One of my favorite post punk/dark wave bands has released a new album this past month. Bragolin is a Dutch band known for their backwards-facing women album covers and cryptic-goth lyricism (among other more notable attributes).
And I started to write this post as a review of the album and deep dive into each song because I genuinely love the album, but I couldn’t get past the first song “Not All Are Real” because I got caught in the quagmire of AI controversy and online drama.
I can’t help myself, I love a good flame war and online argument. I put way too much time into talking about this that the initial point of the post was lost. So now this post is about Bragolin’s recent wrapping into the AI art landscape.
To give a overview of the issue:
Bragolin used generative AI in the music video of “Not All Are Real”. The band used the AI to, essentially, create unsettling imagery for the song about unhuman things taking human form, and something being “off” about the world we live in. This aligns with themes from their cited inspirations Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing. Bragolin’s intent was to critique the fakeness of human replication by technology. Whether or not this intent was well received is a whole thing that turned to online arguments and back and forths in Instagram comments.
The music video in question:
As someone who has a bit of a flame war streak myself, I can’t help but engage here. I just love critiquing random online arguments for logic and internal consistency. I find it fun, as you can tell from the length of this post. I also find it more entertaining the more emotional people get, but that might be my inner toxic troll coming out. To me, the drama is so banal compared to many other issues in the world I constnatly have to think about and deal with, I cannot be fucking bothered with this trifling bullshit. Pick your battles. Goth music is my escapism, and unless Bragolin are out and proud followers of Sam Altman or something, I don’t really care about this stuff.
It’s still fun to engage with though, so let’s do it. Let’s start with my initial, sincere writing trying to talk about the song before I got lost in the AI topic. I genuinely really like the song (the whole album is really good imo). Maybe later I’ll come back to talking about the other songs. So we shall start with pure sincerity and then devolve into internet mind rot comment arguments.
Bragolin is definitely up there with one of favorite bands. Something about their music just gets me in ways that other artists don’t. Having reflected on it, I think it largely has to do with how forlorn their lyrics are written and delivered. It’s never super clear what is happening in a Bragolin song or what the intent is. It’s intentionally cryptic (or “poetic” as people more versed in the humanities would probably say). But because of this, I guess it is easier to project your own thoughts and emotions onto the lyrics in a way that it seems like the song is always speaking about your experience, even if in reality the author intent might be far off.
For example, for me, as a neurotic often distressed individual, I can’t always communicate my thoughts and feelings because I can’t always understand them. I’ve learned that simply, there’s not always something to be understood by them (practicing mindfulness helps differentiate between the meaningful and meaningless inner experiences). I don’t know, I guess listening to music from Bragolin just helps me get in the mood in which I want to do pensive reflection. The only other band the consistently gets me this way is Purity Ring, due to similar lyricism and sonic vibes (albeit more pop and less goth). It validates my angst in ways that many other songs can’t do.
But one pint to Bragolin is that they make energetic music too. As someone who probably enjoys the uppers of music more than the downers, I like fast paced dark wave music more than slow style goth rock. It’s one of the reasons I could never get into bands like Lebanon Hanover. Bragolin is the type of band I can listen to while trying to sleep or put on at the gym, which is always appreciated.
Other than that, I just think Bragolin’s music has the perfect blend of classic goth rock sounding guitars with modern dark wave synths. Pair those sounds on top of gothic lyricism, and you got yourself one great band.
Now we will turn to analyzing “Not All Are Real”. As a warning, I ain’t good at lyrical analysis, so you’re going to get some Genius.com level takes here. (We will cover the controversy around the use of AI at the end).
Not All Are Real
This song encapsolates my favorite type of Bragolin song. Forlorn singing and lyrics over some classic darkwave instrumentals. It’s got the perfect blend of them in my opinion.
On first listen, the song might seem about some depressing stuff (the seeming topic of many goth songs on first listen), but you have to consider what the subject matter is about.
Hope is gone and I feel toyed
Not all are real, though we’re humanoid
I breath as much as it can hide
Til the silence ends with its disguise
What isn’t all real? People? Some people are not real, but if so, in what way? Are they superficial or are we being literal that some people aren’t real.
The song Not All Are Real is inspired by the classic horror movie The Thing. For the music video, we also took inspiration from another classic: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Both films are about alien entities that replicate humans to take over the world. We wanted to connect this feeling to the present time, where AI is increasingly replicating human work. Purely and only for this reason, we felt the use of AI was fitting.
I’ll come back to the theme of AI later but it seems clear that the song is about alienation of a kind. And that the thing causing alienation is hidden amongst us, in plain sight. No wonder that the music video is trying to make things seem cold and off by wandering around in the winter. Even ignoring the AI, the way it is shot and the winter environment much of it is in makes it certain that something is off and cold about what we are witnessing. Not all is real, whether that refers to the the AI digital medium itself or the environment that has lead to the AI medium itself is up for speculation. At what point is what we create human or not? What has been replaced and what will be replaced? This is the core theme I can takeaway.
Going back to the lyrics, I don’t think the intent was just to talk about AI
All around me, I pick up its signs
This imposter on its borrowed time
Hiding among us, taking us in thrall
As claws strike through the outer wall
If the “imposter” is taking people’s places and is appear everywhere. These lyrics seem to say that the individual has identified it and that it is on “borrowed time”. I am not entirely sure if borrowed time means it doesn’t have that much longer to live. That was my first thought, but this doesn’t seem to fit the idea that these things are slowly taking over. Instead, I think “borrowed time” might be more literal. Since its taken the form of people, it is literally borrowing their time as it is borrowing their image. But I might be way off there.
