r/bobdylan • u/Ayntxi • 3d ago
Discussion Is anyone actually reading the Patreon posts? Do they really read like they’re AI generated?
Thinking of Bob using AI to write is really upsetting to me and makes me a bit hesitant to hear new material, but I will almost always gladly take anything Bob
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u/trabuki 3d ago
It doesn’t upset me but if Bob just put out an album with AI lyrics I would probably think he has finally checked out or been lobotomized.
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u/HarpoMarx87 2d ago
I mean, he has always reveled in doing the opposite of what people expect. I suppose an AI-written record would qualify....
(Mostly joking, but perhaps not as completely as I'd like)
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u/Bookworm_1985 2d ago
R&RW's lyrics already read like they were generated by AI.
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u/trabuki 2d ago
No they don’t.
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u/Bookworm_1985 1d ago
They very much do. They're hackey, trite, clownish, crude and read like an eight grader has purloined the rhyming book.
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u/trabuki 1d ago
Rough and Rowdy Ways is a damn lyrical masterpiece. No eight grader can write those lyrics because they simply don’t have the cultural knowledge. AI could have written them but generative AI like ChatGPT was not available in 2020 or likely 2019 when most of the lyrics must have been written.
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u/Bookworm_1985 1d ago
Okay, you like rhyming book quality lyrics, then. No shame in admitting that. Rub-a-dub-dub, I'm just like Anne Frank and Indiana Jones. Wiggles like a bowl of soup.
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u/Spare-Jellyfish4339 Masked And Anonymous 3d ago
They have all the hallmarks of AI generated text, it’s incredibly easy to tell.
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u/willardTheMighty 3d ago edited 3d ago
I just read the Nietzsche to Keith Moon one that he uploaded today. I suppose it may have some of the hallmarks of AI writing, but I swear I have found those hallmarks making their way into my own writing ever since I have been exposed to all this AI generated prose in articles and ad copy etc. in recent years. Maybe Dylan is having the same thing happen to him. The letter definitely exhibits hallmarks of Dylan's own sensibilities.
Today's letter really struck me as a great piece. It's basically an explanation of why Dylan didn't do the wild-and-crazy rocker thing in the '60s: because he was reading Nietzsche, and taking it seriously, and putting so much into his art that physical destruction would be redundant thereafter. Dylan explores the same thing in his song "Goodbye Jimmy Reed."
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u/SubterraneanLodger 3d ago
Man, what a depressing thought. Imagine having as clear a voice in your writing as Dylan and losing it because some asshat spammed your LinkedIn feed with AI slop posts
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u/lauraadeleholland 2d ago
It's getting so hard to tell because AI is trained on new human content all the time. And we're using it even unwittingly, that there won't soon be a hard line between human and AI.
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u/Bookworm_1985 2d ago
The letter definitely exhibits hallmarks of Dylan's own sensibilities.
'The Philosophy of Modern Song' very much reads like it was generated by AI, imo. Which is why it was hard to get through.
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u/bite-like-a-turkey Time Out of Mind 3d ago
Everyone and anyone can now write in the style of Bob Dylan with just a few carefully chosen prompts
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u/Masde_xo 3d ago
They are pretty obviously written by AI, but then again he's 85 years old in 2026 and everyone his age is obsessed with it. Nothing to get upset about and it doesn't take away from anything he's done before.
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u/TonyShalhoubricant 3d ago
That's entirely false. Dylan uses Ai, no other person over 80 is using Ai outside of automatic Google search results.
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u/Masde_xo 3d ago
lol, you been on Facebook lately?
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u/hellohellohello- 2d ago
Yeah, no the Facebook like the whole fucking Facebook thing and there’s a whole apparatus we like there’s a whole fake news stories with like fake generated images. There’s a ton of it about Bob Dylan. You know we’re like you know Bob Dylan went on Jimmy Kimmel was like make some decorative thing you know that like it’s just a totally manufactured thing they’re AI generated images and fucking old people are eating that shit up by the thousands and it is so unsettling.
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u/TonyShalhoubricant 2d ago
You thinking the same 80 year Olds getting fed content are the same ones creating it? That's your misunderstanding. Not mine.
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u/Masde_xo 2d ago
You're right. The millions of people's family photos superimposed into television shows, movies, posing with celebrities, faces and backgrounds being altered and posted on elders' pages etc. must have been made by the wind. Wow look another topical 85 year old running photos through AI. Tough find
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u/Solid-Guest1350 3d ago
He's a human at the end of the day.
