Is the music business too afraid of big, bad artificial intelligence?

Like many people, I was – and probably still am – alarmed by the changes AI could bring to musical creativity. But after a conversation yesterday with a major executive in the music industry who has an incredible knowledge of the business, its legalities and its people, I’m not so sure.

This person gave a rather controversial view of generative artificial intelligence: They scoffed a lot, saying that everyone is overreacting, and predicted that it would end up like the bell – the mid-00s trend of using a snippet of a song as a ringtone on a cell phone. , for those who don’t remember (or rather don’t remember). Ringtones, which are usually fully licensed by copyright owners, were a lucrative business—Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop” apparently still holds the sales record, more than 5 million sold at a price of retail at $2.99 ​​a pop – but, with rare exceptions, they became annoying long ago.

Of course, the potential creative uses of AI in music go far beyond those of ringtones, but the real question is less what can be done with AI as opposed to why someone will.

For example, let’s say it would be possible to get licenses for Frank Sinatra rapping a Notorious BIG song or Beyonce singing a D’Angelo song. The results can be wonderful – but how many times would you or anyone play it? If it was pressed on vinyl, would you buy it? And even if a few such new songs went viral on TikTok — every legendary artist’s dream — how long before it became annoying?

None of this means that it should be legal or acceptable to reproduce the sound of someone’s voice or music without permission and compensation (except in parody). Although it is not currently possible to assign copyright to the sound of a human voice, at least some legal action is approaching this concept, and lawyers, as lawyers do, have found other ways to crack down on copycats.

Last year, Universal Music was able to cancel “Heart on My Sleeve,” Ghostwriter’s AI-assisted track that channels Drake and the Weeknd, arguing that the AI ​​was trained on copyrighted material without the owners’ permission. In the 1990s, Tom Waits and Bette Midler both won lawsuits against companies that had used copycat singers in TV commercials (after Waits and Midler had turned them down) on the basis of false advertising, which works for commercials but not for a commercially released song. But as my ringer friend said yesterday, it really amounts to a virtual emulator or cover band. (Please note: we’re talking about music here, not legitimately dangerous uses of AI, such as deepfakes of political leaders inciting their followers to action or violence—not that deepfakes are necessary for this.)

Artificial intelligence has already been used for good in the world of music – a combination of artificial intelligence and a sound-alike singer has given new voice to country great Randy Travis, who lost his ability to sing after a stroke heavy in 2013, and such technology will only make it better. But it probably won’t be long before AI is used for lesser good: It’s only a matter of time before healthy singers simply AI their voices into new songs instead of singing them (unless it’s already happening), and it’s not. it’s hard to imagine producers or labels saving money by using multiple AI voices instead of paying backing singers – a bazillion Beyoncés, an army of Adeles with just a few keystrokes – not to mention engineers and other technical staff. The real threat of AI to the music world lies in the sheer number of jobs it will replace, although people at the helm of the industry rarely think about it.

We were already a long way down the road even before generative AI exploded into mass consciousness with the launch of Chat GPT in late 2022. For years, bad singers have been made to sound almost good in the studio with the miracle of auto-tune , and in many large concerts, the vocalists are singing along with their previously recorded backing tracks; some lip-sync so well, and live sound technicians are able to modulate volume so strategically, that it takes well-trained eyes and ears to detect it. How long will we not be able to tell at all? For that matter, how long before ABBA’s “Abba-tar” technology becomes so realistic that it makes actual touring a pointless pleasure?

Why stop there? AI-generated fictional pop stars already exist, and it’s probably only a matter of time before biopics or alternate histories come to virtual life: One could feed any recording of John Lennon’s voice into an AI and come up with a convincing approximation of what a series of post-1980 albums might have sounded like; an avatar could go on tour, accompanied by live musicians, just like hologram concerts. And perhaps the day is not far off when people can use AI to create a Zoom call with historical figures or deceased loved ones. It feels heavy just thinking about it, but will it always be? Maybe we wouldn’t want to leave if that fake world was more beautiful than the real one.

Randy Travis’ “new” song was created with his full approval and, to the extent possible, his participation. Although he didn’t write the song featuring his AI voice, it’s apparently already possible for him or any singer to write songs on a keyboard using AI facsimiles of their own voices. And maybe it’s only a matter of time before we don’t know the difference.

During the pandemic, many of us expected live streams to not happen substitute concerts in the future, but to top them off – if the live tickets are sold out, you can simply buy one for the live stream and see the show that way. But with few exceptions, there has been little interest in the concept. People want a real show and a real performance, although the meaning of the adjective becomes more slippery every day.

I can wax with great honesty about the sanctity of true human expression. But you’ve heard and read it all before, and I’ll spare you the obvious genie-out-of-the-bottle clichés. What is or is not legal is for the lawyers to decide, and what is or is not artistically acceptable is up to the individual. Artificial intelligence can lead to many dangerous things, but with safeguards and strong laws, the death of human musical creativity is not one of them.

Variety VIP+ Explores Gen AI from all angles — Pick a story