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AI music is objectively good and getting even better and that's a good thing for me as a music consumer. (feddit.uk)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world
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I have a very pragmatic view on music: all I care about is whether it sounds good or not. That's it. That's literally it. And from that standpoint the advent of AI music has been a major net positive for me.

You can choose to ignore that and come tell me about the ethics of using AI or how you care about the story behind the song and so on and that's all fine but just note that you're no longer addressing what I'm actually saying here.

I'm also not claiming it's great - only that it's good. I've yet to discover an AI song that I go back to like I do with many human-made songs but if I want to put on a playlist playing in the background then one consisting of entirely AI-made music reliably provides me well above average track after another whereas with organic music I need to sift through a ton of absolute crap to stumble upon the occasional good track that still rarely exceeds what AI is able to output. I can go on YouTube and put on a 2 hour playlist of Jazz House or similar and I don't get the urge to skip a single track.

Currently I feel like where AI still trips is lyrics - they still are only plausible sounding nonsense once you actually start paying attention to it but especially for instrumental music it has far exceeded the level of a good average human artist.

Few examples of what I'm refering to: with vocals and without.

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[–] 10 points 1 week ago (1 child)

Unpopular opinion checks out.

I don't think "this thing is good" while ignoring the before and after context is a good policy. Presumably if there were very comfortable shoes made of baby skin and manufactured by child slaves, you would not wear them. (Or maybe you would!)

That's a very hyperbolic example, but my point remains that for everyone there is a line somewhere. For you, the AI stuff is on the acceptable side.

You can choose to ignore that and come tell me about the ethics of using AI [...] just note that you’re no longer addressing what I’m actually saying here.

So, right. It's a big thing you're ignoring. AI probably can make competent music and, if research continues, will probably improve. But the ethics and surrounding stuff still exist. People often don't want to just ignore that.

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  • [+] [S] -11 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Baby skin shoes could be both the best shoes in the world and the most unethical ones. Those things aren't in conflict with one another. There I would equally call people out for pretending that they're in fact bad shoes simply because they're morally against them.

    The difference here is that I remain unconvinced about the unethicality of using AI whereas with baby skin I don't have that.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    There I would equally call people out for pretending that they’re in fact bad shoes simply because they’re morally against them.

    There might be some ambiguity in the word "bad" there. Some people might use it to mean "uncomfortable" and others to mean "unacceptable". Sort of like a boolean AND - for some people, for something to be good it must be functional AND ethically acceptable. If it fails either check, they're "bad". Humans are notoriously imprecise with their language. Some people might split apart the different components of good/bad, and acknowledge that the hypothetical horror shoes are comfortable, but that's moot because they wouldn't willingly wear them.

    The difference here is that I remain unconvinced about the unethicality of using AI whereas with baby skin I don’t have that.

    As I said, the line is in a different place for everyone. You're entitled to hold that belief. I'm glad we're on the same page about the baby skin shoes, though.

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