AI and music: Billie Eilish, Sheryl Crow and Jon Bon Jovi

[Mandolin Cafe]

This was released yesterday and has been picked up by an untold number of sites. Worth sharing for sure. A list of musicians with legitimate concerns about how artificial intelligence is being used. If it can write a pop song, it can surely write a fiddle tune, a bluegrass tune, a jazz tune, name your genre.

Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj among artists warning against AI use in music

More than 200 artists — including Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj and the Jonas Brothers — are calling for tech companies, artificial intelligence (AI) developers, and digital music services to cease the use of AI over concerns of its impact on artists and songwriters, according to an open letter published Tuesday.

[jmagill]

AI is a threat to all art and artists, and I've said as much in several posts on the Acoustic Guitar Forum.

Art is human expression. If one replaces the human with AI, what is left is mere mimicry, and if it can't be distinguished from human-made art, then ALL art becomes worthless and all artists are out of a job.

AI has no place in the arts and should be resisted wherever it appears.

[tmsweeney]

I understand the concern but to attempt to block or deny a tool / technology is a 2 edged sword.
I suppose people may have said the same thing about the electronic synthesizer, (or even the wax cylinder for that matter) somehow artistic creativity and expression managed to survive that.
Can you imagine a Luthier using a C&C mill to cut a top or a back, sacrilege! Oh wait its been accepted as efficient and beneficial, never mind.
I'm sure bad things will come from AI, I am confident there will be good things as well, humans will unfortunately have to make choices that may not be universally right or wrong.

[Don Grieser]

AI doesn't create. It's a plagiarism machine--it steals ideas from humans and regurgitates them in slightly different forms. Copyright lawsuits have already been filed by visual artists and newspapers--not sure about musicians but I'm sure that's coming.

[desertnight]

Well put Don.

[FLATROCK HILL]

I understand the concern but to attempt to block or deny a tool / technology is a 2 edged sword.
I suppose people may have said the same thing about the electronic synthesizer, (or even the wax cylinder for that matter) somehow artistic creativity and expression managed to survive that.
Can you imagine a Luthier using a C&C mill to cut a top or a back, sacrilege! Oh wait its been accepted as efficient and beneficial, never mind.
I'm sure bad things will come from AI, I am confident there will be good things as well, humans will unfortunately have to make choices that may not be universally right or wrong.

What you say is true. The problem is that those initial developments (synthesizers etc.) were the unnoticed fire being lit under the fabled pot of water. If AI is left to run it's course, the frog ain't gonna make it out.

[CES]

AI doesn't create. It's a plagiarism machine--it steals ideas from humans and regurgitates them in slightly different forms. Copyright lawsuits have already been filed by visual artists and newspapers--not sure about musicians but I'm sure that's coming.

Agree, Don. I get the excitement about all the ways AI is being billed as an amazing advancement, and I’m sure there are some pursuits that could benefit from its use, but human creativity is not one of them.

I’m not usually an alarmist, but this has got to be regulated and tailored for appropriate purposes. Has everyone forgotten about 2001 and Terminator? Seems silly to say that, but when people working on AI are sending out warning shots that should be a tell. And don’t get me started on AI’s use in the practice of medicine…

[DaveGinNJ]

This was released yesterday and has been picked up by an untold number of sites. Worth sharing for sure. A list of musicians with legitimate concerns about how artificial intelligence is being used. If it can write a pop song, it can surely write a fiddle tune, a bluegrass tune, a jazz tune, name your genre.

Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj among artists warning against AI use in music

More than 200 artists — including Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj and the Jonas Brothers — are calling for tech companies, artificial intelligence (AI) developers, and digital music services to cease the use of AI over concerns of its impact on artists and songwriters, according to an open letter published Tuesday.

I don’t think it’s sensible to ban AI music, but I suppose artists would have the ability to sue companies profiting from AI material harvested from their work. AI can never replace live music (I hope).