If the imposter is AI (at least in part), I don’t see that line as being about short-life because it would be overly naive to think AI is on borrowed time in that it won’t be here for long. Nor do I think that reflects Bragolin’s own thoughts on AI (as we will go over later).
Maybe, to tin foil hat here, the person isn’t sure if they are real anymore. Maybe they are the imposter and will soon be taken over by the thing that will assume their “realness”. That would be neat, but I don’t think that’s what is going on here.
Whatever it is, the “claws” of the imposter are striking at the walls as it is trying to take over.
The thing is, with most Bragolin songs, it is unclear what is metaphorical or what is literal. I would take a wager to guess a lot of their songs are metaphorical, but sometimes a monster is just a monster and its the audience who projects onto it. It is not uncommon in goth music just write songs about monsters and vampires. Bragolin, however, strikes me as more methodical of their lyrics. Which sucks for me because I am awful at poetry analysis.
We can see more beastly imagery in these lyrics
I crawl and seek on this basement floor
To find my knife and then the exit door
I surge, escape, as it unfolds
As claws strike through the outer wall
So the person in the song is looking for a weapon presumably to defend themselves from the “thing” that is clawing at the walls to get into the basement. This scene in these lyrics reminds me a lot of Bragolin’s most popular song Into Those Woods, which describes a scene of desperately searching a room for a saw/axe. Though I’m sure the context is different for that song (that song is even less straightforward imo).
I see the lyrics of this song a bit generalized to apply to anything that lies in wait and takes on the forms of others that might be coming for you. I think there’s a lot of things that are two-faced in life that aren’t necessarily as completely unhuman as AI, though AI is certainly the obvious example. But it would be an oversight to assume AI was the thing that Bragolin was getting at. Certainly, there are many things throughout life that will you feel “replaced”.
I could feel replaced when my friends find other social groups, my ex finds another partner, my boss finds another employee, etc. Human beings exist all around us that can replace us at any moment. We are not necessarily all important in eachother’s lives as we might think, but that might be my depressive mind at work. Certainly we want to feel important and neceessary to others. But I think that, besides family, that people can and do be replaced, sadly. But we all do it. Everyone has lost friends to time and developed new ones. Many of us had people we were in love with only to find new, similar love in the future. Not all are real, as there are people who can snatch us out of the lives of others.
But that’s just another interpretation that could be organic rather than synthetic like AI. But given Bragolin’s talkings around this song, I don’t think this organic replacement I describe here was what they were getting at, at least not in whole.
So now we had some enriching deep thought on the song, let’s completely ruin it by looking at the comment section!
Controversy
To put the controversy briefly, Bragolin used AI in their music video and put out teasers for it. People got upset from those teasers, so Bragolin they had to put out a statement explaining and justifying their decision to use AI. Their initial response was this on Instagram:
We want to clarify our position on the use of AI in the music video of Not All Are Real. The song and video were inspired by The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, films about flawed human replication. Our AI imagery is used to amplify the fake and unsettling feeling of the video, reflecting how AI replicates human work today. The video was created by us, scene by scene, not by the press of a button. AI is not here to stay in our music or artwork, and it will not replace the creatives we work with.”
And in the comments they followed it up with
Tbh, the plan was to announce this after the release of the music video. But we want to prevent more questioning comments in the upcoming days with sharing the teasers.
I can certainly understand why people saw their response as cope and/or walking back their use. If you feel compelled to publically justify your artistry and follow it up with another comment that was essentially “we didn’t expect to have to talk about this so soon, but we promise this was just a one time thing” it does come across as cope no matter how sincere it is.
Their official response on their website came after .
Hi, As you might have noticed, our music video Not All Are Real is full of AI-generated footage. In this article, we’d like to explain our position on the use of AI in this video.
The song Not All Are Real is inspired by the classic horror movie The Thing. For the music video, we also took inspiration from another classic: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Both films are about alien entities that replicate humans to take over the world. We wanted to connect this feeling to the present time, where AI is increasingly replicating human work. Purely and only for this reason, we felt the use of AI was fitting.
We wanted it to look fake. We wanted to show how unsettling AI can be. We wanted to show humans being replicated in a contemporary context. A lot of time was spent on the creation of this video. It was not a single press of a button saying “make us a music video.” Scene by scene, it was scripted, prompted, and eventually edited, just like working with real footage.
This is not a step toward us accepting AI as a replacement for human creativity.
Now that we’ve made this statement, you might also be wondering what the video is about, especially after seeing images of various continents. It is meant as a playful extension of The Thing, where the alien spread now takes the shape of the band Bragolin, attempting to take over the world through our album and concerts. The album cover shown in the video is not real. The two flashing silhouettes are not us. The concert footage is real footage, but the song played there is a different song, all to make things feel unnatural.
So don’t be shocked, we’re not an AI band.
At least there was an artistic intent behind it rather than the pure aesthetics of uncanny valley AI that some people like. A lot of people just simply see AI art as “cool”, but I can safely say I don’t thin Bragolin is that much of a teenager.
If I am being honest, myself, I don’t really care about this particular issue. I don’t think its that big of a deal and using AI to make a meh music video (sorry Bragolin, I still stan you otherwise). Compared to instances of artists acting irresponsibly (like with the racism examples), I just don’t think this compares and is something that is a big deal especially because it is just a one time thing, which I take them at their words.
