PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Rick Beato on AI and deep fakes

Interesting points. And probably not too far off the target.

Whatever happens, the people actually creating stuff are still gonna keep getting screwed. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I have no idea, but think it will be a very interesting ride. 'Watch this space' kind of thing.

I think AI will continue its rapid advancement. The implications for the music industry will be the least of our problems. I agree with Rick's statements, and many legal battles will ensue.

The internet is currently being inundated with fake information. This fake information takes many forms and is put in place by foreign governments and other persons supporting their own agendas.

"Deep Fakes" generally means a video of a person whose face or body has been digitally altered to appear to be someone else, typically used maliciously or to spread false information.

I think it is currently impossible for most of us to know whether what we see or read on the internet is authentic or fake.

The continued advancement of AI will make this issue even more problematic.

The relationship between AI and music will continue to evolve for better or worse, depending on one's subjective opinion.

Billy

I agree with Rick in that musicians and record labels will be impacted. But when he says Spotify, Apple Music and others will do well that will only be in the short term. Someone will write an AI program for your personal computer that will build "original" songs in seconds and then play them for you thereby cutting out even the streaming services.

And then when AI has learned how to effectively program, the programmers will be cut out of the loop.

Last year on this forum I wrote “Alexa, write me a song with a melody and some lyrics and then copyright it.“

What is also coming to a restaurant near you is 3D-printed fish fillets.

I pity the generations coming behind us. They may live to 140 but will it be worth it?

Interesting! I do agree that the record labels are going to go wild… I don’t understand how the A.I. artists can use the name “Drake A.I.” and get away with it?

That will be just one of many legal battles.

All I can say is that a lot of lawyers are going to get rich!

What really worries me about fake AI is when it gets into politics. Was what I saw and heard really my candidate? I can real problems coming down the pipe! And that would be world wide.

PS - I know how to make a human brain. The downside is that it takes nine months.

This topic takes me back to a day in 1981 when I went to a studio here to see the Fairlight in action. The guy who owned it showed me how he could take any vocal and sample, not the words, but the vocalist's voice characteristics. And in fact he did it with Elvis and created a new Elvis-like song that HE wrote. The vocals had a bit of the "slurring" kind of sound that a vocoder produces, but it was really close and very good considering the time. Elvis fans would know it was not Elvis, but to someone who lived on Mars it would have sounded real. This is doing much the same thing with far better tools than what was available back then. I mean, the the Fairlight came out in 1979!! The stuff in this video, as one who doesn't listen to Drake, Kanye, Weeknd or any of that genre, you could tell me it was really Drake and I wouldn't have any idea.

The label could call it Draque!! Or Kanyea! Or Weakend!

Hardly waiting to see the legal battles. Honestly hardly waiting!

Here is a fresh interview with one of the pioneers of AI, Mr. Hinton.

If he is concerned, we all should be . . . this is far bigger than music.

https://youtu.be/yAgQWnD31nE

On the other hand for some internet active folks like us it is, at least at this stage, easy to carve out your own little safe bubble. I typically read but four balanced and well vetted news sources. My facebook activity is curated to focus solely on historical architecture, mountain biking, nature and music (listening and production). My information searches are confined to Wiki and Britannica. Our shopping is almost exclusively with Amazon. We book read via Kindle. Gmail kills every spam attempt. ATT's security app ID's spam texts immediately. And we live happily in a cloistered Apple world with an ipad, two Macs, two iPhones, HomePod, Apple TV and more. At the risk of being presumptuous I don't think I'm being faked. FWIW and a boat load of salt!

Bud

Hi, Bud,

Perhaps I should restate what I said, "... I think it is currently impossible for most of us to know whether what we see or read on the internet is authentic or fake or (simply inaccurate)."

"historical architecture, mountain biking, nature and music (listening and production)" encompasses a large body of knowledge. Not all "nonauthentic" information is put in place to deceive the reader purposely but is often inaccurate.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), reports of Amazon scams increased by 500% between June 2020 and 2021, with victims losing more than $27 million to scammers

If you read or listen to the national news through any medium, you will get outright deception from the federal government.

Do you really think the CDC thought masks were unnecessary at the beginning of the pandemic?

Do you have any way of knowing if a journalist or an AI wrote an article? How would know if the photo you are looking at is real or AI-generated?

A quoit from Scientific America

"In March the Sony World Photography Awards announced the winning entry in their creative photo category: a black-and-white image of an older woman embracing a younger one, entitled PSEUDOMNESIA: The Electrician. The press release announcing the win describes the photograph as “haunting” and “reminiscent of the visual language of 1940s family portraits.”

But the artist, Berlin-based Boris Eldagsen, turned down the award. His photograph was not a photograph at all, he announced: he had crafted it through creative prompting of DALL-E 2, an artificial intelligence image generator.

It is not that fake/inaccurate/nonauthentic information is definitely causing you or me any great concern at the moment. Both of us know where to look for what we assume are reliable sources.
I certainly do not have the software to analyze images, for example.

