Generative AI Will Not Take Our industry and Here Is Why… [Opinion]

As a professional working in a technology-centric role, part of my job and obligation in self education lately has been around AI and how it will shape the future of music. After reading countless articles, subscribing to a few AI newsletters, attending a webinar about the future of generative AI in the music industry, and subscribing to, and experimenting with, the new ChatGPT-4 API myself, I have a few predictions and very strong opinions about what this revolutionary tech will do to those of us that have spent many of our best life-moments in front of stage lights witnessing good ol’ fashion human creation, inciting visceral understandings of ourselves, others, and the world we live in.

An East London Nightclub recently hosted what we assume is the first of it’s kind–an AI generated “rave” with an AI DJ called “Algorhythm” (a tip of the hat for the pun-manship). I encourage you to follow that link if you want to hear more about this event that happened at “The Glove That Fits”, but the purpose of this article is not to regurgitate the story of this event.

It’s no mystery that top 40 music has been formulaic for quite a while. Most of them, incorporate the same chord progressions, hop on the wagon of popular edits, MIDI instruments, effects, and even themes of lyricism to pursue the empirically proven “tried & true” sounds of appeal and therefore profitability. This is how business and marketing can often shape music. For some, this is sufficient.

There’s an interesting human phenomena that happens when something unexpected occurs. I read about it in an advertising book called, “Made to Stick” back in college. In summary, the things that stick with us and really grab ahold of our memories are the things that break the theme of expectation. That is, if you watch a short film where a car drives to a stop sign, stops, then continues, your brain assesses that this was “as expected”. Therefore nothing seems worthy of important memory filing for survival or any other purposes. However, if you saw a film where a car rolls to a stop sign, stops, accelerates, and then immediately gets T-boned, your reaction is very different. In fact, your eyes often widen, your mouth may open, and you will likely engage in a few seconds of very highly engaged observation until you process the unexpected event. Your physical response is fundamentally primitive in that your sensory receptors are put in a position to absorb all the new info they can. These types of observations will stick in our memories far more consistently because they represent valuable information. Information that could aid our survival or purpose in the future, and at the end of the day, our brains are wired for survival above all else.

At this point you may be very confused as to where I’m going with this or, maybe, you can see the parallel I’m about to make to music. “Generative AI will likely be involved in ~90% of top 40 and mainstream music in the future” (Generative AI in Music Linkedin Webinar March 2023), but the things that we will keep with us, in our memories, the things that we find pertinent to our life and our survival, the things we find necessary to observe and engage with will be that that has not yet been said, that threatens tradition, that innovates from a realm of arbitration. We’ll remember the things that give us brand new understandings of ourselves, others, and the world around us and these things are inherently human.

We’ve talked about mainstream and generative AI, now let’s look at the underground genres. Do you think an AI system could have conceived “Shout” by the Isley Brothers in 1959?

It was a completely different sound that no one had ever heard before at that time and is still a party anthem at every common celebration today. Do you think AI could have ever written “Sabotage” by The Beastie Boys in 1994?

That was a song that innovated a whole new genre of hip-hop that incorporated elements of rock and punk without losing its identity. it inspired other bands and artists to experiment with genre-blending, paving the way for the development of rap-rock and nu-metal in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The point is this, the underground sounds are what really drives music that speaks to people. As a matter of tradition, it is the underground musicians, the innovators of “generation different” that spark the sounds that inspire. Then, the profit driven followers of top 40 music make their replicas and soundalikes until the underground scene leads music in a new direction… Lather, rinse, repeat.

While AI can do a great job of analyzing, repeating and regurgitating collections of existing sounds… It will never be able to communicate to a human, in a visceral way, that there is something about themselves, others, or the world around them that they never recognized before. Human to human connectivity is what music is about, AI will never win that contest, and I will die on this hill with that opinion.