Ai Generated Music. Art or Nihilism?

🎶 Heard the AI-generated Drake & The Weeknd song? It's been trending on TikTok & Twitter. Here’s the song if you want to listen

This Memo explores whether this the W that some think it is, or a big L for modern music, art, and society.

Read on...

First thing’s first; AI is not conscious, nor does it possess agency. It generates music through probabilistic & stochastic methods, unlike humans and the real artists among us who do so via insight and inspiration.

So…why does this AI-created song "work"? 🤔

3/ Well..Let's start here.

Believe it or not, most modern music is just sounds & beats generated and optimized by algorithms. "Music" has become a blend of reproducible and recognisable tunes, devoid of substance & meaning - designed specially to cater to the masses. 📊

Real music does still exist, but you won’t find it on a Top 40 chart.

What you will find is lots of trash talk about my ho’s, my bro’s, my Gucci, my kicks, my Lambo & my weed. This “music” (if I can call it that) is just a series of mindless rants on materialism & superficiality

So…why does the AI-generated song of Drake & The Weeknd “pop”?

Well…it too is a bunch of seemingly coherent sentences, against a cool and vaguely familiar “beat”. And just like modern music, there's not a single message to be found in the lyrics.

Listen for yourself and see.

Such "music" may work as entertainment for the masses but lacks depth or substance. It's just a string of words and sounds probabilistically tied together, reflecting the emptiness in much of modern music.. And in turn, the hollow state of man.

Which begs the REAL question…If music is a reflection of our culture & we consider music a “form of art," what does it say about our civilization?

What would Nietzsche say?

"A lot of noise, words, and little substance"

The nihilism he warned us of is well & truly upon us...

While the NPCs gawk at this innovation, some of us look on in dismay, wondering how we’ve come to such a state of emptiness. We’re so lost and detached from our own divinity that we’re excited by probability machines “producing” creativity like a vending machine does coke.

Might AI one day produce works, mostly indistinguishable from true creativity?

Perhaps. But is that an end worth pursuing? We cannot just ask the liberal “where’s the bad in it” but the deeper; “where’s the good in it?”

If not, we may just make Wall-E a reality

So, perhaps this “musical” achievement is not the W some people think it is. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times. A blank staring into an abyss that’s not only staring, but singing back at us

If you found this thought provoking, please give it a like & save it.

#memodwritetowin 

#Ai 

#music 

#Nietzsche