Before anyone says it's this or that it is only one thing.

ANY A.I tune maker who says that they have no intention of replacing musicians, singers and voice-over humans is full of shit.
I decided to see if I could catch one out and I did.

So if you see anyone saying this, call them out on it. It's fine if this is the intention, but do not pretend that they are not fully wanting to replace hiring any human to do the music. Repeating, I figured as much as did many, but saying it is not something that it is, makes it a lie and makes them untrustworthy. Pay attention to their use of "Hiring..." It never was a problem, it was a creative expense that A.I dispenses with and makes all the decisions for you. Times have changed, nothing more.

 

Last edited: Jun 22, 2025

To be clear, I accepted that this was going to happen. I have no problem with it as long as they do not shroud it in bullshit and pretend that is not their intention. As long as they're honest about it, then that is the way it is.

 

I mean... They are being honest about it ?

"Hiring (...) can be expensive (...) that problem goes away."

For the money guys, that has always been the bottom line. Calling it "creative expense" doesn't change the fact that those with the big wallets have always been looking for ways to spend less, and always seen anything that prevents them from doing so as a problem.

I've heard a film critic once say something like "If Hollywood producers knew how to make a film, they wouldn't bother with paying all those pesky technicians, directors, actors... They would just make the movies themselves and cash the profits". We're closer to that scenario, more than ever. In the very near future, people with the bare minimum artistic/technical vision and can manipulate AI tools will saturate the market. Expect to see really hungry hawks be the dominant one-man-studios who then buy out all the other one-man-studios and produce EVERYTHING.

Of course, that is one possible scenario.

Most current studios are scratching their heads, wondering how they can get ahead of the game without having a disruptive young generation take their power away. Right now, it seems like copyrighted material is their best bet. When you own all intellectual propriety, you can just give people the tools to make their own shitty material with it, as long as you charge them. Be the main character of your own Avengers ! Then, just like sample packs, some smaller players will sell better AI prompts, or courses etc.

You may have noticed, my scenarios are deeply dependent on the technology staying more or less similar to what we have now. The next paradigm shift in AI makes everything impossibly unpredictable.

But it doesn't matter anyway. We're gonna burn. Enjoy the last legs of the ride.

 

I do not have any issues with what you said.
It is not until you give them your details that they say it.
They do NOT advertise this is their entire intent on their main pages to replace every human musician, singer and voice-over person. They indicate how fast it can do it, and inexpensive, but the replacements only come in personal mail.

Call it sneaky, clandestine, surreptitious or whatever, but it is not up front.

 

@triggerflipper - I saw a post on Reddit where an A.I distributor had challenged a musician to see the difference. The musician got it right. The A.I distributor then asked how he picked it and named all the things a musician and singer would not do and how undynamic and soulless it was in larger missing musical terms. Fast forward a couple of weeks, the A.I distributor releases another track with all the things in it the musician told him.
The trick is tell them nothing and take them nowhere. It needs input to create accurate output.

 

Oh yeah no doubt. But, I mean... which industry or enterprise hasn't been exactly this way, since forever ?

Reminds me of this scene lol :

 

For some, AI is a new toy, and for others, it's a business.

The people who advertise with AI have a business model, and they want to make money off it, at the expense of creativity. In the long run, they will miss out on the non-musicians' sense of achievement, for cash of course.

 

What sends me is the fact that the quality of these AI services is measured by how well they can DECEIVE people. Isn't that fucked?
In your mail, it says

Deception is literally at the CORE of what an AI is supposed to be able to achieve. And it is trained to do that with what is essentially stolen data.
I'm so fucking upset that this is the world we live in. Completely fucking unregulated, allowed to run rampant.
Just drop the nukes already, honestly. We're fucked.

 

They have no intention, but they want to be the best at it.

 

a myth is only a myth if someone believes it though, so this doesn't count, right?

 

Don't be too fast to take conclusions.

 

"a myth is only a myth if someone believes it though" ?
Seriously?

How many people does it take to have a myth?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 23, 2025

just saying “Fuck AI” will not solve anything and on the contrary will cut off from reality those who say it. Respecting the times we live in is crucial to better understand the topic. AI is already deeply embedded in our lives (other than the music) and huge investments are planned for the future: we are participating in a new revolution. The only possible choice is to be part of it for all the good it can bring us, or to passively suffer it.
From artists I would expect a higher level dialogue than "Fuck AI", for example we could ask ourselves questions like "How can I use AI to experiment with solutions never tried before?"

 

Well we do not believe it, but they are making money so someone believes it.

 

I personally am not saying that, I am saying fuck deceiving people, just be honest about the intentions.

 

Exactly, great question, what is the problem that needs solving? Solutions to what exactly, what is so flawed today in music that AI needs to solve for subscription fee?

As I see it, most problems people have now are how to replace things they need someone else to do better then them, so singers, mixing, mastering engineers, some beat makers, some songwriters, some composers, some jingle makers, some actual artist's.... and everyone have their problems with others that AI could solve, really nothing revolutionary there, just eliminating others.

We can romanticize about AI all day, but you gonna get some consumer product in best case scenario if you pay high tier subscription for it, maybe most ground breaking thing would be AI making exactly music you want for you, based on all the info it have on you... why would anyone even listen to your music, when they have their own AI made one... maybe even connected to their own brain implant, stream it directly, so they have soundtracks for every day life, no more boring other folks music, just the right thing for everyone.

