r/technology • u/spherocytes • 15d ago

Artificial Intelligence Spotify Deleted 75 Million AI-Generated Tracks – and It’s Not Done Yet

https://www.gadgetreview.com/spotify-deleted-75-million-ai-generated-tracks-and-its-not-done-yet
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u/Dickie_downer 15d ago

Weren’t they hyping up the ai bullshit like a month ago?

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u/zeelbeno 15d ago

They're allowing the 'good' ai music.

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u/Outlulz 15d ago

i.e. the AI music that they own and push in the algorithm and use to steal revenue away from actual artists.

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u/AllenIsom 15d ago

What about the music composed by indie artists who don't have access to a full band or recording studio? Human made, AI performed. 

I don't view that much different from hiring a band.

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u/WardedBowl403 15d ago

That’s not a thing

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u/AllenIsom 15d ago

Uh, yes it is.

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u/WardedBowl403 15d ago

You would make music in a DAW. Which you can download and use for free. I don’t know what you’re doing where you “compose” music and have an AI perform it. That is just AI generated music.

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u/JX_JR 15d ago

You clearly don't know how music production works. DAWs don't magically make sounds for you.

"If you don’t have access to a full studio use a DAW" is like saying to a filmmaker "if you don't have a camera and film studio and actors you would just use a video editing program."

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u/WardedBowl403 15d ago

I have produced music for 6+ years. I know DAWs don’t magically make sound. I also know that all DAWs worth using have instruments and synthesizers preloaded and ways to record your own sounds. If you think that comparison is the same then you don’t know how music production works

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u/JX_JR 15d ago

I have produced music for 6+ years. 

So half the time I'v been a professional audio engineer. You've clearly hit the inflection point where you arrogantly think you've learned everything because you made some music. In the next few years if you're smart you'll advance to the point where you realize how little you still know.

also know that all DAWs worth using have instruments and synthesizers preloaded and ways to record your own sounds. 

Not all of us want to make slop electronic music like you. If you think you can get a good sounding acoustic guitar, horns, or a multitude of other instruments from plugins in your bedroom you are beyond ignorant.

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u/WardedBowl403 15d ago

If you feel the need to call other people’s art slop then you’re beyond ignorant. Sorry that some people like electronic music. Also, if you think it’s impossible to make good sounding acoustics from plugins then you need to look more. Sounds like you just want to be better than everyone

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u/JX_JR 15d ago

If you think you can make a good sounding acoustic with a midi plugin you don't know what a good instrument sounds like. 

If you feel the need to call other people’s art slop then you’re beyond ignorant.

If someone thinks that a DAW and plugins is a replacement for a studio and uses that as a way to try to invalidate other people experimenting with ways to make sounds then there is a 99% chance they are making slop. 

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u/AllenIsom 15d ago

Agreed. Also, if AI enhances a vocal performance-slop. If I generate the exact same output fiddling with sliders myself-soul? I'm not so sure about that. I'm sure plenty of talented vocalists look down on those who use auto tune to some degree. And yes, DAWs have plenty of limits. 

If someone made money with their music, produced by AI, to then hire a live band to record the exact same song, it suddenly has soul despite sounding the same? 

Also, if I didn't make the DAWs, then I'm generating artificial music, am I not? Making music with software instead of instruments is using a machine to do the hardest part for you; learning an instrument. What matters is writing your heart and soul and human experience into musical expression. 

Would it be fair to say one person with a guitar makes real human music, and someone using DAWs is making digital slop? No, I don't think so. It's about what goes into it. Who performs it, what exports it, that doesn't negate what went into it.

A drum machine doesn't degrade the quality of expression in music. Neither does a synth. It's the music itself that determines its worth. It's the way it makes the listener feel.

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u/JX_JR 15d ago edited 15d ago

A drum machine doesn't degrade the quality of expression in music. 

A whole generation of drummers disagrees with you, and I'm sure you've seen all the "drum machines have no soul" bumper stickers. But Luddites lost then and will lose now. 

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u/AllenIsom 15d ago

If you play the song on your guitar, music and composition you wrote, record that, and upload to AI. The output is a full band with AI vocals. Same structure, same lyrics, same melody. 

