I see these tools as another instrument or a synth. It should let 'me' create something rather than just do one-shot text-to-music. I would like to have a piano with intellisense (predict next few notes after I play my dumb keys), does this exist yet?
Academically, at least, yes. One of the latest versions of this kind of idea I am aware of is https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08620, although at more than a year old, this work might be out of date. I am sure there is ongoing work commercializing these kind of approaches, but I don't know of any in particular.
In the sense of modern DAWs/VSTs, sure, but in the sense of the synthesizer as a standalone instrument, its absolutely not designed to reproduce the sound of other instruments. Its an electronic device that outputs specified parameters. Whether that happens to coincide with parameters set by other artists/instrumentalists to 'reproduce' other tonal profiles, that's a byproduct, not a feature.
The spirit of the comment you're replying to is admonishing AI's use of pre-existing melodies, harmonies, chord progressions, and musical themes from songs that were fed into it.
Be it Beethoven (which is in the public domain so hey, free game) or Sabrina Carpenter (very much not in the public domain, but arguably not musically complex), its taking pre-existing tunes and regurgitating it into something else.
Try this: go out and take some sounds off the internet, don't pay the people who recorded those sounds and make a synthesizer out of them, and sell it. Let the people whose recordings you stole know what you did, and see how that works out for you. The lawsuit will be straightforward.
Now, go out and take those same sounds off the internet, don't pay the people who recorded those sounds, and use them to train an AI, and sell it. You're still a thief, but now it's much harder to prove you're a thief, and lots of AI investors will invest money making sure that courts decide you're not a thief.
My digital piano literally has soundfonts designed to mimic other instruments. A Fender Stratocaster, a Rhodes electric organ, etc. All of them are clear and blatant ripoffs of instruments.
The recordings may be legally protected. But if I use a sound engineer to listen to those recordings to fake these sounds, it's not that much different than an AI doing it.
Amazing. You've found a way to devalue the labor of both the artist AND the sound engineer in one go. At least you're consistent in not wanting to pay people for their work!
Yeah, but there's many, many synthesizers that don't work like this - and many people actually wouldn't even use the term "synthesizer" for this kind of instrument.
Well now you can't go without mentioning sampling machines, a way of taking audio samples from others (or yourself, any audio sample) and using it as an instrument.
.....which also did lead to numerous legal battles around sampling and artists paying royalties for sampling, so in general "society" didn't go "oh sampling is fine to do all willy nilly" out of that, it made artists pay other artists for using their work.
