If you saw a video of a person doing something cool, and later found out it was AI generated, would you still be impressed?
Of course, it's not exactly the same situation, but if I listen to a song and appreciate that the vocalist sounds cool and they're doing some technically difficult things, I am definitely less impressed to find out it's a computer program. And it also means I can't find other songs with that vocalist's same artistic sense because they don't have one, they're a computer program who can sound like anything.
If the person behind it pretends to have produced it themselves, or (this actually happened) put themselves in AI-generated photos with celebrity artists in their cover/album art, then I will sour on them and stop listening to their uploads.
This has only happened once. The rest of the time, I will be listening to a radio playlist as I work when a song comes on that makes me go "Wait a minute." Checking the song's cover art, clearly AI. Artist page? 30 singles in 2025, every one with AI cover art. The bio reads like a Suno prompt (and probably is). The uploader then gets tossed in the proverbial bin.
The above has been happening more and more often. To the point where it's about 30% of the songs I hear on the radio playlist, as of this week. I'm in the process of migrating over to Deezer as a consequence. They label AI-generated music and do not recommend them or include them in radio playlists.
Edit:
Not the exact same artist, but I searched a generic song name to find an AI slopper. This one AI-inserting himself into pictures with women for cover art is the same idea as the one putting himself in pictures with celebrities like Ariana Grande. https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kEPAFHKkMPF1...
Of course I do. But what gives me joy with art is that it's a communication from one person to another. It's not about pretty sounds (or pictures, or whatever the medium is). If that communication isn't there, then the art has no real value to me regardless of how pretty it is.
If I think I'm talking with a person and it turns out that I'm talking with a machine, I've been duped and will likely be angry about it.
Another way to think about it is that when it comes to art, "the ends justify the means" doesn't really work because the whole point is more the means than the ends.
>But what gives me joy with art is that it's a communication from one person to another
Maybe if a person generated 50,000 songs, not even listening to them, you could have a point. Although, even in that case, regardless of the lack of an "artist's intention," there is the interpretation of what people will take from that thing. And that interpretation is often different from what the author originally had in mind. Hell, most people don't know the author of most movies, TV shows, and the like they watched. In other words, to me, it's more about what people take from that thing, as opposed to "Oh, what that sentient being was trying to communicate?"
And I do believe a sufficiently advanced AI model would be able to mimic or synthesize human knowledge/worries/dramas in such a profound way that, regardless of "intention to communicate," it would be able to create things that people would relate to and take deeper meaning from.
Also: the very dataset where that thing was trained wasn't trained on an alien dataset, with an alien culture and the like, all originating from poems written by real people, movies by real people, etc., etc. The model learned from human culture; therefore, whatever it produces is a reflection of that culture, which people could and most likely will relate to, and, hell, they are already doing that.
But even taking the argument at face value, "Oh, human creation," someone might have used AI, but they were still involved in all parts of the creation process, like writing the lyrics, curating the data, and the very fact of them choosing a song and saying, "Hey, I liked that, I will share it with people," would already be a communication.
It needs to be more than that, I want to hear musicianship that has been honed and crafted. The struggle to find their sound. I'm fine with even an amateur musician learning their way around an instrument and being able to put something together that they tracked and mixed.
If a prompt returned the most perfect song, I would still not care to listen as that to me has completely divorced any human element that I would be interested in. Would not find it to be inspiring nor aspirational no matter how "good" it sounded so the models themselves could get exponentially better, but the manner in which it was created will prevent me from ever listening or caring about. It will always be hollow and lifeless.
Again, this is personal preference. If it makes others happy, that's great. In other many other mediums, I'm probably fine with that reduction in human-ness (where others may not be).
Fine, but you've now established this loop where one must find and analyze the human struggle in the music before qualifying an opinion, how does this jibe with deciding whether or not a tune playing in the grocery store has a catchy beat?
Do you run and grab your phone to id the artist before you decide to tap your foot?
> Although, even in that case, regardless of the lack of an "artist's intention," there is the interpretation of what people will take from that thing.
Of course. My interpretation is an important part as well, but that comes from me, not the artist, so is a bit different. Well, maybe I should say that the meaning and importance of a song is in the confluence of the artist and myself. I did want to clarify something, though -- I'm not really talking about the "artist's intention" here. That's a different thing, too.
