With the acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI), many industries have begun to develop new processes and programs to push through the boundaries of what was thought to be possible.
These industries are widespread, with AI able to complete a range of tasks from the creation of new images by using an AI headshot generator to being able to quickly explore and return information in medical studies with AI data analysis services.
The music industry isn’t exempt to the rolling tide of AI influence. In fact, almost all parts of the music creation process are now able to involve AI in one way or another. For example, writing lyrics has never been easier with AI generators like ChatGPT.
Uses of AI in the Music Industry
Restoration
One of the most notable cases of AI being used in the music industry comes from the release of a new song from the Beatles. Recordings of John Lennon’s voice were able to be isolated with AI tools, which allowed the surviving members of the band to complete and release an old demo track.
This use of AI shows how useful it can be to restore and recover old or previously lost works of music. AI technology has the ability to sift through immense amounts of data and can work to a much higher degree of specificity than a human can, which makes it very well suited to this sort of isolation and restoration task.
Lyric Writing
For the neophyte, one of the most difficult steps in becoming a musician is writing lyrics. Often, lyricists get writer’s block and get stuck in their own heads or feel like the words they want to express aren’t coming out right.
AI can be an amazing tool for writing lyrics, especially if used in the right way. There are a variety of tools specifically designed for writing songs, like Amper Music’s Songwriter, which can help refine ideas or write lyrics for your tracks.
Alternatively, you can use mainstream AI tools like ChatGPT and go through iterative rounds of prompt refining where you give the AI tool a prompt for a lyric and then make additional notes on that prompt until the AI comes up with a version you like.
Arrangement Tools
AI can also be used to arrange pre-existing melodies into new compositions. These tools use an endless array of recorded instruments to provide and generate melodies based on input arrangements.
This unlimited access to a variety of instruments available to the average musician in their own home helps contribute to the democratization of music composition. Previously, creating music with those instruments would have required either purchasing thousands of dollars of musical equipment, or hiring a team of people and a recording studio to get the required sound.
Nowadays, AI can provide almost anyone with an internet connection access to traditional instruments of all kinds—and even the ability to create and generate novel sounds. This helps create a more equal playing field, with new entrants to music facing fewer barriers to entry than before the introduction of AI.
Fan Experiences
AI is also making its rounds in the experiences people have when engaging with music. Concerts have become more engaging with the addition of AI technologies, with virtual performances and interactive online situations.
Smart technology can also be found in more traditional physical concert venues, with lighting spectacles, setlists, and sound dynamics able to be automatically adjusted based on face recognition software in the crowd. This helps the venue create comfortable, yet engaging experiences based on the facial expressions of those in the audience.
Streaming software has also embraced AI, with tools for tracking your listening history and musical preferences long supported by industry leaders like Spotify and Apple Music. The use of AI in these tools can support new artists by engaging them with fans most likely to support their music and helps increase the number of listeners, downloads, and saved songs.
Issues to Watch For
As with every other use of AI, the presence of AI in the music industry has the potential to cause widespread issues if appropriate regulation is not established. However, with how quickly this industry is moving, the regulation has yet to catch up to the technology itself.
This causes some issues, which are particularly pertinent in the world of music. For starters, the music industry often leads the way with trends that are picked up and followed in the worlds of film, television, and fashion. This means that precedents and regulations set now have the potential to impact not only future music, but also future creative pursuits in other industries as well.
Protecting Artists’ Rights
The main issues with the use of AI in creative pursuits stem from the need to have recognition for the creator of the music. When AI creates a song, it has to use data that’s been drawn from source material in order to create a new piece of music that already exists on the internet and often belongs to whoever produced the material in the first place.
This creates issues with copyright. In some cases, the source material is very easily distinguishable in AI-generated work. In other cases, the AI song can sound like songs made by existing human artists. These artists are often not credited and can even lose revenue from their work if the AI music goes viral or gets lots of views online.
There are also potential issues with deep-fake technologies, where people can specifically instruct AI tools to recreate songs or sounds to fake a celebrity’s voice or to create music unlawfully. Drake is an example of an artist that has had multiple fake songs by “AI Drake” go viral, causing a multitude of legal issues. These songs (while catchy!) can have wide reaching consequences if the general public believes the celebrity made the song themselves.
Moving Forward
Luckily, the technology for tracking where AI has been applied already exists. It’s just a matter of making sure that there are stringent processes in place for protecting existing artists while allowing access to all the benefits of AI. However, this is a slow process, and it will likely be a long time before we have a defined set of guidelines and rules for dealing with AI created music.
Rolling Stone UK newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this featured content