Will AI replace musicians & songwriters?

Excellent topic Emma! 🤘😎

I don't think AI can replace the connection between the artist and the audience, but it can hinder it. With AI replicating an artist's voice, style, etc, (not to mention how quickly it can spread on social platforms), the artist's original music can become less of a hallmark. The audience might consider originality less important than they do now. They might be impartial as to whether the music they listen to is real or AI, and the artist's name and the effort they put in to make music might become less valuable in their eyes. I think there might also be confusion when they attend live concert, as the artist will perform their songs, not the AI generated songs the audience might be used to. Sorry about my pessimistic perspective. In any case, it is a very interesting subject matter, and your video is great!

I ain't afraid of no 🤖

With things like Randy Travis (guys who still want to make music, but they have a handicap like can't speak) then I think AI is fine. But other than that, yeah, this is a dangerous can of worms we're opening up.

The passive listener already has the needed tools at their disposal. Pick a playlist in their favorite streaming service or a playlist they already have in their own music library. What would make AI generated music more compelling than the tools they already have? I'm not so certain here. Even in a passive scenario I think people will still gravitate to music made by people and not AI. That's where I 100% agree with the active/passionate listener scenario. Music is connection, emotion, feeling... it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Bottom line, music is human. AI will not compete with that. No matter how good AI gets at generating will anyone actually choose to consume it?

Is it possible when you asked AI to create a song about "AI taking over the world," it went into survival mode and purposely created something terrible to throw you off track? I keep hearing how AI can't replace our souls .... it's just a tool, etc.... Perhaps AI is becoming self aware like SkyNet in the T2 (Terminator 2) movie? I'm sure it will be fine. I'm old enough to remember watching the original Star Trek series and laughing at their ridiculous handheld wireless communicators and talking computers. You will be assimilated - Resistance Is Futile!

I shall answer your title question with a quote from hip-hop legend Grandmaster Melle Mel:

"Learn from the past, work for the future / And don't be a slave to no computer / 'cause the children of man inherits the land / And the future of the world is in your hands."

Thumbnail game is on point! Wish you the best Emma!

I dont think that connectivity with people at live shows will be an issue. I believe that, in the near future, AI will be able to simulate a person with their own story and personality, and perform in shows using technologies like holograms. This will allow for an immersive and personalized experience where the audience can interact and emotionally connect with the AI-created "persona," providing a new level of entertainment and engagement at live shows.

I would hope not. Not only is all of it trash, but the human element in art is too important. Your music's cool, but I follow you because of YOU. A computer's never going to get that loyalty.

AI will only replace the bottom of the barrel. If you’re highly unique individual? You shouldn’t have any problems. I’m looking forward to what AI is going to get rid of. 😂

Honestly, I think that what all songwriters should do at this point is to realize and then let people know that training AI music models with stolen data is illegal. We will have far less concerns when AI is driven back to legality. Udio and Suno are just a handful of people (<20): Is it not unbelievable? A few people jeopardizing the whole music industry, and making money out of our work? Not only it's illegal, it's also morally despicable.

So I heard Emma is offering to review people’s songwriting to dissuade them from using AI.

I write, perform, track, produce music art as a form of expression NOT business. So for artists, A.I. won't have much of a role unless used as a idea generator. But for "Music Business" that competes on efficiency and costs, I am guessing A.I. will dominate the TOP of the business charts because future generations who are moderate consumers of music will like the beat and not care or know about the artist behind it. So A.I. will fill their ears. But for about 10-20% of world population, art is appreciated. And so there will be small role for artists. My two cents.

AI music is generating similar tracks differently, there will be so much similar AI tracks on internet that there will be AI fatigue and true musicians will rise over it. people will seek for refreshing new music. the Music industry is already so homogenic that it is difficult to find real original music. Music bubble.

it is a proven fact that everyone's voice has it's unique print just like fingerprints. The way we create is unique as well. The only thing an AI can do is clone others. It has no style or personality of it's own In that regard it's public domain at best and illegal use at worst.

You are right about that my friend Emma. That AI is bad at Lyric Writing sadly. I write my music and been doing it since 2018. If I ever did put an Ai song out there from Suno Ai. I make sure its good Audio. But remember Emma. Artists can do live shows. But Ai can't. As of right now. But I get what you're saying Emma. It Skippy The Evil Clown from YouNow.

Problem is: modern pop music is so so bland, AI won't sound out of place in pop. Same chords same chorus same arrangement.. AI will walk it. record companies will love not dealing with musicians, artists, managers.

Never had a connection with an artist.... And I know there are a lot of people out there who are having plenty of connection with their "AI girlfriends"... A connection with an artist sounds expensive... unless you mean, a one way connection.. is that actually a connection?? sounds like mass media.

But you are right, some people will definitely do there best to make sure that the art they enjoy is made by flesh and bone... (wonders if composing music/visual art/scripts/whatever with software counts as flesh and bone, if there are bones on keyboard..)

Connection is important, but you do not have to be an "artist" to have a following people who want to connect with you. When an AI can do your art better, but your followers will not listen/intake it because they will not let them selves "connect" with it..

