[mathgorges]

> sounds cool, now what can we do with that to make it into music?

So a human using the tools of sound production is what transforms the function output into music. (Please let me know if I’m misunderstanding you).

I think I see what you’re saying, but that’s already happened here hasn’t it? I mean, it's not as though an AI made the decision to generate this all by itself, a human had an idea to create this piece and wrote a prompt which created this output.

The order is of events is reversed from your Ableton example, but I would contend that this kind of production is no less musical than what someone could create using a DAW, simply that the tools are more accessible

(and I presume there is less direct control over what the end result is going to sound like, but the same could be said of conducting an orchestra versus playing a piano.)

Eta: For example, some people in this thread have complained that the AI generated voice falls into the uncanny valley. I agree, and I think that’s part of the art here.

[komali2]

> but the same could be said of conducting an orchestra versus playing a piano.

Conducting an orchestra is an important role but the music is mostly a result of first of all the composer, and then the conductor / arranger's interpretation as well as the skill of the musicians. I really don't see the similarity to a human input of "GNU license, sad, jazzy." The resolution is just way too rough.

In fact, imagine comparing the experience of reading Snow Crash, to reading the sentence, "Cyberpunk story with sci fi elements, VR universe, pizza delivery guy with samurai sword."

[mathgorges]

I’m not meaning to equate the level of effort or skill involved. And I’ll grant that I know very little about music composition beyond my experience in Middle School band in which the musicians’ personality and skill presents a significant constraint for the conductor/arranger :)

I would readily compare the experience of reading Snow Crash (one of the first SciFi books I read of my own volition) to the output that a LLM may produce from such a prompt. My iPhone informs me that I’ve spent nearly 10 hours playing with Characters.ai in which SF storytelling characters are my favorite to interact with. When I first read Snow Crash I felt like “finally, an author that understands that part of the story that _I’m_ interested in!” and my experiences of AI driven creative writing has felt similar. Certainly it feels less “magical” since I’m aware that I’m customizing the author to my personal taste - is that “magic” of feeling connected to the artist *the* art?

[Devasta]

When I go up to the self-service booth in McDonalds, go through the menu and select a portion of McNuggets the result food has been made, the food was only made because of my actions, no nuggets would have been made if I specifically didn't want them, but to say I am the one who cooked them would be absurd.

Like, if Trent Reznor had produced Hurt not by putting his doubts, self loathing and pain into words and music, rather by typing "sad, trending on artstation" into a console then heading for lunch, I don't think it would be any way as meaningful even if it was note for note beat for beat the same output.

[tsukikage]

The meaning the listener imparts to the song is constructed in the listener's head, a combination of the song and the listener's own knowledge, experiences, personality and emotions.

I knew nothing about Trent Reznor the first time I heard "Hurt". Often when a song is heard on the radio - perhaps a sentence that dates me, but even so - there is no explanation of where it came from or even what it's called to accompany it; or perhaps there may have been, but the listener wasn't paying attention until after they realised they liked what they were hearing; indeed, there used to be an entire industry for solving the problem of "I heard a song I like and want to know more about it, or at the very least find out what it's called so I can hear it again".

When I first heard "Hurt", it resonated because of how those sounds interacted with my own experience. Everything else came after. Had those exact same sounds any other origin, that first experience would not have been affected - I would have had no way to know.