Week 11
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I’ve been facing a dilemma in my mind lately and it’s the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated music and its implications for the future of the industry. Do you think AI generation is genuine creativity?
AI is growing exponentially. From it, we have enabled facial identification, speech recognition, and automated translation, we have generated code for mobile apps, and utilized it to identify issues in the medical field. While I love and appreciate what we have benefitted from with AI, I’m battling with the idea of whether AI is creativity and furthermore whether it has the power to create music and art.
AI-generation = genuine creativity?
I don’t believe this is genuine creativity unless one day it gets to the point where AI is so intelligent that it can create its own ideas from nothing. Which I don’t believe is even possible considering the name itself implies it’s a surface-level connection with the world. Artificial intelligence. Any intelligence given to the computer derives from human original thought. It’s using ideas that currently exist and putting it back into the world for our use. At the same time, it could be argued that that’s how most ideas by humans are made up anyways. We use ideas that were already composed, it’s hard to find something unique. And this is my dilemma.
My thoughts on the positive and negative effects.
AI-generated music aka computational creativity is music that is created with the help of algorithms and machine learning. As technology advances, AI-generated music is becoming increasingly sophisticated which has significant implications for the future of the music industry.
Historically, the music industry has been dominated by a small number of large record labels that have the power to determine which artists and songs are successful. So on one hand, with the rise of AI-generated music, anyone can create music without the need for a record label or expensive recording equipment meaning talented musicians who may have previously been overlooked by the industry now have the opportunity to showcase their work and reach a wider audience. However on the other hand, at the rate AI is developing by learning algorithms, trends in music, tunes and tones, it’s easy to foresee melodies, compositions and scores being generated by AI.
The idea that music is sounding the same with or without AI-generated music.
If algorithms are used to create music based solely on what has been successful or trendy in the past, there is a risk that all music will start to sound the same. Stifling creativity and diversity in the music industry, leading to a world where all music is formulaic and predictable. Devil’s advocate again, it can be argued that it’s no different than what’s currently happening. Music artists are sampling other artists, movies have the same plot, and graphic design is all beginning to look the same.
Here is a little playlist I am continuing to develop, it will show you how music has for the longest time been inspired by other artists.
In conclusion…
AI-generated music has the potential to transform the music industry in numerous ways. It has the potential to alter the industry, personalize music, facilitate collaboration between humans and machines. However, there are concerns about the impact of AI-generated music on employment in the industry and creativity.
At the end of the day, as every generation is stuck in its ways, I guess I am no different. I don’t think AI can create real art, the reasons I say “I don’t think…” is because I am talking about “real art” in my definitions and terms of it. I can see why AI can replace jobs such as computing, calculating or simple tasks such as a phone receptionist for the sake of simplifying a process or being efficient with time. But I cannot justify AI to replace artists. To me, it kills creativity.
I am a believer that God that made individuals who are each unique, contributing something original. There are many similarities but each individual has individual feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and ideas. Which to me, cannot be replicated by an artificial concept. Ultimately, it comes down to your personal definition of creativity, and art. Does AI-generation have the capacity to eventually create real music that replaces soundtracks, orchestras, scores and songs? Or is it killing creativity?
Vivian is 23 years old, currently studying Digital Content Creation. She specializes in Digital Design & enjoys all forms of art.
She dedicates her time to creating her own forms of art and collaborating with other artists and individuals to execute art projects.