What if AI made the best BOC album you'd ever heard?

[Wildfire]

Just daydreaming and thinking about this. The current acceleration of AI advancements means that very soon we'll have websites where we can listen to AI generated music in any style we want and it will be indistinguishable from the artist we want it to emulate.

Which begs the question, what if in the not so distance future, AI can basically generate endless music in the style of BOC, and what if some of that music you end up enjoying even more than BOC themselves? Would the fact it's not them instantly put you off it even though it sounds like the best shit BOC ever did, or would you not give a fuck?

I personally dread this future where all our creative needs are dreamt up by a multitude of algorithms that know exactly how to touch our souls in ever more potent ways, tailored specifically to us.

Nothing is real.

[jcnporter]

It's an interesting subject. I think the way things are likely to develop, along with other AI generated art, is that it is likely to be mostly used for commercial purposes - advertising etc, where the artist is essentially anonymous anyway.
The personality and humanity of the artist is too tied in with the work itself for AI art to seriously impact the overall 'market', I think. Obviously this isn't ideal as artists often rely on income from commercial sources, but I guess it's just another inevitable stage of development under capitalism - e.g. the replacement of craft by factory production etc. 'Genuine' artists will eventually occupy the same, more niche place in the 'market' as craftspeople do now. Anyone who isn't doing commercial work is there already.
There will be backlashes and so on, but I think that's where things will broadly settle.
Just as automation replaced 'blue collar' work, AI will come for the 'white collar' work as well. Like all technological advances through history, the question is whether we harness the advances for the benefit of all (less work and more free time) or just a few (maximising profit).

[luminousdusk]

If it was in the style of boc and sounded just as good or better than boc then I would no doubt listen to it and enjoy it, but only if was directly based on boc because it would be influenced by them

I don't think AI could ever recreate the personized touch of boc, unless it was made via some neural net type thing with the bros brains wired up to a computer

It's all about the intention and I don't really think a computer could encapsulated that, No matter how advanced AI gets, it could never be the bros, ever, no matter how advanced it gets

So I rest safe in the knowledge that it would only be and would only ever be an imitation

[steeldancer-x]

Rest easy. Technology is nothing without the hand that guides it.

[luminousdusk]

^

That's what I really meant to say lol

[Orbited insanitarium]

There has always been artifical sounds in music. For example in the 1980s, the music roost was run by Roland the Bisexual Drum Machine.
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3elMBwbJbU[/media]
(Still, the drum machine had the new romantics and synth-pop heads programming it!)

I think we imagine Artifical Intelligence becoming sentient through films like the Terminator and contemporary sci-fi, and although it could still be a very real thing, I can't see for the next decade (or any rough prediction) that in music we'll get to the stage of not being able to tell the artiste and the software apart.
I do have a rather one-sentence simplistic viewpoint, but mainly because I'd be more interested to hear AI's take on a Flaming Lips song than anything other. Who else has heard a fair few BOC-alikes?

Ain't the biggest fan of them, I'm just looking at AI generated images thinking about this.

[Wildfire]

Rest easy. Technology is nothing without the hand that guides it.

Oh absolutely, but in the case of OpenAI for instance that guiding hand could simply be the entire back catalogue. Feed it through the neural network and it will generate completely new, and completely believable music based on every nuance of every bar of every song they've ever done. This is not some far off thing, this is here already.

Of course we'd all prefer for our new BOC to be from the brothers but I'm just entertaining the notion of how we would feel if we heard brand new BOC, loved it, and then found out it was generated by AI and not them.

Music and AI are ultimately math after all.

[arvy]

That’s why boc humans better not fuck up with their next LP

[mustbenice]

Who cares? If you enjoy the output, why do you care how it came to be?

This seems parallel to the concerns that people used to levy against electronic music that was generated by instruments that were "not real."

I'm not sure if you're familiar with Topdown Dialectic, but if you are, do you think any less of it knowing how the tracks were created?

