AI, ChatGPT And The Creative Future Of Music

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04/24/23 • 16 min

AI and ChatGPT is changing our world and it’s creeping into creative art forms such as music. Maybe it’ll potentially benefit some artists, but there is a fear that it could impact both artists and creative industries negatively as well.

Take this instance for example, someone has made a fake episode of the the Joe Rogan Experience podcast using AI technology! Things are getting out of control and I'm asking the question ‘what the heck are we doing?’ This type of action raises huge questions of legality, ownership of copyright and the world of the creative arts as a whole.

AI technology is already capable of using voice recognition to create voice duplication. This allows it to reproduce the voice of your favourite singers. Pieces of music are being generated with artificial voices singing lyrics that were generated by a computer. Some of these AI voices sound scarily close to the voices that you know and love, like Taylor Swift, Arianna Grande, Adele, Ed Sheeran, Frank Ocean or Bruno Mars.

I'm arguing that this is wrong. It’s the wrong way to be utilising this technology. It’s also blatantly disrespect and in poor taste to mimic other people’s voices, other people’s work, in such an egregious way.

But the cat is out of the bag and its opened up a bag (or can) of worms. This is the biggest technological change in society since the advent of the internet. And from a creative arts perspective, this is arguably the biggest technological change ever.

This is going to change the trajectory of not only us as a species but also of our creative endeavours. From now on, there will be the pre-AI period and the post-AI period.

When considering the history of music, we can draw a line in the sand and say that basically everything created up to the year 2023 was made by people without the overarching influence and impact of AI. So that means that all the music we've had until now is irrefutably human, in the sense that it'll always exist as an entirely human creation. It'll always be there and those original recordings will always exist.

The future will be different - it will likely be an amalgam of our human creative intelligence combined with some sort of an artificial kind. Utimately, there'll be music made of an entirely artifical nature and I find that concept both unfortunate and abhorrent.

But one thing is for sure, our human-created music up to this point is now set in stone and it will last as our enduring human legacy forever.

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This is going to change the trajectory of not only us as a species but also of our creative endeavours. From now on, there will be the pre-AI period and the post-AI period.

But one thing is for sure, our human-created music up to this point is now set in stone and it will last as our enduring human legacy forever.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Eyes Closed, Ears Open - Is Music More Audio Than Visual?

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In this episode of the Obsessed by Music podcast, I explore the question of whether music is primarily an audio medium.

I reflect on my own habit of dedicating time each week to simply listen to music without any other distractions, as opposed to streaming music on a phone, which is basically a distraction-filled device.

I argue that music is primarily an audio medium, but that visual elements like album art can enhance the experience of listening to music. Even so, I suggest that you should try closing your eyes while listening to music in order to deepen the experience - without any distracting visual stimulus.

Ultimately, music is a remarkable medium that can elevate us, heal us and enrich our lives, and it can do all of that through sound waves alone.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Beyond Good and Bad - Rethinking How We Talk About Music

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Good and bad music, what does that even mean? Does bad music exist? Are these terms we should be using to describe music?

I think the idea of anything creative being seen as 'good' or 'bad' is just plain wrong. In reality, it's an irrelevant type of assessment. Who decides what makes a piece of music good or bad?

It's a trap that's easy to fall into and by using those words, we can get stuck in a loop of assessing things from simplified perspectives. Doing so also limits our dialogue with each other. It doesn't allow for nuance when talking about music. Moreso being overly simplistic in referring to music that we do or don't like, makes things too binary.

We all generate opinions based on our personal tastes, and taste is the great differentiator. But it's all relative and subjective.

I think saying that you like a piece of music (and trying to articulate why) is more accurate and meaningful than just placing a stock 'good' or 'bad' label on things.

We have a personal reaction to the music that we experience and that which moves us most. So we're better off thinking about music in terms of how much we enjoy it and why we do, rather than describing it as inherently 'good' or 'bad', because those terms are too basic and somewhat meaningless in the subjective world of music listeners.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.