Musicians aren't a dying breed at all, there's plenty of them and there always will be.

Problem is, around 25 or so years ago when mommy got everybody this new thing called 'the internet' and found all this free software, everybody thought the gift of being able to actually compose and create music simply came with the tool set, now EVERYBODY is a musician. Problem is, the tools don't make you anything, you still need the ability to actually do it.

I got a table saw, I got a hammer, that doesn't mean all of a sudden Im a contractor and can build a house.. Real contractors still exist, and get it done. Just like real musicians do.

 

Just so I can be clear, are you dragging literally Satan into this

 

Well, kinda sort of. But to simplify, EVIL is LIVE spelled backwards so there's that. "Satan" is just the De-compositional forces of Nature.

 

Thanks for the explanation!

 

AI will eliminate so many jobs and opportunities, but being a musician I find myself going back to the beginning playing guitar without any software or digital effects and enjoying it a lot more, I am now composing and creating more frequently, I guess that sometimes using less technology becomes a lot more in true inspiration, after all I am just a musician who is able to play real instruments, I don't need or use AI, my brain is fully functional and never stops learning.

 

It is ironic that now real musicians will have to compete with unexisting bands, you are basically competing with someone that has zero talent, that put zero time in learning the instruments/music production, yet that person is earning a lot of money. Bizzare.
The bigger issue is that this type of music SHOULD be labeled as AI. This is nothing but a scam.

 

We've come a long way as humanity. We have electricity for our electronic devices and communications, a worldwide power grid, and the internet. We have production facilities for all musical instruments. We have delivery routes, ships, and trucks that bring musical instruments from the factory to our homes.

We've written textbooks. We can make music ourselves with our music PCs. We also have inexpensive virtual software synthesizers, as well as freeware and tons of samples. Everyone can use these things; they're relatively easy to use. The language is mostly English, which almost everyone understands. We have online translators.

So far, everything's OK!

Now AI, or artificial stupidity, is here. How do we deal with it? Thanks to our forum, where everyone can share their views and ideas, a broad spectrum of opinions emerges. What we will continue to need in the future are real musicians, intelligence, and foresight to make the right decisions. Perhaps also more analog life and less digital life.

I expect the worst and hope for the best.

 

Our real people are now joined by a virtual computing unit in bits and bytes residing in data centers. Theoretically, you could say that humans are transferring their knowledge to a machine to become immortal. I hope lawmakers and judges will continue to protect human-created works. It's not for nothing that many people warn against AI and robotization.

It's certainly great when robots do the difficult tasks precisely. Robots don't need vacation, don't get sick, do their work with 100% quality, like factory robots, and are also much cheaper than humans. Do we all want to be replaced by machines? Do I want to talk to an AI on the phone? Do I want to listen to AI music? NO!

 

I don't think the threat is this gen of AI itself. I don't mind generative tools and can see opportunities in many areas of life.

Organic real life musicianship can never be replaced, especially live. Humans adore real life displays of skill. Music players are masters of that.
Maybe if we can all make mediocre music ourselves using AI (which frankly is already possible with a DAW and loops), the music world trims back down to the pre DAW days where raw skill and talent are the most prized musical assets again? I don't mind that.

Regarding the bigger picture, to reemphasize my point, I think humans are the biggest issue. As usual.

Right now, large scale industrial and security AI applications can have guardrails built in.

Creative data scraping can be regulated and a licencing model can be built to let creatives monetise their work in the AI space.

Rogue AI is only a fear if AGI becomes a reality, and a lot of AI devs (not shilling their start up) think were still very far away from sentience.

LLM's are not smart or independent. Smart people can build the safeguards needed to get high value out of the tech.

But the problem is the men running AI companies, corporate groups and politicians. Most are selfish sociopathic man babies who mainly relate to numbers because they cant face dealing their mediocre childhood traumas and daddy issues. They are not half as smart as they think they are, just dangerous and dysfunctional. They are the no1 threat to humanity.

In my 25+ years experience in the corporate space, most companies can barely run their own internal infrastructures properly, and the SLT are nearly always mercenary idiots who aren't actually talented at business. Like most industry 'leaders' these days they are just the most noisy, arrogant and connected. And their failures are always someone else fault or problem.

"Move fast and break things" Zuckerberg's inane motto will become our reality. As every greedy SLT rushes to integrate badly written and implemented AI, the modern world will become unusable and unstable. Death by a billion bugs.