My position boils down to if you are using AI as a corrective procedure, that is, you can’t quite figure out the specific cord you need or some technical skill you lack, I think AI can fill in as a tool that doesn’t replace human skill or intent. In that way, I see it similarly how digital synthesizers replaced the need of physically making the synths yourself. People who didn’t know how to phsyically tinker with pieces of equipment, if they even had pieces of equipment, were able to start producing music they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.
In that way, digital synthesizers were tools that allowed for more creative expression rather than replacing the artist. I do think AI can fill this role, but it is a harder sell because I also think AI is different than other tools of the trade, which I wil discuss as we go over the comment threads.
Before that, one last thing. I’ve identified three main threads for why people dislike AI in music (or in art in general).
it replaces the humanity of the art
it out competes the artist, making it harder to be an artist by trade
other ethical issues like plagiarism or environmental conscientiousness.
I think a lot of the drama in this instance filters around issue (1) while having random accusations of Bragolin supporting (2) and (3) thrown in on occasion.
But I am going to focus on issue (1). Issue (2) I can sympathize with, but I don’t know the industry well enough to make a value judgement, other than I do not see AI being embraced as of yet.
For issue (3), I think this type of stuff gets more complicated and nuanced than just “if you support AI you support destroying the ecosystem”. Not that I don’t think data centers aren’t bad for the planet, but I am more hesitent with overarching moral imperatives because they get hard to back up against all angles and they are hard to keep consistent with other moral frameworks (e.g., many things are also bad for the environment, so why do you attack for AI use and not those). But for either issue, I do sympathize and I can understand critciism to it, but I think talking about them here would beyond the scope of the controversy and how assess it within my own ability.
Also for my own sake (this is a personal line for me), if I had to throw in fourth issue of being a silicon valley AI nut Sam Altman glazer or whatever, that will be a hard HARD no from me fam. My support of AI does have a deep red line that would involve me defending a tech feudalist simp. And yes I do defend the use of “feudalist” here. Henry George would have thought as much too, if he survived another 100 years.
Now let’s move onto the controversy. I’m just going in order as I find comments. My headings got a bit confused as I discuss valid criticisms in the middle of cope sections and what not, so best just to read along
Cope 1
Going back to their official statement, I kind of think their last statement “we’re not an AI band” as a bit of a cope. If you weren’t an AI band you wouldn’t have done this. The fact of the matter is that Bragolin was out in the comment section arguing about their use of AI. I don’t think a “not an AI band” would defend themselves and the use of AI so heartidly. Granted, it was a very soft defense, in that I have seen people go much harder in defense of AI. And frankly, Bragolin’s comments aren’t as spicy as I would wish, but they have more self control then me if I was forced to respond to some of these comments
I get what they are trying to say. They mean that AI isn’t their “whole thing.” They don’t want to be known as the AI guys in the goth community essentially. No one wants to wear that scarlet AI in this gate keeping of a community. I don’t think that they are “those” people, but they’re the only ones who have stepped up as tribute so far.
Valid Criticism 1
I think the best valid criticism that some comments point out (and that I would also posit) is that they are using a controversial tool for a very shallow artistic expression. The artistic message can basically be summarized as “our song is about things unhuman that replace us, so we are going to use something unhuman that might replace us.” Like, I get the intent, but it’s not that deep is it? Does that justify its use?
In a more serious example, it reminds me when artist in film or writing try to justify their use of racism in their art because it serves as a critique against racists. Their writing might have prejudiced or racist language with the intent to show how racists are bad. It’s the Borat “let’s show a racist characature of a Jew to show how dumb antisemites are”. It’s shallow and bordering on just supporting the thing you are supposed to criticize. Does the shallow idea of “racists bad” justify the use of racism? I am not certain these artists are breaking enough ground that really justify wha they’re doing in many of these situations.
I think this logic can be applied to Bragolin’s case here a bit, even though their situation is much less dire. Is the message of “AI bad and dehumanizing” a deep enough thought to justify using the thing you are trying to critique? Because if not, you are perpetuating the very issue you are pointing out in your art. It’s an easy critique to throw out at Bragolin because their use of AI was rather superficial in that it was about the aesthetic of AI generated video. I do commend that it has an intent behind it besides pure aethetic, however.
One comment I found puts it well I think.
You can critique the fakeness of human replication without using the same environment destroying theft machine. That’s why we have art and artists. Using the “bad satire tool” to simply reinforce that which it is meant to critique.
While the “environment destroying theft machine” are ascribing a much more severe question of ethics on Bragolin’s part, which I think might be a bit too extreme (see issue (3) above), I think the rest of the comment is apt.
I Would Flame This Person 1
On another not so apt comment from IG that is trying to say something similar
“I kicked a puppy but its cool as it was to demonstrate that kicking puppies is not ok and was inspired by the move ‘Kicking puppies is fun’.(although the people that made ‘Kicking puppies is fun’ were not compensated in any way for their art being used to train the our puppy kicking robot”
This person clearly had the same critique in mind but said it in a very funny way that doesn’t make sense.
Bragolin called them out saying
so why do you make use of AI tooling?
Maybe a bit presumptuous that people would use AI tooling, which of course they would just deny even if they did use AI (later we seem that Bragolin’s conceptuion of “AI tooling” might not be the most accurate), but I think it is fair to assume that most people do since it has become so normalized. AI is shoved in your faces these days, so you actively have to go out of the way to not use it.
