Let’s start with music.
Since the mid to late 90s, music has been manipulated by people manipulating computers. I’m not sure how many people know this, but everyone should. I’m a musician and composer, so I have been seeing and hearing it for a few decades.
The beloved Taylor Swift, for instance, doesn’t have to worry about hitting bad notes when she records. They can be fixed to pitch by programs like Melodyne or Autotune. Melodyne can also even-up her vibrato and correct her rhythms and smooth out her tone. (And it is not just her. I’m not going after Taylor because I am a cantanerous old flatulant. Everyone is using it, even the old-timers, like Sting.)
A drummer can be a little “off” and, in ProTools, an engineer can highlight and hit a button that says “quantize” and that drummer can be 100% dead-on (“on the grid”) in an instant.
Everything you hear that has been recorded in the modern (post, say, ‘95) era has been altered. You are, in essence, being lied to. You simply should know this. Your favorite artists are not near as good as they sound. (More details on my take on A.I. in music on the old site, HERE.)
But that is not the worst of it. Your ear has been getting “groomed” for years. You are now used to the mechanical quality of a perfect lead vocal and to the inhumanely
(underscore: inhumanly) perfect rhythms of quantized drums. The stage is set. Now, when A.I. produces an entire song, while even creating a fake singer and backup musicians, you might not feel the difference. You have been prepared for the sterile perfection of mechanical art.
Let’s jump tracks for s second. Same train, different line. In baseball, the rumor is that in a few years balls and strikes will be called by A.I. If that had been announced in 1970, people would have lost their collective poop. But, heck, we have been looking at a little strike-zone box on our TV screens for years and now we know, thanks to a thing called Statcast, when a pitch is a half of an inch off of the plate. Now we know when an umpire is wrong and we say, “Man, these umps are inexcusably bad.” Not long ago, it was a matter of opinion and often lead to glorious debates, both on and off field.
Now, we are fully ready for humans to be replaced by machines, at least in these two arenas.
When I say “we,” I don’t mean “me.” I am an avid baseball fan and music is the center of my creative life. I will never listen to or support A.I. music and I think composers or songwriters who use A.I. are phonies. I will not soften my words or my view on that. (Some use the lame “SMH. It’s just a tool” argument. It’s not “just a tool.” A hammer is “just a tool.” It doesn’t build things on its own.)
I will also stop watching baseball if umpires are replaced by A.I. I will not be slowly manipulated into believing that humans are not good enough for the pursuits that rely on their pushing of human limits for their very essense. Or, more specifiaclly, I will not be talked into believing that human imperfection isn’t better than technological infallibility (when it comes to arts and entertainment) any day of the week.
Will you?
Some might point out the benefits of A.I. in science. I will not argue against that. The benefits of A.I. when it comes to searching through data are impressive. Any time A.I. can save lives or improve research, fine. But it is humans, not A.I that possess the creativity to develop intuitive theories that lead to the changing of the world. There will never be an A.I. Einstein.
But the arts? The arts are for people, alone. And sports are for humans.
Sure, my title and the illustration are a bit clickbaity. I don’t believe we are headed for a Terminator landscape of machines grinding their titanium heels into the necks of humanity. But I do I think what is happening may be much worse. At least Sarah Connor tried to fight back — was aware she needed to. We are allowing ourselves to be lied to and told we are not good enough. We are voluntarity working on replacing ourselves. We are the high-profile, Fortune 500 CEO creeping into the back-room of the dominatrix on our lunch break.
We are, also, the proverbial frogs in the pot, enjoying the nice warm water before realizing it is too late.
Interesting stuff about the music business, Mr. Matt. But based on what I've read I think you should worry a bit less. Check out the book Storythinking by Angus Fletcher. It teaches a whole new theory of creativity, and that AI will never create because of the basic way it works. A hardware issue, Fletcher says. Not software. Also, I think the book would be killer for your class.