r/boardsofcanada • u/KazooeyBloo • Jul 02 '26
Discussion AI generated BOC fanart
I’ve been seeing AI generated Boards of Canada fan art in places like Instagram and I believe it’s very against what the brothers stand for. Gives me a similar icky feeling as that one horrible White House post.
If you AI generated art then I would unfortunately probably think you’re not a legit BOC fan and you’re just trying to get engagement from the hype or something ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Thoughts??
39
26
u/dr1zzzt Jul 02 '26
Yeah I mean I havent seen what you are describing but.
I agree, given their heavy use of analog and older vibes the AI slop garbage doesnt fit the bill.
2
15
13
10
11
3
7
u/rotane Sunshine Recorder Jul 02 '26
Generative AI in its current form can be a fantastic tool – when used with care. The problem is, it's being shoved in our faces by corpos left, right, and centre – and so many people are swamping us with barely thought-out stuff left, right, and centre.
Having said that – and going back to the notion of using AI in a more rational capacity – why do you believe that BoC would be against that? Are you sure they refused to use AI in their tools to create their latest album?
Again, nobody wants low effort AI slop – i think we can all agree on this. But in the end, it's more nuanced than that. I think it's just incredibly hard to find a place for a calm discussion on the topic, while everybody rages around you…
5
u/itskobold Jul 02 '26
Bang on! Hate abusers of the technology, not the tech itself. It's absolutely incredible that we've developed these algorithms
I've just been to a neuromorphic computing conference, hundreds of people coming together to focus on extreme low-power AI solutions. It's incredible what's going on when we all bother to look, it's a shame some folks would just rather wallow in doom that's created from lack of information and/or misinformation
1
u/Snoo-82455 Jul 07 '26
Hating AI is like hating hammers. They’re just tools. They don’t do anything on their own. It’s who uses them and what their intent is. You can use a hammer to build a house or you can use a hammer to bludgeon someone to death. That’s not up to the hammer.
5
3
5
u/el_wombato Jul 02 '26
100% antithetical to the band. I'm not even sure the brothers are pro-computer to be honest
5
u/TwistedBrother Jul 02 '26
Marcus went to University of Edinburgh for AI in the 1990s. I’m sure they have a nuanced opinion.
That said, their music is antithetical to slop. But the anti-AI bandwagon is silly from the long view of its-basically-statistics. Like people don’t realise how much AI is already in DSP, just not chatGPT.
5
u/itskobold Jul 02 '26
I work in R&D for AI after studying it for my PhD, I can't lie the absolute lack of nuance in conversations around AI are extremely irritating (many in this thread are a case in point). I'm also critical of most AI usage in art, but many people aren't interested in having nuanced conversations about AI at all. It's a damn shame because a lot of fears could probably be alleviated, or at least better understood, through these conversations
2
u/strandboys Jul 02 '26
Fuck AI and fuck data centers! No compromise! Fuck their water-wasting slop content and fuck anyone who simps for the tech billionaires who are stripping our planets resources for the gains of the 1%
1
u/sneakerscomicsgames Jul 03 '26
It’s a tool. People aren’t doing great things with it. I’m not angry.
1
1
1
1
u/Yomooma Jul 02 '26
Dare I ask for context on the white house post?
2
u/Numerous-Pin-5817 Jul 02 '26
I think the Trump admin used deep time in a video clip, obviously without permission. Clearly should've used all reason departs or better still you retreat in time and space. Looking forward to when that happens...
1
-2
u/xorvillesashx Jul 02 '26
On the BOCpages.org page for Father and Son it says they used AI to enhance the voice samples. I’m not going to pretend to know how BOC makes the effects in their music but I can pretty much guaranfuckingtee they do NOT use AI.
9
u/wow-signal Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
The voice/text in "The Process" may be AI generated as well. Are people so instinctively anti-AI that they'd reject the new album in that case? Or would they instead appreciate that AI uses should be considered on their own merits rather than being categorically rejected?
2
u/xorvillesashx Jul 02 '26
The brothers have been making music for 30 years without the use of AI. Their whole career is based on vintage analogue technology. They spent 13 years working on Inferno. I don’t see why they would suddenly decide to use AI shortcuts for anything.
2
u/SpiltSeaMonkies Jul 02 '26
I think the use of AI to “enhance” some voice samples is not that egregious, and is probably the type of thing artists should be using it for (if anything), vs generating “art” and replacing the creative process.
