60% of Musicians are Already Using AI to Make Music
Artificial Intelligence has burst through the walled garden of the tech industry straight into mainstream society like the Kool-Aid Man. Oh yeah! Peruse any news site and you will surely find headlines like “Will AI destroy humanity?” and “Will AI save humanity?” Attending a conference this year? Strap in for a whole lot of ChatGPT presentations. Whether we like it or not, the future appears to be prompting.
With that said, I read an article this week that made me do a double take. Ditto Music, an online music distribution platform that helps musicians publish music on services like Apple Music and Spotify, surveyed musicians about AI and the results were pretty surprising. At least to me.
Ditto Music reported that 59.5% of artists surveyed already use Artificial Intelligence within their music projects. The revelation incited a knee-jerk reaction. Back in my day, musicians practiced scales and modes until their fingers bled. We didn’t have auto-tune, and that’s the way it was, and we liked it.
Here are a few other stats from the survey that stood out to me:
11% of artists have used AI for their songwriting
38% of artists have used AI for music artwork
Only 28.5% of artists say they would never use AI
Here’s the entire Infogram.
However, I took a deep breath, then thought rationally about the evolution of music. There has always been a confluence between music and technology. In fact, technology has changed the way music is created, recorded, produced, and distributed. From groundbreaking inventions like the phonograph, the electric guitar, the Moog synthesizer, the MIDI interface, Napster, and Spotify, technology has left an indelible mark on music. We have come a long way from cassette tapes to GarageBand.
Is AI the next logical step in the evolution of music? If it is, why does it feel (and sound) so … nebulous?
The same evolution/dilemma is happening in photography. Some people are using AI engines to enhance mediocre shots, or change conditions like backgrounds, etc., while others are using software to “process” the shot’s light and details, but don’t feel that’s “artificial.” Even the use of “auto focus” and vibration suppression inside my camera and lenses has been a long-time question about “what is photography.”
My thought is that it’s not about “deciding” what’s photography/art/computer-generation so much as being transparent about it. While enhancing music or photography with technology has always been accepted, there’s also a big difference if you’re trying to pull off a Milli Vanilli....