AI, AI, AIEEEE…! 😮

Community Hub 🗨 Just Chatting
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My simple take on this regards the Community and questions relating specially to technique and Justin’s lessons.

If you do not know the answer do not provide an answer, don’t speculate.
If you have not watched the lessons, if the question is lesson specific. See above.
Do not use AI and think you are providing an answer, if you could not answer that with your own experience and knowledge.
Do not even use google, If you do not know the answer you are not qualified to answer.

Answer specifically based on your own knowledge and experience and your familiarity with Justin’s teaching methods and material.

For a number of years, I stopped providing support and feedback here (and the old place) as I felt I was no longer qualified. Justin had rewritten the old Beginners and Intermediate Courses plus added a shed load of new stuff. And I was not familiar with the new content AND teaching approach. So I said nowt until I finally was up to speed on the changes and even now don’t comment on questions about the app. Never used it so I have no valid input.

So yeah, AI is here and is not going away but as discussed here, that throws up a whole lot of other questions. But regarding the core reason for this Community, sharing and supporting those using Justin’s “program” don’t go down the AI route and don’t even google. You either know the answer or you don’t and if you don’t you have no input. You are either part of the solution or part of the problem, so look in the mirror before you hit that keyboard.

Just MHO
My 2 cts

Part time AI art explorer for fun and recent #BBP Merch designer, alluded to by @Majik in one of his earlier posts. And yes if your a professional in these areas I see your point of view.

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@TheMadman_tobyjenner has given a great response.

But to answer a specific point, yes people could Google for an answer (and maybe already have) but, by asking here, I see them as asking for advice or an answer from someone who has direct knowledge, experience or expertise who is likely to give a more specific, or more nuanced, or more opinionated answer than a generic Google search (or proxy search via Chat GPT) could provide.

And, also, they may be looking for someone who they can have a continued conversation with about the subject.

Cheers,

Keith

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And you think coping and pasting an answer from ChatGPT is interacting with people in the commumity. I agree with Keith it posting for the sake of posting.

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Pitch correction is the devil :rage:

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To give credit where it’s due, I understand that many people in the community have an urge to help others, and that’s appreciated. We see a cry for help and we want to assist.

However, I think that doing that when you can’t mainly answer the question from your own knowledge and experience isn’t actually the right thing to do. Personally, I’ve learned to avoid doing that unless, by doing so, I can be assured of giving a sensible, useful answer.

But I’ll normally be up front about the limitations in my answer. And I’ll only normally do so because it’s an area I want to know more about myself and I want to be part of the conversation.

Like @TheMadman_tobyjenner I used to answer a lot of questions that beginners posed on the course, on basic music theory, and so on. But I rarely do these days as there are better qualified people, including our lovely moderators.

I tend to answer a lot of technology questions, because that is something that’s in my wheelhouse, but even there if people are asking about stuff I don’t know that much about, like Windows, or Mac computers, or software like Reaper that I don’t use, then I’ll leave it to someone else to answer.

This is a pretty active community and it’s rare that someone with expertise in the subject doesn’t answer within a day or two.

Cheers,

Keith

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And there has been no special place to post such posts so why do you think there should be a special place for ai.

Sorry Brian but I think you started this to cause controversy. Controversy seems to be your M O

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I would have thought a farming forum was more appropriate for a discussion of Artificial Insemination?

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On that Richard; for some reason, most AI agents, including ChatGPT, Complexity etc, are notoriously poor in relation to musical knowledge; even very, very basic questions on music theory. I’m not sure how its original data set was generated, but AI has spent more time ‘apologising’ to me for its errors, than actually giving correct information.

As it has developed, AI also seems to be referencing pretty dubious, low quality internet sources for it musical knowledge. Its an odd situation, given that AI’s general integrity for knowledge across other areas is much better.

I have tested this somewhat over time, given my initial astonishment at the consistently 100% wrong answers it gives; it’s very surprising, given the logical, mathematical basis of music.

So anyone relying on AI for a quick answer to a musical question, I would suggest, don’t.

As for the ‘creative’ AI stuff talked about in this thread. Can be fun yeah; but it will end in tears. Mankind’ will, ironically, become homogenised. Music is already speeding in the direction.

Cheers, Shane

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Opinions are very divided and range from each to the other side of the spectrum.
We all draw the line differently.

It can’t be the purpose of a Community this broad, smart and empathic that people should resort to Googling and AI tools so they can answer themselves.

If the research enriches yourself that is great but the you come to the Community to verify :wink:

This topic is causing a bit of a stir.
It does in many communites actually :wink:
I’ll keep an eye on this thread.

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I think some of the stuff AI can do with video is really cool. I understand the fear and apprehension of it in music. I still remember the huge controversial issues of sampling way back in the 80s and early 90s.

One of the greatest hip hop albums broke through that wall and is listed as one of the top albums of all time by Rolling Stone magazine many others today spotify and Apple music. I dont know if any of you guys are fans of the Beastie Boys. There are over 100 samples used and this album and it is 100% unique in how it is put togeather. When criticism
about the use of sampling was arising. They paid for the use and then followed up with Cheak your Head, which I personally like better. They used sampling again but added thair own instrumentation to creat an amazing release that fit the time. They blending hiphop and gain infused guitar and funk like the of the growing alt-rock movment. 1992 was a great year for music and the BBoys were right in it leading the way for a whole genre of music that we still have today.

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I feel too old to enter into this discussion. I still use a dictionary and a thesaurus. Mind you, I’ve recently misplaced my thesaurus and I just can’t find the words to describe how annoyed I am.

