Καρπός - J. L. Clodfelter

Καρπός is about machines. The music was originally score to a sci-fi film and it represents the philosophical debate of artificial intelligence. These artifacts are a product of men. Righteous men and evil men alike, the fruit of their labor will likely be as such. These machines can produce great things for us, but they can also take away our humanity. To progress technologically, we need to be wise as serpents but innocent as doves.

.
.

For thematic reasons and because it’s a relevant topic right now, I wanted to use this piece of music to talk about AI art. I began using AI art because it was the most efficient way to produce high quality visual content to go with my music. There has been a significant delay between the completion of my music and the release of it because I feel the need have matching visuals with the audio. I have scoured the internet for quality art resources that I can purchase the rights to and manipulate for my own commercial use. I have reached out to an artist and offered to commission some work, but I received no content. Anything that you have seen me release that was not AI art up to this point has been free-use content that I edited to my own taste. This has always been time consuming, and I’ve wanted to outsource it for a long time. The piece of art you see here was the same way.

I have had a very difficult time finding artists who could create digital materials for my music. However, in transparency, price is definitely a concern as well. I am a believer that artists should be paid for their work. But if I am unable to pay professional level prices, I recognize that and would want to find someone who is less experienced (who I can afford to pay) and needs the money. That is how the music industry works and one could expect the same in the digital art world. Shockingly, this has also been extraordinarily difficult to find. (If you’re reading this and would want to work with me, feel free to send me a DM!)

But now we need to address the issue of AI. It has been brought to our attention that AI art (#Midjourney as the obvious example) is referencing other people’s artwork without their permission to create visually similar materials, some of which are extremely high quality. The copyright laws of art (and music) are grey. They aren’t grey in a good way and they aren’t grey in a bad way. They’re just grey and cannot cover every area (and I’m not even convinced we want them to). If someone listens to a pop song on the radio and it influenced their backbeat, then they listen to the words of a rock song and it influenced their lyrics, then they listen to a reggae hit and it influenced their bass line, have they done anything morally wrong? It’s the constant debate of copying vs influence. With AI artwork, is the AI copying anything or just being heavily “influenced” on a massive scale (the likes of which we have never seen)?

Will AI art simply become a tool for more efficient product creation (like other software we use) or will it completely take over and destroy the career of artists? I am not sure, but I know that I don’t want to continue using it until things have settled a little bit more. Maybe that’s when laws change or companies get sued, or maybe it’s just when it becomes old-hat and human artists have far surpassed anything that AI could create. I think the best artists right now are much better than AI. However, I also think that AI is better than the vast majority of people trying to become full-time artists. I don’t say that with joy. It’s actually quite concerning, and I hope a year from now all of this is sorted out in some way or another.

But remember that new technology has a tendency to bring both positive and negative things. Social media allows us to be connected to others more than ever. But it also lets us be advertised to (and arguably manipulated) constantly because we use it daily. Some people do not like digital audio workstations because they don’t require you to have any skill playing an instrument. However, DAWs have opened up the world of music creation to many people and have been one of the most important developments in the world of music. As with most new technology, I think we should be open-minded about AI art but also be cautious. Let us be wise as serpents but innocent as doves.

#Newmusic #Synthmusic #Filmscore #Scifimusic #Suspensemusic #AI #Artificial intelligence #Christianmedia #Christianmusic #Midjourney #Cinematicmusic #Trailermusic #Gamescore #Industrial #DNDmusic #Robots #Machines #AIArt
Video made with Vizzy.io

Soli Deo gloria!