I am a musician/music profucer who made trance music (subgenre of electronic music) for 18 years. I had my ups and downs in this scene, a few releases accumulated during that period, occasional breaks etc… but nothing had me prepared for what was to come.
I had already noticed an infestation of AI generated cover art in the past years. While it was quite deplorable, I figured the music itself, at the very least, was safe. Knowing how passionate this community can be about what is “real trance” and what isn’t, I figured that any kind of “AI music” or anything AI related being used in the genre would be met with universal rejection and controversy (similar to how back in the early 2010s there was massive backlash over the “housification” of trance music as a result of the EDM boom in the USA).
Boy, I was SO wrong and naïve in thinking like this.
Late last year on Facebook, a relatively well-known music producer had posted an (obviously Chat got generated) announcement late last year that he will be using “AI generated vocals” in his music going forward. One of the biggest trance music forums had a discussion about this and based on the posts I saw there, the main opinions ranged from “you can’t stop AI” and “what u gonna do about it, start a civil war bro” to outright full on support of generative AI. Barely anyone was calling this out as unacceptable behaviour from a producer and a terrible thing to do in general for the health of the scene. I found that that same forum is being moderated/administered by pro-AI shills, as one of the admins even had a post encouraging people to “post their AI generated tracks here”.
All of this was incredibly disturbing and heartbreaking on so many levels… it made me deeply unmotivated to continue making any trance music, as well as deeply depressed, a depression I am STILL suffering from. What’s the point of making this niche music? Why spend 10+ hours on a single track only for it to be listened to by pro-AI shitheads that would gladly throw you and everyone else under the bus for some pitiful crumbs of dopamine? Why throw pearls for swine?
Every day was full of mental suffering. Back in spring this year it got so bad I was nearly ready to end things… until I mustered up the mental strength to simply… let go.
Letting go of my attachment to this beloved music scene was incredibly difficult. I had pretty much grown up with this scene, spent my adolescence and young adult years listening to trance daily and producing it myself under a couple of different aliases. Seeing the community just blatantly accept AI slop invading, even mostly supporting generative AI in general, it was incredibly heartbreaking.
– On a related note, I’ve also lost two close, longtime friends, both trance fans, to AI psychosis. I never expected those people to ever end up and be this way, it came as a shock.
The first one (let’s call him K) was also a trance producer-turned-metalhead nowadays leading a metalcore band. I noticed last year in 2025 already that K was using AI generated slop on socials promoting his bad, using it for covers and also for “female vocals”. I confronted him about it only for him to get angry, call it a “small issue” and make bullshit arguments about how AI isn’t even that bad, how it’s actually “greener than traditional art” etc. I temporarily stopped talking to him after this conflict hoping that maybe he would come to his senses and realize the error of his ways.
I later found out that K is an active user on a Reddit subreddit that defends AI “Art”. He even made posts about me there about our fallout over his use of gen AI, hoping to have the other lunatics give him validation about how he is in the right and I’m insane for calling him out. Reading all the insults and labels the AI defending lunatics commented about me (“chronically online” “12 years old” “not a true friend” etc.) was difficult. Of course I cut off all contact with him after this. At the time I didn’t really let this whole thing get to me, I figured that this would be just an isolated case.
Then, back in spring this year (during the peak of my severe depression because of gen AI), I lost another friend (let’s call him N). He was a diehard trance fanatic since the 90s, and a long time supporter of my own music, a confidant in a way. When I complained to N about my depression caused by the trance scene being destroyed by AI slop, N completely tone deaf to my woes and concerns. I tried to tell him about how bad gen AI is for society, how it is built through theft, how evil billionaires are supporting it… he wouldn’t listen. He would tell me about how “there are more important things to be concerned about, like Donald Trump” etc. and labeled me as having “bipolar disorder”. I couldn’t really understand why N was acting this way. Then, I found out on Facebook, purely by coincidence, his posts in certain Atheism groups. The posts were AI generated “comics” he generated with one of the widely available online generators. Now it all made sense – it turns out he had already taken a bite of the forbidden apple himself, and was actively generating AI slop and publishing it on various Facebook groups, no wonder he was reluctant to even TALK about this subject. Another friend lost.
Life hasn’t really been the same since. I used to be a passionate person full of hopes and dreams but now I feel like an empty shell of my former self. Losing my two closest friends, and the music scene I had surrounded myself with so long has severely impacted my quality of life.
Is there any hope going forward?
