same

Used a Billie AI for the demo of this song and a good friend was supposed to lay her vocals for the final but schedules didnt work out for the deadline so I just left it as is lol

I find the whole moral panic about AI to be misguided

There's always been a lot of boring unimaginative creatively bankrupt slop out there, and just like with all that garbage you have the choice to not partake in the AI versions of it

Any argument about how the arts or funding for artists is being cut is tone deaf because that's always a thing, I don't think AI will make it any harder for truly interesting distinct artists to get funding for their work because its already a challenge for anything besides status quo to be easily funded

AI is reflective of artists not meaning anything in modern society but its not the cause of the problem

with that being said Childish Gambino is like Ye in that he could've gone either way on the AI debate and either loved it or despised it, and we have the answer

AI is not my hill to die on as luckily the artists (in any medium) that I think are vitally important to me in 2025 wouldn't use it, but I also understand the disappointment

generative ai models are trained on stolen art work this has been proven so many times

so there's a threat for great artists, a robot s***ting out art work in seconds based on work they spent years of their lives on, stolen entirely based on the high quality of their work, if they pivot to a new style, the robot steals it again, now what ?

are you an artist?

how does my answer change your take, if you mean professionally or seeking to be professional then currently no

I just don't know how much a person not actively working in art can say that arguments about losing funding/jobs because of gen ai are tone deaf when it is really happening in front of our eyes

yes it's always been hard to receive funding in art, but now more than ever it's even harder, the freelance work artists use to stay afloat is dwindling, so they never even get a chance to hone in on the stuff people would deem "worthy enough" to receive funding

it's killing artists from the core by not giving any of them but the people rich enough a chance to pursue it as a living, something the rise of the internet helped change and now it's being slowly taken away

Ewwww I KNEW you were a goofy

I see your point, I think I maybe didn't make the point well enough, but the last sentence of my post would seek to address this so I'll edit it here:

AI is not my hill to die on as the artists that I think are vitally important wouldn't use it and their art is not at threat of being stolen because what I appreciate is not necessarily highly stylised or of distinctly "high quality", as I care more about unique ever-changing perspectives that are safe from AI repetition (even if the stylised nature of some of my favourite artists will be copied, to me it doesn't matter as the essence of the work is not predicated on that it's predicated on human meaning which AI will never ever realise)

For people who make art based on presenting highly presentable polished visual works then yes there is a much more imminent danger and for those people working in that field I hope it gets better

I think we're speaking to two different groups of people and problems, I respect your opinion and regarding the fields you're talking about I agree!

I think my point overall is that I want more respect and funding for artists that can provide something of moral value to society (who I believe will be unaffected by AI in what makes them important), the main case in point being some of my favourite screenwriter-directors struggling to get movies financed for many years

I do make art, I keep my personal life and KTT2 separate, the idea of having a machine think for me is counter to the entire concept of art as human self-expression.

You're acting like creating a mood board is some absurd task, throughout the entire history of art, people have thought of their own ideas and acted upon them, it's not like writing 500 books by hand, it's thinking, if I'm ever at a stage where my brain is so atrophied that I have to ask an AI for new ideas, just shoot me.

The difficulty of refining prompts until the desired generative AI result appears doesn't suddenly rob the end result of its inhuman character. This is a philosophical argument, I know what generative AI can do, it's incredibly good at it, even when people were mocking 30-fingered hallucinations I knew they'd be eating their words soon enough, it's something that will only get better and better.

If you view art as solely product, then you could see the appeal of a future where everyone can watch their own personalised movies, enter prompts into The Art Machine for pictures to hang on their walls, and listen to music that no longer requires real singers or songwriters. If you care about art as human self-expression, the leverage of our physical and mental skills to give voice to human thoughts and feelings, AI-generated art is a disgrace, it's the ultimate realisation of art as product, art for people who don't care about art.

As a musician and a dj, I also kinda agree with @yesac tho

I use AI stem splitting.
some of the cleanest acapellas i’ve ever gotten. As someone djing for a decade that used to have to work his ass off to make diy acapellas, that is helpful.

So I’m not saying AI is the devil incarnate. And it can never really replace real instruments nor real voices. U can use anything for bad or good.

The thing is, there was panic in the musician world when you started seeing keyboards that could play bass or any instruments (and sound decent) and folks was worried the keybass would make bass players obsolete.

