this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Barack Obama: “For elevator music, AI is going to work fine. Music like Bob Dylan or Stevie Wonder, that's different”::Barack Obama has weighed in on AI’s impact on music creation in a new interview, saying, “For elevator music, AI is going to work fine”.

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[–] _number8_@lemmy.world 155 points 11 months ago (2 children)

why do i care what obama feels about either of these

[–] ISometimesAdmin@the.coolest.zone 53 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I very rarely care for what most 62 year olds have to say about the capabilities about the theoretical limits of computation.

This isn't much different.

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 39 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If the 62 year old had studied computer science and had specialized in AI, I would listen closely to them.

But I definitely not care about a politician that has no idea about technology.

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[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 48 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I mean — he’s defending human creativity and he’s kind of right. AI can recreate variations of the things it is trained on, but it doesn’t create new paradigms.

[–] Sprokes@lemmy.ml 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

People always says AI do create only variations but many successful TV shows are variations. I started watching sitcoms from the 70s and many things were copied/adapted in recent shows.

[–] FLP22012005@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

That just muzak for a visual medium.

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[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 104 points 11 months ago (8 children)

...so I've been on a shit load of elevators, and I don't recall a single one of them having music. For as common a trope as it is, you'd think elevator music would be more common in actual elevators.

[–] GrapesOfAss@lemmy.world 45 points 11 months ago

It's like porn, they all used to have music, and now people still make jokes about how bad it was but it's just gone now

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah they always go with awkward silence

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[–] BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca 35 points 11 months ago (13 children)

There is no way this ages well.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 29 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I think the statement was more about the impact, which will depend on each person's subjective experience

Personally I agree. Even if AI could produce identical work, the impact would be lessened. Art is more meaningful when you know it took time and was an expression/interpretation by another human (rather than a pattern prediction algorithm Frankenstein-ing existing work together). Combine that with the volume of AI content that's produced, and the impact of any particular song/art piece is even more limited.

[–] 5BC2E7@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I'd say art is more meaningful when it's a unique experience. It's like those myths about glassmakers being ~~killed~~ blinded after the cathedral is finnished so that no one can replicate the glass color... without the killing.

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[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I don’t know. I think Obama kind of nailed it. AI can create boring and mediocre elaborations just fine. But for the truly special and original? It could never.

For the new and special, humans will always be required. End of line.

[–] Knusper@feddit.de 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I think, it will eventually become obsolete, because we keep changing what 'AI' means, but current AI largely just regurgitates patterns, it doesn't yet have a way of 'listening' to a song and actually judging whether it's good or bad.

So, it may expertly regurgitate the pattern that makes up a good song, but humans spend a lot of time listening to perfect every little aspect before something becomes an excellent song, and I feel like that will be lost on the pattern regurgitating machine, if it's forced to deviate from what a human composed.

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[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 32 points 11 months ago (16 children)

But do we really need AI to generate art?

Why can't AI be used to automate useful work nobody wants to do, instead of being a way for capital to automate skilled labor out of high-paying jobs?

[–] notapantsday@feddit.de 16 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Because AI is unpredictable. Which is not a big issue for art, because you can immediately see any flaws and if you can't, it doesn't matter.

But for actually useful work, you don't want to find out that the AI programmer completely made up a few lines of code that are only causing problems when the airplane is flying with a 32° bank angle on a saturday with a prime number for a date.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

We currently have the same problem with human programmers. That's why good companies always test the shit out of their code.

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[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It's virtually guaranteed that at some point, robots and/or AI will be capable of doing almost every human job. And then there will be a time when they can do every job better than any human.

I wonder how people will react. Will they become lazy? Depressed? Just have sex all the time? Just have sex with robots all the time?

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

The last one

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 6 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It depends if the government introduces universal basic income or not. If they do I couldn't care less if I don't have a job. Any reason I have a job is so that I have money. I don't do it so I have some kind of fulfillment in my life because it isn't a fulfilling job.

Just have sex all the time?

I'm confused about how this one tracks. Is the AI going to make me more attractive or is it just going to lower everyone else's standards?

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[–] Water1053@lemmy.world 25 points 11 months ago (14 children)

Why would people think he knows anything about AI?

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 14 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Because we often look up to public figures for stuff they are not qualified to comment on.

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[–] trachemys@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Obama must not have heard There I Ruined It.

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[–] eronth@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

While reassuring for many to hear, that's only going to be true for so long. Eventually it's going to be real fucking good at making "real" music. We need to be preparing for those advancements rather than acting like they'll never come.

[–] IDontHavePantsOn@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I feel very reassured to hear that from the AI expert / musical virtuoso himself, 62 year old, former United States President Barack Obama.

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[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

To make "real" music, AI will probably need a lot of help. Image generators and chat bots seem to have their own, very boring style. I've seen videos of artists using AI tools in their workflow, but it's still a very involved process. I think it will just be another tool for musicians and sound engineers.

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[–] Loqzer@lemmings.world 16 points 11 months ago

Definitely need more people to tell me about ai and what it will be capable of. Make a daily show so that every shitty celebrity can tell us about ai, there might still be plenty of word combinations that haven't been used!

[–] the_q@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Young people think all this AI stuff is great and older folks are suspicious. I think older folks are right this time.

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[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)

One of my jobs involved updating blogs for small businesses. I had a Shutterstock subscription for the images that goes along with these blog posts. For this task, I think AI generated images work a lot better than stock photography.

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[–] akilou@sh.itjust.works 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] killeronthecorner@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Jesus this is terrible. The accuracy is incredible!

(/s, I ain't fighting fans of the good lord Bob)

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[–] takeda@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

Elevator music as well as the mainstream music that majority of people listen to like pop etc.

That music is already very formulaic and almost as if it is generated by Ai.

[–] MrPoopyButthole@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Already likely to be untrue, but honestly I'd happily sign up for a world wear "hold music" isn't the same 20sec loop of shit jazz

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[–] spudwart@spudwart.com 10 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Okay, I love the elevator music idea as a gag in media.

But I've never been in an elevator that has ever played music, and I can completely understand why. Elevator music sounds obnoxious.

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[–] Pretzilla@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That actually might make elevator and phone hold music survivable - continual compositions that never repeat

[–] itsralC@lemm.ee 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Cheaper to generate 30s and loop it

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[–] fosforus@sopuli.xyz 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

24h/7d elevator music that never repeats itself. I think you've described Hell.

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[–] brandon@lemmy.ml 9 points 11 months ago (4 children)
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[–] raptir@lemdro.id 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Where are they getting the training data from for AI music models? I guess it's the same issue as art and language models, but wouldn't they need to only use royalty free music?

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[–] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

In before obligatory republican outrage and 24x7 media coverage explaining how this comment will doom democrats in 2024

[–] papalonian@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

"The libs are trying to pussify our AI!"

[–] fosforus@sopuli.xyz 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

We need a Boomer Music AI then I guess.

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