Music Just Changed Forever音乐永远改变了

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Making sense of AI’s impact on an entire field of human culture.

理解AI对整个人类文化领域的影响。

Imagine if after Oppenheimer successfully detonated the first atomic bomb, the rest of the world had just shrugged its shoulders and carried on as normal.

想象一下，如果奥本海默成功引爆第一颗原子弹后，世界其他地方只是耸耸肩，一切如常。

Because that’s what seems to have just happened in the entire field of human culture known as “music.”

因为这似乎就是整个人类文化领域“音乐”中刚刚发生的事情。

A few weeks ago, a company called Suno released a new version of its AI-generated music app to the public. It works much like ChatGPT: You type in a prompt describing the song you’d like… and it creates it.

几周前，一家名为 Suno 的公司发布了其新版本AI- 向公众生成音乐应用程序。它的工作原理很像 ChatGPT：您输入描述您想要的歌曲的提示......然后它就会创建它。

The results are, in my view, absolutely astounding. So much so that I think it will be viewed by history as the end of one musical era and the start of the next one. Just as The Bomb reshaped all of warfare, we’ve reached the point where AI is going to reshape all of music.

在我看来，结果绝对令人震惊。以至于我认为历史将把它视为一个音乐时代的结束和下一个音乐时代的开始。正如原子弹重塑了所有战争一样，我们已经达到了这样的地步：AI将重塑所有音乐。

For some reason, though, it hasn’t triggered an avalanche of think-pieces in the broadsheet press. It hasn’t had music writers raising the alarm. There are no panicked, viral tweets and Instagram posts from musicians worried about their livelihoods.

但出于某种原因，它并没有在大报上引发大量的思考。音乐作家们还没有敲响警钟。音乐家们没有担心自己的生计而发布惊慌失措、病毒式传播的推文和 Instagram 帖子。

I think this is strange, as you only have to hear the results of what it can do to see why it matters.

我认为这很奇怪，因为你只需要听听它能做什么的结果就能明白为什么它很重要。

For example, here’s a summary of Donald Trump’s conviction in Manhattan… in the style of the broadway musical Hamilton:

例如，以下是唐纳德·特朗普在曼哈顿被定罪的摘要……以百老汇音乐剧《汉密尔顿》的风格：

(Note: This was made using “Custom” mode, where you provide the lyrics manually, and specify the genre you’d like. My top tip is to use ChatGPT to write the lyrics, and then paste them into Suno to turn them into music.)（

注：这是使用“自定义”模式制作的，您可以手动提供歌词，并指定您想要的流派。我的主要技巧是使用 ChatGPT 编写歌词，然后将其粘贴到 Suno 中将其转换为音乐。）

Or how about this? I asked for a pop song “with country roots; catchy melodies, relatable lyrics, and storytelling” to describe someone trying to buy tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour:

或者这个怎么样？我想要一首流行歌曲“有乡村根源；朗朗上口的旋律、相关的歌词和讲故事”来形容试图购买泰勒·斯威夫特 Eras 巡演门票的人：

Now I know what you’re thinking: Yes, these songs aren’t great. But here’s the thing: They’re not terrible either.

现在我知道你在想什么：是的，这些歌曲并不好听。但事情是这样的：它们也不可怕。

If you were to casually hear them on the radio, you might not even notice they’re AI generated, though you might roll your eyes at what the kids of today are listening to.

如果您在广播中偶然听到它们，您可能甚至没有注意到它们AI产生的，尽管你可能会对今天的孩子们正在听的东西翻白眼。

However, I can understand if you’re still unimpressed. If this was the limit of AI capabilities there wouldn’t be many reasons for “real” musicians to lose any sleep over it.

不过，如果您仍然不为所动，我可以理解。如果这是极限AI对于“真正的”音乐家来说，没有太多理由为此失眠。

But remember the complaints that the first AI image generators couldn’t get the number of fingers right? Or that the first deepfakes wouldn’t blink? We don’t hear those complaints any more because the technology very rapidly improved.

但请记住第一个抱怨AI图像生成器无法正确获取手指数量？或者说第一个深度伪造品不会眨眼？我们不再听到这些抱怨，因为技术进步得非常快。

And there is every reason to believe the same is going to happen to AI-generated music.我们有充分的理由相信同样的事情也会发生AI-生成的音乐。

I mean, forget my efforts above, if you listen to some of the “trending” tracks on the Suno homepage, then you’ll really get a sense for just how good this technology can be. Check out this blues track, or this 1920s dubstep, or this gospel song about eating a burger.

