Not gonna lie, when AI music first came out, I felt some kinda way about it. Now, I really don't. I'm gonna go into details in this post but let me tell you right off the bat, the main reason is just because I don't feel intimidated by it. I feel like anyone who's using AI to make music is just playing a different game than I am. What you hear people saying is it lets 'ideas people' finally create what they've always wanted to. That's the thing, I'm not really an 'ideas' guy. And I don't think great art is necessarily even created by great ideas. In my opinion, it's mostly experimentation and making mistakes that turn into discovery. When I was in school for art, One of my professors used to always talk about 'Happy Accidents'. I kinda took thinking about that concept for granted back then cause I didn't realize that's how most of my best stuff was coming about. Now, I'm not saying skill and ideas aren't valuable cause I think that's where things usually start. But the thing is, if you execute on your ideas succesfully the first time, or even early on in the process, the result usually turns out to be a good replication of something that already exists. And that's what AI is literally is in essense. You tell it, "go listen to thousands of the most commercially succesfull songs ever recorded and make me something like that." And you'll get something that fits 90% into that category. In my opinion, that output is going to be boring 'art' wise. It's great for some kinda background music needed for a video or an ad or something because it's like... "I wish I could license a song by the Beatles for this scene but that would be cost prohibitive so let me generate '60s British rock group soft melodic tune' and I can use that."" Problem solved. And I'm not hating, I'm sure some people actually enjoy just listening to albums of AI generated music and don't care where it came from. I can't control what people do in their free time, so I'm not gonna stress over it. But I think the people who want to listen to human made music will gravitate towards artist like me who make things in a more organic way.

Another reason I don't care is because for me, the fun part isn't necessarily having the finised product I create, but the process of making it and knowing that I overcame obstacles to get it done. Finishing anything is HARD. So knowing that I did a hard thing and made it through to the end is an awesome feeling.I'm not even kidding, my brain actually releases some feel good molecules when I finish something that I'm proud of. It's like playing a hard video game and finally beating it. How fun does it sound to get a video game where you start it up, press one button and it 'auto beats' itself? Now you can say you've unlocked all the stuff in the game, just like anyone else who 'wasted their time' actually learning how to play it. But... to me that sucks. I know a ton of people don't agree though because cheating in gaming is rampant now. Just look up the Cronus controller if you don't already know. It's one of the most popular products on the market because people wanna cheat. Personally, I'd rather just not play the game, but if that's what people wanna do, like I said, they're playing a different game than me so whatever.

My final reason is that I simply don't know the future and what types of new creativity people might unlock with AI. Like I stated above, the idea of generating a good representation of something that already exists is really boring to me, but in rare cases I have seen AI videos that have their own interesting unique aesthetic to them that I haven't seen anywhere else before. One art world parallel I kinda see with AI that I studied about in one of my college Art History classes is the invention of the camera. Before cameras, painting was THE way to document events and immortalize imporant people. So when they first came out, people felt like they were going to put painters out of jobs and were cheating because they didn't require the years of training it takes to become a great painter. Did that actually happen? Yes and no. One of the things that happened as a result of this is that painters didn't have to focus so much on documenting realism, so they got into more experimental and Avant-Garde types of painting. Before the 1913 Armory Show, most American Art was focused on realism. But after American artists got exposed to what was going on in Europe with abstract movements like Cubism, Expressionism, Dadaism, etc. things actually got a lot more interesting. Now, the camera as we know it had been invented about 100 years before this exhibition so I'm not saying it was brand new at the time this exhibition happend but I'm sure it made artists think about their role in the process of creating images.

The other thing that happened was that Photography expanded beyond 'documenting' things and became a full and complete art form in itself. Yes, anyone can press a button and create a photograph. But we all know today that actual GREAT photography is a skill that takes knowledge, skill, and taste. You've gotta know about light sources, film ISO, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, composition, subject matter, maybe even developing the film if done on actual physical film... its so much more than just 'pressing a button'. And sometimes photography is just a better medium for some expression than painting or drawing. It just depends on what feels right for the piece. So since I don't have a crystal ball or a time machine, I can't say what direction AI will go in. For now, I'm gonna leave it out of my creative process for the reasons I stated above. I still want to 'paint'. But I can definitely see some people taking it into creative directions that I couldn't have ever imagined. I will say though, just like photography gets interesting when you know the different parameters you have to play with and how to manipulate and exploit them. For example, intentionally using a slower shutter speed to capture motion blur artistically. I think the people who end up making great art with AI will be the ones doing stuff like that.

I also wanna say that, 'what is and is not art' is a nebulous concept and an eternal debate that people will likely never agree on. Who am I to tell someone that what they're making shouldn't be made? Some people (myself included) create because its just what makes them happy. I don't wanna attack someone for doing something that makes them happy as long as they're not hurting anyone else. And yes, I can understand the reasons why some people are so vehemently against AI (I might make another post about that soon). I don't think everyone should just 'accept it' and be cool with it if they don't want to. But we're living in complicated times now. At least I can say, things are interesting and I think they're going to be even more so in the years to come.