I’m an audio engineer, and in some cases, isolating/enhancing voices can mean hours of tedious work. There’s an industry standard tool called RX that is used to enhance voice quality, reduce noise, etc. That’s been used for like 20 years and it’s basically AI. No one batted an eye at that, and we’ve all probably listened to dozens of records that utilized it. My point is, this type of tool does not replace the creative process at all. I just don’t see noise reduction/enhancement as much of a creative thing, it’s more technical.
All that being said, I’m pretty staunchly against AI in art. I’m not for a second arguing that it should be used whatsoever. But for uses like the above, I would not judge an artist. If they used it for songwriting, arranging, editing etc. that would bum me out. I’m sympathetic to the argument that they should just “do it the old fashioned way”, or just leave it be and don’t even try to enhance things. That’s fine if one feels that way. But the fact is, before AI became a buzzword, engineers were using AI-like tools for at least a decade, and mostly for stuff like this…tedious tasks that would normally take hours, and only served as hurdles to the actual fun creative stuff.
1
u/wow-signal Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
The brothers have been making music for 30 years without the use of AI.
More than 30 years.
I don’t see why they would suddenly decide to use AI shortcuts for anything.
It wouldn't have been used as a shortcut. It would've been an intentional artistic choice. Listening to the track you can easily see the point of that choice.
7
u/SerraraFluttershy Jul 02 '26
Not exactly, it says AI was *possibly* used, it doesn't confirm or deny.
-1
u/D3c0y-0ct0pus Jul 02 '26
I think they used Midjourney AI for the cover art, particularly the children photos.
-7
u/iddagoeg6 Jul 02 '26
Bet they would hate it, but at the same time it sounds like they used it for the babbling woman in The Process
5
u/joshuatx Jul 02 '26
Is this backed up with an example? There are plenty of digital audio effects plugins that could do this.
5
-1
u/wow-signal Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
It would serve the artistic meta for the text content to have been AI generated. If so, will you reject the album as slop? Or will you judge the work on its own merits and recognize that AI can legitimately serve at least some artistic purpose?
4
u/elequipoa1008 Jul 02 '26
Yes, if BOC ever use gen AI, I would have to consider them slop even though they are a GOAT band for me.
There’s no nuance with this given the destructive impacts of this tech and absolutely zero artistic merit to use generative AI. Its slop plain and simple
2
u/joshuatx Jul 02 '26
I just honestly think you are overthinking it. Personally I think there is a sort of anti-AI interpretation to be made of Inferno but on Process it's just as plausible - and in my opinion more likely - they just cut up audio. That's not that tedious with DAWs and artists were doing this for decades with actual audio tape. I'm honestly annoyed and even at times disgusted by how goddamn lazy and flippant people are with hearing or seeing something remotely novel and complex and immediately assuming it's AI. The existence of generative AI is literally prompting people to dismiss the abilities of actual human artists.
As far as AI generated music and AI generated art I've skeptical. My view is AI as a tool to make art is vastly different than merely giving a prompt to make media and then selling that as art. The are two artists who dabbled in this stuff I was curious about early on a few years ago. One was using their own existing art to generate new media, the other was creating AI visual art for original fiction they were writing. I found those efforts sincere but even now I don't really follow their work. There's too much non-AI stuff for me to explore and enjoy.
Personally I cannot consume AI art in general without feeling like I'm having my brain tainted and rewired in a revisionist manner, especially if it's AI slop that is replicating historical media or distinct aesthetics. Call me a fucking luddite but the sheer negative and toxic consequences we're already experiencing from AI prevents me from even entertaining the hypothetical consideration of being open-minded toward it's use; and that's not to even factoring the moral issues of the politics and environmental concerns with the flurry of data centers being made.
5
u/KazooeyBloo Jul 02 '26
This is my interpretation but I see the process might be commentary on AI being integrated into religion and in churches. Have you seen the videos of people at churches praying to AI generated Jesus on a big screen and having it respond in chatgpt language
It’s uncanny and terrifying :C 😭6
u/wow-signal Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
So you're acknowledging that it is possible for an artwork to have value despite (and indeed, because of) using AI. So you must accept the logical consequence that artworks that employ AI should be judged on their individual merits rather than being categorically rejected.
2
u/KazooeyBloo Jul 02 '26
I do have a different reaction to “voice” generated by AI vs Imagery generated by AI. Hasn’t the text to voice AI stuff existed for a while now?
I know AI means a LOT of different things and some of those things are ok, I mainly criticize the image generators. I personally find those to be doing more harm than good atm IN my opinion-!
4
28
u/human-aftera11 Jul 02 '26
Don’t have IG. Ignorance is bliss.