A supposed band called The Velvet Sundown has released two albums of AI slop this month.
Not to defend this garbage, but is radio pop music really distinguishable from ai slop?
People who actually care about music are not the target audience here.
I get not liking it, and there are some real clunkers, but I think you’re dramatically underestimating the amount of craft and expertise that goes into some pop music.
I’m referring to the mass-produced crap I hear when I get a random ride. Obviously pop music can have artistic intent, but I feel like that’s a small minority.
Even mass produced things require skill and sophistication. Pop music is more like a mass produced iphone than a mass produced frisbee.
Sure the lyrics aren’t saying something important or the singer isn’t the same person as the songwriter, but a lot of hours went into it. The average person on the street could not create a comparable song to what you hear on the radio without significant effort.
From a labour perspective I agree. From an artistic standpoint not so much. I was mucking around making random beats in fruity loops when I was twelve and there weren’t even any tutorials.
I would argue it can be, even if it isn’t always. I don’t go for radio pop at all, but we can agree that it changes substantially over time right? Billie Eilish doesn’t sound like Imagine Dragons, who in turn didn’t sound like Britney Spears. New ideas are being brought to the genre and to popularity all the time, otherwise we’d still have Beatles soundalikes dominating the radio
Pop is a very broad category.
Imagine Dragons makes me vomit whenever I hear them
Thay are as basic as one can get, music for the lower common denominator; the production also sounds awfulllll. I hated hearing them in arcane.
The video for Radioactive with the underground muppet fighting ring is comedy gold, but I assume it was someone else’s idea.
That’s less of a defense of AI slop than it is a condemnation of the entire music industry.
Human music, I like it!
I began noticing this on my discover weekly, some particularily bad AI slop was showing up (I listen to a lot of ambient) and that alerted me to audit the rest of my playlists.
Look for artists that:
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release an absurd amount of music per time period
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have only released music post-2023
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use obviously AI generated album art
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have no photo of the real artist or description
Found about a dozen offenders.
Perfect description of Buckethead, if not for the “only post 2023” qualifier.
I had a copy of Giant Robot and Electric Tears back in the day and was thinking maybe there was a third album I was missing…
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Reminds me of this story about how Spotify inserts crap so they don’t have to pay royalties
So people like LLM generated music, they just have issue with it not being labelled correctly.
This forum does.
98% of the planet couldn’t care less.
It’s not exactly “slop” if people are listening to it and presumably enjoying it. That just goes to show it’s not AI-generated content in general that people dislike - it’s bad AI-generated content. If the content is good, people are drawn to it regardless of who or what made it - as it should be.
It’s the toupee fallacy: “I’ve never seen a toupee that doesn’t look bad” …except for the ones that didn’t look bad, and you didn’t realize were toupees in the first place.
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That would require you to be able to detect AI-generated content with 100% accuracy, which simply isn’t the case.
What you actually have is a prejudice - you dislike content when you suspect or find out it’s AI-generated. But there’s undoubtedly AI-generated content you’ve encountered without realizing, and likely didn’t mind. Just as there’s human-made content you dislike.
You don’t hate all AI-generated content. You hate the idea of AI-generated content. That reaction is ideological, not purely about quality.
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You’re free to say “I hate all AI-generated content” - but the issue isn’t what you believe you hate, it’s whether you can know that what you hate is in fact AI-generated.
You don’t need 100% detection accuracy to hate some AI content. But if you claim to hate all AI content, then the reliability of your detection absolutely matters. Because if even one piece slipped by - and you didn’t hate it - your statement is no longer true.
And considering how much AI-generated content is already out there - usually unlabeled and increasingly indistinguishable - it’s statistically highly unlikely that everything you’ve consumed and didn’t hate was human-made. You may feel confident about your preferences, but you’re arguing from certainty where none is possible. That’s not a logical stance - it’s ideological.
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It’s not exactly “slop” if people are listening to it and presumably enjoying it.
I don’t agree with the logic. People listening to the music doesn’t mean they necessarily enjoy it, just hate it enough not to skip, were at the skip limit for their free account, etc. People listen to ads too, and nobody enjoys those.
“AI slop” came into common usage with the onslaught of ai-generated articles. They only got so popular because somebody was out there clicking on them enough to generate ad revenue. It’s a leap to assume that means they’re reading, much less enjoying them. I think the same applies here, and “slop” is reasonable.
You’re not really engaging with what I said. I’m not claiming everyone who listens enjoys it, just pointing out that some clearly do - and if enough people are voluntarily replaying it or adding it to playlists, then the “slop” label starts sounding more like prejudice than critique.
There’s always filler and mediocrity in any medium - human or AI. We just don’t call it “slop” when it’s made by a garage band or a beginner solo artist. That word feels like it’s doing extra work here - as if the low quality is inherent to all AI content independent of the end result. And that’s exactly the bias I’m pointing to.
You can say it’s “AI slop,” but if it passes for music some people want to listen to, then maybe it’s time to reevaluate what that label is even supposed to mean.
It can be slop and people can enjoy it.
For example, I’ll usually put something on for background music. Usually one of the lofi streams on YouTube. I’m sure that a huge portion of that music is generated, not performed. But I’m not really appreciating it as music, either. If I want to actually listen to music, I’ll put on actual music.
It’s not exactly slop if the pigs eat it is it /s
I get what you’re saying, if people don’t detect ai music it must not be so bad. But in the original usage of slop, pigs don’t care, but humans wouldn’t eat the food. Same here, just because some people don’t mind doesn’t mean others can’t easily discern the difference
You could also make the argument that pigs would prefer better food if it was an option, but they have no choice, they’re only given access to slop.
This is what I’ve been saying for years now. Idiots are going to consume ai without knowing it at all. Sad what humanity will be in a few years. Even dumber.
not me
“Turing test” for music successfully passed, then.
