It's good when a first sentence exposes the bias within the post. It makes for shorter reading.

Actually the whole point is that I'm not trying to tell anyone what is art, or what is even music. Just like the quote above, all music is absolutely not a performance art. Someone sitting at home programming classical music in Cubase using VSL libraries is not performing anything at all either. Now that isn't music, or art? Again someone else can make that distinction for everyone, it seems people think these days. One of my favorite old industrial bands was Einsturzende Neubauten, from Germany. It's very difficult to say their recordings were "not art", but someone with a narrow mind and a guitar could easily try to say they weren't making "music". Shopping carts and train bridges as percussive instruments?

If some idiot wants to duct tape a banana to a wall and call it art, who are you are I to say? He made about 6 million dollars and some cryptobro fool ate it after buying it. That's not all that different from Dada or Absurdism.

I don't use AI to make music, and I do not listen to it. I don't care if other people do. The reason why, is because they aren't forcing me to listen to it. I'm not sure where everyone is hearing all this "AI slop" to start with. Which is ironic in itself. People complain AI just reads stuff on the internet and repeats it, it's just text prediction and it doesn't really know anything about the topic. The people saying this are doing the exact same thing! They are regurgitating some words they read on Reddit or in the media. Sounding like whining teenage girls on Tiktok. I see and hear more about " AI Slop" than I actually hear any AI music.

It does not take a genius to not listen to stuff you don't want to hear. And it doesn't take AI to make garbage some people call "music". All you have to do is turn on the radio or download someone else's playlist. When I point out a track someone posts on here is AI, I only do it after the people who complain about AI all the time have lavished praise on a track made with the same technology they supposedly hate and can instantly ID.

The way I have begun to read those comments about "AI Slop", all you have to do is substitute that with " I know I couldn't make that". It is that transparent.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2026 at 9:32 AM

You didn't seem to read what I wrote so I guess you actually agree with my point..."Was Lou Reed a great technical singer or could he rip on guitar? Hell no, but what a great artist! Was Jean Michel Basquiat gonna paint the Sistene Chapel, no not that kinda guy, but what a great artist!" Jean Michel wasn't about "Renaissance-level technique" and anybody could see that and I don't believe that he ever tried to go that route. He was my neighbor and liked my dog so I can vouch for both his humanity as well as taste in dog flesh, lol.

I never said that all art is good art though it matters not. People can surely make bad art, AI cannot as it isn't an artist.

Your point about comparing classical to modern art isn't an an argument because you don't explain why "it stops working" when compared to each other. It's still a mystery why you believe so. Keep going so we can understand the why and so to agree or not! Also, suffering isn't a pre-requisite for creating worth in any art form. Joy or neutrality are also motivations.

It can't though. It isn't a person and so not artist.

 

so an ambient artist, or singer-songwriter, or techno or whatever, that creates songs, albums in their home studio, releases them, but does not perform is not an artist?

 

Art is in the eye of the beholder.

According to this pov, what makes art - art, is the person evaluating it. A machine can create art, nature can create art, you don't have to be a human nor call yourself an artist to create art.

Is Gangnam style a work of art? Depends on the listener. At the end you're trying to reach as many people as you can with your ideas. A lot of good artists WILL use gimmicks or other crap just to get to people and then do the "real" art.

 

I dont think anyone is claiming AI is an artist. It still takes a human to use AI (well not really, but thats a different story lol). Im a seasoned musician, composer, producer, artist. If i use AI in my process, that means I am no longer an artist? At what point? 100% Suno generated output? sure, maybe not. What about using AI to help execute my vision in some way? Im still a human, im still creating. Using a combination of tools I am still expressing myself. My brain, life experiences, instruments and technology all come together to create something.

 

A wise saying: Art is when you don't know what the outcome will be.

Most music is first and foremost a learned craft. When developing a song with several musicians, intuition, teamwork, and a bit of luck also come into play. An inner voice or feeling guides them to translate the idea in their head or mind into the real world.

