A.I. Songwriting Has Arrived. Don't Panic (I disagree)

Fortune ^ | October 25, 2018 | Dan Rielly

[DoodleBob]

“IT’S CHEATING.” That’s the response you’ll hear from self-proclaimed music purists talking about technological innovation in song creation. Sampling, synthesizers, drum machines, Auto-Tune—all have been derided as lazy ways to make chart-topping hits because they take away the human element. (With apologies to Vanilla Ice, Gary Numan, Prince, and T-Pain.)

The new argument among fans and musicians will be about the use of artificial intelligence in songwriting. According to several estimates, in the next decade, between 20% and 30% of the top 40 singles will be written partially or totally with machine-learning software. Today, recording pros can use A.I.-powered programs to cue an array of instrumentation (from full orchestral arrangements to hip-hop beats), then alter it by mood, tempo, or genre (from heavy metal to bluegrass). (See more ways A.I. is changing how people work on page 96.)

[DoodleBob]

From a profitability perspective, it makes total sense to have Arianna Grande sing songs written by a robot vs a human: the bot won't have to be paid royalties. Indeed, insofar as many pop entertainers don't write their own material, I suspect we'll see more and more of this happening in the years to come.

I'm not a pop music consumer, and almost all of the new music I consume come from local bands playing at the local pub. Thus, I don't think AI-driven compositions will infect my library anytime soon. I also doubt a robot can beat Beethoven's 9th or Spanish Castle Magic, Take the A Train, or Green Grass and High Tides Forever.

That said, I'm in the minority. I do wonder how this will impact society at large. And what if someone somewhere realizes that a series of notes in a specific combination can have a dulling impact on people?

Naahhh...I'm over-reacting...what can possibly go wrong?

[Rastus]

Music is trash now. The robots can’t be any worse.

[wally_bert]

I’ll stick with Patrick Williams and Dave Grusin TV tunes.

[bk1000]

AI is nothing but synthesizers. AI will never play a panty dropping guitar solo.

[KarlInOhio]

From 1984:

The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound.

[Jonty30]

The music industry will just hire song doctors to polish up the lyrics, but So will write the raw material

[Dr. Sivana]

"'It was only an 'opeless fancy,
It passed like an Ipril dye,
But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred,
They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!'"

Orwell wasn't really a science fiction writer in the pure sense, and if anything, he underestimated the ubiquity of surveillance screens. He never thought that spy drones wouldn't have to be manned either.

He did see the rewriting of history (only not anticipating that screens, rather than paper would be the archive retrieval system). And above you see the A.I. pop music for the proles that he foresaw.

[Rastus]

Oh, I figured they’d be handling the lyrics. Guitar solos don’t exist in modern mainstream music.

[sparklite2]

Did you know the Mars Rover wrote a song?

---

A Mars Rover's Lament

All day I faced the Martian waste without the taste of water;
cool water.

At JPL the jerks at work sip Evian: I die for water;
cool clear water.

The nights are cold and I've been told each star's
a pool of water; cool water.

But with the dawn I'll switch back on
and MastCamBate for water; cool water.

Load an infra-scan; exploration is the plan;
you're a robot not a man and the broken rocks can stand for water; cool clear water.

MRO, can't you see that big green tree
where water's runnin' free and it's waiting there for

Error. Stack overflow.

[newfreep]

Don't forget Bob James' "Angie" - the theme from "Taxi" and featured the late, great Eric Gale on guitar.

[plain talk]

Machines will fully create and perform music - autonomously Humans will still do their thing with AI assist. They will coexist. However there is no money in the music business anymore anyway unless you are a mega star. Music has increasingly become a utility that you buy to perform a function.

I do find AI intriguing and can imagine getting an assist to write super complex music aka Zappa on steroids. Sure most AI music will be slop for the masses but there may be some exceptions. Who knows?

[Secret Agent Man]

Thank God, I dont want anything around me that causes panties to drop. Jut dont need the trouble.

[MrEdd]

There is still money in music.
But the pie is sliced into ever so many more pieces.
And those who perform well in live venues get the biggest pieces.

Basically, music has returned to how things were before radio and recordings.

Exactly as it was predicted in the nineties.

[Celerity]

In all fairness, t-pain introduced it.

[doorgunner69]

Well, heck, why not? No one plays instruments these days, so why not computer generated songs to go with it?

All digital, all the time./

[Theoria]

[The Toll]

AI compositions would be 1000x for passionate than anything the piece of garbage Millennial drones have produced.

[ronnie raygun]

The music industry died when corporations took hold, just listen to the crap their hocking today

[ronnie raygun]

The music industry died when corporations took hold, just listen to the crap their hocking today

[BigEdLB]

I need to go get my guitar and show all of you....