Your thoughts on A.I. art creation

[Mandle]

I think humans will always value human-made art over algorithm-generated art. When photography came about, people were predicting the fall of the art of painting, but it only came back stronger and evolved faster against its competitor.

A.I. art is fine for commercial uses, but I doubt anyone soon is gonna go to an art gallery to look at any of it, except for the initial novelty.

We want to see what other people did, and talk about why they did it, and what they were feeling while they did it.

At the current state of A.I. art, there is no conversation to be had because the machine was not even aware of what it was creating.

This may also change of course.

[cat]

@Mandle Your post reminds me of when I went to an art gallery to see the winners of the press photo awards. The photos were excellent, of course, but I've seen most of them in an online article about said awards already. Going to a place and paying for seeing prints of digital photos didn't really work for me.

[Ponch]

As a child, I looked forward to the day when AI was real and we went into an exciting future with our AI buddies. Now I find myself half a century old and the AIs are being taught how to interact with the world by the denizens of 4Chan. This is not quite the future I had hoped for. 

[cat]

@Ponch 😆

[eri0o]

I kinda expected ai to automate the boring stuff, but for some reason it started to automate what I actually wanted to do...

I recently discovered something called Low Rank Adaptation, I believe people are shortening to LoRa, I haven't really tried, but it appears something that one can use for making it consistent. So for drawing, it would mean you could teach an AI to draw consistently in whatever style.

I tried playing a bit more with code and so far the only thing I can make it do that requires low corrections from me is unit testing self contained functions. I also tried to use it to generate some fake data - for the purpose of unit tests - but it really only works if the data is really really small.

One thing that I managed though is showing it my code for a command line interface and asking it to make a documentation and also example usages and small tutorial like docs. It can generate these things if your software is small or if you feed it in pieces. The documentation texts are not great, but once it gets you the format and general skeleton well you can redo it easier than starting from scratch, for this particular usage.

[AndreasBlack]

I was thinking about my own poor situation. I have this friend who's voice is in the demo of my game all the standard comments like "I can't use that" "I can't open that". Etc etc. However the amounts of dialog will most likely stack up, and having no money to pay him for the work the resort to AI seems more like a valid option. The idea of having him record just various speeches, let the AI analyse (if possible i'm guessing it's possible by now). Since it's my friend that would most likely be totally legal. Or?

However say if you wanted to up the games voiceacting with a familiar voice. You turn down the music/sound effects from Monkey Island games and capture Dominics voice. Illegal? 

[Danvzare]

I'm not a lawyer, so please take everything I say with a pinch of salt.

Personally, I've never heard of someone's voice being protected by law. Their likenesses, yes, definitely. But not their voices. If I had to make any guesses, the only laws you'd be breaking is the copyright law on the soundclips used to train the AI. If they're recordings you personally own, then theoretically there should be no legal repercussions. After all, they're your recordings and you can "edit" them however you like. So as long as it isn't stipulated anywhere that you'll owe royalties for their use, it should be fine.
Although please keep in mind that this is only because this is all new technology, and the law hasn't quite caught up yet.

Now from a moral perspective, I think it's safe to say most people won't be happy if you use an AI generated version of their voice without their permission. Especially if you end up profiting from it. And if it's your friend, I suspect that would be a good way to end a friendship. Then again, all of my friends would gladly voice act for free if I asked them, so I could be wrong on that. 



On a related note, as someone who added AI voice acting to one of my games (it's the Reality-On-The-Norm game I made), I can safely say that using an AI for all of the lines takes roughly the same amount of time (if not slightly longer) as recording them all yourself. The only difference is, instead of getting a sore throat, you end up being bored out of your mind. Make of that what you will.

[AndreasBlack]

On a related note, as someone who added AI voice acting to one of my games (it's the Reality-On-The-Norm game I made), I can safely say that using an AI for all of the lines takes roughly the same amount of time (if not slightly longer) as recording them all yourself. The only difference is, instead of getting a sore throat, you end up being bored out of your mind. Make of that what you will.

