Recently, a band that showed up on the scene out of the blue and reached nearly a million listeners on Spotify admitted it was a hoax and attributed all its music to generative AI. This sparked a global debate about just how far AI should be used in music production. Since DMUSICX has always advocated for technology, we are not opposed to the concept of AI-generated music; however, there are exceptions. Which is why we would like to make the distinction between AI-generated versus AI-assisted music production. Fasten your seatbelt, DMUSICX is about to take you on a ride through the maze of AI technology as it relates to music creation. It is going to be a bumpy ride over some rough unexplored terrain, but don’t be afraid. Like Grammy-winning producer Timbaland, it’s not about fearing what’s to come, but embracing new technology so that you don’t get left in its dust.

To maintain the integrity of music, it should be, first and foremost, a creative process and involve a human element. This is what makes music distinct from a din, noise or a sound. The human creative element that goes into the music relays the connection between the listener or audience and the song.

“Song” is used here in the broadest sense to mean any form of music or sound that was created intentionally for a user or listener to interact with tangibly or intangibly.

Therefore, AI in itself cannot create music or a song – it has no concept of what music or a song is. An AI chatbot can always say “I Love You“, but it has no clue what “being in love” means! Love is a human emotion that only human beings can relate to. AI are merely trained (supervised or unsurpervised) on a plethora of data (music and sounds in this case) to recognize, replicate, extend or extrapolate the patterns and trends that characterize good music, while applying the underlying theories. Likewise, a creator typing in the style and genre for a song and describing what the lyrics should be about is not an artist or musician. They are not contributing any creative human element to the song, but are merely describing what they would like to hear in the product. This is no different than someone going to a restaurant and ordering items from a detailed menu and after the meal is prepared, proclaims that they are the chef! If that restaurant patron, however, brought all the ingredients and combined them meticulously in the correct sequence and proportions, so that all the restaurant cooks do is follow carefully laid out instructions, the patron has a much higher chance of being recognized as a chef. In the latter case, the restaurant staff is only assisting in the preparation of the dish, the patron has already supplied the creativity needed for the product.

We can draw an analogy to Elton John, who admitted and accepted his limitations as a songwriter, and deferred that responsibility to his songwriting partner, Bernard John Taupin. Bernie Taupin realized he could compose songs but was incapable of scoring, arranging or singing them. These two famous, talented creators formed a long-term partnership, supplementing the other’s weakness and in doing so changed the music industry with their many chart-topping hits. They both recognize that without the other, success was not possible. They are both entitled to be called musicians, because they contributed the human creative elements to the songs, albeit in very distinctive ways. each musician using his talent to the fullest potential, which would not have been the case if they both decided to work individually. It would have been a grave injustice if songs like Cold Cold Heart, Candle in the Wind, Rocket Man or Can you feel the Love Tonight written by Bernie Taupin were never sung by the timeless, unmistakable voice of Elton John. If Elton John had access to AI to generate his song lyrics, would his music have been accepted globally? Or what if Bernie Taupin had access to AI that could produce vocals on par with Elton John, would his music have been shun because of that or would his music be judged purely on the released product? Fortunately AI was not available to either, so partnering was their only recourse. And the rest is history…

Undoubtedly, there is significant “progress” being made with respect to AI-generated music, regardless of the concerns. This can be extended to AI use in general, where over the past two years it has infiltrated every market and profession, from marketing, film production, engineering, legal counselling, diagnosing medical conditions, trading, to DNA sequencing and clinical testing. The use of AI appears to have no boundaries or limits to how it can be applied.