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This thread is morphing somewhat away from my original question of whether the use of AI should be acceptable in the community in general, to whether it should be used to give guitar advice.
There have been some insightful, thoughtful contributions, but strong feelings have also been expressed, some of which have bordered on unpleasantness. That’s a pity.

I’m truly sorry you feel that way, Rick, and that you cannot accept my genuine motivation.
I do hope most people in the community are able to tell the difference between when I am being serious (on most moral and social justice issues) and ‘having a laugh’ (which I do enjoy)
When I mentioned the ‘inevitable tsunami of different opinions’ in the OP, that was because I know the strong feelings people have (for very good reasons). Ignoring issues, simply because they are ‘difficult’ is almost always counterproductive.

In practical terms, last month I shared a video that I ‘borrowed’ from YouTube for a cover song. I’m almost certain it was AI-generated. I had no permission from the creator (although I always credit sources I can find). Am I sorry? No. Do I think it was wrong? No, (although you can never be sure). No one mentioned the AI in the comment section.
I’ll take it down if the Community decides to go down that path, but I’m not going to start self-censorship.

By all means continue the debate, but remember you’re much less likely to cause offense by saying what you feel/think rather than telling others what they are thinking/doing.
Night-night :kissing_heart:

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To me there is no issue using AI to generate graphics for a music video for collaborations or originals. We don’t all have green screens and capabilities to design our own graphic videos.

I think the discussion (or shall I say debate) is more about just posting some random AI songs like the ones poor Richard fell for or using AI to answer questions raised on the forum.

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IMO, sampling - at least in those days - was still a human activity. The sampler had to make up their mind about what sort of sound they wanted to hear and then search for the right piece of music for that purpose. It was a creative endeavor that required effort.

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I quess you never read my first post. I’m not ignoring anything. I don’t think this is the right forum for AI.

So you admit you started this thead because you knew it would be controversial.

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I dont disagree. Only that the response is similar.

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What about an AI plugin that take our guitar recording and makes it sounds like Justin ? :rofl: (Just kidding, I’m not serious :grin: )

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The raison d’être of this place is for people to come together and discuss Justin’s lessons, learning guitar, and becoming better musicians. I see little or no place for AI-generated content in that context, with the possible exception of AI-generated drums/bass/etc backing an actual human performance on guitar. (Although even there I’d prefer real bass/drums/etc, or even human-programmed MIDI instruments, over an AI-generated backing track.)

Discussion of AI might be okay in the “Just Chatting” area with other random topics, but I honestly wouldn’t miss such discussions if they were declared verboten. There are plenty of places to discuss (and argue about) AI; this needn’t be one of them, in my opinion.

So that’s my $0.02, for what it’s worth…

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Much has been said here already, and most points well articulated. Still, I can’t resist adding my voice.

I freaking cannot stand pitch correction. It can be done really well by hand, where a producer tweaks the occasional note in a vocal if it’s noticeably pitchy, but I still prefer the real, raw sound of a human voice. Otherwise, it feels like a trick? More and more music these days is pitch corrected through-and-through. Everything is too perfect, too smooth. It’s boring. It’s got no texture, or it has a pre-selected identical texture that I’ve heard elsewhere.

It also takes the joy out of it. When I listen to someone perform a vocal number that’s impressive, I’m thrilled! I’m like ‘hell yeah, that was amazing!’ and it inspires me. When I hear someone perform a vocal number that’s pitch-corrected, I feel nothing, at best maybe ‘oh well it was a good idea for a song’. But I often feel cheated!

(That said, I don’t care much for dance music using it, as it goes along thematically with all the synthetic instruments in sound. But it belongs there.)

I do miss the days of AI where the images were all a specific flavour of messed-up, as it was a cool aesthetic. It was easily distinguishable from actual art and often funny on inspection. I think there are some artists who recreate the early days of AI style images. These days it is hard to tell, and that sucks for artists and the audience alike. I don’t care if a computer can do something perfectly, it means nothing, half the enjoyment of something impressive is that it was an impressive feat. If nobody put any effort in (a prompt does not count) then what even is the point? And it is flooding the commissions market which is terrible.

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With regards to this forum’s scope:

I find AI videos of a ‘guitarists’ and AI music to be an affront. It’s gone past the novelty of ‘wow, look what a computer can do!’ and fallen into the category, ‘yeah, but look what a computer can do’. It takes the joy out of it when you realise it wasn’t an achievement of human endeavour, just well-written code.

AI lyrics, ehh… writing lyrics is a skill, and it’s a learnable one. There are plenty of songs out there that are absolute bangers that have pretty terrible lyrics, and I don’t mean offensive I mean repetitive and uninventive. Personally, from the couple of songs and snippets of songs I’ve heard from Katy Perry’s latest album, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn her collaborators were a computer and a computer. (Frankly, even the music.) I can see how folks might want to use AI to write lyrics but honestly, I feel like if you have a good chord progression / melody you’ve created, you’re doing yourself a disservice by getting AI to come up with something rather than teaming up with someone who can write something decent. That said, this is a forum of people from all walks of life and social networking abilities, and if your goal is just to showcase your tune here with some words to go along with it then I guess there’s no harm in that, although I do think it should be disclosed as such.

Moderating it will get harder, you’re mostly relying on the honour system. But I do think we have a wonderful community of passionate people here, and so I believe any purposeful deceit will be scant, and anybody found to be trying to trick folks into thinking their AI stuff is real will find themselves shown the door.

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:rofl: just like any good journalist does these days (sad but true)

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