UniversalBasicJustice
@UniversalBasicJustice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Comment on Nobody Cares If Music Is Real Anymore | “Rubber burns, the map fades away / Chasing the ghosts of yesterday.” Sure, fine. 3 days ago:
Hey dude, I do appreciate the thorough and thoughtful response. I respect where you’re coming from and largely agree with most of what you’ve said, but I think a key point where we differ lies in our respective interpretations of homo homini lupus.
I’ll have to simmer on it for awhile myself to develop a more nuanced argument, but my first instinct is two-fold; there have always been wolves among us eager to rip our throats out, yet humanity continues to grow and progress despite (and frankly to spite) them. Man may be a wolf to man, but ape together strong and we are capable of overcoming the wolves in our midst.
Secondly, I think you’re letting the misanthropy in too deep. I think the injustices you and I and many others are witnessing, both in the music industry and the world at large, are the product of small men wielding outsized control, power and influence over those without. The music industry is a prime example of capital alienating the worker from their labor and that, I think, is the true root of the issues informing your disillusionment. I won’t go too deep down the anti-capitalism rabbit hole (this time) but I will pose to you a question; who benefits more from generative AI, the wolves or the apes?
As I said, I’ve got more thoughts to distill into coherency but that must needs happen in the light of day, not the grey of dawn.
That said, I’m absolutely capable of coherency when it comes to discussing heavy avant-garde and especially saxophone. Frankly you are likely the only person I’ve interacted with who is capable of appreciating this story;
I emailed Jørgen about…15 years ago at this point? After Ihsahn released After but likely before/around Blackjazz dropping. I was playing tenor sax in high school at the time and wanted to know if he’d transcribed any of his work on After. He replied! And told me “Sorry I made it all up on the spot” which was disappointing but also made me respect him all the more. I was on the barrier for the Nightside Eclipse anniversary tour a few months ago when I recognized the man setting the synth up. You should’ve seen the doubletake he did when I called out his name! Emperor obviously slayed, but that little interaction with Jørgen is my favorite memory of that night. His work has inspired me for a long time and I absolutely agree that saxophone as well as other traditionally orchestral/symphonic instrumentation is capable of fitting into metal and other non-traditional genres. Ne Obliviscaris is another prime example with their violinist.
The level of deconstruction (shoutout Hevy Devy) required to dismantle a genre and piece it back together in new ways, with new instruments and concepts and to make it all coherent is human creativity at it’s finest. You mentioned the sax to voice transition in Pho Que as an example of emergent creativity, but I posit (and insist) that those pieces already existed within the realm of humanities creativity. Vocoders have been in use in some form or another for a very very long time (Cynic’s Focus being my personal favorite) and connecting the dots between them and saxophone isn’t much of a leap IMO.
True musical innovation, true creativity comes from connecting much more disparate dots in new ways and our current socioeconomic systems are more than happy to replace those qualities with generative AI trained on stolen human creativity in order to line their pockets further. You’re absolutely correct that the machines aren’t killing us; their owners, however, are more than happy to build orphan-crushing machines. The wolves are absolutely the problem and they are shoveling slop at us to make us slow, stupid, and fat. Don’t fall for it.
- Comment on Nobody Cares If Music Is Real Anymore | “Rubber burns, the map fades away / Chasing the ghosts of yesterday.” Sure, fine. 4 days ago:
I see where you’re coming from and will concede JMSL’s ability to algorithmically create music.
I still maintain an artist using that or similar software (Guitar Pro, etc.) to translate their own ideas into a more manipulateable form for composing/practicing is fundamentally different from prompting a genAI that has been trained on ideas stolen from actual artists.
That said, music written via formula to cater to the lowest common denominator and generate the greatest possible monetary return is certainly closer to how genAI is/will be used, but the human element involved in writing, recording, and performing that music still distinguishes it from the sort of slop showing up on Spotify. AI generated works are an exemplar of derivative beyond that of even the blandest pop. The only human involved is the prompt writer at best; lyrics, melody, the recording itself are statistical approximations and entirely devoid of human creativity and that is an utter tragedy.
I’d much rather the record companies be replaced with systems that don’t alienate the artists from their labor and creativity. Embracing slop is playing into the execs hands and removes all artistic merit from the process.
