AI and Music: Where Do We Go From Here?

Published in

Beyond The Code AI Documentary Series

9 min read6 days ago

If you look through the history of music, you’ll see that the industry has always been happy to adopt new technologies to improve its creative and business side. Think about the transition from vinyl to cassettes to CDs to digital music files. Also, consider electronic beats, autotune, voice manipulation, audio restoration, and much more.

If there is a new technology that can help artists improve their craft or profit from it, the music industry is usually ready to embrace it. The latest in this long line of developments comes from the AI space. Artificial Intelligence has been sweeping the globe for a few years now and music makers are seeing its effects.

AI in Music; a Brief Recap

While we tend to think of AI use in the form of Siri and Alexa telling us the weather, there are many ways that it is revolutionizing the music industry.

First, AI can be used to generate both lyrics and sounds. Take a gander through YouTube and you’ll see a myriad of AI-generated covers of existing songs by others (think Spongebob sings the National anthem), AI-generated original songs, and so on. Some artists even use AI to generate background music for their songs, essentially taking on the role of a producer.

In more notable examples, AI was used to bring the unreleased demo version of the Beatles song ‘Then and Now’ to life, even though two of the Fab Four are long dead. In 2023, the song was released, showing the power of AI to preserve the past and usher in the future.

Also, consider AI’s use on streaming platforms. Thanks to these programs, we can get instant playlists curated around our musical tastes and suggestions on what to listen to next. Anyone who has found their new favorite song through Shazam or any other music discovery app or even asked Alexa to play them a song has seen the power of AI in action.

It is clear that AI will continue to have a massive impact on our day-to-day lives and both music makers and lovers are feeling its effect. This will become even more prominent as we approach the era of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The crossroads of AI to AGI

First, it’s worth exploring what AGI is and how it is on track to change the world. AI can generally be divided into different generations based on the level of development it has attained.

Currently, we are using a type of AI called Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI). Simply put, this AI is designed to constantly improve and learn about a single or very narrow set of tasks e.g. being able to generate images or create music playlists. This is all well and good but just like the name would imply, this type of AI is rather limited in what it can do. This type of AI is also not compatible with humanity’s ambitious plans for the future, and this includes music.

Consider the average music creator who, usually, can write lyrics, play an instrument, sing, and maybe even produce. As any music veteran will tell you, the key to longevity is being able to wear many hats at many times. So how does ANI fit into this? Honestly, it doesn’t. Sure, current AI programs can aid in parts of the music-making process but the nature of ANI leaves some significant gaps.

This, thankfully, is where AGI comes in. AGI is predicted to be the next phase in AI development and refers to AI programs that are designed to solve problems and carry out tasks the way a human would across different fields and niches. An AGI program, for example, would be able to generate lyrics, develop instruments, mix and master songs, play instruments, and even provide vocals. Music history and even the current is full of people who are prolific at several aspects of the creative process (think the term ‘singer-songwriter’) and the emergence of AGI will mean that AI’s capabilities will be closer to that of humans.

While AGI isn’t a reality just yet, it is currently in development by groundbreaking scientists all over the world. The potential of AGI’s application in business, healthcare, the consumer market, and so on has inspired some of the world’s most innovative minds to push for it to become a reality.

In the context of music, a major development project is being fronted by Dr Ben Goertzel, who is not only a pioneer in AI but also a musician himself. His upcoming docu-series BeyondThecode: An Immerive AI Documentary Series Directed and co /produced by musician and actress Nefertiti Strong sees him experimenting first-hand with AI and music.

What AGI Can Do For Music

If you’ve been following AI development over the last few years, you’ve probably heard of Sophia, the humanoid robot who shot to fame in the 2010s. Notably, Sophia has been granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia, becoming the first robot to have this privilege and has become an ambassador for robots around the world. Well, Dr Goertzel was part of the team that created Sophia.

Now, Dr Goertzel is the CEO of SingularityNET, a company working to usher in the era of AGI using blockchain technology. He has been experimenting with AGI tech not just in the lab but also within Desdamona’s Dream band, a musical group he is a part of alongside Desdamona the Robot, Sophia’s sister.

