AI Art: A Solution Without A Problem

Hey Benn, might be a bit slow on the ball here but here we go: Really happy to hear you're enjoying my work and thank you for the bandcamp support! <3 Don't worry, I just write music for fun these days and will likley keep doing so for as long as I live. I could not agree more with the overall sentiment of this video, you're spot on with the real gravy train of sync having left the station by now. That said, I do still make decent money from Artlist thanks to the sheer quantity of content creators like yourself licensing my work. I think the whole licensing game is changing from being based on a few large syncs to more of a marketplace situation with the side-effect of revenue being even more decentralized, meaning it's much harder to track the revenue streams and thus they may potentially be lower. Either way, I really appreciate the shoutout! Always fun to find my tracks in videos I come by on YT!

I told a subreddit debating AI art, "My feelings on this are not as strong, because I come from electronic music where people have accused Moog synthesizers of making whole records and even accusing organs of ruining live musicians' livelihoods. In the long run, attempts to make music available to anyone have brought more people to music than it has sent away."

I think the crux of the whole AI Art debate is more of collective society not valuing the work and labor of creatives and the time and value it takes to make something that is your own.

I think you touch on a key point in this video: empathy. As the post-digital era accelerates, the more we look for human contact -- the rise of Twitch is one great example (notwithstanding its clear flaws and inherent problems). As someone deeply involved with the underground of metal, I don't really care how amazing AI black metal, for example, could be; I'm a lot more interested in supporting that person who put their soul into a bedroom demo and released it on Bandcamp without much hope of ever getting listened. Because I can relate: as an electronic music artist, I've released eight albums in 15 years and never got a penny, and I'm fine with it. The rare occasions when someone gets in touch to tell me how my music was enjoyable, or helped them through whatever, is the real feedback I'm looking for.

AI listens to 30 hours of Flashbulb and cranks out a new Aphex Twin track.

Legitimately one of your best videos. We're so lucky to have you as a creator on this platform mate.

I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE SO LEVEL HEADED! PANIC! CHAOS! REAL ART MAN! THERE'S NO SOUL MAN! HUMAN MUSIC SOUNDS WARMER! Thank you for being a voice of reason once again. I'm not touching this topic again anytime soon 😅

I love your sense of humor. Your comments on the industry are always so realistic and relatable. Have a good day, dude.

thank u for another banger video. i have tried and failed multiple times to write how this piece of media made me feel, and it's too much to put in one comment. your videos are inspiring and meaningful and all around a good time. speaking as a music school dropout who feels like she gave up her one chance to seriously pursue music, your perspective at 15:46 is helpful reminder that there is still so much art i can make if i let go of the music-success-affluenza burned into my brain.

Thank you for this video. As a 23 year old janitor who dropped out of music school and once held the dream of ''making it'' in the music business I went through a range of feelings watching this but I think your conclusion really brought it home so damn well. Can't quite put into words how much I needed to hear this.

The section titled "Reinventing Value", specifically from 14:41-16:24 had me tearing up. What a beautiful summary about what music/art can be. A counterpoint to creating full songs and subsequently deleting them is that I am so happy for the artists who chose to release their demos/songs/albums for the rest of the world to hear. Because, although playing music is a joy unto itself, listening to somebody's creative endeavors can be, at times, equally enjoyable and inspiring. So thank you Benn, for not deleting any of the music from your albums which have inspired me (and certainly countless others) throughout the years. Also, thank you for creating such interesting content. I am always looking forward to watching your videos, no matter the subject matter, because I know it will be both interesting and well-researched.

This is great, when you said "it makes me feel immortal" is totally relatable. I have a sample or two I've made that are in another artist's song(with my permission ofc) and it makes me feel phenomenally alive to think about and be reminded of. Somebody used MY cool bass sound to make THEIR cool bass song.

I think this is one of the best music/creator videos I’ve ever seen. When you mentioned how lucky we are to be able to escape from things by making things I actually got kinda misty eyed. So many strong messages in this video. Thank you! 🦆😸

In engineering we already try to get computers to do as much as we can, and we train our students to use such tools early. We also teach them to do rough back-of-the-envelope sanity checks, since it's easy to put the wrong information into the tools, or sometimes the tools will default to certain assumptions for computational efficiency and you have to know to go change those. So if a machine learning algorithm can design a circuit for me that achieves certain specifications -- fantastic! I can then work on other things.

It’s funny, Benn. I came to music as a broken man, suffering one of the Great Losses one can experience in life, the death of a child. Music became my emergency catharsis valve in a time when I lacked the will and emotional maturity to cope. I loved music, but I didn’t know how to write music or play instruments, so I downloaded Abelton and got to work. And you know, it worked. Music and writing songs became a new medium for me to express myself and the grief came pouring out like a ruptured abscess. I’m so grateful for it, that I can’t imagine ever wanting to taint that space with a commercial intent, if that makes sense? I do get it, though. People gotta eat. I’m lucky that I work in a stable profession that gives me the income and time to not worry about that part of it. There’s the other side of it, though: you want people to interact with your art object because the more people have a relationship with them, the more you, in some small way, will live on. I’m sterile. No more shots at children after we lost our last. But I am stuck wondering if anything of me that I create is worth sharing or should I resubmit it to the inky black depths of the subconscious space whence it emerged? I find your comment about your Mandala songs to be soothing, in that regard. That’s a beautiful and healthy way to be with your creative apparatus. Seeing this video reminds me that I think it’s up to me to continue to create without expectation of a goal for the object of creation or that it will be consumed by anyone other than myself. I am blessed to be touched by the muses and must delight in their present bliss, their soothing, and their sense of a connection to something much greater than self.

9:46 Oops... In just 1 year since this video was uploaded, AI music has advanced so rapidly that it's almost indistinguishable from professionally produced music made by actual humans. Complete with coherent vocals/lyrics. Some of them sound a little off but well within the range of what could be done by a human. I genuinely think most people couldn't tell the majority of these songs are 100% generative AI. Just check out the LTT video on it. Truly dystopian. We need the Butlerian Jihad like yesterday imo. 💀

Thank you so much for the deeply moving and heart-filled bottom line to this video, which I think is really what we humans are here for... To make or find a beautiful thing and to share it with each other because it's cool. My 4 yo nephew yesterday was eating some calamari and exclaiming, "It's SO GOOD!" He then cut it (the last calamari ring) into small pieces and went around the table offering it to everyone so they could experience his joy. We are this way, naturally.

Even though Ai art is relatively new, I've already noticed people being called out as "unoriginal" for using it as a profile picture or posting images. Perhaps once everyone overuses Ai art/music, it will inevitably lose its appeal ironically, making human art more meaningful to society in the process.

Wow, I have been thinking about this and wanting to make a video about it explaining why there's not much to worry about and then you drop this gem. Sums it up absolutely perfectly. Thank you!

I find the AI mashup music like the one you showcase at the end EERILY similar to what I hear in my head when I'm in altered states (whether with drugs, or sleep deprivation) : an intense free flow of every music I've heard that has influenced me throughout my life.