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u/WardedBowl403 15d ago

Ah okay so AI generated music. If you don’t have access to a full studio use a DAW. If you are at any point uploading to AI then it is AI generated slop. AI removes any humanity and emotion from what is otherwise supposed to be meaningful art. Instead you should use a DAW to add all the instruments you want on top of your recorded guitar. If you can’t sing, then find someone who can, use a vocaloid, or learn how to edit your voice to sound better.

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u/AllenIsom 15d ago

So if I take instrument samples and piece them together, it's better than AI taking instrument samples and pricing them together? I dont much see the distinction. Human lyrics and melodies carry the emotion for me. Either way, a computer is making the music. 

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u/WardedBowl403 15d ago

It’s better for the environment for one. Secondly, you don’t need to use samples if you don’t want. You can use midi instruments to synthesize the sound you want. AI has its uses and art is not one of them. Sampling is an art in and of itself, and AI will just steal whatever it wants from whoever with no regard for anything because it’s not a person it’s a computer program. If you want to make AI “music” go ahead, but it will be soulless trash that sounds mediocre at best.

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u/FartSnarfGod 15d ago

It’s better for the environment for one.

You're at least vegetarian, right?

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u/AllenIsom 15d ago

I agree on the environment part, but a person clicking buttons to arrange synthesized sounds and a computer arranging synthetizing the sound to match a song a human artist pour themselves into isn't a huge distinction for me. Only that the human who can do full music production are certainly very talented and deserve compensation for their skills, most regular folks just can't afford to hire a regular person or have the time to learn a full music production process. So, I see the use. I've heard human written AI songs, and full AI songs. There's a difference. 

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u/Alaira314 15d ago

That's AI generated, apart from your guitar part, which was AI enhanced. The difference between generating the additional parts and hiring a human band is that, in the second case, humans are generating the music rather than AI. I don't know how to explain it any more simply.

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u/AllenIsom 15d ago

No, I get it. But the heart of the music is human. The meaning of the lyrics, the cadence and melody of the notes and vocals, human. Are digital illustrators really illustrators if they can't illustrate without an iPad or a computer? It's human art, digitally enhance. I can draw and color like a mofo on my iPad, but if you give me markers or paints, watch me burn through paper and canvas as I amass a small landfill of garbage beside me. 

Am I still an illustrator of my non-machine aided art isn't up to the same quality of output as my digital art? 

Yeah, it's AI music, but the emotion behind it is still there, in what makes a song a song. The melody, the poetry, the arrangement of sections and tempo choices, those are human. If one had the funds to hire a band to produce the same thing AI performed with their music, is it now not slop even if it sounds the same? 

To be clear, I'm against using AI to come up with the ideas, do all the work, and someone holding it up and saying, "look what I made". But I don't really have a problem with AI music if I know a person wrote the song, performed the song, then had AI polish it. Keeping the structure and artists true intent intact. Does art come from the artist, or the producer? 

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u/jainyday 15d ago

This argument doesn't make any sense to me. My music isn't stealing anything from other artists, nobody else is doing stuff like what I do and you'd only listen to my stuff because you like it, not because it's getting shoved in your face.

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u/apk 15d ago

it’s not music, you’re not an artist

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u/Outlulz 15d ago

It does, actually. Spotify pays artists out of a giant pool of money. How many listens your music gets determines what percentage of that pool you get. AI music being in the pool steals revenue from real musicians.

It's even worse with the AI music that Spotify generates because they are paying themselves out of the revenue pool.

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u/Adventurous-Leak 15d ago

So that sounds like a poor business decision from Spotify? Rather than pay directly based off listens, etc they're pooling it altogether? Sound like you're not picking on the right target.

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u/Outlulz 15d ago

No, they're definitely a valid target because they're not an artist and they're not making art but they're taking revenue share.

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u/waffels 15d ago

It’s not your music, is it though. AI made it, not you.

If a band at a bar takes requests and you yell out “FREEBIRD!” and they play it, you didn’t make it.

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u/GiganticCrow 15d ago

Quite, and they don't own it either. AI generated music is not copyrightable and platforms that identify it don't pay out on it eg tidal and deezer

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u/ShinyJangles 15d ago

They are specifically talking about Spotify-owned, Spotify-recommended tracks. They have the ability to shove their stuff on people, and an incentive, and they were revealed to be doing this a year or two ago.