Is AI a Real Problem for the Music Industry?
In the past year, we've began to see the rise of artificial intelligence in many sectors of life, business, and entertainment. As of lately, music artists have learned to utilize AI's capabilities to construct music almost effortlessly. There's a lot going in this field of technology, but today we're going to specifically look at how it affects not just making music, but producing it as well. Many artists have started to move away from traditional methods of production and have gravitated towards the use of composition apps, mastering platforms, song identification tools, and highly personalized playlists. The advanced technology of the future is still in its infancy as of right now, but it has been long among us.
A Brief Breakdown of Artificial Intelligence
Many people feel alarmed when it comes to the word "artificial intelligence" as there's been many questions left unanswered as it relates to these machines becoming sentient, finding out exactly how much they know, and how quickly they are developing. In a philosophical sense, there shouldn't be anything to be afraid of since it's only as smart as us humans allow them to be since we are the one's who feed them information. Even self-learning artificial intelligence relies on compilations of information that humans have evaluated. As of right now, AI lacks the ability to have free will and evaluate something based on its own opinions. It has no consciousness of its own despite scientists already arguing about this topic. Practically, AI is currently only being used for its knowledge to solve tasks by thinking and researching quicker than humans can do, and without facing burnout.
Recognizing Possibilities and Seizing Opportunities
In the realm of music, AI can be utilized to compose new music, create unique mashups, and help create robotic actors. There are truly no limits to the opportunities AI provides. It is capable of creating lyrics with predetermined emotionality, creating new music genres, and breaking barriers when it comes to the boundaries of music. One of the benefits of using AI when songwriting is that this can help alleviate writer's blocks. Music based in self-learning algorithms will be a long and exciting journey as they begin to learn more about what us humans want and how we would like our music to come out.
Impact on the Music Industry for Years
Despite making recent headlines, AI in music is no longer a completely new topic. Rather, artificial intelligence has been used for things like generating ambient music, rights-free music for content creators, and automated mixing and mastering for years! Similarly, streaming services have used AI-generated recommendations for music on their platforms that identify what types of characteristics certain songs have and they suggest it to listeners depending on the type of music they listen to most. AI has certainly changed the face of the music industry. It's never been so easy to create and listen to pleasing music.
Fears Around AI Being Used in Music
There are definitely potential risks for using AI in creating music and production of music. The main concern is that AI-powered music may replace the traditional human musicians and songwriters completely, leaving people unemployed. However, these fears should be taken with a grain of salt because the one thing AI cannot do is be creative like us humans are. The concern that AI could lead to a saturation among listeners due to repetitive sounds or styles also seems rather unfounded. Everyone still decides for themselves about their own musical taste and has the ability to turn away if they are unsatisfied, but do not reject music altogether. Against this narrative, AI music could possibly lead to a saturation of itself, if anything.
Artificial Intelligence Resurrects Musicians
As AI has increased in popularity, we are beginning to see more and more people using AI to reincarnate artists using vocals that sound almost identical to their real voice. Additionally, AI users are taking today's popular artists' voices and creating songs of their own or creating remixes of other artists' tracks with a voice of their choosing. However, the vocals do not come from the original artists, but from musicians from cover bands who had specialized in imitating their idols. This type of AI utilization has been quite the hot topic outside of the music scene as we're beginning to see more people play around with fake AI voices to create segments that depict all sorts of public figures, celebrities, etc. saying things that they have never actually said. It is an interesting time to not only be making music, but being on the internet in general.
We see that AI music holds visionary, and no less creative, options for how music could look and sound in the future. The uniquely human attribute – emotional creativity – will hardly be slowed down. After all, it is and always will be the driving force of humanity.