- Comment on Nobody Cares If Music Is Real Anymore | “Rubber burns, the map fades away / Chasing the ghosts of yesterday.” Sure, fine. 4 days ago:
I created the scores in JMSLscore
He created the score. If you equate using scoring software, MIDI and synths to creating slop with genAI we’re done here my dude.
- Comment on Nobody Cares If Music Is Real Anymore | “Rubber burns, the map fades away / Chasing the ghosts of yesterday.” Sure, fine. 6 days ago:
Jørgen is my spirit animal and Arctopus fucking rules but this take is hot as fuck my dude. Real people making real music with real instruments is art. Generative AI takes our art and makes emotionless, sloppy approximations out of it. If you despise cookiecutter pop now you’re going to be blown away by the absolute drivel that is already being pumped out thanks to genAI. The only reason the song you linked is ‘imaginative’ is because a real human already imagined it only to have it tossed into the slop pile for a computer to root through. Wouldn’t you prefer the ‘actual’ musicians making ‘actual’ music be recognized instead of being buried even further under exponentially growing pools of emotionless notes arranged into emotionless music? The musicians you and I both appreciate for their creativity and skill are having that skill and creativity stolen from them and you’re cool with it because pop doesn’t innovate? Because musicians with decades of knowledge of their instruments and a variety of styles want a paycheck? Record execs have leeched off actual creativity for a solid century now and you want to end them with an even more soulless product that still doesn’t pay artists? It might start with pop but if you think avante-garde, cerebral music will be ignored you’re mistaken.
- Comment on Anon considers LASIK 5 weeks ago:
MURICA, land of the freedom to die at work.
- Comment on Anon considers LASIK 5 weeks ago:
I feel this in my bones…
…unlike the Muton who just Neo’d his way through 4 overwatches.
- Comment on why does alcohol stop my back pain but medicine doesn't? 5 weeks ago:
As someone who was just diagnosed with C5-C6 spondylosis and facet arthritis, with an MRI ordered to see how absolutely fucked my trapezius is; thank you for reinforcing what I’ve already told every doctor since my ex-fiance’s little brother overdosed and died:
Fuck opiates.
Everything else you mentioned was informative or reinforced my doctors advice, I appreciate it.
- Comment on Warhammer 40,000 Maker Games Workshop Is Doing So Well It’s Giving $27 Million to Its Staff 1 month ago:
Can confirm, buddy with a resin printer is slowly hooking me up with an Adeptus Mechanicus army and he prints shit for his friends too. Recasts are likely in-between price-wise but pretty solid quality.
- Comment on Another CEO has been killed 1 month ago:
Couldn’t even be assed to spell check your empowering call to organize? Your slop greatly diminishes the impact of your statement to anyone actually paying attention.
Do better.
- Comment on China begins assembling its supercomputer in space 1 month ago:
You’re absolutely right. Ive seen a few mentions of research into phase changing materials for heat transfer, but I think the technology is still in its infancy. Would be cool to see a static PCM heat exchanger. Might be possible to leverage sun exposure/shading for more favorable ∆T? Been a bit since senior Heat Transfer.
- Comment on The Baldur's Gate 3 cast got a new set of pre-painted minis and—oh, oh no, oh no no no 1 month ago:
Money. 6-axis isn’t cheap to run or maintain, especially at this scale with the desired precision. Add in the inherent issues of working with a variety of paint colors (especially aerosolized), subtract the ability to mask features from over spray. Their prices would have to make Warhammer look bargain bin in order to recoup the costs of the machine, maintenance and consumables.
- Comment on How can you tell 23 subgenres of equally shitty growls and screams apart, but not see the most Metal basics? 1 month ago:
Societal alienation makes for the best art and metal is no exception. Metalheads trying to exclude someone for being different (NSBM excepted) have completely missed the point of the entire genre.
Shout out to Genital Shame and Lust Hag making excellent Transwoman Black Metal!
- Comment on Owing your home today is nearly impossible, but even if you did the ever increasing property taxes will bury you 4 months ago:
Reject urb-spreading!
High density, mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods for whoever wants to actually live a healthy urban life.
- Comment on Gaming chat platform Discord in early talks with banks about public listing 4 months ago:
A friend of mine had Nitro silently activated on her account. No payment method attached, no transactions, just Nitro. They emailed support who replied with “Oh it’s our new promotion! You get to try it for free, no need to pay or add your card. We’ll ask for your money once it’s done.”
Which is absolute batshit evil drug dealer energy. I bet they rolled that promo out while the CFPB’s corpse was still warm.