The emotional communication I'm talking about happens even if I have no idea what the artist's conscious intention was, or even if I don't know who the artist is.
> And I do believe a sufficiently advanced AI model would be able to mimic or synthesize human knowledge/worries/dramas in such a profound way that, regardless of "intention to communicate," it would be able to create things that people would relate to and take deeper meaning from.
Perhaps so! But that kind of simulacrum is something I have absolutely no interest in. In fact, I find the idea of it a bit repulsive.
> someone might have used AI, but they were still involved in all parts of the creation process, like writing the lyrics
If an artist actually created the thing, then it's not an AI generated song. It's a human created song that may have involved AI as a tool. I'm talking more about if a human just describes the song they want to an AI and the AI creates the rest.
That said, I'm particularly averse to AI vocals, because vocals are particularly intimate for me. A song that has a machine as a singer is a song I'll reject even if the rest was created by a human.
> the very fact of them choosing a song and saying, "Hey, I liked that, I will share it with people," would already be a communication.
Technically true, but that's nowhere near the kind of communication I'm talking about. That has little value to me unless the person sharing it and myself know each other very, very well. Then, it's a communication/connection between that person and me, which can make it a great thing even if the song wouldn't resonate with me on its own.
I mean, art is inherently about human experience and emotion. Each of us resonates with certain types of art and doesn't resonate with other types. All I'm trying to do here is explore and maybe explain what resonates or not with me. I am in no way saying that anybody else should share my tastes.
I used to enjoy Lostprophets before the news about the singer SAing children came out. You cannot disconnect your relationship with the artist from the art.
So in the future when we need an expert to discern the real art that's fundamentally human you'll be available, right?
The concept that there is some hidden quality to human made art strikes me as the same line of thinking that lead people to try to measure the weight of the soul.
Art is someone making creative choices. It's someone putting a bit of themselves and their own lived experiences out there because they wanted to share it.
I'm with you on the sentiment, but pretty sure this is wrong.
Art is interesting and challenges you because you choose to have that reaction to it. Part of the reason for making that choice comes from what you believe about the origin of the art.
No. Just like Owl City isn't his real voice. If the song is good I don't personally care.
Most of the music I like is loops pasted together in some DAW. Sure, it requires taste to make a good song but if AI figure out how to replicate that taste can crank out catchy tunes I wouldn't have a problem with it. I can only guess though that too much of a good thing will lead to be getting bored with it ... maybe.
It's not like most pop music isn't formulaic. I enjoy the currently popular songs from K-Pop Demon Hunters but they're so cliche, if they turned out to be AI generated I wouldn't be surprised :P
But the qusstion never got answered. If you liked a song that you later realized was generated would it ruin the song?
If a robot ai basketball team was authentic enough to have hoodwinked me into thinking it was a real entertaining team then it has become a different question than whether or not I would knowingly participate as a spectator in an AI basketball league.
> If you liked a song that you later realized was generated would it ruin the song?
This whole discussion reminds me of Milli Vanilli from the 90s. They were hugely popular with a few songs and then people found out it wasn't actually them singing. It was a big scandal and the songs because unpopular instantly. I was always a bit confused by the crash because it's not like the song on the radio changed at all.
I think it's because music is a dialogue, a relationship. The artist is saying something, and your interpretation of the art is a response to that. That's why great (to you) songs often feel like they were written for you, personally, when that's obviously untrue.
If you find out that the relationship is based on a lie, then the relationship can switch from "great" to "horrible" instantly.
I generally don't think I'd care, but I don't put most music (or most of any art) up on a pedestal and imbue it with all sorts of stories and meaning about how it's a dialogue or relationship between me and the artist. If I enjoy it, I generally don't care where it came from or how it was made.
BUT I also recognize that is NOT how most people feel, and that's fine.
This happened to me last month. After the first song, I suspected so I checked the cover and the artist profile. It was AI generated. I enjoyed the album nevertheless. You can find AI music enjoyable. People also hated DJ music before. And recorded music before. And electro amplified live music performances before that. This is just another category of music. Doesn't take away from human music. What people are right to be angry is that the tech was made on the backs of other people's non-remunerated work. Whether a human made a song or not shouldn't be as important as actual living artists being taken advantage of.
