Of all the tracks I have listened to recently the AI ones stand out more from a production point of view and overall are very good.

I have not been tempted to enter the world of AI yet but I fear it will only be a matter of time.

Music production has evolved over the last 50 years and put the pressure on real live musicians. The world is changing and that includes the making of music. There is no going back

We have three choices before us.

We can choose to:

1) Surrender and fully embrace A.I.’s conquest of human musicianship by accepting A.I. as our replacement.

2) Totally reject all forms of A.I. in our music production and continue our current methods of our artform until we become living anachronisms.

3) Navigate with diligence a carefully chosen path of compromise, where we use A.I. as a tool, and not as a “creative” force.

I’m afraid that I have to agree with you when listening to your upload. It sounds quite good. But much of what we are hearing as “good” is lifeless code that emulates proven producer’s skills, mimicking accomplished musicians, and imitating real vocalists. Actually, they are stealing all of those qualities and talents. These A.I. models don’t just invent all these abilities/skills by themselves. They learn them as the pricks that own the A.I. programs upload real people’s voices, techniques, and styles—which they don’t own. What we do at ccMixter isn’t really in jeopardy. It’s the musicians that are trying to make a living that are headed for extinction. And once that happens, A.I. will swallow nearly all of the profitable aspects of the music industry.

Ask yourself why you participate in our community. I’ll bet creativity is part of your answer. Now ask yourself how much you were really part of the creative process by giving three prompts.

A musician’s path forward through the age of A.I. will only be successful by asking—every step of the way—“who is doing the creating here?” If A.I. performs or enhances what came out of your imagination, you’re probably on safe ground. If you leave things like lyrics, melody, chord structure, instrumentation choice, and style to A.I., your contribution isn’t much more than entering a song request to a DJ.

So…three choices, with a fourth I will add here because it is only a wish:

KILL A.I.

Hi Dan! I appreciate how you shared this as a conversation starter. I think Zenboy covered my thoughts on AI music. I still have an visceral icky feeling in my gut from AI music and art.

But to be transparent, I’ve been using AI for marketing related things and that steals from people with that type of knowledge… which makes me hypocritical.

Anyway, I agree with you. The song sounds great and that bothers me, too. But I’m not wanting it removed or anything, because these are important conversations for our community to have.