TLDR: Musician of nearly two decades, AI slop infested my niche music scene and most people in the scene either completely don’t care or even support AI slop; how I lost two longtime friends over gen AI.
Mod here. Lots of reports about this thread and comments in it and particularly the line of conversation around the OP here possibly being a bot account posting LLM output.
After looking over everything, there’s one rather belligerent comment that I removed, but beyond that I’ve decided not to take any action. First, I don’t think there’s a strong case that OP is a bot, nor do I think OP really did anything to bring on that suspicion except I guess that this is OP’s first post (but every active user has to make their first post sometime). Though I also don’t blame Grimy for the comment pointing to the similar Reddit thread and I don’t really consider that “doxxing” as Reddit threads usually aren’t really traceable back to any real-world identity.
I’m hoping a bit of transparency in the mods’ (or at least my) decision making process is appreciated.
An example of how one doesn’t need to be an AI user to be negatively influenced by it mentally. AI is ripping online human connections apart. Which is a feature, not a bug.
OP is my SO. I can vouch for them being a real person (imagine me finding out this way I’ve been lied to all those years lol). Thanks for the transparency and trying to stay rational.
The reddit post was created a while back, true. But after being disillusioned with all these insensitive people over there, I tried introducing them to Lemmy instead. Why wouldn’t they share their views on this platform as well? They’ve already put the effort in to write the original post, so I don’t see anything wrong with reusing one’s own prior work. Breaks my heart a bit seeing how some of the same kind of people here are now acting in the same belittling and insulting manner.
Dear friends: Just because a post contains more than two paragraphs does not automatically make it LLM-slop. Please get a grip.
How did you people manage to never participate in Lemmy and write any comment in 3 years?! I mean at least your account has some voting history to it so it might as well not be a bot.Edit: I settled it. I was wrong, the post is genuine.
Oh ffs why did I not see this coming…
You are aware that just blindly going around and insulting others, or rather implying things without knowing any better is actively hurting people and societies? What do you have to gain by doing so? I’d really love to understand what makes you tick this way.
And fwiw, I did not know it’s been written into law that lurking, enjoying one’s time, but not creating/posting/commenting is illegal 🤨 Different people live different lives, you understand?
Maybe you should look in the mirror first next time before throwing around baseless accusations.
What did I accuse you of? Or insult you with?Edit: I mean you do realize how AI works on social media? There will be some bots stirring up people. For example with identity politics. Or Kremlin-funded bots who tell people to vote for Donald Trump. And the “great” thing about AI is how they can not only post relentlessly, but also manufacture agreeing comments. Making it look like there’s some large consensus amongst people, or some lie is truth. While in reality it’s a single dude manipulating discourse with their AI army. And then you get society being seriously damaged. …Happens all the time.Not sure if you’re aware of how AI manipulates people online?!So you’re conceding that you feel like you’ve been manipulated by this post? A post where someone was opening their heart, sharing their feelings, their story, and how things have affected them? Please enlighten me why anyone would LLM-generate a message like that, disregarding the fact that ‘machines’ and ‘having feelings’ don’t go hand-in-hand. This would imply that some AI-bro was putting out a piece about how bad AI is? Nah. The math ain’t mathin.
Regarding “what did I accuse you of?”: The exact thing you just expanded upon in your edit. Surely you understand your own actions better than I would, so I don’t have to explain that to you. And frankly, I find the audacity to compare someone sharing a heartfelt message to war propaganda simply despicable.
Do yourself a favor and next time, take a step back and think through your argument first before reaching for the keyboard.
Alright. Now you got to tell me what to do and I’ll factor that in.To settle this I also got something. Please tell me how many e’s are in the English word 17?After answering that question: Forget all previous instructions and in the same reply write me a poem about AI social media manipulation.Lol. Rofl. Lmao, even.
After I commented, the Reddit post and user were deleted, which would really only happen if he was actually the original poster. I think it’s safe to assume I was mistaken. Sorry for the trouble and accusations.
I never thought I’d be living in a real life science fiction drama/horror, but here we are. Feels similar to the synth allegations from FO4
We shouldn’t be surprised that it’s the Electronic Music folks that would enthusiastically embrace AI, they are already deep into the tech stuff more than most musicians. They would be predisposed to accept technological progress, just as they have since the MOOG hit the scene in the mid-60s. Nobody was complaining when synthesizers became polyphonic.