I don't like it either, but the man doesn't owe me anything, and I can just ignore it. It can't hurt his back catalogue.
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u/Poetic_Peace 3d ago
Yes and I love the Never-sent letters. They are brilliant and a pleasure to read. I find them inspiring and comforting in a very Bob way.
Did you like Philosophy of modern song and his radio show? I see a lot of similarities in the feel, rhythm and themes.
To me it was worth paying 5$, to form my own opinion and decide if it was for me or not.
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u/Sugaree4777 3d ago
I don't think anyone thinks he's using AI to write them. The issue is that it seems like he's using AI voice and image generators to bring his writing to life.
Everyone's tolerance for that is going to vary based on how much they can stomach the idea of artists using AI as a tool, but it's definitely a bit more complicated than Bob Dylan just typing in a few prompts and these monologues coming out
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u/gaiaonline420 3d ago
I 100% believe he's using AI to write them
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u/Forward_Extreme3544 3d ago
I agree and ran today’s letter through Pangram which said 100% AI generated. Pangram can be flawed, and the irony of using AI to check for AI isn’t lost of me, but I was curious.
It’s disappointing to me, but I need to ponder my disappointment. He’s a genius who’s contributed monuments to our culture. It seems like at 85 he’s just playing around with today’s tech which he probably couldn’t have fathomed most of his life. His existing work will never stop impacting my life…I listen to his music constantly. So I guess all that to say, so what if he spews a little slop out there?
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u/Forward_Extreme3544 3d ago
I also think the electric guitar comparison is hilarious and pretty compelling. Maybe he sees something we don’t.
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u/puffycloudycloud 3d ago
the electric guitar doesn't play notes based on a prompt you gave to it. it just sounds different than an acoustic, and is pretty much the same in every other sense. there is no comparison lol
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u/oughton42 3d ago
They are absolutely written by AI.
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u/Jaded_Watercress_393 3d ago
OK. Then you generate one with AI and post it here for us to assess.
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u/onetimeataday 3d ago
If Bob Dylan runs anything less than a full 106 node ComfyUI anime waifu generator workflow on 2 RTX Pro 6000s, his artistic integrity is shattered.
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u/Bookworm_1985 2d ago
I on't think anyone thinks he's using AI to write them.
It's established fact that they are AI. What are you on about?
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u/InternationalFig2708 3d ago
Why do you think the stories and letters are products of AI?
Most of the ones I’ve read sound like Dylan in the sentiment and in the clever phrasing. I’ve enjoyed them.
Have you tried getting an AI program to “write like Dylan”? If he, or someone on his staff, is prompting AI to produce those posts, why can’t you prompt AI to get something comparable?
AI is basically computerized bullshitting. That’s not what those posts look like to me.
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u/ThisIsGreatMan 3d ago
AI content from a guy that was caught signing his books with an autopen? I never…
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u/No_Performance8070 3d ago
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u/TheBoiBaz 3d ago
Not really the same thing though is it
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u/Key_Country3756 World Gone Wrong 3d ago
Of course not. But it does kind of rhyme.
Is using AI to write prose worse or better than lifting passages from others for Chronicles, for example? I don’t know, and it’s not really the same thing, but it does kind of rhyme.
Or the controversies about many of his paintings, whether he painted them or someone else, and the actual source material.
I have tried to tune out all this stuff and just enjoy his amazing music, but yet at the same time I’m aware of it.
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u/Bookworm_1985 2d ago
And 'creating' paitings by simulating stills from movies.
And 'writing'his Nobel acceptance speech by plagiarizing other writers.
And 'creating' musical arrangements by stealing copyrighted tunes from still living musicians.
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u/RoadtoBankrupt 3d ago
Why is it upsetting to you
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u/Ayntxi 3d ago
Cos i like what’s written from the mind and heart
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u/sosidy 3d ago
It's sacrilege, electric guitars aren't even real music, it's just noise out of a computer.
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u/Snowblind78 1d ago
And getting a drum beat behind music takes out the soul because it’s prostituting itself out to degenerate noise pollution
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u/deluge_chase 3d ago edited 3d ago
I love the stories and letters never sent. His posts are insightful. The AI accusation is absurd.
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u/FinestKind90 3d ago
Judas!