The mood here is as notoriously cynical as I would expect from HN. Yeah, let's all brush this tech off as unoriginal, uninspiring and bland. Let's all tell ourselves that music requires that 'special human touch' or audiences will become bored, unimpressed and uninterested.
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and these far cries in communities like these will become a marginalized minority just like any technology that's been superseded.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.
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.
Not GP but no, I haven't. Only one I can name is Jeff Russo, and I suspect that (1) is above average. Off-screen recognition by the average audience goes down fast, how many directors even do you think people can name? What about TV directors?
I'm not saying it's going to replace it fully—the bigger the budget, the more room there could be allotted to artists like the ones you've mentioned. Yes, I enjoy their music with my entirety—Hans Zimmer especially. But on the margin, human artist will definitely be replaced. Think lower budget films/shows/games.
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.
I tried AI music for the first time today and I can definitely see why people say it feels bland, because it does. But most of what's on the radio today feels bland to me too. You're right - I don't really care if the track playing in my favourite cafe is AI-generated or not. You're not supposed to be emotionally invested into background music, it's music for a simple purpose and for most people, AI can fill that purpose as well as a human. Licensing fees is also a great point, human music royalties are complex and expensive, while AI generated music is a monthly subscription at most.
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.
Honestly, AI-created music in physical spaces has the potential to be even better than what currently exists. Imagine in real time being able to create a soundtrack that matches the mood and vibe of the current atmosphere. When the crowd is bustling, have the audio match that; tone it down when the night wears on, the people have disbursed. Sometimes you go into a Starbucks late at night in Tokyo and they're blasting Led Zeplin–that's probably not exactly what the audience wants to hear. There is potential, with a slightly dystopian tint to it.
Sounds awful. Truly. Living your whole life in the median. Led Zepplin late at night is exactly what I want to hear in a Starbucks in Tokyo becuse it's surpising, exciting. Get out more.
Agreed. There is a sandwich place called Jimmy Johns and sometimes they’ll be playing crazy metal music and is kind of fun as long as I’m getting takeout.
This has been downvoted but I'll heartily second these. Some of my best cafe experiences have been places where the people running it had taste. That meant making good coffee, decorating it well, and of course, playing great music. I've found so many great songs from good cafes. The average yuppie-aesthetic cafe with generic wall art and spotify trending playing is no fun.
"At that moment, Iran said, when I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn’t feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting — do you see?"
>You're right - I don't really care if the track playing in my favourite cafe is AI-generated or not. You're not supposed to be emotionally invested into background 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.
> The mood here is as notoriously cynical as I would expect from HN. Yeah, let's all brush this tech off as unoriginal, uninspiring and bland.
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.
> the average ear won't care. (...) will be available for a fraction of the cost without the licensing fees. (...) be ready to see it popping up everywhere
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?
> 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?
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.
If you are not advocating for this future and you think this type of material progress is not something that we should take as positive, then you are being as cynical as me or anyone else.
> 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.
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.
Cigarettes are everywhere. Doesn't mean they're good for us. Why do you assume generic background music in every cafe is going to be a good thing? We're just filling our existence up with noise. As for TV and movies, do you think we don't have enough generic "content" already? What benefit is there to making it even easier to make derivative garbage? Perhaps the people currently making it will be out of a job and forced to do better. Could it actually cause an increase in "real" art?
> Yeah, let's all brush this tech off as unoriginal, uninspiring and bland.
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.
I'm sitting in a coffee shop reading this, and notice the music being played. It's pleasant enough that makes it a relaxing experience, but it evokes no emotion, which I don't mind because I'm on HN. I don't know who the composer or the artist is, and I won't be able to recall if I hear it again. How is that different than AI generated music?
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.
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.