We managed for decades without AI, and the music available for purchase on LPs, CDs, or MP3s is generally of high quality and durable. It didn't need, and still doesn't need, AI. AI is a new business model; people try to sell you something to either make extra money or to save time and money. Using AI for music production is pure self-deception and an additional toy for amusement, pointless activity, and distraction.

Some people constantly need something new to get a small dopamine hit (a brief feeling of happiness), which is why the mountains of trash keep growing. But money doesn't buy happiness; it only calms the nerves. Life often lacks meaning; the materialistic world is a cold, loveless, and hostile environment for humanity.

The music industry is desperate to generate revenue and profits at any cost, and that's why they'll force AI on them, because it's the current and future business model for the music industry in times of tight budgets and limited revenue. It's quite possible that some AI companies will go bankrupt.

Don't abandon the next generation of musicians and creatives; educate them about the disadvantages of using AI.
We need intelligent, creative young people, because they will be the future of the music scene when we're no longer here.

 

@clone & @shinyzen recording in music is largely capturing a performance of some kind. its not difficult to understand why that is, i shouldnt have to explain that to people on a music forum. just like with another performing art acting, films are largely capturing that - its the nature of the disciplines to perform to create

its also not difficult to understand your original point @clone you literally said it already now twice, we can read homie. its just not a good point against what Lois said for discussion, art isnt this tough thing to define. the word literally has a definition and the disciplines have established classifications

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2026 at 2:44 PM

The line is our ego, its boundaries. “Me” and “not me.”

If you're a performer, you perform music that was composed by someone else. If you're a composer, your music is most likely performed by other people. At least you can't perform it yourself without other people if you have composed music for an ensemble (any sort of ensemble). And anyone who composes music in most cases bases on the music that preceded it. The originality of what we do is overrated. We want originality and think we're original and unique, even though we're not. True originality is a very rare bird.

For some not-so-clear reason, we overvalue the contribution of the individual and forget that music is always a collective product. The author of a loop I am using is a co-writer of “my” composition (actually it's our composition, not mine). Just as in modern pop and rock music, all the musicians in a band are co-authors to one degree or another, because the guitarist, bassist or drummer rarely play exactly what is written in the score (there are no scores in modern bands). A mixing engineer is a co-author too. And the “author” of a composition composed by an AI system also has a huge number of co-writers. But really, he's just the initiator that made “his” composition appear as a file that was made available to other people. And he approved of what AI suggested to him. Without him, this composition would not exist.

The only problem is that we either attribute authorship to ourselves, even though we are not 100% authors, or we attribute authorship to one person, when he or she is not an author in the full sense of the word. We do this mostly unconsciously. No problem arises if we are clear about the extent to which “our” work is ours and do not try to mislead ourselves or others about it.

There's nothing wrong with making music with other people. The forms of collaboration are almost endless.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2026 at 3:20 PM

I thought that piece of music that you posted was phenomenal, especially the first half of it and posted my positive reaction to it. My understanding of art is that an artist using the tools creates art, be it visual or musical and anything else tangential. However in my opinion, when a person uses material created by AI which is not of their making, that work transitions to something akin to curation. The work is not entirely their own and depends on the AI corporation's filling in the gaps in order to finalize completion of said song. It might look or sound amazing though isn't categorically what I'll admit into my personal definition of art.

That is a point of view that I don't agree with as only an artist can create art, be it in the eye of the beholder or not. A sophisticated algorithm is not an artist and so cannot create art, it is merely product in order to hopefully be sold for profit. Art need not be sold or even shown to be art. An AI algorithm has no joy of creation for creation sake. I believe one needs to pay to play in one form or another (ads, your data or both those and cash) in order to enjoy the fruits of that service...which translates to it is not of your own creation. To claim the product of that collaboration with a corporate algorithm as one's own and call it art is for me solely a rationalization and one I don't abide to in definition or as well in the deed.

It's just my opinion which doesn't, which my Dad might have said..."Amount to a hill of beans".