Artificial Intelligence and It's Impact on Music and Art

The use of Artificial Intelligence has exploded within the past couple of years, especially those that are utilized for music and art generation. This has come with mixed reviews, considering that AI has the capability to shake these industries to their core.

On one hand, you see the ease of use and cost effective approach to getting well created masterpieces.

On the other hand, you see musicians and artists from all walks of life raising concerns and sparking their outrage about AI being misused. Then there are those that are in the middle that weigh both sides of the equation, and attempt to either balance it out, or to explain as to how AI isn't exactly a bad thing.

I'll admit that AI is very useful for world generation of a brand, sourcing for ideas and inspiration, and being able to make a lucrative use out of such content. AI Loop making, for example, would be immensely useful for producers getting over writers block, artists can get quick and ready to go album covers without waiting for weeks at a time from a graphic designer, and time management is more streamlined.

Though if one has the money and capability to hire a graphic designer that is just as talented as AI, or an audio engineer who can craft perfectly edited mixes, that should be the preferable option for the sake of preserving the human element.

It goes without saying that the elephant in the room needs to be addressed: AI generated content is something that should be both a cause for concern and alarm. For starters, AI should only be used as a tool to supplement your work, flow or to make certain tasks easier all around, not to be abused for the sake of cheap profit. AI has already come under scrutiny for copyright infringement, ramifications from record labels that find out that you've illegally used one of their artists on an AI generated track, and the overall saturation of the market with AI generated content that can, quite literally, mimic real artistic masterpieces without being able to tell the difference.

One thing that I'm completely against would be fully automated record labels dishing out AI content that would simply be capable of putting many artists out of work. This would make for big corporations and record labels to easily capitalize off of without having to shovel out hundreds of thousands of dollars for artists, engineers, producers, visual artists throughout the industry. The human element is what is absolutely necessary for good art and music to thrive. Individuals using AI for the sake of making a living and getting by is one thing, but large conglomerates utilizing AI for the sake of making a quick buck without paying for labor and putting their artists to the curb would call for a reckoning to be coming to them.

Take the writers strike that took place in Hollywood for example. Actors and writers from various studios went on strike not just for pay increases and better wages, but for the fact that these companies are using AI to make copies of said writers and actors and paying them near pennies on the dollar for the sake of exploitation. That is another thing that I'm completely against. It comes back to the human element: it cannot be replaced no matter how much CGI, automation or machine learning you utilize or how masterfully crafted you make film, visuals or albums without some level of human input.

In no time will we be coming to the day and age where there's only AI and robots playing shows and concerts, run by big companies, while everyone else in the industry gets shafted because nothing has been done to curtail the implications and usage of Artificial Intelligence.

To put it simply: little guys using AI is one thing, Big companies abusing AI is another.

Eventually there will be a need for some form of legislation, verification and/or authenticity checks for AI generated content if, and when, the market is saturated with such works. Efforts are being made in such regard, and to some extent, though have we already gone past the point of no return?

You would think that we would have AI doing the hard work for us so that we can have time to enjoy making music and art, when the opposite has happened and the quality of life has yet to improve.

There needs to be a fine line to be drawn, or at the very least, there should be a balance found between human efforts, and the works of a machine.