[Billy Packard]

I dunno...

I am home, calming down from a wonderful gig at a nearby bar/restaurant. My buddy and I were paid nicely by our Patron, and the lovely guests tipped us well in excess of $100.00 and, you know what?!?!There wasn't a single AI anywhere! Just us humans.

IK, IK, it could all change and be a "Terminator" reality but for now it's just us lovely people sharing and caring for our live music.

Billy

[Mandobart]

Just my opinion, but the formulaic output of most of today's pop music, current country music, rap, electronica, EDM, house, contemporary Christian, metal and other genres may as well be AI generated.

The at-large average music consumers wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I don't see it really affecting traditional, old time or folk music.

It's possible that those of us who like to make music on our own instruments will be like the folks that keep 150 year old steam threshers, antique cars, horse drawn wagons, etc. in operation just for fun.

[HoGo]

I don’t think it’s sensible to ban AI music, but I suppose artists would have the ability to sue companies profiting from AI material harvested from their work. AI can never replace live music (I hope).

Problem is that once the generative AI "learns" from the input (including lots of original work of artists or other sources like wikipedia or internet sites) no one can (even the AI algorithm) detect from what imputs the result was "assembled".

Since these AI technologies are purely commercial products - for profit then the use of copyrighted works is questionable. The input data is by far the most important ingredient in these technologies as the algorithms are simple and pretty much all you need is lots of computer power and lots of data to train the AI.

I see similar problem like with BOLT here in EU. They started app that allowed drivers to "share" their car by picking up folks and drive them where they wanted, Taxi drivers went upset because they were cheap and everywhere and they bypased all regulations or licencing for taxi cars or drivers. By the time the legislature catched on the BOLTs were the major taxi network in country and the original taxi drivers are only picking crumbs.

We can expect similar scenario, the AI companies will train their AI on whatever sources (legal or not) and earn their share of market and when the law finally catches on, the copyright owners will get nothing or just crumbs from the huge profit if they are lucky enough and manage to prove that their work was used for AI training.

[HoGo]

Just my opinion, but the formulaic output of most of today's pop music, current country music, rap, electronica, EDM, house, contemporary Christian, metal and other genres may as well be AI generated.

The at-large average music consumers wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I don't see it really affecting traditional, old time or folk music.

It's possible that those of us who like to make music on our own instruments will be like the folks that keep 150 year old steam threshers, antique cars, horse drawn wagons, etc. in operation just for fun.

I agree with the first two paragraphs. The current "state of the art" songwriting and arranging is somewhat automatized, just it is still done by humans instead.

The last paragraph, though makes me sick because this is another area of human mind that is going to degenerate for the computer power. Social skills of young people are killed by "social" networks and now what humane will remain in humans? It's hard or impossible to predict what will be result in decade...

I remember when students were finishing the high school, as their farewell they would go around the whole school and enter every classroom playing music (used to be variety of instruments but shrunk to mostly guitars) and singing/ dancing and offering small cookies or such (that they prepared) to students and teachers. Last five years all they were up to was holding massive BT speakers and playing some indistinct s#;t music from their phones and barely move around like zombies and the cookies are mostly store bought candies.

[Stopstop]

<this post violates forum posting guidelines>

[BrianWilliam]

As it stands, AI doesn’t exist. It’s a marketing term. There is no intelligence to it. Plagiarism, regurgitation, and summarization are fair terms.

It can be a powerful tool to increase productivity. Maybe it will show you chord progressions with which you were previously unfamiliar. Maybe it will show you “new” techniques and configurations in your DAW. Maybe it can produce a song but does that mean it can write? Eh….

Should we be concern with where it goes? I think so. Social media is a darling until you realize what it does to people in the long run.

[laddyjota]

George Orwell foresaw this music in 1948 when he wrote 1984 - “The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound.” I doubt if any legislation will be able to control AI music. We may as well just sit back and hum along.