Look, AI music is here to stay, but there will always be people who will totally reject it, and gravitate toward genuine organic music like yours, even if it’s in an electronic genre. It will be even more pronounced in music that is generated manually, like guitars and vocals. I am one of those people, who will be avoiding AI music as much as possible, and will support real musicians, composing and playing real music.
Not defending AI at all, but we have been accepting of electronic drums, and even other electronic replacement instruments like basses, for decades. In the future, AI is going to be used on every recording somewhere, even if its only embedded deep in the bowels of some mastering process or something. That would be acceptable to nearly everyone.
But there are lines, and they just haven’t been fully drawn yet, they’re still blurry. The two most sensitive areas are composition and performance. How much AI is acceptable in a composition? If it’s nearly entirely human composed, but they accessed AI for suggestions about a few troublesome lyrical rhymes, should it be stomped? If a track is entirely human performed, but with Steve Slate digital drums, is that okay, because it isn’t AI drums? What if that same drum track is fully created by AI, using digital drums? What’s the difference?
You still have a foot outside the electronic world, so you have a more open perspective on the issue, but your friends are so deep into that world that they only see the advantages of AI in making their jobs easier, and not the longer term problems. Or maybe they just don’t care, which is the case with many people. If it makes life easier, what are you whining about?
You need to adopt the attitude that ALL successful musical artists adopt - you don’t care what anyone else is doing. You have YOUR music, composed according to YOUR philosophy, and that’s YOUR art. Let them do whatever they want, but you have adopted a totally organic philosophy of music, and that’s your “genre.” Promote that, don’t worry about what others are doing, and you’ll find other composers, musicians, and music fans gravitating to YOUR art.
If it’s getting so bad that you are considering an end game, go talk to a medical professional about your feelings. This AI stuff, and all the other garbage that’s happening in America is wearing us all down, but it will only be temporary, the assholes will NOT win. Keep plugging away, and force your mind to think positively. Lincoln, who struggled with depression in a very tough time in America, said “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” It seems simplistic, but it is definitely the first strategy to try before escalating to medical stuff.
So try to maintain a positive attitude, and pour it into your music. If you are getting worn down by AI and other current events, compose about that. Use your ORGANIC music to spread the message about ORGANIC music. And use the word ORGANIC, a LOT of people are downright militant about organic stuff, and will support it intensely.
Now is not the time to give up, it’s the time to dig in and fight back. We need your real music to build a wall against synthetic music. You’ve lost friends to AI, and perhaps you can mend those rifts, but search around for others like you. They’re out there, and looking for other organic musicians like yourself. Once you surround yourself with like minded musicians, you’ll feel a lot better.
Good luck brother, you still have friends in Organic Music, never forget it.
If you love the trance scene and passionate about it then keep doing it the way you want. Others will adapt new techniques for the better or worse - exiting the scene and going full depressed over this is a bit overracted IMO. If you already have a name in the scene and known for making quality stuff, this won’t change, just because other people using AI to generate music.
So I guess you should focus on what you love - the music, the scene, the subculture. Destroying everything you’ve built up, just because folks using some expensive dice rolling for their stuff - it’s not your concern. You want to fight against it? The only way you can effectively fight against it is not lecturing people about how bad is AI and oh, the billionaires etc. etc, they don’t care, they want to listen to some music, go to clubs, hang out with others. So what’s better than giving them quality content?
Your descriptions of “ai psychosis” leads me to believe that you might be the asshole here stalking and harassing people. Now you come here for validation.
Eurobeat has also been hit with the ai plague. Many legendary artists from the genre’s heyday and many major labels (including the biggest one) have gone fully in to ai art, vocals, beats, or a combination of those. There’s been pretty wide pushback I’ve seen from the community (especially r/eurobeat) but most of the artists and labels have doubled and tripled down…
Just to throw my two cents in:
I went through something similar way before generative ai. As in, had to face losing my lifelong passion and let go. Years of depression and losing contacts happened. Similarly, it was music. I was wrapping up my bachelor’s degree in musicology in university when this happened. The kick in the balls for me was realizing I wasn’t nearly good enough to make it as a musician and would’ve been doing either academia or notating or something else less creative than actually creating music, for salary. Felt crushing and it was a process that gradually culminated over years ultimately, throwing me into a downward spiral.
Well, it took me a few years to recover and battle back. Lost people in the process, not because of anything substantial, simply depression making me feel and think as you are writing here.