[luminousdusk]

Who cares? If you enjoy the output, why do you care how it came to be?

This seems parallel to the concerns that people used to levy against electronic music that was generated by instruments that were "not real."

I'm not sure if you're familiar with Topdown Dialectic, but if you are, do you think any less of it knowing how the tracks were created?

I think this is where we might see a divide in fans between those who just generally like the music and the genuine die hard fans who not only enjoy the music but enjoy the cult mystique of the hexagon benzene ring sun

Knowing a computer came up with a cool track effortlessly and instantly isn't the same as knowing that two guys spent years underground in a disused missile silo painstakingly sculpting every sound in minute detail

Ya know it just don't got the same vibez

[mustbenice]

I think this is where we might see a divide in fans between those who just generally like the music and the genuine die hard fans who not only enjoy the music but enjoy the cult mystique of the hexagon benzene ring sun

Knowing a computer came up with a cool track effortlessly and instantly isn't the same as knowing that two guys spent years underground in a disused missile silo painstakingly sculpting every sound in minute detail

Ya know it just don't got the same vibez

You seem to be implying that there's something more genuine or sincere about caring about personal details, which is a pretty odd way of experiencing music. If you found out tomorrow that their parents actually created Geogaddi, would you like it any less?

I thought people were interested in their creative process as it relates to the music specifically because of the output it yielded, not as an end in itself. If they could create exactly the same output with less effort and much more quickly, all the better, no? I think behind all this angst about generated art is some kind of weird paternalistic set of beliefs that presuppose a set of conditions that constitute "the (or a) right way" for art to come into being.

[rodox_head]

I would be O-FEN-DED if BoC released an album made up of a literal parody of themselves.

BoC were the ones that inspired me to think outside the box when I was just starting to find music I really liked. I still can't even properly genre-define Geogaddi. Fuck this hyper-masculine consumerist bullshit for the pacified masses.

[Magrathea]

In the Heavy Metal community a lot of musicians, of the older waves, are lamenting the too polished, computerized, perfect ways of music these days. It lacks that infinitesimal glitchy time and tuning switch that happens when you bend a string or hit the chord a little different each time, and as a Guitarist Myself I certainly can tell that nowadays everything is over polished. It is damn good and fine music, but it lacks that human factor, you know...

Live sets to Me are the best because well, it's live, Sure, backup tracks, vocals, triggers and all, but damn, nothing like live.

So back to the original subject: I would find it uneasy, and I would be unhappy if there was an AI BOC album. Just like the myriad of fakes that floats around even if some sound very bocish, it's not them, and THAT makes a difference, I would take even a new album that is NOT as good as any previous (anyway everyone knows I consider Geogaddi to be their Magnum Opus, and that it will never be topped.)

[funnnnpng]

no. there is a distinctly personal, organic touch to boc's work that can't be replicated. i'd imagine an ai generated boc album would be similar in sound to someone making a 'boc-like' with tape effects on their computer and a couple analog sounding vsts. it's not that ai isn't capable necessarily, it's that no one else except the bros are capable of making a boards of canada album. there is no one else really like them when it comes to their attention to detail and specific personal quirks that are embedded within their music, a lot of them which aren't noticeable the first time you listen to their work.

in my opinion, AI art is a fun tool, not something to get riled up about. It won't replace human-created art anytime soon. There's still too much about original human-created music that people like. It's cool to use AI to generate samples, or hell, even melodies or other tools to work with when creating music, but it can't make a whole album and be passable. Look at the way dall-e generates hands. it's still so very primitive.

[Echelon]

I feel the reason BOC take so long between releases nowadays is because they DON'T want to be like everyone else, including their imitators and fans.

Each release has been so completely different from the last that I think they feel obliged to outsmart people who try to pin them down. (AI included.)

Personally, I'd prefer if they simply made music like Autechre and didn't care so much about this, but there's a lot of respect to be given to them for trying to create a perfect album. And of course, being absent for 10 years now makes them a commodity on the music market.

