By Mia Goldstein

In the past few years AI has been more and more prevalent. This is especially true in performative and visual arts with AI actors, AI generated art, and most notably AI music. Some popular AI generated songs are Breaking Rust’s Walk My Way which topped Billboard charts and A Million Colors by Vinih Pray which became Tik Tok famous.

One of the main concerns about AI music is that it will take away jobs from real musicians. Artificial intelligence is able to generate songs in under 5 seconds which is crazy fast compared to how long it takes for someone to write, record, and edit songs. 

Many people can tell the difference when it comes to AI art or acting. Most people can’t tell whether a song is made by a person or artificial intelligence. A study conducted by French streaming service Deezer showed that 97 percent of people couldn't tell the difference between real and AI music. This is highly problematic because with AI being able to create human sounding music fast it will drown out the industry making it harder for real musicians to gain traction. 

Another problem people have with AI music is that artificial intelligence lacks the authenticity that real musicians have. Music made by musicians has depth and meaning because it’s made from an actual person while something made by AI has no heart or soul. Music is supposed to take effort and care but with ai music songs are made at the press of a button. 

Luna Anderson said, “I personally think that AI music is trash and has no creativity. I think AI should be for practical stuff but not for art. It can be used for editing vocal tracks and stuff but not as vocals.”

While AI in music sounds like bad news and in most ways it is, it can also be a helpful tool. For example, AI can help people edit their music or generate ideas. Instead of creating music AI could be used as a tool for artists. The Grammy winning Beatles's song Now and Then used AI to isolate John Lennon’s vocals from a demo from the 1970s. AI is also used by Grammy nominated artist Teddy Swims who uses it to help adjust vocals and fix lyrics. These are just some ways that AI can be used as a tool in music. 

While AI can be an incredibly powerful tool it can also be incredibly harmful. Using artificial intelligence to create music makes it harder for real artists to rise to the charts. Artificial intelligence also lacks the emotion that human made music evokes. Music is beautiful because it takes creativity and AI music doesn’t have that.