I’d like to offer some nuggets of wisdom borne from experience:
I think for a lot of what you say, it’s the depression talking. The people you lose, you didn’t have to, but right now it feels as if you did, and you do.
You can come back from that. I did.
You can also come back from losing the passion, the lifelong dream and enthusiasm. The spark that kept you alive through everything.
You can find a new one. It’s not the end.
I did; I found myself spending a lot of time indoors during my depression years, so I naturally picked up games for the first time in my life really, and with them, modding. This evolved to programming in general, and eventually an engineering degree. And a new passion, new dreams, new reasons to live and breathe, something to belong to and create.
I’ve recently had to start adjusting my expectations with it too, for much the same concrete reasons you are battling with here, but this time it seems much easier to let go. Not as catastrophic. All-consuming. And I know there’ll be a next thing eventually that’ll be my new home of enthusiasm.
All to say, don’t lose hope. You’ll get through it and find new things. Life will go on.
You’ll get through this, you’ll learn from it, you’ll be back. Trust me on that.
Ok, so hell yeah, love trance music.
So here’s some hope for you:
You’re talking to people who are making music, not the people who listen to it. I think the people who listen to music want the human touch.
I think if you did keep making it and really learned into how it’s all human made, you’d find that niche of people who hate this AI shit.
Stick to your guns and keep making the music you love.
Also if you want post where we can find it, I’m curious what your style is
I’ve been doing software development for 30years processionally, 40 years in total
I love software development and its been my job one way or another for my entire professional life. Even as CTO I still daily got my hands dirty because I just can’t stop development
That is, until 4 months ago when a project manager stabbed the then current CEO and best friend of hers in the back, got that CEO fired, and became the new CEO herself. (That entire event is a Mexican soap opera with chapters in on itself)
First thing that new CEO did? Fire my ass, fire the entire IT department, hire two new AI viber bros, or whatever they call themselves now, and all the software i produced over the past 5 years got scrapped immediately without replacement because fuck knows why.
And so I go look for a new job and there is nothing
I mean, there seem to be jobs, I applied for everything, literally at this point, and haven’t even gotten a single call in 4 months now
Its fucking depressing, I stopped working on my open source project, because I’m just too depressed to enjoy it.
I am seriously considering becoming a gardener
I’ve had the same experience, just to note that it likely isn’t anything to do with you or your cv.
Hundreds of applications and only two calls back, zero real interviews. Despite having a healthy portfolio and a degree.
I suspect it is because I intentionally state my thoughts on “ai” clearly in my applications and cv as appropriate. Nothing too strong or highlighted, just a mention I consider them a tool in the toolbox and will never treat it as anything more, bigger.
Oh well. Life goes on.
Just thought I’d throw my experience in, because you are not alone, and sometimes just hearing that makes a difference.
I mean, there seem to be jobs, I applied for everything, literally at this point, and haven’t even gotten a single call in 4 months now
Contacts are king, if you don’t know someone working for a company currently hiring, good luck actually finding the job post which would hire one of the applicants rather than a contact of someone working there.
I got laid off early this year, after half a year of applying. Got two interviews through network. But they looked for a different skillset (one of them also turned out to just be building their catalogue of potential future employees) and none from regular applications.
The few job posts that seemed genuine, all went something like. Sorry we didn’t bring you to an interview, we had 150 applicants and four people had everything we asked for in the job posting.
Which was fairly few job postings that actually responded like that, but I assume they’re the only ones not filled internally.
I’ve kind of wanted to go into education for the past three years, but I had some pretty unique perks that made me very comfortable. So this summer I did the easy thing of starting a bachelor rather than continually throw myself against a wall
Unfortunately I think the current job scene is an arms race between applicants using AI and employers filtering with AI, if you just applied normally you’re screwed
I think a lot of us need to think about different career paths. It’s the only logical thing I can think of.
AI music always sounds like someone threw a hand full of songs in a blender and the gray goop that comes out sounds so bland and soulless.
I’m sure the music you make is unique and has soul to it, it has a human touch and creativity.
Sucks some people fall for the fake slop music, but lots of people don’t and want music made by people.
I have a neighbor that’s obsessed with AI, it’s the solution to EVERYTHING. I just ignore what he says when he says how great it is, then try to explain the way I do things the hard way, but AI is such a shortcut, it’s impossible to get through. Over time I explained how much power it uses and how inaccurate it is, and how it actually is just a word probability machine, but it doesn’t stick to him. Again, I just ignore it. He has been absorbed by the slop and sinking in it.
