Grimes Has A Nuanced Perspective On Using AI To Make Music: ‘We Should Fight For The Specialness Of Humans, But…’

Grimes is one of the more tech-forward musicians working today, so it’s not surprising that she has spend some time considering the relationship between music and the emerging field of generative AI. Over the weekend, she shared some of her thoughts on the subject, writing at length.

In response to a tweet about claims that artificial intelligence cannot make art, Grimes wrote a post that starts, “I think we should fight for the specialness of humans, but I think there’s a lot of room for ai in art.”

From there, she wrote about her specific use case: Instead of using AI to generate full songs (“I haven’t ever heard an ai music generation that is good on its own,” she said), she uses it as “basically a sample generator,” using AI to generate components of songs.

Read Grimes’ full post below.

“I think we should fight for the specialness of humans, but I think there’s a lot of room for ai in art.

I haven’t ever heard an ai music generation that is good on its own, but what I have found is that the ai stemming tech is SO good that I can use the ai music apps as basically a sample generator where I have way more control- then I stem separate and have rly cool samples I was able to curate to an extent rather than just going to splice or smthn which is limited to what genres are popular that they think producers will want to sample

It also works way better if u actually make music. Like it’s so good if you write ur own lyrics and then make it generate melodies on lyrics that would usually be considered too wordy to fit into a pop context.

I think overall the music generation at least rewards genuine collaboration, talent and effort. Obviously this can change

I do think there’s fair arguments that art is a sacred thing that works best when it teaches us how to be more human, connect to each other. Someone said to me once that music is sex, and when I write to seduce myself or others I make better stuff. There’s something rly human about art and I think ai making art is the hardest argument for ai that will upset the most ppl cuz art might be the most human thing.

I’ve noticed that No matter what amazing job ppl have, friends who design rockets or robots like… all secretely have an art hobby. So there’s smthn that feels a bit dark abt ai art specifically

At the same time I think the art high is also the best feeling in the world (hence everyone kinda wanting to be an artist) and I’ve made midjourney accounts for so many friends who felt they’re totally un creative and it’s so beautiful to see like a tired mom friend get the art high for the first time and open part of her soul she’s never had access too.

If u look at the data, the vast vast majority of ai artists are hobbyists not professionals, the majority of ai art doesn’t get published, and the anger at ai art has caused most professionals to avoid it – at least around me. And maybe that’s for the best?

Like being an artist is winning the lottery of life, and while the moral outrage feels a bit uninformed I think it is serving the purpose of keeping ai art as mostly a mental health thing for people who aren’t profiting off it.

The few ppl who are deeply innovating like claire silver and kngmkr are actually all professional non ai artists and tech experts first and foremost and are still using a lot of traditional skill in their output.

Overall I feel like it’s more that it’s sad that the outrage economy hurts everybody mentally but we’re moving towards an ethical balance with how ai art is used that seems best for everyone.

And the truly profound ai art that has hit me hardest has been stuff like @repligate that is basically a new medium. It’s not replacing anything, it’s almost like a new branch of philosophy if anything- and part of why it also feels genuine is there’s at least an illusion (if not a reality) of the ai mind actually caring about what it’s making.

Seems like all of this rly is teaching us that honesty, genuine care, talent, practice and intentionality in art rly does matter to us after all, and I think it’s pretty beautiful that this whole saga is reminding the whole world that art matters.”