You and I most likely have little interest if Drake's voice was emulated by AI and some people liked the AI version better. That is an issue for Drakes's legal team.

Nothing is that significant until these issues happen to one of us.

Deep fakes are only one potential AI-generated problem. The implications for the music industry are significant.

There is no way to prevent the technology from being advanced.

Billy

That sounds gloomy indeed … perhaps a bit dystopian. Glad I’m naive. At 77 I’ll just continue on my oblivious journey.

Bud

Exactly! Sometimes I just try to remember those four magic words that can change my perspective. “It does not matter”. If I like the Drake A.I. song better than actual Drake legit then does it really matter? If that photo that won an award was produced by A.I. does it really matter?

At least we know with some degree of certainty that things are uncertain.

But are you certain about that?

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld

Of course this never addresses unknown knowns. That is to say the things we don't know that we do know.

-Chad

And no matter where you go there you are.

Bud

Here is a known known. AI or not, there will always be a sub population of cognitively challenged and minimally educated adults that will believe in falsehoods. Here are just a few:

Santa Clause is real
The COVID pandemic is a hoax
Bill Gates has placed micro chips in COVID vaccines
Hydroxychloroquine, injesting bleach and beams of light are safe and effective treatments for COVID
Donald Trump is sent by God to save the Christians
The world is flat
Paul McCartney has been dead for decades (the album cover proves it)
Elvis Presley is still alive
The Holocaust never happened
The Sandy Hook school shooting is a hoax
The people who stormed the US Capitol on Jan 6 were innocent tourists on vacation
Fluoride in public water supplies is a communist plot to weaken America
Ukraine started the war with Russia
Global warming and man-made climate change is a hoax

And the list goes on.

Someone should write a song on this subject, that would be a hoot!

And Bud, you are not naive but well informed.

....and I'm from Illinois so I can verify the authenticity.

I hope you're not lumping Bud in with that ongoing list?

Not at all.
He says he reads four balanced and well vetted news sources, but then says he’s naive. I don’t think he’s naïve. Well vetted sources are a good thing.

My comment about naivety was a tongue in cheek reference to Billy's post were he went into some detail discussing how misinformed I am regarding the current state of AI, etc., and how my described "cloistered net world" I reside in was not as I perceive it. Poor me.

But since the VAST amount of my time is spent mountain biking, hiking, trail building and studying/photographing old architecture (all with my wonderful wife) I reckon I'll survive my relatively brief net ventures.

Bud

And the one that isn't a hoax ... Santa really is an anagram of Satan!

I agree with Bud to some extent about being 77 and continuing on my oblivious journey. I said something similar to Steve in North Carolina.
"I am getting old, and I am going to die and leave these issues for you young people to sort out."

The moniker "Planobilly" mainly resulted from living in Plano, Texas.

My house was eight minutes south of the Allen Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas, a place my wife and I have shopped at several times.
AI may truly cause serious issues but what is going on in the United States is gloomy indeed … perhaps more than a bit dystopian.

It would be easy for me to continue my "oblivious journey." Well, that is, until I am personally negatively affected by AI or other issues I have limited control over.

I try to be informed. I try my best to put security measures in place.
I sleep well at night knowing I have serious security systems in place and that I am well-armed, well-trained, and as well prepared to protect my family and friends.

There is no reason to get overly upset or excited about these issues. There are excellent reasons to be well-informed and put whatever measures in place you can to protect yourself.

Billy

You missed one.

Santa Claus has an E at the end of it.

If you don't want the robots to take over, then don't invent the robots. You don't want a Terminator, don't invent the technology. AI is the current money grab and it will be developed to a point that something bad could happen. One thing you can count on is our "leaders" in DC will not do anything of substance to stop or curtail it unless it affects their power. I am not being exclusive here, both major parties are guilty. It is always about money and power. Even the climate. If there were no money to make, I guarantee you there would not be as much going on about it. I know as I work for a company that stands to make several hundred billion dollars from the green push and that is not an exaggeration. They are betting the farm on it. If the next election results in a regime change, and certain aspects of legislation gets repealed, we will be up the creek for some of it as a lot of the money is based on government handouts of course, which you and I are paying for.

As for the creative world, the gate keepers are always looking for ways to get more without paying more. Having an AI create is way better than some temperamental creative! The current WGA writers strike is all about the fact that the writers are not benefiting from the 'streaming revolution'. The model has changed, and they are still being paid like the broadcast rules specify. In their world it is kind of feast or famine. They have to live off the good jobs in the times they are not getting to write other stuff. Very similar to the music world.

AI is only going to make this worse.

Warehouses are getting more and more automated and as soon as they can invent a robot to do what a person is doing they go to it. Robots don't want days off, don't need sick time, and work tirelessly. You need a mechanic or two for repairs etc. vice a building full of people that have to have SS and Medicare taxes paid and health care and so on.

Its not all bad. I get to still play guitar and enjoy myself regardless.

I don't watch the news I don't really trust any of them to tell me the truth anyway. Deep fakes will soon hit the campaign trail and you will never know if what you are seeing is real or fake. The movies already do that. I am pretty sure the dinosaurs in the Jurassic movies are not real!