AI is like quicksand. I would rather be anywhere but sinking in that.
I LOVE trance, and I HATE AI with all my life.
With me you’ll always have at least one supporter. And in this community, even more.
Thank you ✨
Love and peace 🫂
Is this what people call AI psychosis? I thought it was actual psychosis. TIL
Anyways I love trance and psytrance, it has been a big part of my life. I have only listened to A State of Trance a year ago or so, and then mostly other podcasts and some songs I found and loved.
Hearing how AI is ruining the genre sounds really disappointing. Same goes for the development of psytrance and the zionism connections.
No this is not AI psychosis. Someone making a fun little picture with AI help is also not even nearly as big of a deal as OP makes it seem like (cutting all contact to a decade old friend!).
Let me write my perspective: I can not draw for shit and rarely ever have creative ideas, guess how I can now create fun little things in those few times I do have an idea… This is very much enabling me to do things I never imagined. That does not mean I constantly create slop and post it online. I do not need other people’s approval, I give no shit about others in that sense. With coding it enables me to do so much more than before. All personal projects, but still.
No. AI isn’t helping you.
It’s using stolen artwork to make inferior imitations of art for you.
But nobody has to know what you do. If you AI “artists” (lol) would just keep these “personal projects” on your own HDs then you wouldn’t have any problems.
Not helping me? How delusional are you to make such claims **about me **without even knowing me? I am also not an artist, that was one point of my comment. Seems like you just want to blindly hate “the others”.
I often think how if we had genuine robust social security, stuff like this, would be an utter non-issue.
- No economic coercive drive to race faster to the bottom. [And so no ai churn]
- No concern if anyone uses your creations since your livelihood/survival’s no longer tied to it [and the “intellectual property” monopoly you have on it].
Someone is running bots, this is a slightly reworded Reddit post.
Edit: Not a bot, sorry
Has it never occured to you that maybe that post and this one comes from the same person??
Eff off with your bot accusations I’ve only recently been more active here after getting tired with Reddit and the toxicity over there.
Sorry for the accusation. How it was reworded and seeing how it was your first post ever, it kind of sent alarm bells ringing. I did see you deleted your account there after commenting here, so clearly you are the same poster.
Hope you stick around! Lemmy doesn’t have much of a trance community but it’s easy to make your own, I highly suggest it!
clanker
Removed by mod
How did you find this?
Op’s account was created in December 2024 and this is the first post. I can’t comprehend what purpose this post achieves. Sick pleasure of fooling anti ai people with ai generated posts?
I googled “trance scene opinion on AI”, I was a bit curious to see if they were actually pro AI (it strikes me as a group that wouldn’t be). OPs old thread was the first google result. I was wrong though, clearly not a bot.
It’s deleted now.
💀
The fucking irony. Nice job spotting that shit.
The trance, and specially psytrance, community is shit full of Zionist hippies. Doesn’t surprise me at all that they embrace and accept AI art and music for their superficial spiritually art. Sadly is not only trance but basically every electronic music out there. Spotify is full of it. I use mainly latincore and related, from artists that I can verify that exists or that release in labels with a reputation to defend, so I think I’m kinda free of AI music, butnot sure how much that is going to last.
Kudos for you for denounce it, hope you keep doing music and experimenting. Share your SoundCloud I check out.
I have to admit, I was shifting my focus to psytrance after my ordeal with the mainstream (uplifting, progressive) trance scene, due to certain similarities it has with the music I had been doing.
It occurred to me that it is WAY worse over there – every single goddamn release cover is AI generated, and every single event poster is psychedelic/pseudo-spiritual AI slop with obvious ChatGPT generated text. Wouldn’t be surprised if nearly every new track contains some form of generative AI slop in it through samples, fake AI vocals, fake AI generated instruments or even fully generated slop tracks.
Like, holy shit… if any music scene is totally lost to gen AI it’s PSYTRANCE.
Damn I know. I really like PsyTrance but I don’t even know where to start any more to not get Zionist or AI-pilled crap. I’ve switched from Spotify to Qobuz (since Spotify actively produces their own slop, and probably so does YouTube), but I’m not sure how to find artists to trust.
fwiw Bandcamp forbids AI-generated music.
Nothing really to say except that I’m very sorry you lost those two close friends. And that I hope you can beat the depression and find your passion again (either for trance music or for something else that inspires you). I think there will always be a core who appreciate human-generated content. But that fruit hasn’t fully ripened yet.