I agree entirely. Well, not entirely. I think anger would also be an understandable response if the music were misrepresented as being by human musicians if it weren't. Like it would be understandable if people got mad if they thought they bought easy listening and actually got acid metal. Or vice versa.
I agree with you. It should also be clearly marked it's AI.
I have this discussion all the time about written stories. At some point AI will start creating very good and possibly great written works. Do we ignore them because they are AI? I would hope not.
Compare how Biden was covered whenever he made a gaffe to how the current president is covered when he gaffes constantly and you'll see what I mean.
For instance, Trump has said "oranges" instead of "origins", said that Hannibal Lector was a late and great person, praised pedophiles...
And where's the wall to wall coverage of that like there was when Biden screwed up that debate? Where's the weeks on end coverage of those stumbles? How come ABC doesn't even show the public when Trump calls _their own_ reporters piggy and tells them they're incompetent?
Not detached from reality, but thanks for the lame, no effort comment.
Similarly! Where were the weeks of coverage for the IRA which expanded energy production in this country (which most of my friends don't even know what the acronym stands for)
Where was the coverage for the semiconductor act which added 500bn in semiconductor manufacturing.
Biden wanted to do a land on the moon type quest to cure cancer, how much cooler would that have been for our nation than ICE raids on farm workers.
The man was incredibly successful, and barely anyone realizes that, and that's what I'm talking about.
There really isn't much of a difference between doing 6 reps vs 12 reps, what matters is going to failure which I think may end up being harder when doing 12 reps because people maybe don't realize how much they have left in the tank.
Going to failure can also be a question of which ‘link in the chain’ is hitting failure at any given rep range.
Bent over rows being and easy example: at a 5RM upper back is giving out as desired, but past 10RM my lower back is the issue. If my goals are bent over endurance in my core then higher reps will force adaptations where I’m weak, if I’m trying to get my shoulder blades sexy and humpy I gotta keep the stimulus where I want results. In addition to manipulating reps something like a snatch grip can provide a leverage based answer to the same targeting needs.
Proximity to failure is key, targeting and maximizing that proximity is individual and highly goal dependant.
[As a bit of a physio case I’ve found General Gainz (/r/gzcl on Reddit), to be a highly productive RPE based system with very happy adaptive approach to hitting personal limitations mid workout; no “failures” or broken spreadsheets = motivation = consistency = progress; strong recommend to check out]
What do you think about all the things going on under the current US administration which include but are not limited to: flag burning ban[0], retribution against law firms for supporting opponents of the admin[1], antifa being designated a terrorist organization[2], deportation of anti-Israel protesters[3], threatening broadcast licenses[4], or suing pollsters because he didn't like the results[5]?
We're equating these government actions to lefties being mean on twitter and cancel culture?
- The entire MAGA zeitgeist takes the president's word as gospel and shifts into overdrive in an attempt to enact his proclamation through: A) social pressure; B) new state laws; C) lawsuits of their own; or, when all else fails, D) just ignoring court orders.
Because the president (this one especially, but also his predecessors) is more than just a person.
I think any person would have disagreements with what the courts find no matter the time period. I personally don't think things have gotten worse in this regard, and they may even have improved.
Generally the courts more reasonable than people think. You hear about the inflammatory rulings because that's what drives clicks.
So you'd be fine with say, Kamala, running on a campaign of crushing dissent because the courts will say "lol no"? Is that what I'm reading?
I certainly don't think any camp would be okay with that, let alone MAGAs (and for obvious reasons)
It's a common trope of centrists and republicans to say that it's okay for Trump to explore the outer limits of legal theory and executive power, but at the same time freak out at what a Democrat might do with the government.
> So you'd be fine with say, Kamala, running on a campaign of crushing dissent because the courts will say "lol no"? Is that what I'm reading?
No, I wouldn't be fine with it.
Do you imagine this is what Trump is doing? Or that Democrats don't do the same? Democrats ran a long and successful campaign to crush anti-woke dissent, for instance. Broke lots of laws (and still do!) in the process. Questioning woke orthodoxy could get you blackballed or fired in government, and they wielded power to make sure the same was true in many non-gov institutions. They were even on the path to first amendment restrictions to protect this crusade. Even compelled speech in Biden's last Title IX!
Anywho, to steelman I think you would need to explicitly make the leap from "flag burning" to "running a campaign of crushing dissent", because flag burning doesn't seem like even part of a campaign against crushing dissent. It seems like empty pandering to stupider supporters.