The commenter responded saying what I supposed they would, that they actively try to avoid it, but also said
You made an active choice to use an unethical method and people are free to judge you for it.
I think people are overblowing the ethics here, but I agree Bragolin had to know they would get shit for this decision, even if said shit was vague notions of puppy kicking.
Cope 2
For a positive comment someone made
I’m honestly getting sick of the people who say “All AI is bad!” without any nuance or research whatsoever. Yes, current usage of AI to create generative AI slop is bad. AI used as a tool to augment or complement naturally creative work is not bad, and is literally how society and art progresses.
To which Bragolin replied
couldn’t have said it better. There’s AI-tooling everywhere. From algorhtyhmic playists to explore new music, to social media timelines to connect with your favourite bands, to google maps to navigate to a concert. It’s all fine if people say they are against any use of AI. But to them: practise what you preach please :). There’s no room for replacing creativity in art. But there’s room for using technology to to help you create what you created in your mind.
I fall back to my opinion that I think there are ways you can make AI into a tool, but I do believe fundamentally AI is different than most artist tools.
Tools for music, overtime, have trended to making music easier and more accessible to people without specific technical ability or musical equipment. Before you needed to have specific synth machines and customize them physically to get synths you wanted. Nowadays electronic synthesizers can do much of that for you. AI can continue on this trajectory if it aids to make the process easier or more accessible, but it is fundamentally different.
There’s a lot of different ways AI can be used in art, whether it is prompt generation or through a copilot that can fix chords or tune in the background while you do other things (I’m not sure if anyone has integrated that type of AI into the music workflow yet). However, if you use AI as a council, you basically are forfeiting the creative process.
Asking AI to generate, critique, or edit things for you is like collaborating with a human being. Collaboration between artists can be great, but replace one with an AI and you can start to see how it loses the sense that AI is just a tool. Since AI, in this context, is doing the role of the artist not the artist’s instrument.
I think there is a line somewhere there that is hard to define, but I can understand why some people think that you shouldn’t even have a line to begin with.
But to Bragolin’s response about”there’s AI tool everywhere”:
From algorhtyhmic playists to explore new music, to social media timelines to connect with your favourite bands, to google maps to navigate to a concert.
I’m not entirely sure what they are getting at here, and I think this is where Bragolin muddies the water, intentionally or not. Yes, there’s “AI” in all of those things. Spotify’s recommendations, Google Maps routing, social feeds, etc. These run on machine learning tools like deep learning and neural networks. So if your bar is “is there machine learning algorithms under the hood,” sure, it’s everywhere, and Bragolin are technically correct. You can even point out the fact that these things are also part of the environmentally costly data centers that people are bringing up too. In that sense, I think Bragolin is fair to bring up the hypocritical subtext.
But it’s a bait and switch to be honest. The controversy was never about these things (well, at least the focal point of the controversy). It’s about generative AI. These are AI models that produce new images, video, audio, or text. Aka, anything that replicates creative work. That’s what they are using in their music video, and that’s the thing people are upset about. Nobody in those comments is mad that Google Maps used a neural network to tell them which exit to take (well, maybe some are pricing that in to their environmental/ethical criticisms, but it is unlikely). Lumping “the app that finds you a faster route” in with “the tool that generated our music video” treats them as the same act when they aren’t. One sorts and predicts while the other generates new media. The whole reason people care is that generative AI sits in the creative chair, and a routing algorithm doesn’t.
So when Bragolin say “there’s AI-tooling everywhere, practice what you preach,” it lands as a gotcha only if you let the word “AI” do all the work while quietly swapping out what it refers to. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of “you say you’re against drugs, but you drink coffee?” Coffee is technically a stimulant, sure, but come on. I don’t think they’re being cynical about it, I think it’s a genuinely easy line to blur because the term “AI” is so overloaded right now. But it’s still a weak argument, and it’s the kind of thing AI defenders reach for constantly. So yeah, kind of cope ngl.
But to them: practise what you preach please :).
THIS IS WHAT I NEED MORE OF. PLEASE INJECT THIS INTO MY VEINS I love when an artist stands up against the internet masses. I think this is probably more sincere than I would have put it. I do think there is some correct hypocrisy you can probably point out (as I have acknowledge above, plus I’m sure some of them directly engage with generative AI too). If I were Bragolin, I would have written a 21 line manifesto about why they are a hypocrite and need to reality check themselves. And I mean this sincerely. Some of the issues I see thrown against people who use AI do need some self awareness, I just think Bragolin got off on their bait and switch argument but the core AI issue and not where the actual criticism comes from. Love their energy though. Keep up the hustle.
Cope 3
They also said in the same comment thread
We didn’t use it as a black box to make us something. We used it to create the scenes we wanted to be created. Same as if I would have filmed it. But filming what we wanted was not technical possible. But people blame us before seeing the music video. And we have done special effects ourself.
This goes back to my comment on where the “line” is. Is it a tool being used to open up artists who don’t have the skills, time, and equipment or is it being used as a replacement to the artist instead? I can’t for certain say, but I am leaning on the former for Bragolin since they are a very established band who I don’t think would just jump purely into cynical “let’s just have AI do this for us” group.
But I do think you need to question if it is still worth using if you couldn’t do it. The thing is music and music video is a creative domain. You aren’t going to convince everyone by saying stuff like “But filming what we wanted was not technical possible” when the point of creative art is to be creative to their point of “There’s no room for replacing creativity in art.”
