When I first got into making music with my computer after years of hardware, it was the computer as a tool within itself that fascinated me. I could sense that the future of making music was going to get brighter simply because certain esoteric instruments and rarities that were out of reach to the working Joe were becoming better and better as a 'plugin' for my audio workstation (DAW). This was a huge jump in technology. And it is my opinion that it went by quite fast, and perhaps not fast enough if I am to be honest. VSTs (all plugin types included in that term) literally changed the culture of production, recording, mixing, and mastering music!
For example, just a few days ago, I posted a tweet where I compared four samplers and their abilities. All of these machines would have cost over a grand in 1993 alone, and yet these ranged from free with the DAW to about 149.00 as a direct emulation of an actual piece of hardware! It only really dawned on me a few days later just how fortunate we are to be living in a time like this, where an Emulator II can live and breathe within my laptop. And, of course, I get to play with three other variants to see which one I might want to add to my arsenal. Back in 1994 when I had an actual Emulator III, which I thought was a steal at 2,500.00 from 13K... I would not be making such comparisons.
https://twitter.com/endpop/status/1650189033098862592
As I thought about this further, I also remembered how little I used the EIII considering what I paid for it. I would argue that it was GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) in the end. Were it not for the two albums that it was used on (The Diary's Page One and Elektrodelica), I would be hard-pressed to spend that much on a sampler today. But that's not why I sat down to write this drivel. My point, if there is one, is that I love where the tools took me. 
Nowadays, I can sample a sound from nearly any source in perfect stereo or binaural sound. I can shape sound with an unbelievable amount of ease, with tools one would kill for. Need an EQ? What type? What era? What tone shaping? What compressor? You name it, I can do it. When it comes to art, I can scan things at 2400 DPI on the cheapest scanner, and take hi-res pictures with a plethora of lenses for my DSLR. I can have my doodles traced into SVGs with ease, and create multi-layered art without batting an eyelash. And ... I can release these whenever I want, mint them into the blockchain, etc. It's all easy. This is a fact. These things are easier to do than they have ever been. But somehow, we skipped a few years of creative workflows (I normally loathe that term) and it pisses me off.
I feel A.I. is robbing us of the next-level assistant that I dreamed would come after the VSTs. The companion engineer that I could use to really work harder as a human creative while my digital assistant smart/dumb robot handles the mundane stuff. I was robbed. You were robbed, and you may not even know it yet! But you were robbed. And you will keep getting robbed. So what did we skip? My snazzy effing great A.I. assistant in Cubase or Ableton that talks to me to fix obvious things it can analyze and inform me of? Not to mention be my studio therapist?
For example, "Claude... The bass frequencies and your kick have some resonances. Would you like me to correct these for you?" Me: "Hell the fuck yes, Robot. Do it."
"Claude, you have not named these instruments, nor have you saved your work in the past four hours. Should I do that now?" Me: "Hmmm. Give me another 15 minutes. Then you can save, edit out the breaths the way I like from my takes, correct a few flubbed notes from track four (it's always track 4), and do a backup. And please remind me tomorrow that there is a harmony to be recorded, won't you Robot?" And sure enough, tomorrow comes and Robot is ready for another session, only I'm feeling a bit restless.
Robot asks politely, "What's wrong, Claude? These last few takes do not seem to have the energy you put into them yesterday. Did you sleep well?"I shrug, and say in my quiet voice no human ever hears, "I feel a bit under the weather emotionally. I guess you are right. Maybe tonight is not a good night for vocal takes..." Robot is quick to the take, "You also asked me to edit the takes from yesterday. Perhaps this is a good time to just review them? I think they are quite good. Track 4 is slightly off, but as you trained me, I left it because it has a charm. But I also saved an edit with and without processing. Maybe listening back will be inspiring..."
And why wouldn't it be? The grunt work is all done, so I can sit and assess my takes, and turn off Robot while I ponder the next steps, sipping my Iced Tea. A few hours later, as I'm mixing the song, I might ask Robot to bring up a few reference tracks or tune the master output to simulate an iPhone speaker (because most people with iPhones listen with one ear). And Robot knows when to speak and when to just be my assistant, brewing a pot of coffee in the kitchen (as it has access to my intelligent Mr. Robot Coffee of course).
But that's not the A.I. I have or will have. The one we get isn't ever going to be my assistant. It will show off how much better it can mix because it has the essence of Bob Clearmountain, Spike Stent, or Youth already making songs that have my voice on them... And I will not even write them or be paid for them. Some nine-year-olds talking to GPT6 will have asked GPT6 to do it. It will churn out six 2028 renditions of "Living In Oblivion" from the prompt, "Make me an Anything Box song, a derivative of Living In Oblivion, as though it were produced by Youth, but mixed by Dave Pensado, with backing vocals from Bjork... And use the remix Claude S. loathes as reference for the arrangement..." The foofy bells will be there still??? FFFFFFuck.
Sounds funny. I almost want it to be a skit. But in truth, it is rather sad. I won't get my assistant to help me make better decisions, but I will get an automated version of myself which is NOT ME but ME as far as the populace is concerned. And no one is going to protect me. No one is going to stop this from happening. No one is actually hard-pressed to ask the tougher questions about A.I. because there is a race to out-AI the next corporation. Art, photography, music, your voice, your looks, your essence are like that data that Facebook got sued over that changed literally nothing.
And yet? I am still going to make music and art. The hard easy way. I will have to keep editing my own takes, deleting track four of course (why is it always track 4?), and perhaps shit-can the song altogether if I feel like it. Because I am human and I need to be flubbed. Just like everybody else does. Yeah, I made a play on words from Morrisey. And as corny as it is, I MADE IT UP MYSELF. I did not seek the skills of an A.I. writer to do it for me. So this entire article is bunk. Flawed even. Makes me seem like I'm ranting as a mad old man to the kids, "Get your asses off my lawn, Freaks!"
Perhaps. But I have to do it. Someone has to be human. Anyone. May as well be me.
By the way, all the photos came from Pexels. I wanted better ones, but I was too lazy. And no, the fuck I am going to ask GPT4 to find the perfect photos for the article I just wrote. Did you not listen to one word I just fucking typed? WT literal Fuck.
The end.
Further not-so-funny reading:
https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/