The way you describe music, sure, there will be an AI that is able to provide you with a continuous stream of audiotory stimuli, like the Penfield Mood Organ from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?".
That's just not what makes art or music interesting to me, and why I also don't listen to auto-curated "mood" playlists on Spotify.
> Penfield mood organ - Humans use the mood organ to dial specific emotions so they can experience emotions without actually possessing them. In the beginning of the novel, Rick implores his wife to use her dialing console to prevent a fight. He wants her to thoughtlessly dial emotions like "the desire to watch TV" or "awareness of the manifold possibilities open to [her] in the future" (Dick, 6). When emotions can be easily avoided with the mood organ, humans no longer require personal relationships to overcome feelings of isolation or loneliness.
The way you describe AI ('continuous stream of auditory stimuli') is the way I'd describe Spotify. Sure, you could use AI to make a faux Spotify, but, like, why would you? The popular stuff already has saturating supply, and it will sound much better than an AI generation.
Regarding this:
> I'm saying I use AI generations for exactly the opposite — so that I can explore and listen to things that are more intellectually interesting in the ways I find intellectually interesting
I just have not found any AI music that would satisfy this description. But I am very interested in failure modes of GenAI. Especially in Suno, it was cracking me up at times.
I'm also sure there will be a space for interesting and/or challenging music generated with neural networks involved.
But I don't see any revolution here so far.
Care to share examples of AI-assisted music you find interesting? To elaborate, I don't find jarring or curious combinations of cliches interesting.
AI could not invent a new style, it seems to me. To repeat this point.
And I've never had any problem finding interesting music.
Key to me is diving into labels, artists and their philosophy, after I got interested into particular ones (the other way around doesn't work for me).
I adore discogs.com for that. Regarding interviews and stuff, there's sadly a huge decline in quality written material about music, I feel.
"Lowest-common-denominator music" is exactly what Suno produces, at least in my ears.
I could go on and list music I like, but generally avoid that.
Wait, I'll do it anyway for a bit... at the moment, I like
Punctum - Remote Sensing EP
(Caterina Barbieri)
and
AtomTM vs Pete Namlook - Jet chamber LP
just for example
I also love so much other music.
To me, such music is miles apart from the slop I heard from AI.
I heard there's research into generating music in the style of JS Bach as well. How's that going?
I'd guess: probably bot too well, because the genius of Bach is not only in complexity, or counterpoint rules.
His music is very emotional to me (at least the portions I like).
And, like any good music, it has moments of surprise. It's not just a formula, or a "vibe", or a "genre".
Could AI create a new Techno, a new Blues, a new Bossa Nova?
I doubt it.
I will also repeat that I'm well aware that the best stuff is definitely all human. It's not my genre either, but traditional composers like Bach certainly made extremely interesting, clever, even deeply-studiable pieces and AI 'in the style of' those composers surely won't capture much of that. There's a lot of stuff AI can't do wholesale; one particularly strong example is if you're Jacob Collier, AI is not going to make the complex harmonizations and song structures there.
AI is pretty bad at these textural or instrument exploration things like from Collier above or Mike Dawes or Yosi Horikawa or Yoko Kanno or Keiichi Okabe. There's a bunch of music I listen to because it's generically a genre or mood I like and it's well produced, which I won't list here, and AI audio can often do stuff like that at baseline but not especially well. There's also nostalgia; I'm also certain a huge part of the reason I like the Celeste soundtrack so much is in part that I liked the game so much.
But then there's a whole category of music I listen to where the texture is supplemental to the part that defines it, like most of Acapella Science or Bug Hunter or Tom Lehrer. Eg. Prisencolinensinainciusol isn't interesting to me because it's musically complex; the part I care about is that it's a listenable execution of an idea, not precisely how it was executed on. I don't keep coming back to I Will Derive by some random schoolkids recorded on a potato 17 years ago annually because it's sung well or they were particularly clever with how they took another song and changed the words; I come back to it because it's fun and reflects for me onto a part of my past that I remember fondly, and these things make me happy.
All these words and I've still only addressed half the comment. Ok, let's consider the idea that it's not enough for AI audio to facilitate the creation of interesting musical pieces, and it instead has to create whole interesting musical styles. I take issue with this in a bunch of places. I don't reject artists who I judge not likely able to create a new Bossa Nova. I judge artists based on whether the output they produce is something I want. I do the same for AI.
I also think the question about whether AI could 'create' a new style is somewhat misplaced. A style is a cultural centroid, not just a piece of audio. AI can definitely create new musical textures or motifs, but it's always being pulled towards the form of what it's being asked to produce. As long as we're talking about systems that work like today's systems, the question still needs to involve the people that are selecting for the outputs they want. Could that connected system create something as distinct and audibly novel as a new genre? Yeah, probably, given time and a chance for things to settle. That's a different question from whether it'll do so to an inspecific prompt thrown at it.
Well, I kind of borrowed this wording from the description of your genAI experiences ("intellectually interesting").
I feel that it's nod a bad word to describe qualities of music, although it's a bit nondescript. Sure, music can be interesting, but still unpleasant etc.
But "interesting" means (to me) that the music makes you want to listen to it again.
Music doesn't need to sound pleasant. Or angry. Or sad. Or "abstract" (an oxymoron when it comes to describing a sound, still widely used).
Music is communication.
And just like it's a novelty and sometimes useful or entertaining to use ChatGPT, it's a novelty and sometimes interesting to use Suno.
That's pretty much it for me.
The magic of prompt => non-text media is also interesting, sure.
But not interesting anymore to me as art, at least not without being part of a bigger whole.
Good early example for this would be "Headache - The head hurts, but the heart knows the truth"