> Democrats ran a long and successful campaign to crush anti-woke dissent, for instance. Broke lots of laws (and still do!)
Citation/elaboration needed. Same goes for the Title IX comment. How did Biden "compel speech" on campuses?
> and they wielded power to make sure the same was true in many non-gov institutions
Again, cancel culture, no matter how aggressive, is not the same as using the monopoly on violence to get your way. Woke mob vs federal agents. You could argue that some of Trump's actions like his lawsuit against the pollster aren't an official government action, but it certainly is a huge break from norms for a sitting President to sue over speech he doesn't like.
> explicitly make the leap from "flag burning" to "running a campaign of crushing dissent"
It's much more than just flag burning, as I've shown.
1) https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/ is the third ddg result for title ix compelled speech. Basically, the feds under Biden were going to compel use of people's preferred pronouns. Ideally it would have failed in court.
Elaboration: For a very long time, in many states and parts of the federal government, there has been overt discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability status, etc. in direct and obvious violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Things like skin-color quotas for hiring, preferences for vendors, etc. You're certainly familiar. They hired people who would, at the very least, not speak out against their regime's practices, and ideally who would help perpetuate them.
> Again, cancel culture, no matter how aggressive...
It's not just twitter mobs. To get the large gov't grants necessary to be successful in science, for instance, it was ~mandatory for the past while to have a DEI angle on your application. Many forms actually had a section for it. So, in this case, the gov't isn't using its monopoly on violence exactly, but it's not cancel culture. (and of course there were many grants funded that weren't just a DEI angle, it was 100% DEI bullshit)
"A huge conspiracy to overtly break the law" is what DEI was and still sadly largely is.
> were going to compel use of people's preferred pronouns
This is the exact mindset I mentioned above where Democrats are judged based on what they might've done or might happen, while Trump has clearly done things that go against our basic rights yet they're being shined in the same light. To be clear: I'm not saying we shouldn't criticize policy proposals.
> "A huge conspiracy to overtly break the law" is what DEI was and still sadly largely is.
DEI is a very wide tent, and the intentions of it are to widen the hiring pools to consider more people. If there are specific programs breaking the law, then those can be discussed specifically. Right wingers are typically for meritocracy (which has been shown to be a red herring with this loyalist admin, but w/e) and in theory they'd actually support a wider pool of people being considered.
Academia can be quite left leaning, so training about white supremacy or woke shit there is certainly over the top, but I have a problem with the broad brushes you're applying to something that has a lot more nuance. If this lawlessness was as pervasive as you make it seem in every sector, wouldn't we have seen a major loss in court already that requires these programs to be axed across the board?
Biden's new Title IX rules became law on August 1, 2024 so they weren't "might". Thankfully, we only had a few months under this particular imposition on our basic rights and push never came to shove. We agree that Orange Man does some Bad Things. I would bet history will look more kindly on him than society does now, though.
> the intentions of it are to widen the hiring pools to consider more people.
I think this is a charitable take. To "consider" more people. But: 1) considering people takes resources, and if there's an optimal amount of "considering" to do and you force the pool one way or another...you're forcing people out as well as in. There's no way to "consider" more people efficiently. It's a nice lie that many people told themselves and others.
2) More importantly, and because of 1), this is not generally how it worked imho. We got quotas and mandates, people were put to the "bottom of the pile" (i.e., their applications not looked at). It was clear-cut illegal discrimination at large corporations and in academia, and there's plenty of direct first-hand evidence of that (including here on HN). I saw it myself many times (admittedly in academia, which as you rightly point out is a white-hot ball of crazy in this regard).
3) I'm not going to do it, but I think it wouldn't be hard to find evidence of high-level people who were inflicting DEI explicitly saying it wasn't about "widening the hiring pools to consider more people", but rather directly about removing white people from power and replacing them with black, brown, gay, female, or ideally some combo people. Nothing to do with "considering", just a power grab under an alternative metric for fairness they called "equity".
I learn the same way, and I have to say, learning with LLMs now has been a very rewarding and validating experience. I struggled with the traditional school system my whole academic career, and I learn in the same way you describe. These days, I can start at the top high-level concepts and with the help of a competent LLM drill down as far as I need to from there.
reply