It’s like saying, I wanted to do all these cool CGI things for my music video, but I couldn’t do that due to technical or monetary reasons. Instead, I just ended up getting at the same themes and ideas through this other means by using my creativity. Sorry if I sound like an ass, but I don’t find this justification convincing given their own logic.
It’s part of the line. I appreciate and believe that they didn’t just tell the generative AI a prompt and take the video from there, but I would like to know what the workflow was actually like. Was it just a back and forth between many prompts? What’s the justification of this being an artists tool (fine imo) rather than an AI collaborator (bad imo). More transparency would be desirable here.
I think transparency, for better or for worse, will probably be a social requirement going forward when AI gets less and less apparent when it is used in art. I’ve already seen a lot of 3d graphics artists have to upload their blender settings and process just to prove their art isn’t AI. It must suck for artists who made art that looks similar to that generic AI style before generative AI images took over.
Another comment that sort of gets at this
You reference a good piece of human art as inspiration for why you used AI? That’s exactly part of the problem, is AI scrapes and steals uniqueness and creativity from human made things. There is enough use of AI as is, and the environmental implications make this especially disturbing. You missed the mark here, the message would have been stronger with hand drawn unsettling imagery, claymation, ANYTHING. it’s disappointing both creatively and ethically.
I don’t know if the message would have been “stronger” per se if they did something else, but this sort of gets at what I was saying about using creative solutions in a creative art form to get around limitations. Just falling back to AI sounds like creative bankruptcy. Of course, I’m dodging the issue (3) they brought up, but can be applied if people wish to discuss them.
Bragolin’s response
you are having an opinion about a music video that we didn’t even show you yet. Those scenes would have not worked in a hand drawn way as you suggest. Not at all.
Our 4th music video will be completely hand drawn by an artist, as it works there.
I do think its funny that this was just blown up before people even saw the video to verify how they used AI, but regardless, critiques can still be made about the method. I don’t need to see your art made by piss, shit, and blood to before I can be judgmental about the methods you used to create it.
And on the matter “Those scenes would have not worked in a hand drawn way as you suggest. Not at all.” This is just cope, and I am generally on Bragolin’s side here. But just saying “it’s not possible to have done something else” when people criticize your creative choices is obvious BS in my eyes. Would the product have been worse if you didn’t use AI? Maybe. But at the same time, many many people are clearly not enthused about your use of AI in the music video, so clearly AI was not the best method to use.
I Would Flame This Person 2
Next comment
Screams tone deaf to me. I’ll be unfollowing
Gotta love the melodrama. I guess the “tone” is people don’t like AI art? Fair enough I suppose, but if I were Bragolin, I wouldn’t be able to hold back the smug sass to try to piss this person off.
Bragolin handled it better than I would have:
probably it’s lost in translation. We’re not pro AI at all. It’s used in the context of humans being copied.
I will say the “we’re not pro AI at all” I am sort of confused on. I get what they mean, that their use of AI stood in negation of AI, but they’re also the ones defending the use of AI tools. But Bragolin are better people than me for this calm response.
Commenter reply:
your post reads like “we used AI but with 100% human prompts, scene by scene”. The best way to not be pro AI is to not use AI. I don’t think it’s lost in translation. There’s billionaires out there literally draining lakes dry just so they can have “intelligent” slaves so they won’t need the working class in the future and you guys though THIS was the best way to express your take on AI? By using AI tools?
Fucking lmao. If you use AI you support billionaires using robo slaves to drain lakes and throw us in the bin. This corresponds to the “nuance” I mentioned in relation to issue (3) above. There are real criticisms about these issues you can bring up, but they constantly get lost in the weeds for whatever head canon this person has.
Bragolin, who are much more like Jesus than me, replied:
the best way to be anti-AI is not using social media, not using google maps, not using altoryhthmic streaming services and I can go on. AI-tooling is everywhere in the tools and platforms we use. AI was not used to replace creativity here, it was used to visualize what was in our heads. The same way you use google maps to draw you a route to where you want to travel to.
Again, are they talking about AI copilots integrated into these platforms? Like the type you just type questions to and it gives responses. Other than that, I still think they are confused, but I would like to see examples to prove me wrong.
I agree that they had a real reason to use AI, I just don’t know if that reason was deep enough to warrant the method (or warrant the hate they’ll get for using the method, not sure they knew what they were walking into).
The comenter continues:
Except by using AI you contributed to the harm it does to the environment and the communities that are being devastated by the AI data centers invading their towns.
I’m not sure we’ve reached “devastation” yet, but this is one of those issues that I think is hard to place blame on one band when, as Bragolin already pointed out, this person is probably complacent in in some ways or another.
Bragolin responded:
we’re traveling 95% of our concerts by train instead of car. How many bands do that? How many of us still use AI tools (like google maps, algorythimic streaming platforms, etc) that also use those data centers. It’s a bit narrow to pinpoint that this 1 AI use we do is killing the environment and what everyone else is doing wouldn’t. You are here on a social media platform that’s AI driven.
YES THE SNARK. SHOW THEM HOW YOU ARE ACTUALLY MORE AWARE AND CARE MORE ABOUT THOSE ISSUES THAN THE RANDOM COMMENTER. YES.
It’s an unhealthy thing for me, but I do love spinning the rulebook back at a virtue signaler. It’s always fun.
As a note: “(like google maps, algorythimic streaming platforms, etc) that also use those data centers”
This is true, these data centers do hold the processing power to help with these computations, but the concern of the cropping up of recent data centers is from then need of more generative AI tokens. The demand for generative AI is what is the driving factor in the industry at the moment (and other AI tools that are being tinkered with in private industries too). It is still fair to bring up though even if they are being disingenuous about the type of AI they are referring to.
