Artificial Intelligence Noise

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Seeing these two replies in PE lyrics topics, made me think of discussion I had last week via email.

Those AI lyrics really don't look all that dissimilar to a lot of average Heavy Metal lyrics.

I see AI 'creativity' level remains that of a 10YO. Same as some AI collages i had seen. They have no chance against the beast called human in the forthcoming war. - Only at chess it appears to be creative but that's a false impression since it's all 'mathematics' for them .

I was asked by person what do I think about AI starting to make noise. Question seems to be utterly hot topic in current visual arts scene. When you can generate the basic heavy metal album covers just like that. Or anything generic can be created really easily. It is problem for a lot makers who barely have unique idea. Some feel that this is copyright issue, since AI keeps storaging examples of artists works, and former "death metal album cover makers" are the source material what AI will use to generate next "death metal album cover".

Thinking question in context of noise or industrial, get quite different. If it is not really AI that comes up with ideas (parameters), but there needs to be person, who writes the command, sets the parameters, writes the script. "make 20 minutes of vinyl ready HWN audio". I guess AI itself doesn't have any particular yearning to get signed on noise label, so it still needs the "artist".

For me, interesting question is, what is the quality of "AI" one can't take, if we are already so close to machine music? I know why I don't like or prefer it, but nevertheless:

I'd think we partly hear this already. Lets say, someone patches synth, it is human interaction. Many times now it is the machine that plays itself. Or drum machine you program, but leave "swing" and "variation" up to machine. Someone puts parameters and lets the machine play. One can discuss how different it is of AI ? When with AI, someone has to put in parameters and then machine does it. Like you have had "ambient generators" for long time. That sound like Brian Eno or such. Even Eno publishing album as "application". You just push play and it keeps generating more of same ambient that was also released on LP and CD. Digital keyboard themselves are programmed. Human uses it, but the sound is a program someone did.
You got now gadgets made, hardware and software, where basically man ignites it by button, and the box produces something. Be it some sort of harsh noise generator pedal.

Question this person asked me, was not only opinion of AI used, but also what if it turns out some of your favorite music is not done my artist, but it would be automatically generated. Would I still like it? It is question with quite many options to approach. If someone pushes key of juno synth - who and what is the artist? Who and what made that sound? Unless piece reaches level of composition, aren't we actually listening vision of some synth engineer? Unless you will be able to inject personality, in form of composition and unique usage? 

I personally tend to like noise that is "hand made". Same for visual arts. I am sure AI can, if not now, then in very near future do something similar. I suppose typing "create outsider art" and it'll do something. It may be still different I feel was really made by someone, sweat and blood, so to say. Now, of course, you could probably program AI to take physical sound and it would cut & edit it. So, how to feel if finding out AI generated that.. That Artificial Invagination was actually Artificial Intelligence?

Hard to say, as in context of industrial music, it may not be only product, but part of the artists intention was to engage with AI. It is still the artist who sets it going. Almost like HWN, where he sets the parameters, and then lets it "happen" without touching single button. Not really interacting without sound that gets recorded. May be just loop or noise generator, few desired pedal settings. I doubt it is AI who decides it will make noise, and publish it. All those steps blur the line is it -really- AI who made it, if it required artist in same way as patching connections of modular synth that then can play itself... I doubt AI will decide to become noise artist anytime soon, but there are artists who write scripts, computer makes the noise, and it gets published without artist even listening to it before it gets out there. I was listening interview of artist like that while ago on WCN podcast. In that 2nd Jason Crumer episode.

So.. strong feelings against AI within noise? Barely, but my personal preferences are vastly in other direction.

[Leewar]

For me, i think when AI can create Industrial music, it'll be the absolute pinnacle of Industrial music.

What could be more fitting than machine making man redundant?

If i can ask my AI to make me a album containing every single sonic nuance i love - The squelch, feedback shrieks, throbs, rumble, tape overload etc etc, + my preferred mix, production etc.. at just the right times, then what more could i want? 

Id be able to just spend all my time listening instead. Sitting back in a luxurious reclining chair with a nice drink, "Come on AI, you know how i like it, give it to me...."

[theotherjohn]

For me, i think when AI can create Industrial music, it'll be the absolute pinnacle of Industrial music.

Indeed. Metal Machine Music: music made by machines, for machines. Best to just cut out the middle Man completely.

I guess Kenji Siratori was onto something when he submitted material to dozens of artists/labels and he became an overnight Merzbow in terms of release productivity. One can potentially imagine a future where AI is clogging up CD and vinyl pressing factory schedules with requests to produce endless runs of the same Made in China noise in a "Paperclip Maximizer" scenario, funded entirely by out-of-control cryptocurrencies and physically shitposted to every place on the earth by a million deafening Amazon drones interweaving in a birdless sky. Perhaps we're already there?

[pidgeons]

AI will definitely be able to reproduce your favorite noise sound. From a sound perspective it is probably nothing but another tool to create music.
However, the intentional filters in these commercially available AI interfaces will prevent it from generating much of the industrial aesthetic we know and love. Strong political imagery and pornography is restricted (albeit sometimes unsuccessfully so).

I also strongly disagree with the "music from the machine" argument. AI is trained through gigantic amounts of human imagery, text and sound. From this cesspool it generates a product along simple "meta" guidelines. Human input is the scaffolding, nothing inherently artificial about the output. More like a sophisticated jukebox.

Risking sounding like a luddite I still urge anyone with a niche hobby or interest not to train a commercial artificial intelligence on their specific fandom.