This is what we need to lobby our governments about - Strictly regulate AI, slowly consider integration strategies and tell the business cunts to fuck off.

 

Last edited: Jul 1, 2025 at 12:21 PM

AI is taking over the world — no need to panic, but we might as well face it. Soon, anyone will be able to generate their own track with a click. Honestly, I’ve felt more chills listening to stuff on Udio lately than from any shitty popular radio. A Udio × Spotify‑style model feels inevitable: instant creativity meets global reach.

We all know our governments won’t shield us from this — sorry if that sounds fatalistic. Yet no matter how fast things change, nothing will ever replace my love for making music.

 

IF you depend on music to pay bills - you have a legitimate reason to worry. I you have another career and enjoy making music - no worries. This Ai will just make real musicians more special, since so many people will not have the patience to learn the skill.

 

Only humanity CREATE from cosmos breath.
AI can only pretend "creating".

AI run in circle already.
Soon, it will create so much crappy content, faster than ever, that it will die eating it's own sh*t

Yes, you may be unemployed by AI. And need to earn money by another mean.
But AI will never be a cosmic particule like us

 

I wonder how people here in general get to the conclusion that people "have to compete with other musicians".

Isn't this a pretty dystopian statement about music itself?
It is to recognize that people maneuvered themself into this situation (that isn't really there).

 

Compete, in terms of getting your music out on streaming services for example, if you want to start earning money with your music, it will get burried among thousands of fake profiles. It will get harder and harder even for fans to discover new music, real music that is, not that fake stuff.

 

It is senseful and can be enlightening to meditate about why classical musicians do not really perceive such problems.

 

Last edited: Jul 1, 2025 at 11:02 PM

You are describing exactly the day before AI even showed up on the internet. Music has been this way already, for quite a while. I can't cite you an exact point that it became almost like jumping the shark; but I would guess somewhere around the rise of Youtube.

Anyway, I think one of the largest reasons AI generated music will not kill real music; is because anyone who is an artist and serious about it, will not want to create a situation where they can get sued. If a copyright holder finds out that an AI "created" an infringing track, "I didn't steal your work, the AI did" is not going to matter. You could violate someone's copyrights by "stealing" from a song you have never even heard before.
That artist will have no idea where the infringing material ever originated from.

 

Back in the 90s, there was a radio show on Radio FFN hosted by Eckie Stieg (radio presenter, journalist, and musician).
He introduced bands for three hours and also conducted interviews.
After that, I bought records and went to concerts of the bands he featured.

Then there were several music magazines like Zillo, OX, and Plasticbomb, where you could read a lot about bands and even order LPs via mail order.To this day, I only listen to what I used to listen to. At some point, I got tired of listening to 100 things that were all crap.

 

Imo things have changed drastically in the last few years, not just music, but the world. The old world is gone. Everything is about hyper consumerism and fast dopamine hits trough endless scrolling on phones, youtube etc.
Maybe there will come a time when AI will be monitored and marked for users to identify it as such but right now it is a shitstorm.
Fake accounts, fake comments, fake videos, fake music, fake bands.
Scammers will just use it as another cash cow, scam centers with hundreds of workers all creating fake music accounts.
What was impossible before, because you had to have equipment and knowledge on how to write, record and produce, now all these steps can be avoided and get instant results. Just another step into dehumanization of art, music and culture.

 

Thanks @hackerz4life for your assessment!

Until now, it's always been the case that when something new came along, it took legislators and society several years or decades to establish new rules and laws on how we should deal with it. The internet is the invention of the 21st century and has and will continue to bring about huge changes in society.

You need a driver's license to drive a car, but not for a cell phone. Furthermore, the police must constantly ensure that rules are followed; violations result in fines or the revocation of a driver's license.

People must adapt, or they will perish, and they must enforce the rule of law, or they will perish. Almost everyone has certainly been a victim of fraud at some point, so let's not be careless and gullible and educate ourselves on how to protect ourselves against cybercrime.

At some point in 10, 20, or 30 years, we will probably sort through the junk. Since the amount of data will be so unmanageable, AI will take care of it, the outcome is uncertain. Criminals will certainly continue to use AI for fraud, and it's up to us to issue fakes and warnings.

Between us, back up your favorite plugins, your favorite bands, etc., to storage for perpetual availability; it's also possible that they might no longer be available at some point. Power outages, hacker attacks, cyberwar—no one knows what the future will actually look like.

 

But then how would you generate off topic answers for this forum?