Post #3609098

2026-07-05 17:12 UTC

I've got a dude arguing in the comments on one of my posts that he has to use AI to produce music because he doesn't have the money to do anything else, and that if we really think he shouldn't be using AI, we should give him some money to hire musicians. ... This gets into some territory that I feel like I gotta dissect. First, musicians /should/ get paid for their work. Second, GenAI "music" more or less guarantees that the musicians who's work was stolen to produce that "music" are not getting paid. Third, "Generative AI' is such an overloaded term that it's easy for lots of things to get wrapped up in the bucket that mean different things, and that makes talking about it difficult. I don't want this to be a big thread, I don't want to be talking about Generative AI at all, but I've been ragebaited, so let's chat.

Replies (3)

@FeloniousPunk@beige.party 2026-07-05 17:21

@ajroach42@retro.social This person is chasing fame with zero talent or skill. If, for some ungodly reason this person DID make a hit with AI, the FIRST thing they would do is downplay or not point out at all that AI was used.

Open ##3609097
@ajroach42@retro.social 2026-07-05 17:17

So, first, I suspended the person in question from this server, because he chose to follow me (after sending a dozen or more comments) *after* I asked him to leave me out of his GenAI evangelizing. He called my stance against AI virtue signalling, so I figured we could talk about that.

Open ##3609943
@Ghouul@social.vivaldi.net 2026-07-05 20:42

@ajroach42@retro.social Essentially agreed. Gen. AI is, at base, a thief; or I should say that the companies who programmed the AI are pirates, more or less. They have committed piracy against creators on a mass scale, then when stuff is made by rehashing an amalgam of pirated works, suddenly it's all copyrighted intellectual property belonging to who? Belonging to the company or the person who used the AI to make the thing? Everyone is broke nowadays, I understand not being able to afford musicians and artists, but there are other virtual tools. There was garage band, or just a DAW and an electronic keyboard. AI takes less time, it's convenient, and it's even cheaper than a keyboard and some software, but who really owns AI content? Do we want to live in a world filled with AI music, or music made by people? I would prefer hearing some tracks made by a lazy person randomly hitting keys on a synthesizer, to AI stuff, personally.

Open ##4449440