What do you think? AI and the Music Industry

[Peggy]

From creativity to time savings, legalities, ethics and on and on, there is so much news and discussion about AI and the music industry.  I thought I'd ask a couple of questions to see what Songstuff member's thoughts were.

 

- With new and emerging AI technologies, how do you imagine the use of these technologies for songwriters, musicians and other music creatives in their own works?  

 

- What do you see as benefits and concerns for the artistic value of musical compositions with the integration of AI in music?
 

[john]

13 minutes ago, Peggy said:

From creativity to time savings, legalities, ethics and on and on, there is so much news and discussion about AI and the music industry.  I thought I'd ask a couple of questions to see what Songstuff members thoughts were.

 

- With new and emerging AI technologies, how do you imagine the use of these technologies for songwriters, musicians and other music creatives in their own works?  

 

- What do you see as benefits and concerns for the artistic value of musical compositions with the integration of AI in music?
 

 

Great questions Peggy.

 

I see three main strands of AI development relating to music making:

 

1. those designed to augment musicians and songwriters
2. those designed to replace the entire skill base as tools for non-musicians enabling them to create a finished musical product
3. very similar to 2, those designed to entirely replace the songwriter and performer, either
   1. in mimicking existing writers/artists or
   2. in creating entirely virtual artists.

There is a mix of fear and excitement. This is not new. Technology almost always enables new heights for musicians and those who previously found music creation and performance too time consuming, and required too much effort.

 

Samplers for example, combined with MIDI sequencing. That tech enabled a whole load of people who couldn’t play a musical instrument to get on board with music making.

 

However the stakes are higher now, because for the very first time, we might find ourselves replaced. Labels are now interested in ownership of what makes up the artist. Publishers are interested in ownership of what constitutes the writer. If they can own them, then could they possibly take away the last vestiges of power that the artist and writer possess?

 

While I am excited about the possibilities of 1, the possibilities of 2 is mildly concerning because previously the predominant approach is of the hybrid… those with skill wielding tech in a way convenient to them in a way that augments what they do. 3 on the other hand is worrying. Not so much because of the AI itself, so much as how some big players will seek to abuse artists and writers, trying to force them into essentially hostile contracts with promises of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

[john]

I realise I didn’t expand on my concerns adequately.

 

As a background… Just now, your image can be owned by you or a company who you have sold those rights to. If I draw a picture of David Bowie based on a photograph, the photographer possibly owns the rights to that image. They may or may not have had permission from those who own the rights to David Bowie’s image. Exactly how that image can be used and who ultimately controls it, depends on if the image was taken an exploited as part of a news story, or if it was taken to be exploited in a commercial way (put on a tee shirt, a poster, a mug, a book cover etc).

 

My point is, someone owns and controls that image and how it is used.

 

Almost certainly I don’t have rights to commercially exploit my drawing.

 

Now extend that ownership. It isn’t how you look. It isn’t specific songs you wrote. It isn’t specific performances you made or recordings you made. Instead, like the image, they find a way to quantify you, a way of legally describing you, how you sound, the way you write. Then the label can own how you sound. The publisher can own how you write, the kind of language you write, the melodies you write the chord sequences you would choose.

 

Now add AI.

 

If you weren’t pumping out enough songs, your label might use AI to re-perform older songs in new ways and release them AS YOU.

 

Your publisher could write new songs or re-write your old songs and release them AS YOU.

 

Add them together and the label and publisher could churn out song after song, AS YOU.

 

You can guarantee you would not be paid as if you wrote them. You wouldn’t have the rights as if you wrote them. Sure you might get a “consideration”.

 

Labels and publishers are already looking into doing this, trying to quantify you and build in ownership of the essence of “you” within contract in preparation for this.

 

We need to resist this, not comply.

 

Those that do may well become the organ grinder’s monkey.

[VoiceEx]

I have actually expressed some of my opinions about AI in a similarly related topic. My comment can be found Here. However, I have not expressed my concerns about AI, some of which are on a similar vain to what @john said.

