How do you think AI will affect this industry?

It’ll destroy us. There will be a chat bot version of a DAW, you tell it what to do and 10 seconds later it spits out a mix, you give feedback and it makes revisions till you’re happy. And it will be good, very good, and faster than any human.

I know some people will say, “but it’ll have no soul, only a human could mix a song with emotion” etc. But no, AI will figure it out. We have begun the exponential ascent of AI. We’re still in the infancy of everything, but in 5 years?

Same applies to songwriting, singing, etc etc.

screw college go into the trades. Or get an associates in business, take an online digital marketing course and build your own business as a plumber/welder/GC/any trade really. Not enough people doing any of that and AI isn't about to start building houses. Designing yes, but not building. Easily become a self made millionaire with those and never be out of work. 




Otherwise, yeah, I bet it'll replace just about everything other than recording. Anything that involves physical interaction. Robots are still a long ways off I think. But imagine in my life time they will start to become more common. 

I've already written a lot on the topic in other discussions here. Not much else to add. In short, hundreds of emerging technologies are about to radically change the world. Mostly for the better. Modern AI is already creating singers and songs. It will rapidly get more sophisticated. With things like the trades, we've got 3d printing and all sorts of new construction tech that will radically cut costs while increasing efficiency and quality. At the same time that jobs are automated, resources and everything else related to necessities grows in abundance. The need to work will start to drop significantly along with prices. We'll have a lot more control over our time. With studios, it will start with AI doing some basic stuff before it gets to the point where it's extracting the nonlinear qualities from hardware and tape perfectly and then allowing you to use them however you wish. You'll just tell it what to do for the most part. Like if Acustica's methods were completely accurate. I could see them adopting tech like that before the average user ends up being able to do the same thing.

There are videos on Youtube about our "on demand society". That will only grow. People with bands will be able to buy digital versions of people. You want Slash in your band, only $99 for the algorithmic audio-only version. You want the full immersion VR Slash that will interact with you as if the real Slash was there, that's $999. People will go in and jam with their AI VR fantasy bands and then record using 1:1 copies of hardware and new AI devices that are a combination of several hardware pieces, like a Pensado Eq. That's if they even want to record and mix and all instead of just having the AI spit something out. AI will also be able serve as a producer, like an AI of Bob Rock and then some new producer characters created by the AI. Like I've said before, I think human-created music will become a genre of its own. But there will come a day when no one can tell them apart. Already the songs that most heavily use AI blend in very well.

We're only one year out from 2025 and that's a big year with forecasters. 1995 had some game-changing stuff happen that most people didn't see coming.

We’ve gone past the point of truly beneficial returns from technology of this kind.

Everything is past starting to plastic, now it’s starting to sound like artificial sweetener complete with the bitter saccharine after-taste.
[old man shaking fist at clouds warning]
This kind of AI will probably be embraced by the 20-somethings that want to create ‘magic’ in 20 minutes so they can get back to another 4 hour fortnight marathon in their parents’ basements.
[/old man rant over]

That's a very good point. But it also means the music 'trade' becomes far more selective as only the most gifted and instantly able can enter. The threshold for our craft is set at expert level, leaving no room or time for those who are truly gifted but a little slower fine-tuning their craft to gain any traction at this profession.

I suspect AI will crumble society overall. It will take awhile, but I believe it's coming. The less we have to "work" the worse society becomes. On the music front it's already happening. "Music for Hire" will be the first hit. Commercials, music for TV and media, Films, etc.. Artists will eventually be hit as well. We'll see how it shakes out, but I don't have high hopes.

Interestingly, on a recent electronics design question, ChatGPT "got it wrong". When confronted with the error, it apologized, then gave a second answer that also contradicted standard procedure. When confronted again, it again apologized and went back to the initial error. So.....it's not perfect yet. We can only hope that it reaches it's zenith quickly and becomes "just another tool", as opposed to keeper of the universe.

You and I took similar paths and I am still a "dog for work"

If a person is a creative person then it won't effect them at all.

If a person is a "painting by numbers" person then AI just might "paint by better numbers"

I consider myself a very creative person and critically - genuine creativity isn't the result of intelligence.
Even I don't understand how I do what I do - I remain amazed myself as to where creativity comes from - 
it's wonderfully mysterious and magical - as it should be.

Therefore I'm not even remotely bothered by AI.

Quite the opposite, I hope as many people as possible turn to AI's to provide their creative output.
It will make genuinely creative people even more unique and stand out.

The question of how it will affect the industry is maybe all and all a bit misleading. Not everything within the “industry” is connected, competing or gravitating towards the same goal or market. The needs and requirements of a nashville singer songwriter production vs. an edm one hit wonder or purely commercial sound scape for a car ad or burger joint commercial or voice overs for an educational clip is like talking apples and oranges. There are sectors where it will have a very beneficial role and sectors where it will not appear in any role.

While the AI and digital platforms have developed, there has been a simultaneous throwback into the appreciation of analog and lets say “historical” producing. It’s a similar polarization we can see in numerous contexts across our society from politics to various industries of heritage in artisan craftsmanship. A broader use of AI will likely and hopefully contribute in an active counter culture in terms of cheap mass production vs custom artisan work. It’s just an already existing gap that just broadens.

Interesting observation regarding the lyrics. I have looked at some ai generated lyrics and sure they do not vary too much from top selling pop chart today. Just as substance-less and generic.

There is you see one thing the AI will never have, which (at least for me) is the sole and only reason to listen to and create music. It will never have a story to tell.

A lot of unnecessary fear mongering amplified by the media regarding AI when ChatGPT made such an initial splash. The letter a bunch of smart people signed stating we needed to pause for 6 months to be safe was nothing more than them wanting time to catch up and grab some marketshare in my opinion. The AI generated music is a joke, pictures regularly have people with 6 fingers. Nothing high quality at all.

It is interesting though and at some point could maybe speed up some of the mundane tasks but replacing the magic that is human creativity...I don't think so. Now, the question becomes, does the general public any longer care about or appreciate true art or creativity? That, I'm not so sure about. I doubt AI gets so much better, it will just be a matter of if people think it's good enough. The best AI music I heard was the imitation of Drake but Drake already doesn't sound like a human so it's not that impressive overall.  At the same time he's one of the most popular artists of this generation so maybe people don't care?  Standards across society, not just in music have been lowered and lowered for quite a while now. I mean how many times can you go out now and not see someone wearing pajama pants in public? 🤣


Now on the creepy side of AI, where I really think it is going to take off is as a product for loneliness. An awful lot of lonely people out there, still mentally scarred from the covid era amongst other things that are going to have very confusing/odd "relationships" with some form of AI. That part does worry me. I'm glad I grew up when I did.