Not always the case but this is a nice tune whether you are a Labour voter or not.
Music political comment with a tune attached
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
If this is AI generated…wow!
Having spent last month playing with Riffusion and Chat GPT, I reckon that could have been knocked out in under 5 minutes. I immediately recognised the generic American voice and rawk music bed that were so prevalent I had to specify non-US voices when charging the AI tool to create new songs. I’m glad you liked it, I found it awful.
You clearly know more than me about this stuff but as a listener of catchy rock/pop music I was immediately sucked in despite the political content.
It’s all good. I suggest trying out Riffusion to get a sense of what it can do, and to be aware of where ‘music’ may be going. It’s very democratic, in that it’s easy to produce a song. Whether it devalues songwriting is another matter.
Here’s some we generated earlier.
Here’s one I made a little earlier
https://www.riffusion.com/song/1f42784a-5cea-4d48-a4b3-184f016f7005
One more
https://www.riffusion.com/song/7a3279c6-0596-45de-809e-25266b92504b
“Tins of beans cost twice as long”?
I’m surprised anyone actually listened to my piffle, but yes, that’s up there with classics like ‘do what I should have did’, in terms of finding rhyme more important than reason.
That is impressive and depressing at the same time!
Saturday on the Afterword:
https://www.riffusion.com/song/0d423b2a-b6c9-4916-bc1a-1d693b522b6a
I’m stopping now before I get drawn in too much, but this is quite a pleasant, laidback track.
AI has useful qualities, producing garbage like this isn’t one of them. I would ban AI generated “music” from the site if it was up to me
Every ChatGBT request kills a tree….
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yg690e9eno
I couldn’t be less interested in it personally.
Personally as someone who can’t play any instrument whatsoever, I find diddling around with such generators harmless, and very occasionally satisfying, fun. Banning it from the site seems somewhat excessive.
Especially while Wordle is still allowed. Let’s pick on that first, then we can talk about banning other stuff.
I don’t really think Wordle belongs here, there must be a million other sites for that. But I guess I am in the minority.
Well @dai, let’s put your “minority” theory to the test, shall we? Let’s have AN IMPORTANT AND IRREFUTABLE SURVEY COME REFERENDUM.
Not including people who visit by accident, The Afterword has 1,069 active members, many of whom are still lucid. Those members who wish to retain Wordle as an integral part of the AW site should post their reasonings, preferably in Latin, in reply to this comment. Those who wish it exiled need undertake no such action as their feelings on the matter are already quite clear (an independent and unbiased vote-counter will make sure your voices are heard).
This survey closes at 1300 hoursish and the Mods* will be notified of the results pretty much immediately after its closure.
*God bless them.
Et tu, Garius?
Heidus Boilus Tu Wellium
Well, it’s 1300 hours somewhere in the world and the polls are closed. Only one person arguing in favour of Wordle and his reasoning lacked all reason. People have the power! Silence speaks volumes! Freedom is slavery!
1,068 against
1 sort of for.
Do the math.
Let’s celebrate real musicians. I think there is enough music out there produced by human beings
No Wordle, No AI – how am I supposed to fill those three hours when I’m not asleep in the chair?
We have a little community (15 or so) who exchange Wordle scores on here. Because we are all AW regulars we know each others foibles, we have highly amusing (?) in-jokes and occasionally throw in a music reference. Keeps us happy, so Dai, as they say in Aberdeen – go bile yer heid.
Based on this discussion let’s decide the new strapline as we don’t currently have one at the bottom of the page.
Grok came up with the deep and meaningless ‘ “Where Words Live On: Connect, Reflect, Inspire”
AI AI AI AI (Where’s) Moosey?
Interesting developments from Wheaty’s original post. I take well the warning from Dai about the energy use of AI data farms, though I suspect an AW boycott would measure very faintly on any Lovelock electron capture detector.
The musical ‘garbage’ that Riffusion and other such apps/sites produce may well be a trivial example of something highlighted in an article on ‘The Conversation’ criticising Peter Kyle for using ChatGPT for policy advice.
https://theconversation.com/why-chatgpt-is-a-uniquely-terrible-tool-for-government-ministers-253294
3 reasons given include its backwards-looking focus on only the recent past for its dataset (rather than anything before the Internet age or actually future- facing), its reliance on consensus rather than correspondence (what do most people think, rather than does this correspond to my perception of truth), and its tendency to tell appealing stories to seduce the user into liking it (rather than challenging convention). Politically it’s dangerous, for music, it serves to swerve towards the centre ground, the palatable, whatever was popular in the last 10/20 years.
The Long Now Foundation often shared interesting lectures on topics of modern (and ancient) technology. The latest podcast (How will AI shape our understanding of our creativity and ourselves? http://podcast.longnow.org/salt/redirect/020250225-allado-mcdowell-podcast-v2.mp3) is an interesting presentation that we are already halfway through the AI media age.
The idea that we can ignore AI in media seems unconvincing. Maybe better to explore where it can take us?
As long as there aren’t Wordle-related subthreads on every post, I say live and let live. This site seems to be rather diminished from its heyday, so anything that brings the punters in is a good thing, within reason, of course.
We don’t want to have to close up shop and launch the Afterafterword, do we?
Don’t want to make any more of this Wordle thing than it’s just a bit of harmless fun. Nobody on the Wordle thread comes to the AW just because of that. There’s some of our more prolific posters there who all add value to the blog. We may not be in the heyday of the AW and some of us might consider that to be a good thing …
Well said! The fewer people who come here the better, I say. Frankly, I can’t wait till it’s just me.
Definitely a candidate for the next strapline. If (@mods) it ever changes from the current one.
I wouldn’t know, as I never open those posts. It could be a completely different set of posters, for all I know. I’ll just have to take your (After)word for it.
Actually we spend all our time worrying away at King Crimson vs Yes, Wordle’s just a cover story.
You make me feel like I’m really missing out.
Just as long as you don’t tag me in one of them…