If there’s anybody sticking up for the emergence of AI in music, it’s Timbaland. He’s at the forefront, pushing his AI ‘artist’ TaTa Taktumi, signing the tech to his label, and starring in a music video with it. It’s as morbid as you might expect it to be, and artists like JID are wholly against it. However, the legendary producer wants to bolster his side of the argument.
Recently, he posted some lengthy notes app screenshots addressing the online discourse around AI. Calling them ‘reality checks’ and claiming people have lost nuance, he first says that “you can’t monetize input data.” “There is no music stored in these models, it’s just mathematical weights,” Timbaland writes.
In addition to explaining how people use AI and all the other technical jargon, he tries to appeal to the personal. “I understand the fear. Of all people, this is my life’s work. It probably impacts me the most. Yet, I’ll adapt and continue doing what I do. I’ve built a career doing things the hard and slow way and what I love the most about music is the process of creation, not the end result,” Timbaland continues. “I’ll gladly use it if it enables me to do something that would be otherwise impossible.”
Timbaland Tries to Explain AI Beliefs… But Not Everyone Is Buying It
Lastly, the Virginia legend admits that he shares some of the same concerns people have. However, he doesn’t believe that people care how it’s made, as long as it is actually made by a person.
“What I do fear is more along the lines of hyper-inflating the amount of music out there. There’s already a massive curation problem before AI, and finding a way to parse through all of that noise is gonna be difficult. An endless stream of generative content seems pretty boring and dystopian and I’m not sure people want that,” Timbaland admits. “I think at the end of the day, people want art made by humans, but people care less and less about how it’s made.”
One artist who isn’t buying any of Timbaland’s long-winded explanations is Mike Dean. He comments under the post, wondering how much he’s being paid to promote AI usage. Then, in a separate comment, he talks about how these AI models are trained. “There are companies out there that have algorithms that will find out what stuff was trained from and Sue whoever doesn’t have ethically trained models pretty simple it’s happening soon — oh,” Dean writes.
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