[Wildfire]

Who cares? If you enjoy the output, why do you care how it came to be?

This seems parallel to the concerns that people used to levy against electronic music that was generated by instruments that were "not real."

I'm not sure if you're familiar with Topdown Dialectic, but if you are, do you think any less of it knowing how the tracks were created?

I'm not sure you can compare using electronic instruments to having a computer actually write, play and produce the song. With the former the idea and performance is still very much human. With the latter, nothing is human outside of the people that wrote the algorithm.

I guess a comparable thing is, let's say you met a girl online and spent weeks talking to her every day, you click hugely and fall in love. Would you be disappointed if you eventually found out she was an AI?

Btw I'm on the Topdown Dialectic bandcamp, what's the story? I've never heard of them before.

[Wildfire]

So I rest safe in the knowledge that it would only be and would only ever be an imitation

Yes but we will get to the point where an imitation is completely indistinguishable from the authentic original in a blind test. My question is, do you even care either way?

[μasch]

I think ppl take at best too seriously and negativly AI.
Sure it can be used for cold corporate shennanigans, but so was the rest of the tool available to anyone to make art wether it's music, artwork or otherwise.

You have a right to like or not AI, but to boycott it and artists that use them is problematic, because it implies Artists aren't free to choose the tool of their choice. And even worse that artists should put their fan expectations before their own crzeative freedome, wich in the field of expérimental music is a big no no. Boards of Canada is first and foremost an IDM groupe inspired on the electronic side by Autechre.

Telling IDM to not experiment with IA is like saying to kid to never dare to have fun with the new toys that just came out.

They are not make music to please the masses, they make music because they enjoy it, and if they find that using AI as a tool is enjoyable then they will do it and never give a damn to angry mobs ranting against them.


Periode.

[Wildfire]

Telling IDM to not experiment with IA is like saying to kid to never dare to have fun with the new toys that just came out.

I think you're maybe missing the point of the thread. I'm not at any point saying that people shouldn't experiment with AI, I am myself loving interacting with it. ChatGPT is genuinely incredible and I can see so many positive use cases for it.

I'm simply asking the question, when we can for instance put into the command line "write me an album in the exact same style as Boards of Canada", and then we find that the AI generated music is indistinguishable from BOC themselves, will you care?

[luminousdusk]

I think this is where we might see a divide in fans between those who just generally like the music and the genuine die hard fans who not only enjoy the music but enjoy the cult mystique of the hexagon benzene ring sun

Knowing a computer came up with a cool track effortlessly and instantly isn't the same as knowing that two guys spent years underground in a disused missile silo painstakingly sculpting every sound in minute detail

Ya know it just don't got the same vibez

You seem to be implying that there's something more genuine or sincere about caring about personal details, which is a pretty odd way of experiencing music. If you found out tomorrow that their parents actually created Geogaddi, would you like it any less?

I thought people were interested in their creative process as it relates to the music specifically because of the output it yielded, not as an end in itself. If they could create exactly the same output with less effort and much more quickly, all the better, no? I think behind all this angst about generated art is some kind of weird paternalistic set of beliefs that presuppose a set of conditions that constitute "the (or a) right way" for art to come into being.

I don't think it's an odd way of experiencing music.. Throughout my life I've had many role models and inspirational figures in my life, Authors, artists and musicians, so it seems pretty normal for me at least to idolise the people I admire and look up to for inspiration.

It's not so much as caring about personal details, we don't really have many personal details about the bros besides their favourite letter is M!
It's more about a connection to two more or less normal people who are similar to me being that they enjoy making music as do I, they are from Scotland as am I, they enjoy the outdoors as do I etc yet they are so intelligent and both amazing musicians and I am truly inspired by them.

If something terrible were to happen to them I would feel great loss and be extremely upset.. Isnt that normal to empathise and have compassion for people I admire?