Within the Dream Band, Desdemona acts as both a vocalist and a songwriter, collaborating with her human bandmates and showing first-hand the human-robot creative process. This is something Dr Goertzel touched on in a recent fireside chat ahead of the release of the documentary. The chat included Danny Newcomb, the CEO of Incantio, Patrik Gudev, Matt Zimák, Dianne Krouse the CEO and President of Jam Galaxy, Andrew Antar, the Founder of Tune.FM, Macy Gray, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest, Mic Messia, Evan Bozarth, Founder of Purple Bee, and Nefertiti Strong, the Director/Producer of the Beyond the Code series.

During the chat, Dr Goertzel stressed the importance of the creative process in furthering the development of AI as a whole. As he puts it, creating with AI is a mutual reaching out that only makes the human-AI relationship stronger. Even human-to-human creative connection has been improved through AI, he says. By using AI outside the lab in creative endeavors, he has connected to Macy Gray, Nefertiti Strong, and Jarobi White, who have decades in the creative sector combined.

This coincides with Dr Goertzel’s own work as a musician and sees that the custodians of creativity are carried along as AI comes into the forefront. They have seen all the changes that technology has brought to the music space and the challenges that come with them. Citing the example of the rapper T-Pain, Mic Messia noted the importance of music not losing the ‘human’ touch even as technology becomes a bigger part of it. This is a concern that both consumers and creators of music have had and was addressed in the chat.

As Dr Goertzel explains, AGI has to be built to be compassionate and kind from the start. That way, whatever output it produces will be much more compassionate and ‘human’ by design. This can also be done through deliberate collaboration with human creatives where the contributions of both are valued. Dr Goertzel is already doing this through the Dream Band and plans to expand on this moving forward.

Other participants in the chat included executives from companies using AI to revolutionize music licensing and collaboration. Clearly, AI will have a lot to offer both the creative and financial parts of the music business.

These endeavors will be discussed in more detail in the upcoming docu-series ‘BeyondtheCode: An Immersive AI Documentary Series’’. In the series, viewers will get to see Dr Goertzel in the studio with Desdemona and other members of the dream band as they work on their upcoming album and prepare for live performances. Along with live footage of the band at SXSW Music / Arts / Tech Festival, experts in the creative field including Nefertiti Strong will offer commentary on the interconnectedness of AI and music and what the current trajectory is.

We’ll also follow AGI and the many ways that it will touch humanity.

The Future of AGI in Music

Beyond the Code: An Immersive AI Documentary series will also show the audience all the possibilities that are to come with increased AI use in the music industry. Desdemona’s Dream Band is already working to create an album showing human-AI collaboration but this only scratches the surface. Imagine millions of musicians around the world having AI input in their work; the sheer volume of output in terms of songs and albums being released would be unprecedented. We will also see more innovation, from new genres and concepts being developed and experimented with and even more options for consumers to choose from. All this will be against a backdrop of AGI taking its place on the world stage and being used in virtually all facets of life.

Creators will also see their streams of income increase with this new level of potential output, along with the many AI-powered tools to increase economic opportunities. This was briefly touched on by Dr Goertzel during the fireside chat and will be expanded upon in Beyond the Code: An Immersive AI Documentary series.

As has already been stressed, we are only scratching the surface of what AGI itself will entail, even for the music sector, which means that the sky is the limit.

Conclusion

The future of artificial intelligence is perhaps as unpredictable as the technology itself. What we can say with some degree of certainty is that the creative space plans to evolve alongside it, specifically as AGI becomes a reality. Dr. Goertzel has seen through his work thus far just how much technology can change the world and in his newest journey, he is tapping into both human and machine creativity.

Ahead of the documentary, viewers can also get involved in the project via its NFT launch, which features five asset tiers. Ranging from the standard edition to the BTC.AI producer, each comes with unique perks such as digital frames from the documentary, exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, and fractionalized royalties upon the documentary’s release. This is in line with the philosophy of empowering creativity and allowing stakeholders to profit from it. The NFT drop will feature 1,500 assets in total, with a price range of $100 to $1,000. The NFT whitelist can be accessed by the public.

Beyond the Code: An Immersive AI Documentary series will give a more in-depth view of how humans and AI are shaping each other’s destinies. Guided by veteran creatives like Nefertiti Strong alongside scientists, we will see first-hand the marriage of human innovation and tech-based music creativity.