How Will AI Impact The Future of Music?


AI is a big topic in many industries right now, but it's especially sensitive in music and the arts in general. Some people are anxious that they will lose their employment, while others are concerned that the value of human creativity will be eroded even further, and many are concerned that they will be left behind as technology once again renders entire business models outdated. Furthermore, things like this are happening that are only somewhat concerning.

Creative AI could be the most disruptive technology for the music industry since the Napster piracy era. Already in 2023, independent researchers and big-tech businesses like Google and ByteDance have launched over ten different music AI models, allowing anyone to make custom tunes in seconds with only a text prompt. Hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs are now available on streaming sites, thanks to off-the-shelf music AI technologies like Boomy. In general, generative AI tools for text and visual art, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, have tens of millions of users, compelling us to reconsider traditional conceptions of creation, ownership, and authorship.

Traditional music-industry conceptions of authorship and attribution will very certainly have to be abandoned with creative AI, as what is going on beneath the hood with these AI models is far more involved than simply sampling a song. The legal and regulatory framework surrounding generative AI is still so unclear that making any future forecasts is pointless right now.

However, any historical conflict between music and technology companies has typically boiled down to stubborn information silos between artists/rights holders and tech developers, as well as a lack of a shared language between those two parties about what constitutes "success," and what industry issues matter and why. So, my main piece of advice to musicians and music business professionals is to start talking to and collaborating with music and audio AI developers now, while we're still in the early stages, in order to foster a culture of open discussion.

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