Oh! I have to check that game out! Well, i didn't mean that my friend was against me using his voice, not at all quite the opposite actually  . However the guy has severe depression/unknown mental disorders we can only speculate, and putting pressure on him expecting him to record lines after lines of dialogs, is just too much, and then my perfectionist brain kicks in and it would make things even worse! I can re-do take after take, but he most likely don't have that patience & energy as i do. I mean only the first room with his character is like a  huge monolog! Since there's many "funny options" to choose from, to get that mucasflem vibe

I would just rather record myself and replace my voice with a Ai later. I'm used to singing & talking a lot, no problem . Thanks for replying your thoughts and experiences!


 

[Danvzare]

Hello this is Gulshan Negi
Well, according to me, AI art creation is an evolving field that both excites and challenges the art community.  It creates debates and discussions about the nature of art and the relationship between human and machine creativity, in addition to opening up new creative opportunities. We can say AI is at peak and there is still a lot of research going on in this field. 
Thanks

No offense, but that is the most nothing statement I've ever heard about AI, and could be used to describe almost any field in technology (seriously, you can replace "AI" in what you said with something like "Video Games" or "The Internet" and it still makes sense).

This is what I'd expect to hear in a company's press release, not a forum full of personal opinions and thoughts.

So is there anyway you could elaborate in detail and actually share your personal thoughts on the matter? I'd love to hear them.

[Babar]

No offense, but that is the most nothing statement I've ever heard about AI, and could be used to describe almost any field in technology (seriously, you can replace "AI" in what you said with something like "Video Games" or "The Internet" and it still makes sense).

This is what I'd expect to hear in a company's press release, not a forum full of personal opinions and thoughts.

So is there anyway you could elaborate in detail and actually share your personal thoughts on the matter? I'd love to hear them.

It worked, though, didn't it?
The AI generated bot text pulled you in.

[LimpingFish]

It worked, though, didn't it?
The AI generated bot text pulled you in.

The call is coming from...inside the house!

In other news, the EU's doin' stuff!

[Galen]

I think it would be morally unconscientious, if not a potential legal issue, to train an AI on anyone's voice without their informed consent in most cases. If you're using an AI Joe Biden voice for parody purposes, it's not going to ruffle anyone's feathers. Likewise there's some mods for the game Morrowind that attempt to use AI models to have the original voice actors's voices cover all of their lines (since the original game only had voices for select snippets of dialogue). Since it's an old project, not being used for anything 'new', and hiring the same VAs ~20 years later to do thousands of lines isn't going to happen for obvious reasons, it again is a very 'low harm' use case.

But depriving someone of a role, or making them say things they didn't consent to saying is all sorts of problematic when it is just being used in place of getting a VA. I don't think it'd be wholly dissimilar to deep-faking someone into a role. You can get away with it for parody, but the moment it is being used in place of hiring someone then it isn't really an ethical use case.

If they're willing to sign off on it, and it's for a specific scope (ie. you've agreed what it will be used for and don't just go on to use their voice forever because they agreed once) then that's okay though. There's also some broader troubling implications in terms of creative industries (i.e. it only takes a couple of people signing off on having their voice used in audiobooks to put dozens or hundreds of actors out of work by massively undercutting them in terms of cost-per-book), but it'd be a bit silly to apply them to indie adventure games.

[PatientRock]

There is legal precedent in the US for the protection of someone's voice going as far back as 1988. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.)

Separately, and in my own opinion, the issue of AI is directly tied to the issue of labor. Currently and unfortunately, the technology seems to be largely driven by folks who seek to avoid having to employ and pay people. I think you're better off reaching out to friends and folks in communities like this, who'd likely give their services for free or cheaply.

[Danvzare]

There is legal precedent in the US for the protection of someone's voice going as far back as 1988. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.)

Oh wow! I did not know that! 
Thanks for sharing.

I love hearing about things like that. 

[AndreasBlack]

Finally the thread started a bit What if i use AI voices that are not "famous"? I mean why would i want to use Michael Jackson or Freddy Mercury in a Point & Click game you know?
When i did use Freddy Mercury on my voice for my song, just for fun i sent it to someone that likes Queen. And he couldn't recognise Freddy's voice  in the final mix i didn't use Freddy ofc! It was just a test to see how it could have sounded with AI Freddy.

I will definately go over to the darkside of the force when it comes to my music . Now that i've gotten around to using AI. I just imagine how much greater my latest song 'Stick It In' could have sounded with AI backing vocals. I will use AI for backing vocals in the future for sure. Why? Well it will make my music sound more professional with different timbres.