我的意思是，忘记我上面的努力，如果你听一下 Suno 主页上的一些“热门”曲目，那么你就会真正感受到这项技术有多好。听听这首布鲁斯曲目，或者这首 20 年代的回响贝斯，或者这首关于吃汉堡的福音歌曲。

What’s important is that this is just the beginning. All of these songs merely represent the worst this technology will ever be. And Suno isn’t even the only option out there—the beta version of Udio, another tool to generate AI music, dropped within days of Suno’s release.

重要的是，这仅仅是开始。所有这些歌曲仅代表了该技术有史以来最糟糕的情况。 Suno 甚至不是唯一的选择——Udio 的测试版，另一个生成工具AI音乐，在 Suno 发行后几天内就被删除了。

So let’s dig into what this transformation is going to look like—and how, for better or worse, it is going to change music.

因此，让我们深入探讨一下这种转变将会是什么样子，以及它将如何改变音乐，无论好坏。

When ChatGPT was first released, a common critique was to point out what it couldn’t do. It couldn’t write poetry, it couldn’t report the news accurately—and so on.

当 ChatGPT首次发布时，常见的批评是指出它不能做什么。它不能写诗，不能准确地报道新闻——等等。

In fact, earlier this year big-shot New York Times journalist Ezra Klein said about AI: “I can’t for the life of me figure out how to use it in my own day-to-day job.

”事实上，今年早些时候， 《纽约时报》知名记者埃兹拉·克莱因 (Ezra Klein)曾说过AI：“我一辈子都不知道如何在自己的日常工作中使用它。”

Klein’s critique of AI misses the wood for the trees. It’s the same argument I’ve most regularly seen made by people with high status jobs: Think company directors, or top-flight journalists who write for prestige publications.

克莱因的批判AI只见树木不见森林。这与我最常看到的高层人士提出的论点是一样的：想想公司董事或为知名出版物撰稿的顶级记者。

Of course AI can’t produce original, high-quality journalism, or plan a company strategy or make management decisions.

当然AI无法创作原创的、高质量的新闻，也无法规划公司战略或做出管理决策。

But look further down the corporate food-chain, and everyone else can see the benefits of AI clearly—mostly because they’re probably already routinely using ChatGPT on the sly to do their work.

但从企业食物链的更下游看，其他人都可以看到这样做的好处AI显然，主要是因为他们可能已经经常偷偷地使用 ChatGPT 来完成他们的工作。

For example, if your job involves boring admin tasks like reformatting address data to move it from one database to another, or building spreadsheets with complicated Excel formulas, or writing boilerplate legal disclaimers… then of course AI can make a big difference to how you work.

例如，如果您的工作涉及无聊的管理任务，例如重新格式化地址数据以将其从一个数据库移动到另一个数据库，或者使用复杂的 Excel 公式构建电子表格，或者编写样板法律免责声明……那么当然AI可以对您的工作方式产生很大的影响。

Even if AI was to develop no further than its capabilities today, it is already world-changing, as it represents billions of small, marginal gains in productivity. And I think this extends to AI-generated music. Even if AI music doesn’t improve any further, it already represents a profound change to the music industry.

即使AI尽管它的发展不会超过今天的能力，但它已经改变了世界，因为它代表着生产力的数十亿小幅边际收益。我认为这延伸到AI-生成的音乐。即使AI音乐并没有进一步改善，它已经代表了音乐行业的深刻变化。

Like the high status jobs I describe above, I don’t think it will make a huge difference at the “top” of the industry. Taylor Swift, Coldplay and, regrettably, U2, will continue to release albums and sell out stadiums. No one is going to stop you somehow enjoying Bono’s music.

就像我上面描述的高地位工作一样，我认为这不会对行业的“顶端”产生巨大的影响。泰勒·斯威夫特 (Taylor Swift)、酷玩乐队 (Coldplay) 以及令人遗憾的 U2 将继续发行专辑并在体育场馆内售罄。没有人会以某种方式阻止您享受波诺的音乐。

But where I do think AI will make a difference are the billion other lower-grade circumstances where music is playing. If you need background music for your corporate health and safety training video, or you need a theme tune for your podcast, then it is a no-brainer to use AI instead of paying an expensive musician.

