Access to AI is resulting in an explosion of new content across all industries, and music is no exception. From controversies over cloned songs on streaming platforms to bands or individuals producing tracks created 100% with these tools, the emergence of generative technology is already giving us a new vocabulary.
If a few years ago we talked about enshittification, this phenomenon is being magnified by what’s called AI slop: content generated using AI without contributing any original element to the creation and with its distinctive characteristics, such as the use of certain specific words or punctuation marks.
Attitudes Towards AI
However, the generation of these kinds of rehashes is not new; as we mentioned, we’ve known these concepts for a while, but what clearly changes is the scale. It’s increasingly difficult to find the needle in the haystack, leaving us face-to-face with uncertainty in every listening decision. This can lead us to different types of approaches to assimilate reality:
- Pre-pandemics: “Ok, I’m not going to listen to anything after 2020 and save myself all the slop”. Nothing new under the sun; there have always been and always will be people who don’t listen to new bands after their adolescence, but the downside is still missing out on more than interesting new albums 😉
- Go-with-the-flow: “I just plug in my Spotify and listen to whatever comes up and is recommended”. We can dress it up as modernity due to the use of algorithms if we want, but the logic behind it is the same as that of formula radio since time immemorial (oh, the perverse incentives!).
- Humanists: “I still trust my friends, these 3 influencers, and these 4 publications, especially CODA Radio” (essential self-reference). Always positive, never negative, you got it, sweetie.
It might seem that this last stance, the humanist one, shies away from technology, but nothing could be further from the truth. Facing such a quantity of content requires both human filters (the last mile, the most complicated to fine-tune) and technological ecosystems where platforms emerge that allow for sifting through human-generated content, or that directly prohibit the use of AI.
The best-known giants, like Spotify or YouTube, seem to be opting for the first path, albeit with a pro-slop tendency, reaching agreements with record labels to allow AI-generated remixes (full steam ahead with fanservice, as if we didn’t have enough remakes and reboots in cinema… yay!). Others, like Bandcamp, have decided to prohibit the publication of AI-generated music, making the real needles a bit easier to find.
Okay, but what about ideation?
I’m afraid this question may never be answered. If some bands want to compose tracks using an AI model to generate both lyrics and music, and then record them themselves in the studio, it will be very difficult to detect technologically. In this scenario, the artist’s honesty will be paramount.
Now, what does someone who creates songs in this way contribute? Just as we haven’t paid much attention to the fiftieth AC/DC-clone hard rock band, the same will happen with music slop.
Over time, we tend to seek transitions, stylistic changes, and innovation, a pattern that always repeats in the face of technological revolutions. Cubism was born, in part, from the impact of photography on art; it was a human creative response that challenged the new technology by saying: “you recreate reality, and I will go a step further by adding perspective,” thus breaking with classical two-dimensionality.
Does AI push us towards a new renaissance of creativity?
We will see what prevails, a more pessimistic perspective or the impulse of human genius.
In the short term, economic incentives clearly point towards the generation of rehashes using AI, but it doesn’t seem that authenticity and trust will cease to be merely human traits in the long run. Just as with previous generations, old molds will gradually be broken; something that, at least right now, AI cannot do by definition.
More ethereal elements like soul (oops, I got sentimental) or intention are the great differentiators of creativity. There are already examples that, building on a recognizable base, explore new places to evolve their sound.
Bands we’ve already discussed on CODA, such as Maruja (with the unpredictable appearance of saxophone in their tracks), Candelabro (with their irregular and changing structures), or Angine de Poitrine (innovating through microtonal experimentation), are great examples of how the human mind still has the exclusive capacity to add value to the history of art.
CODA: The kids are alright
The expansion of the limits of knowledge and the drive of creativity still seems to be a profoundly human task. This doesn’t mean that technology has no role in it, as can be seen in the democratization and cost reduction of production; arrangements that were unthinkable ten, twenty, or thirty years ago without large budgets are now practically universally accessible to anyone from their home.
So yes, some people may hinder access to artists trying to bring originality and sneak in some AI-generated content (it has happened, is happening, and will happen), but curation solutions like tagging, recommendations, from CODA of course, and above all, the judgment of friends, will always be our best defense against it.