AI Music Trends

Before the 1950s, a kitchen cabinet or a dining table was often the work of a local carpenter or a specialized regional workshop. Today, most modern "wood" furniture is produced via CNC machines and automated laminating lines. While we lost the "heirloom", human made, artisinal quality of solid wood joinery, the precision of modern factory furniture is so high that most people don't notice the lack of hand-tooling. Not to mention it’s orders of magnitude cheaper.

It’s a philosphial debate largely. If you can’t tell if a track was made by a “human musician, skilled at their craft, carefully conveying chosen emotion through the medium of sound” or an AI, then who cares?

People already barely want to pay anything at all for music. The low royalty payments for artists are not because Spotify is evil, it’s because of that fact. If people were willing to pay as much for a month of music as they are for a month of NFL football (via a cable package or YouTube TV subscription ~80 dollars), it would be a very different conversation.

In 2048, there will be a place for niche, “artisinal”, human made music, sure, the same way there is still the same for furniture. In fact, the prices people are willing to pay for this will be much higher than they are now, following the same principles. But 95% of the world will have moved on.

I say this as a musician, who was trained in music, a composer, a recording artist with published works (though none profitable!).

The writing’s on the wall. See you in 2048!