但我确实认为AI将会产生影响的是数十亿其他播放音乐的低级环境。如果您的企业健康和安全培训视频需要背景音乐，或者您的播客需要主题曲，那么使用它是理所当然的AI而不是付钱给昂贵的音乐家。

For better or worse then, AI will become the ubiquitous source of, essentially, “elevator music” for the entire world, and it will have terrible consequences for many people working in the music industry today. Musicians who earn a living making adverts or taking commissions from el-cheapo outsourcing websites like Fiverr are basically fucked—just like “low-level” visual artists and copywriters are by Midjourney and ChatGPT.

那么无论好坏，AI将成为全世界无处不在的“电梯音乐”来源，这将对当今音乐行业的许多人产生可怕的后果。以制作广告或从 Fiverr 等廉价外包网站收取佣金为生的音乐家基本上都完蛋了，就像 Midjourney 和 ChatGPT 的“低级”视觉艺术家和文案撰稿人一样。

Nevertheless, I feel deeply, deeply conflicted.

尽管如此，我还是感到深深的、深深的矛盾。

On the one hand, yes, I place a high value on the sense of “authenticity” in the music I listen to. That’s why I’m a bad-ass punk rocker: To me, the purest form of musical expression is a circle pit in front of a sweaty band who can barely play their instruments, in a small, dank venue, where the toilets should be considered a public health hazard.

一方面，是的，我非常看重我听的音乐的“真实性”感。这就是为什么我是一个糟糕的朋克摇滚歌手：对我来说，最纯粹的音乐表达形式是在一个小而潮湿的场地里，在一个大汗淋漓的乐队面前，他们几乎无法演奏乐器，在一个狭小、潮湿的场地里，那里应该有厕所。被认为危害公共健康。

And because I’m straight-edge it is only in settings like this, waving my fist in the air as we collectively stick it to The Man, that I ever really experience something like a feeling of “transcendence.”

因为我是个直率的人，所以只有在这样的环境中，当我们一起把拳头挥向空中时，我才真正体验到一种“超越”的感觉。

So this is all to say that I would love to be wrong about AI changing music forever. Music feels more compelling if it feels like it comes from the heart, and not a team of writers responding to market research.

所以这就是说我很乐意犯错AI永远改变音乐。如果音乐感觉是发自内心的，而不是由一群根据市场研究做出回应的作家，那么它会让人感觉更有吸引力。

But I also think that it is important to separate out what is real from what is just a comforting lie that we tell ourselves.

但我也认为区分什么是真实的，什么是我们告诉自己的安慰性谎言，这一点也很重要。

Because as much as we may hate to admit it, AI can elicit emotions in us, and I know this from personal experience.

因为尽管我们可能不愿意承认这一点，AI可以激发我们的情绪，我从个人经验中知道这一点。

A few months ago, my partner and I had a brief, upsetting experience with our cat, Hashtag. One morning, out of nowhere, something spooked her (the cat, not my partner), and she began to growl and behave very aggressively towards us.

几个月前，我和我的伴侣与我们的猫 Hashtag 经历了一次短暂而令人不安的经历。一天早上，突然，有什么东西吓到了她（那只猫，不是我的伴侣），她开始咆哮并对我们表现得非常具有攻击性。

We later learned she was experiencing something called “redirected aggression.” She was confused about what was upsetting her—and she had directed her anger at us instead. So for the next 24 hours, we were forced to keep Hashtag shut away from us, in the other half of the house, to give her time to chill out and realize that we’re not a threat.

后来我们得知她正在经历一种叫做“重定向攻击”的现象。她对是什么让她心烦意乱感到困惑——她把愤怒发泄到了我们身上。因此，在接下来的 24 小时里，我们被迫将 Hashtag 关在房子的另一半，让她远离我们，让她有时间冷静下来，并意识到我们不是威胁。

Anyway, long story short, it turned out completely fine and she began behaving normally again. But we still had a long, distressing day, worrying that our beloved cat would hate us forever.

