Thought for the Day: Predictions on Artificial Intelligence and Music
2 min read ⭑
One of my music production students was recently discussing the possibility of artificial intelligence technologies ‘taking over’ music creation, with the student wishing to explore this for his final year dissertation project. He posited the idea that in the near future, human composers could largely be rendered obsolete, especially once AI evolves to the point where it can produce highly creative and emotionally impactful compositions; perhaps even producing music that’s not simply sonically indistinguishable from human-made pieces, but even surpasses them creatively.
I was asked by the student to proffer some thoughts on the subject, and despite being fully aware that history is littered with predictions about the future that are spectacularly wrong, I threw in my two cents nonetheless. Here’s what I said:
(1) AI will replace a lot of ‘utility’ music
I have little doubt that AI will continue to impact the working practices of composers, songwriters, and producers in fundamental ways, possibly replacing the need for musicians in sectors like TV music and radio jingles. AI-created music will likely impact those areas characterised by more ‘passive’ listening, too, such as certain streaming playlists and utilitarian business applications like hold music.
(2) AI will be increasingly used as part of the creative’s toolkit
In a writing context, I can envision AI tools being used to suggest creative options for composers, songwriters, and producers, especially when they’re at, say, a creative impasse. However, owing to how we as humans judge the artistic value of music, this could be a double-edged sword, for reasons spelt out below.
(3) AI-created pieces will never fully replace human composers for the simple reason that we will always assess their aesthetic merits differently
While AI may well produce stunning compositions in the future, humans never assess the aesthetic merits of a musical piece purely by its audible properties, and our artistic judgements are deeply tied to our intuitions about how a piece came into existence. This is borne out by the data, too, with researchers finding that whether a song is thought to be human-created or AI-composed impacts musical perception. Similarly, participants responded differently to synthesised Chopin preludes when they were told they were either human-performed or played by a computer, despite the recordings being identical bar a slight altering of the overall tempo. Our beliefs about the processes that give rise to a musical piece seem to matter just as much as the acoustic characteristics themselves. Phrased another way, we aren’t merely assessing the destination: we’re interested in the entire creative journey.
Regardless of how these predictions pan out, it’s certainly an exciting time both technologically and creatively. Unless, that is, the unthinkable happens and runaway AI takes over not just music, but the world. In that instance, we’ll just have to pray for clemency from our new digital overlords.