[Richard500]

1984 isn’t a novel; it’s a handbook.
Music, an unresearched stimulus common only to humans and a few birds clearly causes distinct neurological effects. Clearly, optimization can be achieved, for whatever purposes may be required.
Enjoy

[Jeff Mando]

For all we know, today's most popular artists may actually be robots -- and have been for years!

That would sure cut out the middle man for the record companies...

[walter carter]

George Orwell foresaw this music in 1948 when he wrote 1984 - “The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound.” I doubt if any legislation will be able to control AI music. We may as well just sit back and hum along.

Love the term "dreadful rubbish." Orwell's foresight seems to become more and more accurate as time goes on.

Re legislation, fortunately (I think), the dangers of AI extend beyond music and other creative works to include every aspect of identity, and that's gotten the attention of legislators. The Tennessee state legislature (which is usually in the news for petty, ignorant and generally embarrassing behavior) has just enacted the ELVIS Act - Ensuring Likeness, Voice and Image Security. Several other less-cleverly named bills (No AI FRAUD and NO FAKES) are being kicked around in Congress.

It's impossible to imagine all the future uses of AI, so these laws are unlikely to provide protection for every situation, but at least the awareness is there.

[Charlie Bernstein]

AI is a threat to all art and artists, and I've said as much in several posts on the Acoustic Guitar Forum.

Art is human expression. If one replaces the human with AI, what is left is mere mimicry, and if it can't be distinguished from human-made art, then ALL art becomes worthless and all artists are out of a job.

AI has no place in the arts and should be resisted wherever it appears.

Jim, like most of the folks here, I'm with you all the way. I'm also a great admirer of the Swannanoa gathering and would love having the scratch it would take to come down and take part. Likewise, Warren Wilson's creative writing program is another thing of envy for me. You're part of a vital institution.

But to get you looking at it differently, let me tell you about an argument that came up in an online songwriting forum I frequent.

To me, songwriting is something done with pen, paper, and an instrument — for me, usually a guitar. My songs are done when they're written. But at that songwriting forum, many — maybe most — of the songwriters say their songs are done when they're recorded.

That surprised me. And to many (most?) of them, sampling, beat tracks, harmonizers, and plug-ins are all part of their creative so-called "process." A few of them don't even play an instrument at all when they write their songs but still call themselves musicians. I'd settle for calling them composers. But musicians? That bugged the hell out of me. It just doesn't fit my definition.

But. It fits theirs. Digital technology might not be here to stay, but it's certainly here. So to argue about what is or isn't art misses a point: Creative people use whatever tools are at their disposal. Talent finds a way. Papyrus. Diddly bows. Crayons. MIDIs. Gazelle skins stretched over hollow logs. MOOGs. Roget's Thesaurus. Tube amps. Cave walls. Two turntables and a microphone. Spray paint rattle cans. Beat tracks. AI.

My dad, born in 1910, was an artist who prided himself on never using an airbrush. Blessed or burdened with some of those genes, I pride myself on never using beat tracks. Yes, AI is a deception, and I'd never use it. But I don't use a thesaurus for the same reason: I want people to hear the words I make up, not the words I look up.*

Does that mean a songwriter who uses beat tracks and a thesaurus isn't an artist? I'm loath to draw a line between creativity and theft. Artists are magpies. We make our nests with what others have built. I didn't invent the guitar or mandolin or diatonic scale, but I love using them. And there are artists — artists — who can say the same thing about AI.

Just because it's not my idea of art doesn't make it no one's idea of art.

Having said that, it's good to know you're taking a stand for artistic integrity. When you clear away the cobwebs and fog, that's what's at stake. AI is just the current battlefront of an age-old struggle — like the sometimes-lethal struggle between just and Pythagorean intonation centuries ago.

So in that sense, AI has a prominent place in the arts.

------------

* And who am I trying to kid? The last song I wrote takes it's first line from the first line of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Some artist I am!