不管怎样，长话短说，结果完全没问题，她又开始表现正常了。但我们仍然度过了漫长而痛苦的一天，担心我们心爱的猫会永远恨我们。

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I explain all of this because of what I did a few days later, when I discovered Suno. First, I described the Hashtag situation to ChatGPT in some detail—explaining what happened, what Hashtag looks like, with a bunch of specific details. And then I asked it to turn this anecdote into song lyrics… Which I then put into Suno, which then generated a ballad describing the story.

我解释这一切是因为几天后我发现了 Suno 时所做的事情。首先，我向 ChatGPT 详细描述了 Hashtag 的情况，解释了发生了什么、Hashtag 是什么样的，以及一堆具体细节。然后我要求它把这个轶事变成歌词……然后我把它放进Suno，然后它生成了一首描述这个故事的民谣。

And then I hit play.

然后我点击播放。

The song it generated was like the others—passable in terms of its musicality, and very much in the midst of the uncanny valley. But then something strange happened: As the chorus kicked in, I felt a tear in my eye. The AI song was making me feel emotional.

它生成的歌曲与其他歌曲一样——音乐性尚可，而且处于恐怖谷之中。但奇怪的事情发生了：当副歌响起时，我感到眼里涌出泪水。这AI歌曲让我感到激动。

And sure, on one level this is because I had specifically given it material to work with that is almost laser-focused on achieving this outcome. To an extent it was just repeating back to me a bunch of triggers that I had described to it.

当然，在某种程度上，这是因为我专门给了它一些材料来工作，几乎专注于实现这一结果。在某种程度上，它只是向我重复了我向它描述过的一系列触发因素。

But I’m not sure this is so different from “real” music. After all, we humans aren’t some special or unique part of the universe. We’re just meat-bags that respond to stimuli. Music isn’t special either. We all know that music can elicit emotions with just its musical qualities: When there’s a big key-change that gives us goosebumps, we’re no different from a cat that has been spooked by the garbage truck or the neighbors slamming a door.

但我不确定这与“真正的”音乐有什么不同。毕竟，我们人类并不是宇宙中特殊或独特的部分。我们只是对刺激做出反应的肉袋。音乐也没什么特别的。我们都知道，音乐仅凭其音乐品质就能引发情感：当有一个让我们起鸡皮疙瘩的大音调变化时，我们就像一只被垃圾车或邻居关上门吓到的猫没有什么不同。

To conclude, then, we’ve been given a glimpse of what the future looks like. We’ve witnessed the mushroom cloud plume into the air and I think it’s obvious that now that decent AI-generated music has been invented, the music industry will never be the same again.

总而言之，我们已经看到了未来的样子。我们亲眼目睹了蘑菇云羽状升入空中，我认为很明显，现在像样的AI-生成音乐已经被发明，音乐产业将不再一样。

And I’ll forgive you if you think that I’ve painted a bleak picture. Certainly if you work in the music industry, it is going to be a scary few years as things reconfigure.

如果你认为我描绘了一幅惨淡的画面，我会原谅你。当然，如果你在音乐行业工作，随着事情的重新配置，这几年将会是可怕的。

However, I do think there are reasons to be optimistic about the future of music. Because the AI tools are also exciting.

然而，我确实认为有理由对音乐的未来感到乐观。因为AI工具也令人兴奋。

In a sense, they are democratizing music. I am completely talentless, and gave up trying to learn the guitar when I was eleven years old. But with AI, I can participate in the joy of music creation.

从某种意义上说，他们正在使音乐民主化。我完全没有天赋，十一岁时就放弃了学习吉他。但与AI，我可以参与音乐创作的快乐。

And for skilled human musicians, AI also means new tools that could create entirely new forms of music, just as the electric guitar led to rock and roll, and sampling created hip-hop.

对于熟练的人类音乐家来说，AI也意味着可以创造全新音乐形式的新工具，就像电吉他催生摇滚乐、采样催生嘻哈音乐一样。

So when the AI era properly begins, it might not all be bad. We might start to hear things we’ve never heard before.

所以当AI时代正式开始，也许并不都是坏事。我们可能会开始听到以前从未听过的事情。

And won’t that be… good… for human creativity?

这对人类创造力来说不是……有好处吗？

…And if you’re still not convinced, maybe this article would be more persuasive… in the form of a song?......

如果你仍然不相信，也许这篇文章会更有说服力......以歌曲的形式？