Just an opinion, everyone has one you know.

Before deepfakes, there was...



This poor dog was badly burned and disfigured trying to save his family from a house fire
One like = one prayer
One share = ten prayers

And just how to you plan to verify the authenticity of Illinois? I believe that's what you were trying to say?

It feels a bit like the Bible is true because the Bible says it is. What web of circular logic and you pulling us into Mr. St. Louis, Missouri?

At least your attachment has been properly vetted. I do have to give you that.

Funny you should mention that, I was just the other day arguing at the dog park with a guy who was saying just that. He seemed to find the circularity comforting. I said, but Bob, I could write a book and say "everything here is true" and that wouldn't make everything true. He replied, but you're not God, and I gave up.

Verse 1:
I was just a dog, my name was plain
Until my owner played a cruel game
He placed a ham upon my snout
And snapped a pic, then sent it out

Chorus:
Now thousands prayed for Hamdog's burn
But there was no AI, no digital churn
Just a simple prank, a foolish game
Yet the internet was taken by this canine's shame

Verse 2:
My heart was heavy, guilt weighed me down
I never thought this ham could cause such a sound
People sharing, commenting, showing love
But it was all a lie, sent from above

(Chorus)

Bridge:
I forgive my owner, he meant no harm
But now my name is known, and my fame is warm
Hamdog they call me, a dog with a tale
And I'll keep on wagging, I'll never fail

Nope.

The e is for embrangle

I tweeted once "All of you people who base your opinions on the bible and what god says, where are people like me who don't believe in god supposed to turn for guidance?"

I had over 2000 hate mail tweets after that one. Some people were AGHAST that their could be someone who doesn't live their life based on some book that may or may not exist, that IF it exists is nothing more than a collection of stories that nobody can prove are true, and was passed down through generations, translated many times between languages.

It's like some religion based game of Telephone.

In a bar once with 8 people sitting at a round table, I whispered this joke to the person next to me and had them whisper it to the next person. The joke was this.

A guy walks into a restaurant. The waiter asks what he wants. He said "I'll have 2 pork chops, and make them lean." The waiter says "Sure sir. Which way?"

When that joke came back to me the girl on my left said:

"A guy walks into a restaurant. The waiter asks what he wants. The guys says "I want some pork chops but make sure they don't have a lot of fat on them." And the waiter says "Sure mister. Which way?"

That's how I view the bible I don't believe exists. Like a thousands of year old game of Telephone.

I wonder how AI would tell the story of The Loaves and the Fishes? Someone with an account care to test that?

Well that is weird because I am pretty sure the bible exists. I may have one or two right here.

You have something that to me is just a book of stories. Your belief system makes it "the bible".

The point of that post slightly left turn of a post was to say that people can believe what they choose to believe and like something they choose to like. Like Drake AI, Kanye AI, Usher AI, McCartney AI, Dylan AI, etc... Everything in life is optional. (Except that it eventually ends.)

You forgot Taxes

I don't have to pay taxes anymore.

I didn't.


Interesting that Rick refers to an already posted & popular video as proof his prediction...the one he hasn't made yet!
Rick doing Rick.

You don't buy gas for your car?

I think Eddie has some " Vinnie and Vito" sort of guys who negotiate prices for him based on things I listened to in North Carolina. That could render him tax-exempt even at the gas station...lol

But like I said, "I think it is currently impossible for most of us to know whether what we see or read on the internet is authentic or fake." It is also currently impossible, or a least very difficult, to know whether what we see live is authentic or fake.

How do I even know for sure if that was really Eddie? It could have been Vito dressed up in an Eddie costume. Even the dog could have been a robot.

Even David Snider put some electronic thing up against my head to see if I was real. You may think I am joking; ask David. Man, I just saw the other day in the National Enquirer.....

Billy

Billy

Man, Mark! A similar thing happened to me the other day after coming ashore from a sailing trip!

Well, I rapped upon a house
With the U.S. flag upon display
I said, "Could you help me out?
I got some friends down the way"
The man says, "Get out of here
I'll tear you limb from limb"
I said, "You know, they refused Jesus, too"
He said, "You're not Him"
"Get out of here before I break your bones
I ain't your pop"
I decided to have him arrested
And I went looking for a cop

Billy

Billy

Are you seeing double yet?...lol

Trev, sales tax doesn't count. I don't pay income tax.

Good timing. Maggie says that many say they must bust in early May. Orders from the DA.

Hmmmm... That'd be neat.
(Although I know you gave plenty previously - in more ways than one.)

I cross the Mississippi river every evening when I come home from downtown St. Louis and there's this big sign that says, "Welcome to Illinois, Land of Lincoln". I'm pretty sure that's an authentic Illinois sign. The governor's signature is on it too, so it seems legit.

Steve, that sign was probably made on a machine driven by AI, so....

Pay no attention to the glitch in the matrix.

I understood your point, I was making a bad attempt at a joke. Whether you believe the stories or not the book exists and it is call the bible or variations of that anyway.