[Randi Gormley]

I worry about the "AI is just a tool" argument because your average airbrush, chisel, CNC machine or synthesizer is still wielded by a human being who may choose to copy something else but that's a choice, not a default. And there's a difference between AI and simple tech, like a good search engine, or a better spam or ad filter.

What concerns me is it appears the AI currently in market is designed to replace the human, from what I can tell, under the idea that it will somehow make life better, more efficient, easier or some other version of utopia where all we have to do is wake up, watch cat videos or read blogs and reddit for 20 hours and then go to bed while the world around us provides. I already worry that we're all about STEM and relegating the arts to perdition as being, dunno, too easy? too uncontrolled?

I'm a longtime newspaper journalist, so my take comes on the heels of a reality that already tells me my time has come and I should just stand down and let AI cull my news for me, veracity be damned. Right now, I can mostly tell if a press release is AI-generated because the nonsense it spits out is different from the nonsense of your average PR release. But once my generation is gone -- and all that's left is what some internet scraping tool avers is reality -- I can't see the upside.

Gibson waited way too long to trademark its distinctive shapes and now is paying some of that price; I worry we'll wait too long to rein in AI companies before the arts, too, become a moot point.

[Mandobart]

What concerns me is it appears the AI currently in market is designed to replace the human, from what I can tell, under the idea that it will somehow make life better, more efficient, easier or some other version of utopia where all we have to do is wake up, watch cat videos or read blogs and reddit for 20 hours and then go to bed while the world around us provides. I already worry that we're all about STEM and relegating the arts to perdition as being, dunno, too easy? too uncontrolled?

The part I bolded above is what I call the false promise of technology. Things are introduced as labor saving, but it never works out that way. In the early to middle part of last century social scientists were worried that people would have too much free leisure time. Possibly physical labor is reduced, but people are working longer than ever.

Mechanized farming equipment allowed a farmer to work 40 acres in a fraction of the time using hand tools and animals. So did the farmer get to just work a few hours a day? No, they were expected to buy up their neighbor's farms and cultivate more land.

Before drafting software a good draftsman could put out 4 to 8 drawings a workday with a pen or pencil, mayline, table and other manual tools. AutoCad came along and allowed us to more than double that output. So did we all get to work half days? Of course not - our output was expected to increase.

Numerous other examples exist - we've all got 'em. The bottom line is maybe the work gets physically easier and more efficient, but the hamster wheel just spins faster and fewer people are now doing more work as the size of the workforce is reduced.

I don't know for sure if AI will have this effect or not, but all the ingredients are there for it to eliminate workers while those "lucky" enough to still have a job will still be putting in long hours.

[Charlie Bernstein]

I dunno...

I am home, calming down from a wonderful gig at a nearby bar/restaurant. My buddy and I were paid nicely by our Patron, and the lovely guests tipped us well in excess of $100.00 and, you know what?!?!There wasn't a single AI anywhere! Just us humans.

IK, IK, it could all change and be a "Terminator" reality but for now it's just us lovely people sharing and caring for our live music.

Billy

That, too!

[DaveGinNJ]

For all we know, today's most popular artists may actually be robots -- and have been for years!

That would sure cut out the middle man for the record companies...

That would explain why Keith Richard’s has been alive for centuries.

[DaveGinNJ]

Just my opinion, but the formulaic output of most of today's pop music, current country music, rap, electronica, EDM, house, contemporary Christian, metal and other genres may as well be AI generated.

The at-large average music consumers wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I don't see it really affecting traditional, old time or folk music.

It's possible that those of us who like to make music on our own instruments will be like the folks that keep 150 year old steam threshers, antique cars, horse drawn wagons, etc. in operation just for fun.

I question whether AI can surpass the musical genius of Beethoven, Thelonious Monk, or The Spice Girls

[jonm]

Don't see a problem here. Surely AI generated music will only appeal to AI and true HUMANS will be able to tell the difference? Or maybe we are all AI?