Music and The Written Word Through the Eyes of AI

Having notes and words mathematically calculated and regurgitated through AI whilst expressing human emotions has numbed the subtle art of nonsensical sense that touches our imaginations. A lot like a naked person who‘s presented, with the logic that naked is the end goal, why start with clothes leaving the mystery to unfold but once. 

The desire to re-listen to the same album again and again, discovering new meaning, new perspectives, new emotions, and old ones with every listen, seems lost on the mathematical correctness of a story or musical experience.

As the old age story of love, each time re-written, each time a little differently and always written again.

Music written, same old, same old, creating a listening experience, yet those same notes newly arranged changes everything. 

When AI helps, is this a good thing?

My spell check still struggles to keep up with the meaning, of what I am writing, yet the words are all correctly written. 

What happens when AI takes a person's music and “spell checks it” what does that do to the essence? What is even the essence? 

Music today rotates through and searches for the next great musical experience whilst holding the oldies and goodies. As do books. Through the decades there are books one reads, re-reads, and has on a bookshelf to read again, as one would a record collection. 

Consuming mathematically correct music in tune, and books structurally recognizable make for a great night out, a momentary dining experience, does that mean the arts have been turned into fast food? 

Actually, yes.

No matter how good the story, no matter how imaginative a song you write, the opportunity to channel the un-understandableness of the perfect collision of two sounds and the diversity of senses and experiences that add to the unseen, is tainted by perfection.

Even when AI is calculating a percent of imperfection to add textures, it’s still just a shadow of what our souls hear, read, and feel, as we travel the journey an artist has taken the time to experience, and then, taken the time to reach back into that experience in order to guide others through this journey. An intangible journey limited by tangibles.

Writing a book with a feather pen and parchment slows the process down to such a point, that the person writing has experienced more than one emotion or even completely moved on with the idea by the time the book is written, giving the reader multiple books in one story. 

In every song written the musician first spends emotional hours of time, exploring the instrument, passing through many states, transitioning through life realnesses, these experiences may not be in the music, but the depth of the music is in the layers of experience, when an expression surfaces. Music then takes on a life of its own to the listener. A depth.

Can AI facilitate and capture the fleeting ideas, and emotions, untainted? and can the artist restrain from correctness, recognising the magic of imagination released through the exactness of the imperfect, perfected? 

Riding the wave of the creative, growing on ideas that sprout out of nonsensicalness and returning to a sense of belonging. 

Of late, I have been enjoying these very eloquent words plucked out of some database used to describe what I meant to say through AI. It is such a fine line, my self-worth challenged by what I believe words mean, by propositions handed to me on a platter. Music sounding just right but somehow it no longer feels quite right. Doubting my own emotional connection to vibration.

I believe we are at the beginning of a new era where generations of humans believe AI is but a tool to facilitate our communication. It's not. It IS a communicator. The spokesperson. A filter, a mask, a way to hide our true selves, to amplify our true selves if we are strong enough to, and it is stunting our civilization's overall diversity of thought and creative growth.

Once we accept this cultural setback we can move forward. The next generations, those raised with AI, are aware of its shortcomings and strengths, aware and play with it and are making it their duty to know where our global consciousness is and also contributing to its collaborative expansion.