The topic of AI in music ain’t going anywhere. But how worried should we really be? According to jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, not very.
Artificial intelligence is, of course, a very broad subject, and there’s undoubtedly areas of music that will benefit, and others which will be negatively affected. AI as a means to expedite creative workflows, for example, good, while AI-generated tracks flooding streaming platforms and diluting royalty pools? Not so good.
In a new interview in the latest issue of Prog magazine, Metheny makes clear his measured position on AI, and tries to quell the “fear and anxiety” many musicians have about it.
“I’m all over it,” he says. “Curious and excited. I hear a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety, but I see AI as part of this wonderful array of tools we musicians have available in the 21st century.”
A major concern for established music artists is the idea that their sonic likeness is being used to train AI without adequate compensation or licensing.
“They’ve already done it,” Metheny continues. “But if I type my name in then what I hear back is… well, they can’t really copy a lot of that stuff yet. Okay, there’s a threat to the paying-the-rent part of music for sure. The guys who write muzak – man, they’re done.
“But I got into music so that I can understand it more, and there’s no shortcut to understanding harmony and counterpoint and improvisation.”
He concludes: “The key thing about AI is that it’s still searching and there’s something missing. It’s like if you ask a musician to define ‘soul’, or you ask a neuroscientist to define ‘consciousness’. They can’t do it.”
Metheny’s comments were echoed recently by Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, who is currently writing the score for a movie about ChatGPT makers OpenAI. “I don’t think it’s possible for AI to make soulful music,” he said.
In other AI news from the industry, singer-songwriter superstar Charlie Puth was recently announced as Chief Music Officer at AI music platform Moises.
Announcing his new position at the company, Puth noted the importance of ethics when it comes to AI in music: “AI, when done right, isn’t here to replace musicians. It’s here to help artists learn, explore and bring their ideas to life,” he said.
Read more of the latest news about AI in music.
Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of MusicRadar, Guitar World, Total Guitar and Metal Hammer.
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