Data usage and the infrastructure needed to support our consumption habits is just one of those issues we all contribute to, so its stupid to moralize so heavily about it imo. I’m sure Bragolin feel the same way. You can certainly oppose data center construction (I have a personal loathing of multiple data center projects that are being pushed in America at the moment), but it is not serious to act like we aren’t all contributing to it. The demand for more data computation is there for a reason. It takes many ants to build an ant hill.
If there are choices we can make to cut back the waste and excess, I think its fair to have the expectation we do, especially if the thing we have to cut is as dumb as Facebook ask jeeves bots. But that isn’t what the criticism is saying. I wish more people would take a harm reduction position, but you ain’t gonna get that in online flame.
Commenter replied
Utility AI such as in navigation applications to predict traffic isn’t comparable to the current wave of generative AI that instead of aiding creatives, basically functions as a black box that vomits out content and effectively removes the entire creative process (while also plagiarising). You say that you don’t want to replace artists but you quite literally did the thing you’re claiming to advocate against with this video when you could have employed filmmakers and special effects artists.
This person sort of gets what I was criticizing Bragolin for before, that they aren’t being honest about the core issue and are just trying to deflect. However, this commented is also moving the goal posts. They went from “AI bad” to “actually, the AI you use are bad, no what I use”, essentially. Which I think there’s an argument there, as I’ve said, but what we’ve seen here is emotions driving the engagement and the rationale for the anger being formulated afterwards. There’s no shame for this. It is a human thing to rationalize your emotions afterwards. I do it too.
Also as a side note since I haven’t addressed this yet, the whole “you replaced filmmakers and special effects artists” criticism is only true if Bragolin were genuinely going to do so if they did not have access to AI.
It is true that many people might use AI for simple stuff instead of hiring a professional (though I am not even sure of that considering they will get so much shit for it, it might not be worth it). But there is somewhat of overreaction that assumes any use of AI meant you stole a job. I think plenty of artists might just use AI to get new options for videos instead of trying to hire a filmographer. It can be the case that they might have chosen AI instead of paying someone with a camera to film or to get a graphics designer, but often times they just weren’t even considering those options because it was out of the budget anyway. It’s a case by case issue that you can’t just accuse someone of using AI to takeaway others jobs.
I Would Flame This Person 3
Any use of Ai is unacceptable. You could have gotten a special effects artist to work on the MV instead. Genuinely disappointed as I’d just gotten into yall and was enjoying it.
Bragolin:
it’s good you express your views!
It feels like they probably got less interested in honestly defending themselves as the comments kept coming in. This is pretty common from my experience. The first few times you are trying to be good faith and deal with people sincerely, but when the dozens of comments keep coming, especially the ones that don’t seem fair with you, you just can’t have the same energy and charitably for each of them. In terms of retort, I give Bragolin a 6/10. I laughed because I love a good passive aggression, but it could’ve been wittier if you wanted to play that role. Might I have suggested a “Thanks for your feedback bro, what did you like about the video?” that’s my favorite.
This ends the Bragolin back and forths, which is a shame. I would have loved to hear them flesh out their opinions of AI more, though that obviously isn’t the best platform to do it. They might have somewhere else, but I am not sure where (i.e. I haven’t looked).
But of course, just because you stopped looking at the comments coming in about you doesn’t mean the cacophony of bodyless souls haven’t stopped complaining about how much they dislike your attitude.
I present some fun ones I found on the most reasonable of places, Reddit/r/goth.
The r/goth Round Up (Bring Out Ya Flamethrowers)
Oh wow. Nothing screams “alternative” as much as jumping onto some stupid trend that only spits out the absolute mainstream due to its database.
This person actually meant to say “‘Alternative’ is when you do things I like and not when you do things I don’t like.” The irony is that using AI in this way is clearly not the mainstream. I don’t think the mainstream has embraced AI at all, so if anything Bragolin are still counter culture on this lol. Always gotta represent the online gate keeper.
I personnally think it’s gross as fuck from them. I don’t care about their illusion of an ethic use of genAI and any crass justifications they will make up, I don’t care that “it’s here to stay”, genAI is cursed and it’s ruining absolutely everything it touches. It’s stupid to believe and say the contrary, and it’s even worse coming from artists.
I’m disappointed and I’m not sure I’ll be able to enjoy their work anymore.
This is the Reddit melodrama I live for. They are disgusted that they had fake people on a Youtube screen. This transgression has ruined it all for them. How could Bragolin be so crass. There is NO nuance. You are either with them or trying to ruin absolutely everything.
This person needs to just take a hit of da spliff and calm a bit. I don’t think this music video is the harbinger of the end of times.
Disappointing. AI is actually “making people dumber.”
As if we needed more of that.
I could point out the irony of this comment, but it probably speaks for itself. Lower critical thinking might be correlated with AI use, but it does not mean use of AI leads to dumber people outright. And I shit you not, the poster has a link for “making people dumber”, which is just a duckduckgo web search about this topic. I almost don’t know if this is a glitch or something. I mean the first pop up there is dukdukgo’s AI summary. Bro, if you have evidence just cite it. I actually hope for the sake of this person that this web link is broken or there was a mistake here and they didn’t just look up “AI makes people dumber” and just post the search engine results. Maybe he meant to paste the link to the first post in the websearch? But even that would be admitting they just looked it up to find the first thing that agreed with them.
