I was just talking to someone the other day who couldn't hear the difference between a drum machine and real drums. I know lots of people who can't tell the difference between a naturally sung vocal line and an Auto-Tuned vocal line. The ability people have to perceive the difference has been undermined. I see this as an educational failure. It's akin to having no palate and thus not being able to distinguish between, say, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and real, Italian baked ziti. It's like not knowing the difference between Richard Feynman and Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Who cares? Should anyone care? Music is a joy to compose, to learn, to play with other people. If we hand over our joy to computers for the sake of the mere end result recorded track, we're losing the whole experience. Like taking a tram up to the top of Mount Everest instead of climbing it.
What do we want out of our experiences, really? Do we just want an end result that we can post on social media, or do we want the comprehensive set of human experiences required to produce something of value?"
I'm going to be on a podcast next week talking about AI Art, and my core opinion at this time is that it's probably bad on net, not because it will put artists out of business or any of the reasons most protectionists are upset about, but because it will flood our society with aggregated, soulless, mediocrity and discourages humans from building the skills and developing their thinking about art in order to become craftsmen.
Beato's video above is a good example of how this is already happening.
