Thread 128353968

Why is "slop" mostly associated with AI? Can artists that push that idea be so sure that their music isn't slop too? I mean, it's very easy for music listeners to find poor quality music with a lot of production behind it. Are these artists who criticize AI people who make highly valuable, irreplaceable music or just music as shallow and dispensable as supposedly the one they try to antagonize?

its just luddite reactionaries from lefties, they cant admit that some ai songs are actually good because that means they are no longer needed, human art is obsolete


like, i just stumbled upon this new wave ai cover of nirvana, it sounds amazing, it could be the soundtrack to miami vice show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68q-jDtZh_k

where da /prod/ thread at

We should ridicule apeslop too, but knowing there's just a Markov chain behind the music kills most if not all artistic value it could have.
>What's it matter whether a human or algorithm makes music?
Dumb question. People make art to communicate something. What does a machine have to tell you?

>>128355005
kek you got here from searching for /prod/ too?

>>128355005
>>128355260
i actually started typing a serious answer to this thread a few hours ago and then i realized nobody would care and it wasn't worth the effort to add to the piss ocean of discussion that's already happened on this from people who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.
i miss the g- less bad old days

>>128355460
What was the gist?

>>128353968 (OP)
>Why is "slop" mostly associated with AI?
wasn't it associated with assembly line chartpop too; effortless shit shoveled into the trough for profit and passive consumption, without a sincere expressive purpose
at least you could avoid pop slop but with ai it's saturating every other genre too (and most every facet of the internet generally)

>>128355050
Why do you consider that human actions can't be described by Markov chains too? And if they were, why would that kill their artistic value?
>What does a machine have to tell you?
Most AIs nowadays are made to act as a response to external stimulus, but that doesn't prevent the existence of AI that generates messages and actions by itself. So your question is strange to answer because it depends on the bot we're talking about. What does a human "have" to tell you, afterall?

>>128355603
>slop exist already
>the term slop has a historical root from (idr) and is a recent phenomenon in the public conscious
>what makes slop slop isn't the fact that it's made by AI
>it's acceptable/popular to call things slop *right now* because "AI bad" (both reasoned, and peoples' general knee jerk reaction)
>general public both has poor media literacy, and doesn't understand the process of media (music) being made and what would make it "slop"- "this is not human made and is pointless" is easy to understand
>all that shit about what art actually is, context, intention, theoretically "valid" uses of ai being utterly dwarfed by all the negatives
>ownership. means of production and distribution (i.e consolidation of power, media disorientation) and so on. unironically.
that last one just came to me but it drives me fucking insane when people throw out "but example from the past that doesn't actually replace the thing and nothing bad happened!" as if the prospect of producing infinite simulacra and putting it right in front of other people is in any way comparable like bro

>>128354168
Something about this is really generic and soulless. It is a fun little idea just as a playful experiment but it doesn't feel like art or real music. What kills AI as an artist in the end is that it has no emotions and experiences of its own, all it does is spit out generic averages based on other people's work. I knows what new wave Nirvana should sound like give or take, but it doesn't know what would drive them to make music

>>128355677
I think effortless, replicative, generic music that gets certain popularity on the internet can happen in many genres besides pop. But "slop" has been less popularized as an insult to human music of this kind and more directed at AI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slop
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/AI_slop

>>128355865
it could happen before but ai made slop material exponentially more prevalent and unavoidable, so the term was more widely adopted too
at least in the past to make a thing you had to engage in some basic effort, to put some of yourself into it, now you just engage the machine to shovel out stuff that means nothing to either of you at superhuman speeds

>>128355744
Thank you bb, agreed with everything.

Not all slop is AI-generated, but is all AI-generated stuff necessarily slop?
What would it take for an AI-generated piece of media to not be slop?

>>128354168
>Human art is obsolete that's why machine made art is based entirely on said shitty human art and its tropes, preconceptions, theory, etc.

This is why we can't stand you faggots. Sell your shit elsewhere. That cover sounds terrible, by the way.

>>128355715
>What does a human "have" to tell you, afterall?
Well, normally a person would be inspired to write a song because of some sort of emotion, memory, event, etc. they want to memorialize or express. The thing they "have" to tell you is the entire reason the song exists. That's why it's somewhat obvious when someone is performing just to get paid or at least is performing someone else's written work.

But you're so divorced from human emotion and creativity that you think the idea of expressing feelings is useless.

>>128356020
maybe used under exacting guidance or to complement a core human work, but that seems liable to get buried under all the sloppa being churned out way faster
just like cgi feels cheaper than practical effects or art by hand maybe the offloading of work to ai just has an inherent sloppy quality (at least to artfags, ofc the public may even prefer it)

>>128355744
What's your opinion on using AI as an "assistant" and doing all the creation part yourself?
Like using ChatGPT to give you certain examples of media to keep as inspiration/moodboard/whatever, or to quickly search the internet to check if your idea is original, etc?
Would this be a legitimate use of AI, or does it also "ruin" the work?

