What AI Really Means for Music Artists
A Reality Check
Computer-assisted or generated music has been around for a very long time. Alan Turing made computer generated music in 1951. Inline effects processors like guitar stomp boxes have been popular since the late 1970s. Software designed to replace the need for musical training and the ability to play an instrument or sing on-key has existed for well over 20 years. Since digital recording emerged and became affordable in the mid-90’s, what it means to record a sonically pleasing “releasable” track has gone from spending days in a recording studio with tens of thousands of dollars of recording gear to having a laptop, $200 of software, a microphone and a $50 audio interface. You can buy software duplicating the sound recording process and all of the equipment of Abbey Road or Capitol Studios for a hundred bucks. This is all some form of “AI”. And it has all empowered musicians to create music more efficiently and at a cost affordable to almost anyone.
New Developments
Today we are seeing the emergence of fully AI-created music, alongside AI-assisted human music creation. As expected, the pure AI product is not very compelling unless you are just looking for a gimmick, fake Drake or background/restaurant music without significant licensing costs. We believe the reason that AI-generated music is not persistently compelling is simple: the majority of people who actively listen to music, listen because of the inherently human element. People connect with music because they appreciate what goes into the creation and performance of the music as much or more than the final product. Music connects personal experiences of the artist and of the fan and the context of where it is listened to. It’s why live music is so beloved and important to so many of us, it’s why fans connect places and events and music that accompanies them.
A computer can combine programmed sounds based on key changes, modes, rhythms, time signatures and even put a voice and composed lyrics over the top. It can use a large collection of existing music as training data to pick out the key features of certain types of tracks, artists and genres. But a computer can’t improvise like John Coltrane or Pat Metheny, or wail on a Gibson ES335 like Gary Clark Jr or Marcus King. A computer can’t sing from the soul about justice and oppression like Danielle Ponder or Peter Gabriel. A computer certainly can’t make teenage girls feel like their trials and tribulations are a shared experience like Taylor Swift or take you on a drive through Freehold with your father as a kid in the 60s like Springsteen. In short, if you consider music to be an artform centered around human creativity, AI-generated music lacks its most fundamental elements.
So Where Is The Threat?
There are two ways that AI can and will add to the vast challenges faced by music artists today. First, it brings scale — it will create much more music content which will make it more difficult for real artists to get their music heard, streamed, licensed and most importantly MONETIZED. The already polluted ocean of music content on streaming platforms will only get worse before it gets better.
Secondly, artist’s creations and IP and even their identity will be used without permission or counterfeited wherever there is money to be made in doing so. Unfortunately, safeguards have not been effectively established that can protect artists from bad agents using AI to steal from genuine music artists.
And Where’s the Preserved Value?
Creative self-expression is an activity that is innately human. It cannot be taught to a machine, no matter how much training data is available. Further, storytelling from a shared perspective as humans and live performance are two of the most fundamental components of contemporary music as we know it, and neither can be achieved by a computer. The reality is that, what we as music fans love the most about the artists we follow are their uniquely human stories, performance attributes and musical abilities. Artists who embrace this aspect of their music will survive and the most ambitious and compelling will continue to prosper. Those who do not will face significant challenges in differentiating themselves — both from other artists and from AI.
In our view, AI as it pertains to music is neither inherently good or bad. It is simply a toolset which like any other can be used by humans to make something truly great or something absolutely disposable.
A Logical Solution
We believe the most effective way that artists can counter the problems they face from AI generated content is to first establish an authoritative and interoperable digital identity which underpins a centralized point of reference for everything they do in the physical and digital world. This provides the authenticity hook against which all creative outputs and experiences can be linked and referenced, and fans can be assured of the human element involved in the work or performance.
ArtistVerified is a two-sided platform which reconstructs the engagement between music artists and fans by establishing a blockchain-anchored digital identity index for both sides of the relationship empowering the artist and rewarding the fan.
