A while back, I read an article about a new song “composed by artificial intelligence.”
Journalists and critics who have written about the tune (“Daddy’s Car”) often label it a harbinger of doom for human musicians and composers. It’s an interesting point of view, considering the song hasn’t exactly caught fire on the pop charts since its release and wasn’t entirely written and performed by AI in the first place.
While an AI system called Flow Machines did “write” the melody and harmony (it’s probably more accurate to say the software algorithmically mimicked melodies and harmonies used in past hit songs by The Beatles), a French composer named Benoît Carré produced and mixed the track, then wrote lyrics to go with the music.
That’s not “AI writing a song;” it’s a human musician using the aid of AI to write a song — and there’s an enormous difference.
As a musician, I don’t feel remotely threatened by competition from such AI “composers.” Not yet, at least.
Among other things, I have yet to see a nightclub go standing-room-only on “Open Mic AI Night,” much less seen a football stadium packed with fans to see a performance by Watson. Also, seeing as how this software isn’t designed to stop me from writing or playing music, or to discourage others from listening to what I write, record and perform, it can’t and won’t do so.
Along similar lines, I’m not convinced entirely computer-generated porn performers will ever replace human porn stars. Time may prove me wrong, but I’m convinced at least some of us in this world will always prefer a touch of humanity and the essential imperfections that come with it.
The experts, I’m told, disagree with me on this score.
“A human won’t be able to compete in this world,” said Ian Pearson, a “senior futurist” with the admittedly very futuristic-sounding firm Futurizon. “A studio will be able to hire a porn actor for a thousand dollars or just rent the software and create one for less.”
While I can see where Pearson is coming from (the future, presumably), his assertion appears to assume porn is made entirely by “studios” that “hire” performers. Anybody who has spent more than a few minutes browsing amateur-produced videos on the world’s most popular free porn sites, however, knows this isn’t the case.
No matter how cheaply virtual porn can be made, my hunch is it will always be even cheaper for an amateur porn producer to use a smartphone he or she already owns to film, edit and upload new content. I also suspect there will be pornographic Luddites aplenty for years to come who will be more than happy to satisfy themselves with such low-tech fare.
There also seems to be an embedded assumption in Pearson’s comments that consumers won’t be able to tell the difference between real bodies in real motion and entirely computer-generated bodies performing the same sex acts. This sort of truly seamless digital modeling may become a reality someday, but if the CGI used in current Hollywood blockbusters is any indication, we’re not yet close to that day.
I agree with Red Light Center’s Brian Shuster when he points out “people actually want to participate in their sexual fantasies,” but I can’t concur with his assertion virtual porn will “eventually eliminate the role of the porn star as we know it.”
I’m not saying virtual porn will never become a massive hit with consumers, I just don’t think it will ever completely supplant the market for “traditional” porn involving human performers.
Among other things, novelty and nostalgia matter. Even if CGI porn does someday come to dominate the bulk of the porn market, there will still be a significant niche market for the real thing, just as there continues to be a good-sized market for vinyl records, decades after “superior” digital mediums were supposed to have completely wiped out the old-school platters.
There’s also something to be said for knowing what you’re seeing is something that really happened, in some way, shape or form.
It’s a clumsy analogy, but it’s a bit like the difference between professional wrestling as produced by the WWE and mixed martial arts competitions as presented by the UFC. Both feature some remarkable athletes performing amazing and violent feats, but knowing the outcome in wrestling is predetermined and scripted renders it a non-sport in the eyes of many combat-sports fans.
Just as I couldn’t care less about some glorified actor in a one-piece swimsuit getting play-whacked on the head by a folding chair on cue, I suspect a lot of porn fans are just never going to be as aroused by entirely digital “performers” as they are by performers they know are real people.
Just as there are countless subgenres of music, some of which are hard to imagine anyone using software alone to generate (punk rock, for instance), there are countless subgenres of porn, some of which I would think are entirely reliant on human performers being involved to be compelling.
If I’m a BDSM fan, for example, would it turn my crank to watch a computer-generated image simulating the response of a human in pain? In other words, if it’s strictly digital wax dripping on an entirely digital nipple and everybody knows it, doesn’t this cheapen the experience for the viewer?
Time will tell, I suppose. Personally, I’m reserving my panic over digital actors replacing human porn performers for a later date. Here in the adult industry, we have plenty of other things to worry about, after all — a list that may soon get longer and more focused than it has been in years.