And what do you think of making all the important creative decisions, but letting the AI flesh out the final product in a way that's exactly what you had in mind (outside of small and not really significant details)?
For example an illustrator drawing and coloring a rough version of a piece, then using AI to turn it into a finished work.
Or a novelist writing a short version of a story in like 50 pages or so, and having the AI flesh it out (for example turning a brief description of a conversation into the full dialogue)?
Assuming that the AI user keeps reprompting until they actually get what they have in mind (almost like a magic computer that can read your mind and generate what you're imagining), where does this sit on the "slop" spectrum?

>>128356020
if it was used to make something new and actually impossible for humans, instead of cheap imitations of human creativity down to the brush/guitar stroke

>>128356296
>and actually impossible for humans
For example?

ai is absolutely slop but also humans need to step up their game. There were many more virtuosic visionary instrumentalists in the 20th century than now what do we have Billy Strings?

>>128356359
Its sad that everyone is brain rotted and is incapable of doing anything good anymore and people are so lazy they need a Google prompt to do shit for them

>>128356266
Yeah, even in the best case scenario, the non-slop to slop ratio is going to be terrible, but could this lead to AI slop being so cheapened, that it becomes almost irrelevant (kinda like how everyone can make a drawing, and art sites are mostly garbage from beginners, but it doesn't really stop good artists from gaining recognition)?
Like a "yeah neat AI song, but we've been making songs just like that for a while and it's not interesting anymore" kind of deal.
Obviously we don't live in a real meritocracy, and commercial interests turn this dynamic upside down, but will this be much different than labels propping up some shitty but marketable industry plant?
Surely it will have a negative effect (for example from affecting the job market and pushing artists into fewer types of work), but idk, it doesn't seem entirely certain that it will be as catastrophic (for the arts) as many predict.

>>128356385
This has been the case since well before this generative AI wave.

>>128355785
>What kills AI as an artist in the end is that it has no emotions and experiences of its own
NTA. You use these words, "emotions" and "experiences". What do you mean by them and why do you think robots don't have them, especially experiences?

>>128356676
>What do you mean by feelings and existing?

Are you a fucking robot?

>>128356282
absolutely nothing wrong with the first

i can't speak on the validity in other mediums specific to their process.

consider intent and context.
what makes a "good" artist is their ability to evoke a desired reaction from an audience, and contextualizing it through peripheral things or specific things in a work (this is a much larger subject, but consider an artistic reference for now).

whatever an artist works with, completely from scratch or completely using ai or some type of sample based material: what they're really doing is a continuous process of curation.
*if* you can make AI give you exactly what you want then there's really no problem with that.
there's a million little intangibles in the creative process that are being curated over the course of an artist working.
when you automate that you're skipping a million little decisions (an author not slaving over every single word choice sounds or editing down their flow sounds insane to me, but i'm not an author).
-imo if you have a specific vision using ai is basically sorting through dice rolls until you get something close enough, which presents a range of settling on either technical quality or accuracy.
somebody who's good would do that same work sifting through a thousand of whatever the AI spits out, re-work it or whatever and give *that* to people.
Is that really time efficient though?

ugh sorry i'm falling asleep- the bit about intent and context was supposed to be about how ai wouldn't think about cultural reference for example, or peoples' associations with whatever choices it "curates" without human input.
these are things that have to be accounted for.

>>128356676
Now people are making arguments robots can have feelings. Lol everyone is fucked

>>128356781


anyways, yes. somebody who puts in all the same work getting something good out of ai is a valid artist.
the "slop" accusations is really about people who don't understand these things but can now churn out art without understanding what we're talking about here, and people who just straight up don't care and just seek to profit off it (what i was getting at earlier with the means of production and distribution etc).
the actual problem besides the obvious economic repercussions is that the society structure we have incentivizes everybody to just not give a fuck.
it's like going to a really beautiful park where everybody gets paid to litter and now suddenly they're supplying the garbage as you enter with a select few people having specialized machines for it that let them shoot it out a million times faster (and half of it is fliers telling you why this is actually okay).

okay that's enough incoherent rambling.
sweet dreams

>>128355955
>it could happen before
Could? Slop from pop and other genres has been around for decades.
>at least in the past to make a thing you had to engage in some basic effort, to put some of yourself into it, now you just engage the machine to shovel out stuff that means nothing to either of you at superhuman speeds
Do you consider the that data processing computers do an effort? If not, why?