I don’t mean to be an asshole, but you should reconsider if it was AI that made you not critically think about your comment here or self reflect before you attack Bragolin for contributing/perpetuating to this issue.
Sounds like they fumbled and are scrambling to curb the backlash ;(
Honestly kind of, or at least I can see why some people see their response as cope to backlash. But having read the comments in the Instagram post, I think they were being sincere personally, but maybe didn’t forseee the hate they’d get.
It’s like portraying racism in your comedy and claiming it’s bad instead of saying something thought-provoking. Displaying the thing displays the thing. That’s it. It’s not proof of condemnation.
Hey I made that point! I think this is the most valid point of contention personally.
Using the same unethical generative AI that has exploited all kinds or artists to make your own music video only continues to exploit other artists. Despicable.
I was so excited to listen to their new EP but this is gonna have to be a nope from me.
So this touches on issue (2) I’ve ignored until now. There is a real issue with training data secrecy in these companies. With competition, no one wants to be public about their sources or how they’ve trained their data. There is a real criticism to have here in that generative AI is just stealing people’s works here, which means that Bragolin is indirectly stealing those artists works through using AI.I think you can throw a lot of criticism for corporations that use this on mass or for the AI companies that knowingly horded a lot of copyrighted material knowing that they needed to train all their models before laws and suits were made about this. They 100% knew what they were doing was unethical and only legal temporarily.
Just for me (and for Bragolin too I guess), I am not convinced the punishment reflects the crime when it comes to comments like this. I feel all encompassing arguments about ethics are hard to back up in fullness if we want to keep consistent with how we all consume art and just material in general.
In fact, I could write a whole treatise about how people often support media that just outright steals from other people with no credit (much of Youtube frankly) that is FAR more directly harmful than using generative AI, but that’s not a hot topic nor does it reflect desirably on the individuals who want to throw accusations. You might be surprised how much randomly used footage or images are not public domain and yet still get used all the time. Even images that are liscenced for creative common use, you still need to licence them and show the licence publicly. Virtually no one does this. People act like they can take images from Google and use them willy nilly, which isn’t true at all, and I have a huge shit list of people I hate for stealing content like this.
Side tangent but this has gotten me heated. Recently it has been in the animal/nature content creation world since nature videos are very hard, time costly, and expensive to shoot and yet they always get stolen or used with by other people with no credit MUCH to the detriment of the original filmographers. If anything, AI footage of animals for these content creators would actually be preferable. Well, asking permission would always be the most preferable but no one ever does because what would you do if they said no?
I would be willing to bet money these commentators on Reddit willfully engage with improper use of copy-righted material and don’t give a shit. I would wager I could throw in all my life savings and make out with twice as much as I had to begin with. Not all of the outrage is performative, but a lot of it is. It’s simply become an “in-group” issue for a lot of communities revolving around artforms. For good reasons at heart, but not reasons that are consistent at home (at least much of the time). It’s just one of those issues that I’m aware of how many people don’t pay attention to it in many instances where it is harmful to artists but then go around virtue signal over AI. So I am white knighting Bragolin here.
Is the issue with the copyrights or is the issue that you just hate AI companies? At least be honest.
Moving on.
What is up with all these Goth artists using AI? Incredibly disappointing.
Then
They’re basically the ones being honest about it.
Which is true! Points to Bragolin.
Another person said
I mean, a lot of people aren’t going to like this answer but its that in the actual entertainment industry the cultural presuppositions about the place of ai is very different than on the internet. In the entertainment industry people are more concerned about overuse of ai watering down a product. The idea that any use of it at all is some kind of faux pas is a fairly uncommon opinion among professionals. Many people are hoping to be able to get credit for doing something conceptual with new technology at a time when it’s still uncommon for anything good to be made with it, because if they get in early they could end up with credit for being a trailblazer down the line.
I have no clue if this is true. Could easily be bullshit. Wasn’t it part of the writer’s strikes of Hollywood about AI not replacing people? I know the voice actor industry is concerend about this too. Maybe the higher ups are more worried about watered down art, but clearly the workers have worry about AI. It is true a lot of people are trying to get in on the hype though. Bragolin certainly are one of them.
the “it’s here to stay”/“Genie’s out of the bottle” shit is so annoying because its only true if you let it be. fuck ai, i am never using that plagiarism, and fake information machine
This is just so naive imo. There’s sentiment there that is valid in that consumers should not engage with products they don’t like, but there’s much more that goes into it, especially for AI which is and has and will continue to be integrated in many places. It is true that we have just said “no” to certain technologies like bioweapons, but I feel like a lot of anti-AI people make the assumption that the AI industry and the market directions for AI are similar. AI is way to powerful and helpful as a product by everyone for people to say no. There is no medium who wants to curtail this, for better or for worse.
I think AI companies are being negligent and will just say shit like “if we don’t do it China will” to justify there lack of regulation. There NEEDS to be regulation, and I think it is warranted to call for that. But Bragolin isn’t part of that? I guess if you want them to make a stand against AI by continue to not use AI you can. It’s just way more complicated than just saying no.
I mean if they were tryign to get at being against the “It’s here to stay” attitude within the music scene, then I can see that more and, again, I think its fair thing to criticize But there second statement made me think they meant it overall.
I hate that shit so much, I mean, if genAI was really here to stay, big companies would’nt organize massive marketing campaign and asking state support all the time.