Turns out you can’t replace a real bass player with a square wave or a real horn player with a synth sounding one. Even these days singers have looper machines to be their own background singers and guess what, singers still get hired to be bgv.

The lack of funding comes from the fact capitalism has rendered most industries that isnt code related slop useless as the rising cost of living within this economy makes it so when a vybz kartel is charging $300 for nosebleeds for reggae fest at barclay’s my homies just cant go.

I personally dont think the unsustainable aspect of the music industry as a decades long model has any correlation with AI. Otherwise autotune would’ve killed R&B forever (and R&B’s current state has nothing to do with autotune because the T-Pain ass niggas was keeping that s*** afloat)

Unrelated, but f*** Childish for ruining this song. The intro had me thinking it was going to be some next level s***.

This is a generalizing statement tho

This stuff I have way less of an issue with, you're essentially just using a vocal filter, but every idea here is yours, you trusted your own creative ability, and if you got the chance you'd re-record it with a female singer.

I think Kanye using AI like he is currently borders on actual fraud, saying you're on the track when it's someone else with your voice, but using AI voice filters in demos to be like 'This is what it could sound like' is a great use of the technology.

My beef is with generative AI, as in using the AI to produce the track, write the lyrics, come up with the melody, it shows a lack of faith in the artist's ability to create.

Song's good btw!

One of the most forgettable albums of all time, I really wanted to enjoy it too

It was such a disappointment, f*** nigga!

Now when it comes to using artists voices, I DO think, if you gon use a nigga likeness, they gotta get paid

People choose certain voices for a reason, that reason should allow the ppl you using to get their due

It’s why folks was mad at Taylor Made @inspoeater , using a dead black artist voice to say things they may not have ever said just… rubs me the wrong way. Gives me the heebie jeebies.

Like a future where white artists could potentially get away with slurring it up while using a black vocal filter or we have an AI rapper scandal like last year? I dont really like that.

I agree and disagree with your point

the idea of having a machine think for me is counter to the entire concept of art as human self-expression.

So are mpcs no longer valid because that person shoulda just learned how to play the drums?

I’m letting you know there were jazz cats that was NOT happy with electronic instruments like the keyboard at first. Keith Jarret hated the electric keyboard and miles davis making him play it in his band was the 1st time he ever did it.

god tier intro

i feel it. I’m still not fully sold on generative AI, I agree there

using a computer to accelerate your racism is of course bad but I think racism is the problem and not AI in this scenario

and if Drake had hired a very accurate Tupac impersonator I think it changes things but has the same effect

I think the moral quandaries with AI are valid statements on societal problems but are about problems that existed before AI and would exist without it

A better educated and just society ...doesn't create these problems in the first place

There is such a leap between a machine like an MPC that allows you to sequence drum samples to your liking, and even play them live yourself, versus being able to ask a machine to write your melody, generate your drumbeat, come up with your lyrics etc

I don't think AI art will fully replace human art, humans are invested in the drama of creation and are drawn to personalities, so many bands could have saved money live by just having a drum machine on-stage play the rhythm in perfect time, but the spectacle and spontaneity of a real drummer is an exciting part of the live experience. Don't get me wrong though, AI is vastly more of a replacement than a tool, it's absurdly more capable of 'replacing' than a drum machine ever was, but I only see it really taking off with incurious people who are interested far more in art as technology and product, there's no coincidence it's huge in crypto spaces, but a legitimate artist like Gambino shouldn't be lowering himself to that level, does he not care about human expression anymore?

An MPC can't think for you, no matter how long the sample is, you're the one organising it and choosing what to do with it, when it comes to generative AI, you can instantly create an entire song you didn't have to think of for dirt cheap, and I think engaging with that kind of thing shows complete disinterest in using art as human expression, and I think it really matters that the art you're experiencing was made by a human

Championing AI in the name of creativity will be what leads to the death of art. Stop this s*** now.

AI vocals will never be cool. Full stop.

If you think
Value
Champagne Papi
Tarrare
Work Ethic
are some of the best episodes of Atlanta, you're just a white knight c***rider

I don't think AI can think for you either

I have not seen AI produce a single thing that I thought intentionally provided innovative or interesting food for thought, not a single thing, the only things I've enjoyed have highlighted the technology's naivety providing an unintentional surreal dreamlike quality that reinforce to me it's lack of utility

I've seen a whole lot of novelty Temu Shein type copycat garbage too

And to answer your question about Gambino, whatever answer you're disappointed with is the one you should generally accept when it comes to capitalists!