A rising tide of artificial intelligence (AI) bands is ushering in a new era where work will be scarcer for musicians.
Whether it’s Velvet Sundown’s 1970s-style rock or country music projects “Aventhis” and “The Devil Inside,” bands whose members are pure AI creations are seeing more than a million plays on streaming giant Spotify.
No major streaming service clearly labels tracks that come entirely from AI, except France’s Deezer. Meanwhile, the producers of these songs tend to be unreachable.
Photo: AFP
“I feel like we’re at a place where nobody is really talking about it, but we are feeling it,” said music producer, composer and performer Leo Sidran. “There is going to be a lot of music released that we can’t really tell who made it or how it was made.”
The Oscar-winning artist sees the rise of AI music as perhaps a sign of how “generic and formulaic” genres have become.
AI highlights the chasm between music people listen to “passively” while doing other things and “active” listening in which fans care about what artists convey, said producer and composer Yung Spielburg on the Imagine AI Live podcast.
Spielburg believes musicians will win out over AI with “active” listeners but will be under pressure when it comes to tunes people play in the background while cooking dinner or performing mundane tasks.
If listeners can’t discern which tunes are AI-made, publishers and labels will likely opt for synthetic bands that don’t earn royalties, Spielburg predicted.
“AI is already in the music business and it’s not going away because it is cheap and convenient,” said Mathieu Gendreau, associate professor at Rowan University in New Jersey, who is also a music industry executive. “That will make it even more difficult for musicians to make a living.”
Music streaming platforms already fill playlists with mood music attributed to artists about whom no information can be found, according to University of Rochester School of Music professor Dennis DeSantis.
Meanwhile, AI-generated soundtracks have become tempting, cost-saving options in movies, television shows, ads, shops, elevators and other venues, DeSantis added.
AI TAKES ALL
Composer Sidran says he and his music industry peers have seen a sharp slowdown in work coming their way since late last year.
“I suspect that AI is a big part of the reason,” said Sidran, host of “The Third Story” podcast. “I get the feeling that a lot of the clients that would come to me for original music, or even music from a library of our work, are using AI to solve those problems.”
Technology has repeatedly helped shape the music industry, from electric guitars and synthesizers to multi-track recording and voice modulators.
Unlike such technologies that gave artists new tools and techniques, AI could lead to the “eradication of the chance of sustainability for the vast majority of artists,” warned George Howard, a professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.
“AI is a far different challenge than any other historical technological innovation,” Howard said. “And one that will likely be zero-sum.”
Howard hopes courts will side with artists in the numerous legal battles with generative AI giants whose models imitate their styles or works.
Gendreau sees AI music as being here to stay and teaches students to be entrepreneurs as well as artists in order to survive in the business.
Sidran advises musicians to highlight what makes them unique, avoiding the expected in their works because “AI will have done it.”
And, at least for now, musicians should capitalize on live shows where AI bands have yet to take the stage.
Last week the story of the giant illegal crater dug in Kaohsiung’s Meinong District (美濃) emerged into the public consciousness. The site was used for sand and gravel extraction, and then filled with construction waste. Locals referred to it sardonically as the “Meinong Grand Canyon,” according to media reports, because it was 2 hectares in length and 10 meters deep. The land involved included both state-owned and local farm land. Local media said that the site had generated NT$300 million in profits, against fines of a few million and the loss of some excavators. OFFICIAL CORRUPTION? The site had been seized
Next week, candidates will officially register to run for chair of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). By the end of Friday, we will know who has registered for the Oct. 18 election. The number of declared candidates has been fluctuating daily. Some candidates registering may be disqualified, so the final list may be in flux for weeks. The list of likely candidates ranges from deep blue to deeper blue to deepest blue, bordering on red (pro-Chinese Communist Party, CCP). Unless current Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) can be convinced to run for re-election, the party looks likely to shift towards more hardline
The depressing numbers continue to pile up, like casualty lists after a lost battle. This week, after the government announced the 19th straight month of population decline, the Ministry of the Interior said that Taiwan is expected to lose 6.67 million workers in two waves of retirement over the next 15 years. According to the Ministry of Labor (MOL), Taiwan has a workforce of 11.6 million (as of July). The over-15 population was 20.244 million last year. EARLY RETIREMENT Early retirement is going to make these waves a tsunami. According to the Directorate General of Budget Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), the
Sept. 15 to Sept. 21 A Bhutanese princess caught at Taoyuan Airport with 22 rhino horns — worth about NT$31 million today — might have been just another curious front-page story. But the Sept. 17, 1993 incident came at a sensitive moment. Taiwan, dubbed “Die-wan” by the British conservationist group Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), was under international fire for being a major hub for rhino horn. Just 10 days earlier, US secretary of the interior Bruce Babbitt had recommended sanctions against Taiwan for its “failure to end its participation in rhinoceros horn trade.” Even though Taiwan had restricted imports since 1985 and enacted