Lucid Liars on AI and Superficial Creativity

It’s Sunday and you know what that means.

Jackto back to talk about the use of AI in music, in part 1 of a 2 part blog extravaganza.

We as Lucid Liars, a band (and group of creatives) take a lot of pride in everything that we put out into the world. And that it has been either created, developed or curated by us. In a world where the parasitic use of AI is becoming more and more the norm, we think it is hugely important to keep our humanity in what we create. This is how we try to stand out as individual and unique. We see no place for AI in creative spaces. And that something is worth doing it is worth spending the time to do it yourself. Beyond seeing the use of AI as lazy there are other issues at play.

Over the years ‘pop’ music has slowly become more and more homogenised, driven by a capitalist ‘Music Industry’’ that focuses more on the commercialisation of music than creativity. Selling it as a product rather than sharing expressions of emotion. And when something new, cool and interesting does emerge and has success. It is fed into the engine.

AI generated content is the epitome of homogenisation. Scraping the internet for data and regurgitating it into prompt guided pastiche. It’s not art, it’s not creativity. Its plagiarisation without needing the skill or the work ethic to do it well. It is boring and without character.

I can think of two bands locally who are evidently using AI to generate content and the proof is that comparing some of their posts they are nearly identical. They have the same fonts, colour palettes, layout & design. You can spot AI generated content a mile away.

I have spoken to a lot of people on this subject and as soon as they clock that a band or artist is using AI for content, they immediately become disinterested. The band might think "It's just a poster” or “It’s just a facebook post” but what they are signalling to the world by posting AI Content is that they couldn't be bothered to spend the time to create something themselves.Why should someone pay money to come to your show if you’re putting no effort into the poster?

It also raises questions on whereelse are corners being cut. If you’re happy to use AI to make a poster. What about lyrics, chord progressions, melodies and riffs? Suddenly the whole bucket of water could be piss.

Alright, Alright, I have had my rant about it and I know this is sounding like a witch hunt. I understand that my passion on the subject could lead me to be unfairly biased.

So I sat down and spoke to my Dad. Who was a session musician through the 80s. He worked through the introduction of many of the music technologies that we take for granted today. I asked him for his perspective on the introduction of AI and how it compares to Drum Machines, Synths and DAWs - I will cover this conversation in my next post.