed - is harder to guess, but that's just market dynamics. It may very well increase supply as composition becomes more available, diversifying by allowing people with other skills or creative treats to create music that previously could not - even if the musical part is done by AI.
but with AI whatever consequences there may be their work is highjacked/stolen.
You can learn yourself but if you use an automatic tool to bypass and automatically make similar works and compete with original authors then you're IP thief
In other words, you pay a few cents to big tech for a generator that only exists thanks to work real composers, singers etc who now get the grand total of 0$.
We also stopped hiring computers (the occupation) and instead pay big tech companies which made computers (the device) available to everyone. And we stopped hiring people to do dangerous manual labor as companies started selling machinery to automate it. Markets change.
Yes.
> computers
> dangerous manual labor
If people are not in danger and don't have to do mechanical work, it's one thing. If composers stop composing original music that was used for training current AI because they don't get paid anymore then the field stagnates. Same for writing and everything else
There are now far more options, both on the high and low-end, with the whole area being more affordable. The quality of most products also arguably went up, as factories beat handmade goods. And yet, if you want custom artisan goods, you can still pay a woodworker for it at more or less the same cost as you would have otherwise, as their labor costs are a function of time required and local living conditions.
In some cases, those workers were the ones to automate, benefiting from the assistance - woodworkers using CNC mills and laser cutters even for handmade goods, or composers themselves can use the AI - to speed up their otherwise fully manual work. It benefits the majority creating the demand, and tends to improve the craft overall.
> ... then the field stagnates.
A market that is not changing has already stagnated.
> A market that is not changing has already stagnated.
Thank you for making my point. The way art is changing is thanks to original work and no one will be making it since anything you make gets stolen for free
When someone needs something composed, they don't learn how to write music. They pay someone else the bare minimum, e.g. a few bucks on fiverr. The person will spend the least possible amount of effort to try to make their life go around with the little money they got.
When you then use an AI model, the work done for those five bucks is replaced by work done for almost free.
Neither the person you would hire or the AI credited those who created the material they trained on.