In 1999, the author interviewed Prince for TIME, and Prince insisted the tape recorder remain off due to his distrust of how future technology might use unauthorized recordings of his voice.
At the time, the author considered Prince to be paranoid.
Recently, a particular AI-powered musical act achieved the distinction of being the first to appear on a Billboard magazine airplay chart. Another act, reportedly driven by AI, recently secured the top spot on the “Country Digital Song Sales” chart. While the precise methods used to create these AI-powered acts are unknown, they typically involve training on the creations of human musicians.
The author now recognizes that Prince was not paranoid, but rather insightful about future developments.
The AI Music System
Billboard indicated that at least six AI or AI-assisted acts have appeared on its charts within the last few months—and that figure could be higher, as it’s challenging to determine which acts are AI-driven and to what extent AI is being utilized.
If left unchecked, AI could potentially overshadow human artists. One reason for this is that some music industry managers might view AI as a convenient substitute for notoriously difficult musician personalities. AI never requires rehabilitation. AI doesn’t damage hotel rooms. AI doesn’t demand to renegotiate its record deal, or engage in disputes with paparazzi, or any of the countless other behaviors brilliant, temperamental human artists might exhibit. AI simply generates content.
Moreover, a recent study conducted by Ipsos for the French music streaming service Deezer found that 97% of those polled could not differentiate between a song created by a human and one generated by AI.
It certainly presents a challenge for human artists if AI begins to mimic their sound. However, a potentially greater issue might be that humans will start to emulate AI. Music is an industry driven by trends—artists, fans, and music executives pursue whatever is popular, be it alternative rock, K-Pop, or Afrobeats. If AI music starts to dominate the charts, human artists will begin to echo the machines, leading to a downward slide into mediocrity.
Pop music controversies often revolve around whether an artist is being “real” or authentic. For instance, an artist had to defend against critics who felt she wasn’t sufficiently country when her album “Cowboy Carter” was released. Another artist and peer engaged in diss tracks regarding whose music genuinely represented hip-hop. Nirvana frontman once remarked that “The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it.” He wrote that line in his 1994 suicide note.
AI is the ultimate purveyor of inauthenticity. If it becomes dominant, it will undermine a fundamental value of pop music: authenticity.
In Living with Music, Ralph Ellison writes that “The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism.”
AI products possess no life experience, brutal or otherwise. In the author’s opinion, and likely in Ellison’s, AI has not earned the right to perform the blues—or jazz, country, rock, and hip-hop.
Preserving Human Music
This is precisely why the recording industry must cease referring to AI music releases as artists. This practice bestows an unearned anthropomorphism upon AI. They should be designated not as AI artists or musicians, but as AI products.
Billboard features a chart for nearly every genre—Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, Hot Tropical Songs, Americana/Folk Albums. AI products should be isolated on their own chart—perhaps called a “Hot AI Products Chart”—separate from human musicians with genuine lives and real financial obligations such as credit card payments, mortgages, and college loans they may have incurred to attend music school.
Tom Poleman, Chief Programming Officer for the audio company iHeartMedia, recently distributed a memo to staffers promising that “We don’t play AI music that features synthetic vocalists pretending to be human.” The memo stated that the company’s research indicated 96% of consumers find “Guaranteed Human” content appealing. “Sometimes you have to pick a side — we’re on the side of humans,” the memo concluded.
In a message to fans, Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave argued that creativity holds meaning because it demands effort—even God needed a break after creating. AI-powered services like Chat GPT can generate entertainment products without experience, effort, or rest. Thus, their output, according to Cave, lacks meaning.
“ChatGPT dismisses any notions of creative struggle, that our endeavors animate and nurture our lives giving them depth and meaning,” he wrote.
Artists should not dismiss change outright. Some folk music enthusiasts were incensed when Bob Dylan introduced electric instruments at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, yet many later regarded his decision as innovative and courageous.
There will undoubtedly be inventive ways to utilize AI as a musical instrument, and the author is eager to participate in a future where the technology is employed constructively. However, at present, AI is not generating original work; it is merely rechanneling the creations of humans. A collective of over 1,000 musicians, including Paul McCartney, contributed to a recording due out on vinyl December 8 titled “Is This What We Want?” which aims to protest AI music that fails to adequately compensate human artists.
If AI-generated products are permitted to dominate entertainment without proper safeguards and fair remuneration for humans, devotees of music, movies, literature, and art will soon find themselves confined to an unending remix of the past.
Artists, audiences, and music industry executives must pause and consider what role we wish AI to fulfill in this evolving era of creation.
