I think AI is going to be far more capable, far sooner than we can grasp. Exponential learning is a concept the human brain just doesn’t grasp very well. I’ve heard experts talking about how it’s going to disrupt the movie industry, because the only limitation a single person would face in creating a Hollywood quality film from typing prompts into a generator would be rendering speed. If that’s possible with film, music should be simple as it’s basically just math at base level. I think it’ll be indistinguishable from and just as novel as anything people are doing. Most popular music is a thoughtless formula already.
If I was making my living from releasing music, I’d be concerned (along with most white collar jobs, as they’re the first to go). For people like myself, I’m not sure it’ll matter much. I make music because I enjoy the process and any external validation is just a bonus. It’s already near impossible to break through the volume of tracks being created today, I can’t see it getting that much worse for the vast majority of hobby producers.
Spotify is already populating some of their playlists with AI music and that’s their long term strategy so they don’t have to pay artists at all. It’ll be interesting to see if there are small pockets of the internet dedicated to “human” music or if anyone will even care. Most listeners don’t give a shit how anything is made if it sounds cool.
