"Don't set out to raze all shrines - you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity - and the shrines are razed."
I can't say I fully agree with you on video game/movie soundtracks, but I think AI generated assets will make game development more accessible, especially for solo developers or small teams.
So I'd just say listen to what you like, see where technology leads us. I don't think human creators will be put out of buisiness any time soon, but they might get competition especially in 'functional' music.
I guess different strokes but some of the best music I've ever been turned on to just happened to be playing in some random cafe or coffee shop. Conversely if the music is bland and uninspired I'm much less likely to go back.
I can't begin explain how taken aback I am by this comment, to call others cynical and come out with this - do you think these currently feature the work of anonymous composers of unloved background music?
Have you heard of the likes of Nobuo Uematsu, Yoko Shimomura, Lena Raine, John Williams, Clint Mansell, Ennio Morricone, Ramin Djawadi, Max Richter, holy shit Max Richter, have you never been pierced to your very core by something like On The Nature of Daylight used to perfect effect at an emotional climax in a movie or TV show? The hair on my arms is standing up just thinking about it.
This is the most shallow sampling of a group people who are beloved for their work in these media and likely for lifetimes beyond it.
As you get higher up the ladder budget wise, quality wise; I think it's an open question as to what will happen. Working with humans introduces another variable, adds expense, time complexity, and so on. Not every producer, 100% of the time, is going to think this tradeoff is any longer worth it, when they can generate something of similar quality without much effort. Universal has already announced they're doing something similar for script writing. It just seems natural that human-made music is also on the chopping block.
Yes this does sound like the enshittification of everything; and I'm certainly not advocating for this course of events at all. But granted how capitalism works, how the human mind works, it just seems like the direction things are likely to go, given how capable this technology is.
And you wonder why people are cynical? Do you really think that the best answer to solve IP law and the blandness of pop-music is by making it so cheap that we make it available to everyone?
> But, there are massive use cases where that type emotional connection is not necessary (...) game & movie soundtracks, in waiting areas, tv shows
What will be the point of watching a movie or TV show, then? What will be the point of making one?
Did I say I'm advocating for this future? I'm simply stating an observation, and a likely outcome based on plenty of precedent of similar behavior in industry.
> What will be the point of watching a movie or TV show, then? What will be the point of making one?
I'm sure Michael Bay would consider what he does to be artistic expression; whilst others would say it's a semi-shameless money-grab. Half joking, don't take me too seriously.
I'm trying to use Suno 3.5 to create low quality 90s/00s-style MIDI music (similar to Vektroid[1]) since that's my favourite genre. Ironically, what it created[2] still doesn't properly evoke the hollow, tinny, low-quality computer-generated sound that I want to hear.
Specifically, it reduced the number of instruments, so the final result still sounded good. It didn't mash a bunch of MIDI instruments together and create something just a little incoherent that implies it was based on something better.
I think humans are better at stealing/remixing other songs and making them deliberately worse.
Tastes will probably change to be into whatever AI is unable to generate effectively and this seems similar to Stable Diffusion's inability to generate ugly people.
The tech is great, it's the music it produces that's unoriginal, uninspiring and bland.
> Be ready to see it popping up everywhere—in cafes, restaurants, on TV ads, on your next spotify playlist.
So music will become even shittier going forward? Yay tech! Thanks for automating away the act of music listening!
Seriously though, now that music-as-a-product has been killed by techbros, can we go back to music-as-an-act, like before? That would be the silver lining.
Human made music will continue to exist, but for me, just for me, a lot of it doesn't do anything at all and I wouldn't be able to tell if it's by human, let alone knowing the story behind them or the emotional connection the author had when making that piece of music. I'm sure many people who have better ear will be able to differentiate, but many others will not. You may say it's depressing, I call it reality.
On the contrary, this comment is peak HN. The reverse take that a machine eating human art and creativity and selling the interpolated derivatives back to you after laundering it from royalties is a common good.
> Let's all tell ourselves that music requires that 'special human touch' or audiences will become bored, unimpressed and uninterested.
Ah those pesky humans, as opposed to corporate subscription-based content farms as the certified non-cynical happy future of music & art.
> This music is already as good as what's produceable by humans
It’s about as good as everything else generated with AI, like say a large code base. If you can’t tell, congrats.
But I'll bet you anything, the average ear won't care. This music is already as good as what's produceable by humans, and will be available for a fraction of the cost without the licensing fees. Be ready to see it popping up everywhere—in cafes, restaurants, on TV ads, on your next spotify playlist. These soundtracks will become ubiquitous, and these far cries in communities like these will become a marginalized minority just like any technology that's been superseded.
Human generated music will still exist, of course, as the deep emotional ties that humans feel towards others (artists) cannot be replaced by this technology. But, there are massive use cases where that type emotional connection is not necessary (everything i noted prior, but also game & movie soundtracks, in waiting areas, tv shows, etc), where I would place a strong bet that this will eventually become even more commonplace than human generated music.