The difference, of course, being that synthesizers and drum machines are instruments that require actual skill and talent and can be used to express the unique musical style of an artist, whereas AI requires neither skill nor talent, and it cannot generate anything with actual artistic direction, intent or innovation, much less a unique creative style.
AI is never going to give the world a modern Kraftwerk or Silver Apples or Brian Eno. The best an AI "artist" can do is have the machine mimic them.
Still the same thing. The argument then was that synths weren’t “real instruments” and that sequencers meant people weren’t “real musicians”.
AI relies on prompting. In the hands of a skilled artist it is just another tool. In the hands of an amateur hack, it is no different than giving a drum kit to a 4 year old.
They were right in many cases. You can choose to pick out the small percentage of musicians who were successful there or you can recognize the many that were never known.
You can do the same for photography.
People keep lowering expectations or demands on quality because things get easier and humans always prefer the easy option.
Look, in the hands of a skilled artist, generative fill is really useful.
In the same way that the synth is superstitious is banging.
Sampling, when in the hands of a legend is also spectacular, see the prodigy and a break down of the samples they used. (or any half decent hiphop band)
Then you get akon who just sped up a single sample put a beat on it and shat out some halfarsed shit.