#glorb essay

[local-glorb-lunatic]

Glorb and AI within art [\\Warning: long\\]

AI art is bad. Simply put, unethical. This we can agree on. It steals from unconsenting and uncredited artists, and the "art" it generates is more than current servers can handle, consuming insane amounts of energy, and harming the environment. Same goes for ai writing and ai music; however, what Glorb makes, isn't ai music.

We tend to forget just how much of Glorb's music is made by him (which is all of it except for the ai voice filter). On the topic of that filter, from everything I've gathered (and I'm no ai professional), it isn't as harmful as "generative" ai. I know generative ai is a company, but I'm using it to refer to ai programs that generate new content. The filter is trained on another person's voice but this wouldn't be any more harmful than any other voice filter, and definently not as bad as generative ai.

However, we still have to consider the fact that the voices the ai is trained on are still unconsenting. I assume most people know about, or at least feasibly could look up the Spongebob voice actors, but there is still the understandably scary act of using someone's voice when they haven't allowed it. Honestly, to me, this in itself isn't that big a deal, because people's likenesses (including voice lines) can/have been used in art: for example, fan animations that use lines from a show or project (sometimes changing the context). The real issue lies in making these people's voices say things that they never said. Ai has already been used for this maliciously, like when people were doing the Mr.Beast scams, with an ai of his voice.

I think, at this point, Glorb songs are very obviously not being sung by the real voice actors, and they would never be in trouble because of what was in a Glorb song. Plus he actively discloses that the songs are parody. This filter is being trained off of their character voices, not their normal voices. But their character voices are still something they cultivated, and still their lively hood. To my knowledge, the Spongebob voice actors have still got plenty of job opportunities, but the same can't always be said for impressionists.

I've seen the argument a lot, that Glorb could've hired people who do Spongebob impressions instead of using ai. While we can't assume Glorb's financial situation from when he first started, we can assume that he's gotten a good amount of money from his songs, now that there are so many that are so popular. I could still see a few reasons why he wouldn't want to do this: 1) Flow is kind of important in rap, and if this was any other kind of non-musical project I'd agree more with this point, but not every impressionist has a good flow or can even rap. Glorb uses a filter, but you still have to sound good for the end product to work. And I can think of a few people, specifically Youtubers, who could do this, but I've still got more reasons. 2) Audio quality is gonna be kind of inconsistent depending on people's audio setups, and that could kind of break the immersion of the songs. 3) I'm not sure if this is right, but I'm pretty sure when your paying people you've gotta use your real name. Working with other people could complicate Glorb keeping his identity private, which we know is important to him. Honestly for good reason. Cause having your identity public on the internet is pretty dangerous. 4) Glorb doing the rapping himself gives him more creative control. We know that Glorb makes a lot of choices to differentiate the rappers of the Krusty Krab Krew, when in a group song, and individually. So I could understand him wanting to continue doing things himself.

Now if these reasons don't work for you, that's okay. I'm not gonna be devastated if you cant get behind ai voice filter Spongebob. But I think its important for us to actively examine criticisms of things we enjoy. I love Glorb songs, but that doesn't immediately mean that Glorb does everything perfectly (or even right). Even more importantly I think it's important to look at the knee-jerk reaction of hating Glorb because he uses ai.

We can't hate ai because it's ai. Learning models are going to be necessary (and already have been necessary) to do important things. I know ai has been used to hurt artists A LOT recently with ai art, but we cant forget Glorb is an artist. That doesn't mean that he is automatically exempt from criticism from other artists, but he's important in the conversation of ai's relationship to art. Can ai be used ethically in art? Is Glorb an example of that?

Personally I think that Glorb's work is ethical. Can it be done without ai? Yes. Does the ai make his work invalid? You tell me.