The interested reader may have seen my post a few days ago in which I introduced a 1950s hit song entitled "Tanzen mit Dünnschiss" (Dancing with the runs) by a certain Chantal Schurz ( @beatminister/damit-raeumt-deutschland-den-naechsten-esc-ab )
I deliberately held back with the description. Some people will probably have guessed, or read it in the video comments on YT:
This song was created by an AI, only the lyrics were provided by a human. That means the music, vocals and the "album cover" all come from the AI!
I think it's simply amazing what is possible with it today. And I'm not just saying that lightly, because I have been working with auto-composer programs (that's what they were called back then) 30 years ago already. You have to know that I have always been a fan of Brian Eno and his ambient music. And he also worked intensively with auto-composers. The best-known example of this is probably his double album "Music For Airports", which is mainly based on this technology.
Now these programs were by no means "intelligent" at the time, they worked with rigid programming based on certain musical laws. Music has a lot more to do with mathematics than most people think. Nevertheless, it is anything but easy to generate a reasonable sounding melody with a program. The results sounded accordingly.
These compositions were best suited to experimental music - like Eno made at the time - because you could think "that's what its supposed to sound like" when things got a bit weird. And that's what it did quite often.
A song that was comparable to man-made music was only very rarely achieved, and if so it was more by chance. Here are two examples that "chance presented to me" at the time:
How different it is today! With various AI programs available online, you can simply specify genre, voice, filter and various other parameters per line of text - and the AI comes up with a finished song! And it is almost indistinguishable from man-made ones. Like with "Tanzen mit Dünnschiss" for example - that is exactly the style that was common in 50s hits in Germany. And even the somewhat dull sound of the recording, which was normal at the time due to technology, has been imitated.
Songs with dirty lyrics are usually posted on YT (it's actually surprising that YT doesn't delete them - you can't say stuff like that in normal videos without being punished). Here are a few more examples:
In my post about Spotify and their dubious methods of making money - @beatminister/spotify-der-deal-mit-dem-teufel-de - I pointed to a documentary that also touches on this topic. There are apparently a whole series of "composers" who use AI and churn out songs on a continuous basis. These are pushed into the Spotify playlist and generate massive amounts of money because stupid Spotify consumers fall for them. This in turn reduces the income of real - and lesser-known - artists. So everyone gets screwed equally - these artists as well as the listeners.
And I fear that this is only the beginning. Soon the same thing will happen with films. There have already been demonstrations in Hollywood about this, but they will probably have little effect. Because the expected profits are simply too tempting. Of course there may still be people who produce films in the traditional way as an art form. But the run-of-the-mill films like action films, superhero films, slapstick comedies etc. will then be churned out in batches. Ideally a new one every day.
Well, brave new world...
Have a nice day anyway, and remember: it's almost weekend again! :)
Until then, yours...