Morally wrong  Absolutely! But backing vocals sang by me originally then replaced with another voice/timbre, it's not the main vocal. I still made an effort! I didn't just push a button and created a fake vocal line. To me this would be equivalent of say using samples/sampled chords from copyrighted recordings, and that's been done since the 80's perhaps even 70's. Daft Punk made millions on sampling/stealing others sounds but they still made it sound like "their music" in the end, and rappers do it all the time too! It still doesn't make it right. I'm aware of that, but what's the option if you have a dream and you can perhaps achieve it by "cheating a little" vs paying money from your own pocket to amateur vocalists that can't sing like the giants and you get 00.01€ back in return from the monsters of greed Spotify or Itunes music, Tidel, etc! Those guys are the worst!

And what about all the influencers that steal stuff all the time? Covers of famous songs that makes themselfs shot into "online stardom/fame". Think Rick Beato what makes this song great, forexample. With the help of someone else's art? And the original artists are dead and get nothing from it. Selling their tablatures or versions of their famous tunes. Say Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix behind a paywall like Patreon. It's ofc wrong but they still keep doing it! Many will lose their jobs that's for sure. But it is what it is. Mp3's came and destroyed the music industry. AI won't destroy it, but it might not help much either, but for amateurs that can't afford or have the contacts, it's a gift from god to be able to get decent vocal timbres for free.

[LimpingFish]

Well, it kind of seems like you've already made your mind up, and are offering arguments in favour of AI, because you're looking for some form of validation (the ends justify the means). And while AI isn't inherently evil, anybody who uses it will have to admit, on some level, that they are comfortable with not caring that it's built upon other people's creativity without their consent.

And that's...kind of shitty.

Even an AI trained solely on singers who were paid and credited for their service, and knew there voices where going to be used for such a service, could still take jobs away from other singers who may have been hired to sing on whatever the AI is now singing.

The whole point of a possible mass adoption of AI by the entertainment industry is to stop having to pay people for their creativity.

Personally, I've taken, and will continue to take, an anti-AI stance, across the board, and will refuse to pay money for media created wholly or partly by AI. And I hope there are many others like me.

[LimpingFish]

Also...this.

[Danvzare]

You know, all of this talk about having AI doing vocals for songs has made me think about something...

What about Hatsune Miku? 
Or do people only care about this lazily trained (dump in a bunch of data and let the program figure it out) AI generation nowadays? Because if so, that would be a shame. 

[LimpingFish]

As far as I know, Hatsune Miku, being a Vocaloid, is more like a synth instrument than an AI, requiring musical skill to utilize, and as such doesn't "perform" without extensive user interaction. "Her" software doesn't analyze existing music to create ersatz "original" music based on a learning model, and won't produce anything unless "played" via a DAW.

Vocaloids aren't replacing human singers, as the whole point is to hear the Vocaloids "sing".

EDIT: Also, I merged the two AI discussions into one thread (so some messages may now be jumbled about a bit), as having two AI discussions seemed a little redundant.

[AndreasBlack]

Personally, I've taken, and will continue to take, an anti-AI stance, across the board, and will refuse to pay money for media created wholly or partly by AI. And I hope there are many others like me.

What media are you refering to, newspapers? I haven't paid for any such media in ages! Made up my mind about music-production yes, for the game, not so sure, a lot of dialog after all and finding good quality AI's that are pitch-friendly and yet sounding natural, is a task in itself. Since obviously you don't want anyone to "recognise themselfs". I try to see the positive in AI. If AI writes the songs/games/programs fully, which again i said they won't i still sing and write my harmonies. I would just replace the vocal timbre with a different character (in the future). It's like a "vocal impulse" guitarist use's "Cab impulses" based of sounds from copyrighted recordings all the time. However if you don't program beats/drums/games/sing/write anything. Then it's obviously a problem. But for me it's just a new tool to be used creatively if being in a rot.  

Forexample with lyrics aka writers block. Having an AI come up with some ideas around a theme, then re-write it a bit to make it fit to what you're doing. What's wrong with that? It's like having another guy in the room, except you don't have to split the potential songwriting credits and you get to keep all the Spotify streaming millions yourself! *irony*