yes but the pop industry is just one facet of music as a transcendental cultural/spiritual/secular meaning-making expression activity as a whole. its a place where both bob dylan ans taylor swift can exist on the same plane, the implications of such cannot and would never be able to be reduced to data. "if the only tool you have..."
not to undermine the implications of complex automation as symptomatic of the current epoch, but I would argue that art offers a materially grounded experience irreducible to data. it doesnt mean that the affects of art wont be harnessed by corporate interests in ever accentuated ways, it seems like an obvious and natural development; on one level its simply the cyclical production of crappification occurring in tighter spirals of output/dynamism, weeee!
Yeah, I think we agree here. I thought your comment -- what is "slop" vs what is "not slop" got to what is "ai" and what is "not ai" in an interesting way.