More Thoughts on AI & Artistry

My Thoughts on AI -Part Two

The Pandora's box is, in my view, not merely help- but options. I'm going to posit several analogies to illustrate what I mean and there are many strands, many trails off the main trail that one might consider as we think about Artificial Intelligence and the outcomes.

Can AI -help-? Does use of any available AI suite provide -options- we may not have thought of? To both questions I'd say OF COURSE. BUT...

So... should we?

As a young guitarist I was enamored with various sound effects and as they were beginning to show up in the marketplace, effects pedals to plug into between the electric guitar and the amplifier. The first that really caught my interest was tremolo which came with some Gibson and Fender amps. It offered a sort of shimmering, ping-pong repeating sound for the chord or riffs. And I wanted to use it on nearly every song at various speeds (one of it's settings)! For me, next it was reverb. I mean you could dial in deep "Grand Canyon" sounds or something minimal like a small room with the audio atmosphere pretty close to what you'd get from the natural acoustics of a hallway. To me "Coolness" -and I wanted to saturate most every song with that effect on my guitar sometimes also mixing in tremolo. Then came Hendrix and others using a fuzz tone which even at low volumes offered instant grit, distortion one could dial in regardless of the amp to get a harder, tough sound. All of these did and do have deep affect on tone.

The deal with them and the many other effects I used and was often quite enamored with was that I slowly realized I'd over-used them.

Granted, some people's natural personality is such they might use AI sparingly and only in nuanced ways to "touch up" and "better" what they've already created in a song or other work of art, etc., but for many of us that's not going to happen.

Another analogy? Manual vs. automatic transmissions in cars and vans. I learned to use a clutch with 3-on-the-column "stick shifts", then 4 and 5 on the floor shifts to change gears when driving. Others wouldn't be comfortable with such.

I use Linux operating systems in my computers while most folks use Windows or Mac - and much of this is about personal comfort, vs. the zillion tweaking, look and feel options the vast array of Linux systems offer, so I'm obviously not against options or alternative ways of doing things.

Style choices come to mind re. what AI might offer regardless of the artistic mode.

Beneficial? I think it can/could be, yes. My personal view is that AI much like surfing the web vs. heading to a library and digging through books are two ways of doing something where one "gets you there faster" in terms of research or gaining fresh ideas- but when it comes to creativity the deeper question is have you personally as a human being come up with something that expresses your heart and soul or did a machine come up with something you liked best?

Consider a long list of mental/emotional "tick-boxes" to decide what paint job your about-to-be-purchased new car will have. You didn't know the same model came in all those colors. What about a truly custom color? Well... that YOU likely have to come up with and in such case it's all your own, not something a computer program suggested.

That last piece is an area I believe AI cannot match -it doesn't have a soul, personality, and you cannot be replaced by -any- "option". This is a distinction that matters.

So am I a Luddite on this issue? Of course I don't think so but again, some of the debates around using AI or not have everything to do with personal choices and the sense of comfort or discomfort with creative processes.

Many years ago I came to a place where I was comfortable getting lost in the woods learning how to always find my way out. I also appreciate and often use/d a compass...

As I wrote in my first post on the topic, I have no final word on the issue but these are my own non-AI written thoughts about it thus far :)

And as always, thanks for stopping by! -Glenn