I mean:
Can art be objectively better? If it can, AI will master it in time.
Is convincing a following of people that they can't have connection to AI therefore depriving them of "better" art.. wrong?
If you didn't have to worry about making money with you're art would you enjoy ai art more?

hmm. I've no clue.

Firstly Love your hair, I noticed its more of a money piece statement <3 but its just so refreshing your experience and navigation as a music artist with this new era along with A.I. Though typically this generative tech is getting a lot of side eye for how efficient it can produce material with an impressive timely fashion, the process is still not quite as unique as the human experience no matter how close they get with A.I. This reminds me of when I hear lyrics from an artist I can almost usually tell when its their writing, or if they employed someone for their writing despite the different theme/ climate of the song. Music is just fascinatingly beautiful <3 Thank you Emma !!! ^_^

For corporate purposes, yes, you are replaced.

To be honest I think this is a good thing. Play around with AI and you will understand how soulless most music is. It will force humans to be more creative to stand apart.

I think AI is going to help aid people more than replace them. I know why people think they'll get replaced, but I don't think so because I think people will still want to hear music from real songwriters and here them live as well. There are going to be people with no music talent who will enter the space and industry which is not bad to get more music. AI will help make things more easier for everybody.

What musicians inspired you? Do you pay all of them? If not, why should suno et al.?

Do musicians and composers claim that they learned their art without listening to anything that came before? Clearly not. They learned in exactly the same way that AIs are learning -- by studying what came before.

Yep! Already made several bangers.

From the AI tunes I've heard so far, NO.

AI will replace Musicians as much as all musical technology did, from flutes and drums, to electronic instruments, microphones, to synthesizers.. it expands what humans can do, and so humans do more.

AI learning from copyrighted songs is not really any different from humans doing the same thing. We all study and build upon existing material to create new art.

I'm actually not sure if AI will never have connection. I can imagine a future where AIs have personalities just like humans.

People learn on existing music too. Its ok, as long as you dont exactly replicate the source material. Even after that - people will call it cover and change a bit so it sounds differently.

While I feel the same in some ways, I am unsure if training on existing music in the world is unethical. The reason for this, you yourself trained on a lot of the existing music in the world without payment or even credit to all of your influences, mostly because that would be impossible. Given that, why should another form of intelligence, even a human made one not be allowed to learn in the same way.

To be clear, I am not sure I like it, it is just at the same time I really can't point to what I don't like about it in a reasonable way.

The thing is humans also learn from existing data. All the music a musician has heard growing up is certainly not ignored when making your own music. So not sure if copyright says much about it, is the creation that comes out is a new creation.

I like to old fashion way of imperfect people creating and performing

Happy Birthday Emma. I wish everyone a happiest of birthday's and also I believe that no matter what age we turn in 2024 that everyone should celebrate it in any way that they want to and have it with friends and family.

@EmmaMcGann do you have a wonderful birthday the day

Based on what I am hearing from UDIO songs, AI could replace pop musicians right now. Pop music sounds so artificial nowadays anyway that you cannot tell the difference between AI created pop and human created pop. The pop songs I am hearing from the staff picks are better than human created pop songs. And the songs will get even better every single second of every single day as AI keeps learning. But again, it has already reached the point where it could replace human pop musicians today. We've already reached that point based on what I am hearing.

As a composer, producer, and studio musician, the whole thing has gotten me pretty down these days – because the kind of work I do in music is not predicated on the direct-to-artist relationship (rather, I am more behind the scenes and in the studio). However when I was younger I did tour as a live drummer and while it was fun, it was also incredibly difficult and unsustainable – playing small shows after driving 10 hours, only to walk away with 50 bucks after split with the venue/door/bandmates, most of which ends up having to go toward food/lodging/gas. You're lucky to come home after a 30-day tour with any profit at all, breaking even is almost the most you can hope for (also if you're a backing musician you most likely do not get a split of merch sales at the show). So unless you're already established on a larger scale playing at massive venues with label support, making your living as solely an independent live musician (especially if you're a backing/hired musician) is incredibly difficult. This is why the argument that "AI will never replace live music" is a tricky one because for many of us, live music wasn't even viable to begin with – which is why I found my home in the studio.

I worry that since most people are passive listeners, the idea of a "connection with an artist" will begin to fade in importance, thus making it even harder for less established indie artists to move the needle (and even get people to come see their live shows!). Like yourself I really like to take a stand for the craftsmanship – and I feel like being able to generate a bunch of songs from a text prompt not only greatly devalues the craft of music and songwriting, but is also a completely different "skillset" which more closely resembles writing for marketing (stringing out variations of words to prompt AI with for several outputs) than it does any music skills at all. The future "musician" may never play an instrument in their life, instead creating songs via keywords, and at the risk of sounding like a gatekeeper of some sorts, I passionately feel this is not what creating music is about. I want to listen to artists who struggled and took their time to write a song, because that is real – not a bunch of generic outputs which were created in minutes with minimal effort.