As AI improves, we have concerns about our AI-powered future. Even small steps toward more sophisticated AI raise fears that robots will take over human work or that the immersive artificiality created by AI will distort our sense of reality.
Doubts about artificial intelligence are acute in the art world. An art piece created by artificial intelligence recently took first place in the Colorado State Fair competition, sparking outrage among artists and critics alike. Another experiment with changing artists and writers resulted in a similar letter.
Despite these widespread concerns, musician and experimental artist Holly Herndon doesn't see artificial intelligence as bad or damaging to art. This technology will still exist, he told me recently, and we can learn to live with it.
"I think the best way for artists is to look at developments in machine learning," he said, suggesting that they "think of inviting others to try it in a conditional way."
Last year, Herndon launched a project called Holly+, a tool that lets other artists create music using AI-generated images of their voices. Works created with Holly+ are essentially reliable clones approved and promoted by Herndon.
Herndon's use of artificial intelligence is groundbreaking, not only for artists, but for all of us. Instead of abandoning new technology, everyone from workers to businesses to aspiring writers can learn how to use these tools to make their lives easier or open up new creative possibilities. By using intelligent AI, would-be skeptics can help ensure new technology is put to good use, rather than letting attackers shape it. That doesn't guarantee consistently positive results, but with projects like Holly+, Herndon is highlighting the benefits of technologies like artificial intelligence and proving that they're not just a substitute for human creativity.
Artificial Intelligence from "Babies" to Deep Deception and Cryptography
Berlin-based Herndon has made artificial intelligence a recurring theme in his work over the past decade, experimenting with human-computer collaboration in his writing and live performances. An early example of this is the 2015 album Platforma, which combines the organic qualities of the human voice with machine sounds and digital processing techniques. On his 2019 album Proto, Herndon takes this approach further by creating Spawn, an artificially intelligent "baby" who combines his voice and that of his partner Matt Dryhurst, into a synthetic female entity that provides additional vocals.
The Holly+ project synthesizes the insights Herndon gained from a decade of working with artificial intelligence, a research process that led him to earn a PhD in Musical Arts from Stanford University's Center for Computational Research in Music and Acoustics. Holly+'s principle is simple: anyone can upload an audio file and the tool will create a new version with Herndon's pre-made voice ready to upload. In a blog post announcing Holly+, Herndon said he sees a future where digitally generated sound "will soon become common practice for artists and other content creators."
A wide variety of music has been created with Holly+, from original electronic tracks to ambient compositions to more traditional pop songs. Many tracks push the human voice to its limits, cutting Herndon's vocals into barely recognizable fragments or reshaping them like part of a sound collage. Herndon also uses Holly+ in live performances and performs with a local choir at the Helsinki Festival.
As the project continues to feature more interesting artwork, Holly+ raises questions about its future. If artificial intelligence could reproduce sounds as unique as Herndon, or master the vast archives of existing man-made content, would it replace humans in the evolution of art? Who owns the art created by AI models?
Who owns what?
The alleged impact of artificial intelligence on the art world is unprecedented. The ease with which digital files can be copied, edited, and distributed means that current content is often subject to change without notice. On the other hand, analog media are more difficult to replace and usually leave traces. Now official versions of songs are remixed non-stop, movies and TV shows change after their original releases, and lyrics and images go viral as inappropriate and ever-changing memes. Sampling - the reuse of a part of a song in another recording - has become a staple of popular music over the past few decades.
"Just like trying to close a stalled media paradigm, we have entered an era of AI where it will be easy to create media with a person's voice, face or style." Herndon tells me He thinks that like sampling, AI offers great opportunities for artistic play and innovation "as long as we can protect against the economic impact of these powerful new tools."
Holly+ highlights some of the potential upheavals, particularly the ability of artists to control their intellectual property, the legal basis of copyright law. Claiming the content you create is hard enough, but new AI tools open up a whole new set of challenges. Is the AI-generated image styled by a specific artist, or is it the original product of the model that created it? As AI models evolve and enter the digital world, artists need to understand the nature of the intellectual property they create and develop strategies to stay in control of that intellectual property.
"I started Project Holly+ because I thought it was an opportunity for a generation to rewrite the way we think about intellectual property," Herndon told me. "There will be a demand for high-quality, official figure public voice models," Herndon said in the Holly+ announcement.
This is where cryptocurrencies come in: The blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies allows users to accurately track the ownership of digital files such as songs and pictures while creating an indelible record of their origin. This allows artists to sell digital works and ensures they always receive credit for their work (even if the work itself is freely copied), and buyers of the work are guaranteed that they can prove they own the original. make them pay more.
Thus, Crypto allowed Herndon to financially reward artists who compose songs with Holly+ and receive compensation themselves. To this end, Herndon founded the DAO, a kind of decentralized autonomous organization, or workers' cooperative. Anyone who owns the crypto token of a particular DAO becomes a voting member. When other artists work with Holly+, they can submit it to the Holly+ DAO, whose members vote which works are good enough to be turned into Impossible Tokens and auctioned off - consider NFT to be the best "original" print. Song. (Anyone can use Holly+'s own language tools without granting access to the DAO.) Like shareholders of the company, DAO members benefit from the overall quality of the Holly+ brand through the value of their tokens. Herndon says on its website that DAO members are "encouraged to only approve or license new work that makes a significant contribution".
This arrangement benefits Herndon by freeing Herndon from sole responsibility for working with the instrument and minimizing the temptation to create bad art with Holly+ or use his voice in a negative way. Proceeds from each NFT sale are shared between the coin's creator, Holly+DAO members, and Herndon, an agreement that reflects each party's contribution to the coin. As artificial intelligence evolves and becomes more important in creative endeavors, the DAO framework offers a way to give participants a fairer assessment and help artists have more control over their work.
AI is not alien
As technology advances, artists and creators must continue to adapt. Herndon's work, particularly Holly+, shows how creative people can keep an open mind to developments like artificial intelligence while maintaining a pragmatic understanding of the shortcomings of technology. He said: "Most of the AI processes we know today are revolutionary ways of assembling the products of human intelligence." In other words, artificial intelligence could be another tool that artists use instead of threatening their very existence.
And working with AI can be exciting. "I fell in love with the presentation!" Herndon talks about works created with the Holly+ tool. “Artists have used my voice in all directions. I have whistling trains, elegant duets, crazy club songs."
Now Herndon is taking a class from Holly+ at his new organization, Spawning, which will give other artists the ability to leverage AI by protecting their IP addresses from the threats it poses and using them to improve their work. Herndon told me the organization is committed to "helping others take that leap and make their own choices about how they use their voice and style."
While artists may be among the first to seriously consider the implications of AI development, technology is likely to affect everyone, be it in their work or in other areas of life. Both Holly+ and Spawning offer models for embracing and making the most of technological change, rather than resisting or avoiding it.
"I can see how things can go wrong, but I'm determined to find a way to fix it," Herndon told me.
Drew Austin is a technology critic, author, and contributor to the Kneeling Bus newsletter.