>>128356020
What would it take for an AI-generated piece of media to not be slop?
What's your opinion on the quality of AI classical songs, for example?
https://youtu.be/nGs_lZykK84?si=VDqdKkNFmiHRdM9m
https://youtu.be/Igqr2Eb6VSc?si=x3DGU7XLAVjAOdt5
And I would say I usually make the opposite question, especially in generated pictures. What is necessary for us to consider an AI-made painting slop (given they're not funny pictures intentionally made to be memes)?

>>128356202
>Well, normally a person would be inspired to write a song because of some sort of emotion, memory, event, etc. they want to memorialize or express. The thing they "have" to tell you is the entire reason the song exists.
It's hard to understand what "emotions" are, how can you know robots don't have them? Memories they surely have though.

>>128356385
>to do shit for them
So you admit AI has a creative process?

>>128354168
This just sounds like a remix. There I Ruined It could make exactly this if he wanted it. Here's Dolly Parton singing Slipnot with the only "AI" being voice manipulation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLULSxENfWo

>>128356435
>This has been the case since well before this generative AI wave.
I think once google search then youtube became a thing people went and found a thing to watch instead of doing things.

>>128357114
Are you a fucking idiot? Machines cant feel emotions. They can recreate it but its not the same

>>128357902
>Machines cant feel emotions.
Yeah, I know you already affirmed that. But what's your elaboration?

>>128357949
Not him but there's nothing to elaborate on. It's factual that they don't.
They don't even think or reason. They only seem to.

>>128356918
>Do you consider the that data processing computers do an effort? If not, why?
LMAO

>>128357084
it's better than Steve Reich and that's about it

>>128356781
>>128356815
Thank you for the effortposted reply.

>>128356296
>if it was used to make something new and actually impossible for humans
Except the computer is only as imaginative as the data it's trained on. It cannot "create" or "think." It can't create a thing up. The AI isn't The Residents or Aphex Twin or Primus or Frank Zappa, it can't pull something out of its ass and it's something nobody heard.

AI is good as a tool for chores like stem separation (Live 12.3 can't come out soon enough), where it's not really a "creative endeavor." But creating an AI song? Not really.

>>128361305
Beethoven
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T35bTOmZjy4

vs.

AI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9484gNpFF8

Good art is like a really dense, well organized piece of data. The process of making it requires a huge amount of decision making and input. The laborious act of making those decisions and the skill involved is what makes that data well organized and coherent. The result is something which is deeply informative. It can be analyzed to extract a great deal of understanding about who made it and how, as well as the message that they are trying to convey. AI lacks that intentionality. The whole selling point of AI is that you can make art without all the work, but the problem is that all that work is what makes it art. The algorithm spits out something that superficially looks like that tasty information dense piece of data, but when your brain tries to parse it it's just nonsense inside because the person making it barely put any thought into the process.
Is it possible for someone to laboriously peel apart the process and use this tool with the same amount of care and intentionality as someone doing things the old fashioned way? Sure, but that's an academic argument. Nobody is actually doing that because the whole point of the tool is to NOT have to do that.
People are pissed off about slop because it used to be you could immediately clock the skill of the person making something. Thanks to AI now you have to invest real effort into every thing to look at and listen to, just to figure out if it's shit meant to waste your time or someone's actual work. It's completely upended the signal to noise ratio.

>>128353968 (OP)
>saaaaaaaar my effortless soulless ai trash is not slop do not redeem the luddite saar i am valuable artist

>>128360042
You people affirmed that multiple times since like 5 threads ago about the topic and can't even give a justification to the claim besides "They just don't, ok?".

>>128360785
I don't get the fun here. You surely wouldn't make fun of the question whether the data processing your brain does is an effort and wouldn't answer "Why, sure! We think before writing the music and this is obviously an effort!". So why the double standard when it's a robot thinking? "Oh, they don't think". What is to think, then? "Stop asking these questions, I won't elaborate, it's a fact that I'm right" (just like >>128360042 said).

>>128360904
So that's enough for us to not consider AI automatically slop. And this is in the music world, in which it's apparently harder for AI to generate art. In the world of painting, for example, it's much harder to consider all AI creations slop.

>>128361305
>the computer is only as imaginative as the data it's trained on. It cannot "create" or "think." It can't create a thing up.
For the millionth time, what do you even call "creating" and "thinking"? In the other thread someone argued it's because humans can "create" things in complete isolation and bots can't. That's arguable because humans are almost never "isolated". Bots need input to create, but do humans not? What is art afterall but the imitation of someone's perceived reality? Humans receive input all the time and no one says this implies them not being able to create.

>>128353968 (OP)
>>128354168
Curse Vishnu.