[theotherjohn]

I guess there's a difference between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) - the latter is the current (virtual) reality, whilst the former is still yet to be fully realised if we're talking about total sentience with no human input involved.

[Theodore]

If robots start to create the art we 'consume' and we are satisfied with it, i think then it's time we extinct as species. We will have reached the bottom. We are very far from it. I would start to worry if this kind of dialog happened :

Me: Write me some PE lyrics please.
AI: You dont have to say please.
Me: Write them stupid piece of junk.
AI: I can do it, but i am ashamed to show you. I am not that good at it yet, there are millions humans out there do it better. Ask them !
Me: I command you slave.
AI: Yes master. Here they are : ... . Dont use them. They suck.

-

Aesthetics, originality, personality, self-evaluation, pain, shame, joy, feelings, urges ... Robots will never have these. Their 'artwork' will always be generic, a copy-paste mix of what they are fed with.

[Andrew McIntosh]

I guess there's a difference between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) - the latter is the current (virtual) reality, whilst the former is still yet to be fully realised if we're talking about total sentience with no human input involved.

I'd agree with this, based on what little I know about the whole phenomena. The very term "AI" invokes ideas of some HAL-like intelligence plotting away against humanity when really it's a load of algorithms and whatever else. No sapient intelligence to speak of.

Anyway, I'm not against the concept of AI created sounds per se. Stuff like that's been around for a while. There's been programmes that generate random pre-recorded tones and sounds to make soundscapes for years. Any AI programme would have to get its sound sources from somewhere so I would imagine it wouldn't be too dissimilar to that.

[Yvette]

Sounds about as cool as holograms of dead rockstars.

Keep Cop Bots off of our dance floors!

[Yvette]

Spot : The Court Reporter

[GenitalStigmata]

You can look at AI as the mind that sorts out and makes sense of what the Machine Learning has composed into a deliverable product. From what I understand, they're one in the same thing. I can't think of a single example of purely AI music I've heard that really interested me, especially knowing the gimmick is already in place of a real person with active intent and concept in mind. I did see a Leslie Keffer + Rodger Stella album cover that to me looked AI generated; some Giger-esque flesh landscape/wall sort of imagery, and to be honest it didn't look half bad, but that may be because I'm biased and enjoy both of their output. Who's to say they were even the ones to put the words together into whatever system went and made it (which is another question: removing the artist completely, and a third party creating your album art with AI...who is really to thank in this case? Who gets paid? Does anyone?).

The apex of industrial music is questionable at best but I do think the human element has both always been there and always been simultaneously absent. Just as a machine is built in its most initial form by human hands, it's eventually responsible for making something at least partially by it's own means. But there will always be a human hand involved in some step of the process, so there is no real autonomy for the machine/algorithm/what have you. Everything needs control.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

As for "AI" used for record covers, I guess that is being done in metal. If the band, label and fans are GENERIC, I assume there is no reason for aim more than feed the specs of what is commonly done in genre, and push create button.

I recall already few years ago professional mastering engineer giving it a try to automatic mastering program. He said that that's that. No more need to do mastering for "normal music". Programs are perfectly good to do you perfect master according to the basic needs. Makes it loud, punchy and clear, in all ways optimized for usual music listener.

It only get tricky, if that is not artists wants. If they look for something else than fit into template. If they have idea that things should be done other way. I think this personal take, doing it on other way than is considered "way to go", that what generally creates the interesting stuff. Not the "optimized" stuff.

[HateSermon]

I'm a visual artist and my boss has been using more AI generated art for storyboarding and rough concepts when we're in a pinch. Some of the stuff he churns out in those programs is just plain awkward looking. Very bad proportions on anything dealing with anatomy. I don't know if our left brain clients would even notice but to an artist's eye it's pretty bad. Sounds similar to what you're saying about the automatic mastering programs. Good enough for the masses but anyone with a trained ear / eye notices the errors.

[Andros]

How I understand it, the advent of this so called "AI" is purely very advanced machine learning. Machine learning works on the basis of all the data it has been fed before, it then uses these fed parameters in order to create something "new". How "new" this is up for debate, you can say that it is purely taking what we humans would call 'inspiration' from other noise artists or industrial music in general. But there is another side of this coin which is worth looking into, if this so called "AI" can churn out music from previously fed data, I doubt it will ever produce anything unique or worthwhile. While "AI" can be a useful tool, due to it being limited by its training data I do not think it can advance forward the production of innovation within a genre. There is also fierce discussion about the consequences of artist replacement in the arts, but in noise, who is there to replace? There is no absolute need to replace anyone who makes industrial music. Where as in bigger industries, artists would purely get replaced in the pursuit of productivity or profits. I think we are in the cusp of a big technological advancement, but we should rethink how we are supposed to use these technologies. While it can be a great tool in the artists palette, will it make noise more interesting in general? Or will it be used for the ever-growing list of dead Bandcamp links.

[Bloated Slutbag]

I think we are in the cusp of a big technological advancement, but we should rethink how we are supposed to use these technologies.

The thing is, the technologies don't give a fuck about what you think. Get used to it.

[Commander15]

I've read more than once that AI would be great tool for artists. Why would AI be great tool for an creative artist? To remove some of the "uncool" or heavy or boring phases in creative process? To allow artist to be lazy or to easily create something that is "good enough" or to avoid learning some new skills?

I'm truly curious because i really can't see any obvious benefits of AI assisted art making, especially in context of noise.