AI is here to stay. What the companies are doing is trying to stay in status quo. I.e., little to no regulation. Also they are trying to not let their bubble pop because a lot of them haven’t reached profitability yet, which is why they need state backing. It has nothing to do with consumer desire. Their monetary plan is somewhat suicidal and everyone is just trying to get the plane high enough in the air that it can keep flying itself. Hopefully, it won’t crash and burn all of us.
Let’s get into a little back and forth of the thread in response to this comment
That’s not true. Thinking something is inevitable says nothing about the rate at which you think it is going to happen. The companies think it will happen regardless but they want to be the one profiting off of it. They are worried that if they lose their chance, someone else will end up being the one holding the bag.
nah, they are DESPERATE to make a profit, currently it’s a very expensive loss-leader. Thats why they’re trying to push it so hard
That’s the same point, just reworded. In some nebulous number of years, the tech will be more efficient such that it’s less risky to bet on it. So they consider the outcome set in stone. But people are trying to do a hail Mary to invest now while the tech is new in the hopes that they are carried up by it as it gets better rather than crash out. In other words, they aren’t trying to change the ultimate outcome of how it develops. Just get in early in the hopes that they end up the ones making money off of it. But they got in real early and so it’s a gamble whether it will be them, or collapse and they he replaced with someone new. So they are trying to speed up the rate at which it grows. But if the bubble pops and they can’t ride it out, its not going to stop the technology, just push the development back a few years.
Ok so it’s a pyramid scheme, sure
Idk what I expected in terms of the dialogue here but ya.
Moving on.
There are plenty of things that are “here to stay” that are still choices. Something’s mere existence, no matter its level of popularity, does not compel you to use it. I have no interest in lazy plagiarism that requires intensely unethical amounts of electricity to operate. To paraphrase the best succinct take down of AI “art” I’ve read recently: if nobody took the time to make it, why should I take the time to watch or listen? I’m not the least bit curious about anyone’s AI fiddlings when so many people are still putting their real blood, sweat and tears into expressing their human experience
Some more issue (2) and (3) in there, but this is generally fair. Though Bragolin certainly took “time to make it”, but I would be interested in them being open about that. There really should be an open standard for “time to make” with AI. I do agree with the sentiment that it is still a “choice” of the individual. I don’t agree that we can stop AI with not using it, but it is fair to push the conundrum on the individual choosing to use AI. It being “inevitable” does not justify the dubiousness of its use. I see that a lot for people who defend AI and its cringe every time. Luckily, I don’t think Bragolin was ever saying these things. People were just straw manning them a bit.
their responses showed they weren’t really interested in a genuine conversation, and the language they used is so insidious. Lame loser shit.
Maybe they could have been less confrontational, but they certianly did better than I would have (even though I’d be epic and pwn all my haters). I think its bad faith to say they weren’t being sincere. If they weren’t being sincere, they didn’t have to say anything at all.
My concern is that artists will use it as a shortcut then claim they’re making a ‘critique’ or ‘artistic statement’ afterwards just to quell the incoming backlash.
That’s always going to be an issue. But its the matter of wanting to risk the scarlet AI of judgmenet if that were to come out. It’s the same thing as being exposed of using a ghost writer.
Not for nothing, thank you for using differentiating language (genAI) to describe the things being used here. Classical AI nerd here really appreciates that distinction.
Love it or hate it, Bragolin did drive a conversation here. Though it was a rather small one that was filled with snark. I feel like the conversation, however, could have been handled better if they really did want to talk about the distinctions. They only brought up technology distinction in clap back attempts.
It’s really disappointing to see a guy that NEVER needed AI to be talented and good at what he did.
I hope this just a one time thing from them. But I might have to stop buying their stuff if they’re using AI to make it. I like to think I’m more nuanced on the subject of AI, but I’m not a fan of it just replacing the creative process entirely.
Did they even read the Instagram post? Lol.
Conclusion
There’s so much more I could say about issue (2) and (3) because I think those conversations are important too, but they require more nuance and much more hard facts. If we are going to discuss ethics based off of over consumption, I want to discuss the specifics of the consumption and what moral claims you are making against Bragolin. Why should those stick? I think a lot of people kind of just assume that:
- Thing = bad
- Person use bad thing
- Person = bad
And apply that broadly. Not saying this can’t be how you analyze any situation. I am just not convinced that this logic is good enough to ground your imperative of AI ethical accusations.
In conclusion, I think Bragolin deservedly should get some criticism over this, and I don’t think they defended themselves as well as they could have. That being said, online people are gonna online and associate them with billionaires draining the lakes regardless of how tasteful their use of AI was. So you can’t sweat over every comment.
They said they would never use AI again after this. And if that’s true, than the criticisms fall on deaf ears anyways since now there is nothing left to learn. Maybe the next artist who wants to do something similar can learn from what happened here, but I doubt it.
I foresee this becoming a cycle of “someone tries to use AI for some artistic message -> they catch shit for it -> they don’t do it again either due to the flak or because that was just a one time experimentation” and then it keeps passing the torch. Unless it happens to a band that is big enough for people to take notice. Bragolin doesn’t have that clout unfortunately. Also the goth scene will always be more hostile to that sort of thing anyway. Not that I think there’s any music scenes that pro AI at all tbh.
Either way, I love a good dissection of logic and emotion from the safety of many screens away and pat myself on the back for being smarter than virtual people I will never interact with. We all need our petty releases. I had good fun and will go back to listening to I Hate What it Does to Me. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. And that’s all swell.