Dunno, what do you see really, what rainbow future involving AI you really see there in this kind of world with this kind of people that right now are in middle of wars, that use AI to develop new weapons and mass surveillance, while others develop entertainments, sex robots, chat bots and all kind of human replacements?

 

If you aren't making music for money, why would you even care what they listen to? It's not your music and that's all that matters in the greater scheme of things. If you aren't making music for money, how does AI even affect you at all? Less "likes" on some social media? Who cares. A large percentage of what the general public listen to is meaningless junk anyway.

Maybe the real myth is people "doing music because they just have to" without any expectations; if not specific expectations. If AI even generates some multiple of the number of tracks released each day already; how does that even matter, statistically? Wether your track is 1 of 90,000 or one of 900,000; what is the difference? You are already facing against numbers that look like your chances of winning the lottery.

 

I have a feeling we are living in the most important and revolutionary times in the whole human history. AI is not a small feat. I can usually predict where things are heading, but not so sure this time. It feels quite puzzling. One day I think how great this whole AI thing is, and the next I see just gloom and doom... so I reckon it's both, actually. AI tech will help us solve a lot of problems, but also create a lot of problems. When discussing AI tech it's quite important to be able to comprehend both good and bad sides of it, I think.

Having said that, people are grifters in nature. Tons of people make money from scamming other people. With or without AI.
Politicians, Banks, Lawyers, ISPs, Mobile phone providers, big corporations, small corporations... more or less everybody. They're gonna use AI to make even more profit, and even more efficiently, sharing it with even less people than before. Now that sounds scary.

 

Last edited: Jun 23, 2025

You've pretty much nailed it in that the reasons / M.O for doing something determines the effect on a person. Totally agreed. If a person makes music for arts sake without caring who likes their music or even them personally, not much phases them.
The only issue I can forsee is when it immediately copies people who in the future create something new, because it cannot as it is completely reliant on what exists and fed. Even worse, people give up creating as an end result because they're sick of a machine ripping off their music.

 

Many are too young to remember the advent of synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, and samplers.

I was there every step of the way.

• First, string players, who were called for "sweetening" sessions on many pop-rock-soul records, waited for their phone to ring.
• Then, drummers (all the B and C session guys, who did demos, EPs, and filled in for top flight talent now and then).
• Then bass players (remember the theme to Axel F, synth-pop and R&B in the 80s) had a lot more time to, uh, practice keyboards.
• Then, with samplers, horn players too (string players even more so) were no longer studio bound.

Even Earth Wind & Fire (Touch The World), and Take 6 (Join The Band) produced entire albums with Studio Vision then (remember Studio Vision)?

Bottom line, and my point with ai here to follow, 2-3 things happened:

1. The drum machine thing faded in pop-rock; became a mainstay of R&B, Soul, Rap, Trap, Crap. Great drummers are irreplaceable.
2. Every singer or instrumentalist turned songwriter/producer overnight. Music quality nosedived fairly quickly after that.
3. Bedroom, home/project studios proliferated, labels tightened the purse strings: studios in L.A., NYC, etc., closing doors fast.

• My point with ai: I suspect the same growth and decay curves will apply (just faster). A lot of companies (big and small, old and new) will want to leverage ai to surf the wave and get rich quick. And the trend may take off if timed right - i.e., if Gen Alpha bites hard at it, the way Gen Z's bit hard at Taylor Swift and TikTok, the way Millenials bit hard at Instagram and Beyoncé.
  
• The ai adoption craze (for music) will eventually (quickly perhaps) taper off.
  - Jimi Hendrix was cool, had sex appeal. That's why he's been selling 3 million albums every year since he died, with zero PR from his label or estate. 3 M albums - from the grave - let that sink in. But ai has zero sex appeal - maybe with the cosplay crowd.
  - When the Beatles first performed in the US, extra janitors had to be hired by the promoters and theater owners, to clean up the venue after the show. All the teenage girls peed themselves - literally - with excitement.
  - I don't see ai artists having the same effect on any human any time soon. I don't see people paying $400 a ticket for their kid to go see an ai on a screen dancing and singing to an ai song. Not gonna happen. People need connections, through music, to each other, to themselves, and to the artist.
  
  
• Film Studios and Record Labels will want to capitalize on ai - understandably: their Board will push them to, and Wall Street will push their Board. But ultimately, music needs a human face and personality to market (as Disney well knows, and Apple was quick to learn and put to action: ask Billy Eilish). So they will use ai for cheap stuff, a cartoon series here, a children's show there..., see what sticks - they'll hope that people's taste buds get so used to tasteless stuff they won't care to notice the difference (worked with tomatoes, might work with music too, they'll figure). Perhaps, someone will come up with music ketchup? A sauce you have to pay for to make your tomatoes taste - sorry, music sound - better.
  
  
• Right now - okay, last week - the entire advertising industry was meeting for Cannes Lions 2025. The mood was glum. They all figure their industry is toast. And it might be. And maybe that's how ai insidiously sneaks into the collective unconscious: through repetitve ads selling dishwasher soap, shampoo, cars, electronics, women and baby products, and of course: orange cheetos.
  
  
• Until such time as everyone in the US, Europe, Africa and Asia/Pacific is humming ai fabric or stool softener tunes, we're safe.
• For now.