 

I mentioned in my original comment that I consider the AI we currently have as being relatively "primitive". To put that in perspective, these days we are dealing with an ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence). Which, while being impressive and concerning, its still not the same as dealing with an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), or possibly an ASI (Artificial Super intelligence).

 

To simplify the difference between these stages of AI development:

 

The first stage (ANI) requires human involvement - This is the call to action stage that John mentioned (i.e where we are 'now'). The second stage (AGI) potentially removes human involvement - This is point where we may no longer be 'needed' (i.e the not so distant future). The third stage (ASI) is quite literally dealing with a new kind of sentient life form (i.e the far future) - Anything could happen at this point.

 

I just wanted to give a bit of context about AI progress, before voicing my concerns.

 

The biggest of which being, that, in addition to echoing Johns points about abuse of power by the same old gatekeepers, I'm also worried that many indie musicians (and artists in general) are going to get caught in an even worse cycle of "content dumps" ("AI v.s AI"), and that musicians will slowly begin drifting away from focusing their attention on making original music, in favor of keeping up with supply and demand. This may sound odd right now, but its something that's already happening.

Edited May 7, 2023 by VoiceEx

[Mahesh]

On 5/5/2023 at 3:57 AM, Peggy said:

From creativity to time savings, legalities, ethics and on and on, there is so much news and discussion about AI and the music industry.  I thought I'd ask a couple of questions to see what Songstuff member's thoughts were.

 

- With new and emerging AI technologies, how do you imagine the use of these technologies for songwriters, musicians and other music creatives in their own works?  

 

- What do you see as benefits and concerns for the artistic value of musical compositions with the integration of AI in music?
 

 

I’m not sure how creativity and AI can work hand in hand at this point. I’m not saying they can’t but at this point in time, all of this technology seems like it’s trying to replace the creative human task. There have been some interesting ones though. I think it was Nvidia (or maybe it was Adobe) that released their tech that could take a noisy recording from your room to sound like a quiet studio booth. That sounds helpful. There’s been plugins like Gullfoss that has allowed for EQing and tone shaping audio signals without necessarily knowing how to mix. Does it make the musician less lazy? Sure! Can it help in situations where an indie artist has to do everything on his/her own to produce one’s own music? Yup. And this is what makes me think a little about where ll of this is going.

 

 

With Rick’s new video showing these incredible examples of Kurt Cobain and Paul Mccartney’s AI voices singing all kinds of stuff, it is scary too. It kinda blurs what copyright could mean..

 

 

 

 

[VoiceEx]

10 hours ago, Mahesh said:

Does it make the musician less lazy? Sure! Can it help in situations where an indie artist has to do everything on his/her own to produce one’s own music? Yup. And this is what makes me think a little about where ll of this is going.

 

@Mahesh

 

If you ask me, I think we are heading in a direction where providing more entertainment value and a getting involved in a wide range of different productions, would not only be a good idea, but it would also become somewhat "mandatory". I mean, in a world where literally any musician could be 'replicated' or 'repurposed', the real question becomes: "What do creators have, that their legions of clones cannot offer?".

 

And.. I think that for many musicians the answer to that lies in proving an authentic experience, across multiple mediums of productions, along side their music. I know that some people might get upset with me for saying this, but I think that music just doesn't hold the same sort of ground it held in the past. Especially not in a world where literally anyone (labels included) would be able to generate hundreds of songs, on command. Hell. If you think about it, how far are we from dealing with a reality where a persons relative success would largely depend on how good they are with AI?

 

Its a scary future and its coming. Which is why I think that looking beyond 'just' the music itself, will be the key to longevity.

[Peggy]

Will lyricists and writing teams turn to AI to come up with ideas, or ... have AI generate the words and emotions, to complete their ideas.. or just do editing of the AI content?  Will some genre formulas become mostly, if not all, AI generate lyrics?