AI Music's Challenge to Human Artistry and Industry Models

Key Quotes

"Deezer says 50,000 AI-generated tracks are being uploaded every day. Spotify is declining to comment. AI music is also charting, breaking Rust's "Walk My Walk" topped Spotify's Viral 50 songs in the US. Zinaya Monet debuted on the Billboard charts, and yet many people cannot tell the difference between AI music and music."

This quote from the podcast highlights the rapid proliferation and increasing chart presence of AI-generated music. Noel King points out that the sheer volume of AI music being uploaded daily and its ability to chart on popular platforms indicate a significant shift in the music landscape. The fact that many listeners cannot distinguish AI music from human-created music suggests its growing sophistication and potential to blend seamlessly into existing consumption habits.

"We've spoken to people for this show who really love music, and some of them, you're not going to be shocked to hear this, some of them are really kind of appalled by the idea that people are listening to AI-generated music. It has no heart, it has no soul. There's no real connection between the artist and the listener because there is no real artist; it's artificial intelligence."

Noel King presents a common sentiment among music enthusiasts who are critical of AI-generated music. This quote captures the perspective that AI music lacks the essential human elements of emotion, authenticity, and genuine connection that are often valued in artistic creation. The idea of "no real artist" underscores the concern that AI music, by its nature, cannot possess the lived experiences or emotional depth that listeners connect with in human-made art.

"My answer is not one that will make those music nerds, which I would include myself as one of them, very happy. I think the reality is that a lot of people just don't care. In the earlier days, this AI music didn't sound good. It didn't sound right. It was difficult to produce full tracks that were convincing. When you surpass that point, and on a casual listen, it sounds like a normal track, people don't care. The fascinating thing, though, is that when it's labeled as being AI-generated, people do tend to care."

Ian Kretzberg explains his findings regarding the average listener's perception of AI music. Kretzberg suggests that for many listeners, the technical quality and sonic appeal of the music are paramount, and if AI music sounds indistinguishable from human-made music, the origin becomes less important. However, Kretzberg also notes a significant shift in listener perception when the music is explicitly labeled as AI-generated, indicating that awareness of its artificial origin can indeed influence how it is received.

"Universal and Warner, they filed lawsuits for copyright infringement. These lawsuits were focused on two factors: the first is the inputs, and the second is the outputs. This is where the idea of fair use comes in. In that first, the inputs factor, the loose argument was basically something along the lines of, 'You illegally took my music, my content, my data, and you used it to create this model that you're generating revenue from. You didn't ask me if you could do that. You didn't pay me for it, and so we're suing you.'"

Ian Kretzberg details the legal challenges faced by AI music services from major record labels. Kretzberg explains that copyright infringement lawsuits from companies like Universal and Warner targeted both the data used to train AI models (inputs) and the music produced by those models (outputs). The core argument regarding inputs was that AI companies had unlawfully used copyrighted music and data without permission or compensation to build their revenue-generating systems.

"I think one of the things I've realized is that a lot of the music I listen to that is mainstream, that is, I would consider kind of heavily processed music, music that's designed to have a large market, it doesn't feel very personal to me anyway. So I realized that in that particular context, it didn't feel very different a lot of the time."

Deni Bichard reflects on his personal experience during his AI music listening experiment. Bichard observes that much of the mainstream music he already consumes, which is often produced with broad market appeal in mind, already feels somewhat impersonal. In this context, Bichard found that AI-generated music, when it successfully mimicked this processed, mainstream sound, did not feel significantly different from the human-made music he was accustomed to.

"I think that AI tends to work best when it just leans into that authenticity because it kind of helps overcome the cognitive dissonance that we're thinking this isn't really a deeply felt song. And it moves away from mainstream human-generated music, human-made music, which is often very heavily designed to, you know, be a summer hit or to go viral in some way. And it's not, and it doesn't often doesn't have that level of authenticity, that feel of authenticity. And I think when AI replicates that, we're more aware of it being superficial or artificial because there's already an element of artificiality there."

Deni Bichard discusses how AI music can achieve a sense of authenticity. Bichard suggests that AI music is most effective when it emulates genuine emotional depth and grit, which helps listeners overlook its artificial origin. He contrasts this with mainstream human-made music, which can sometimes feel manufactured for commercial success rather than genuine expression. Bichard posits that AI's replication of this perceived authenticity can paradoxically make its artificiality more apparent when it fails to capture that genuine feel.