Thanks for your optimistic view, Russ. It’s true that NOW, we humans are still in the game, but the thing that worries me is the sheer pace of improvement for AI. As the massive investment in AI continues, what we see is almost monthly improvements in the little details that make AI content easily seen or heard.

Compare today’s results with only six months ago, and it’s night and day . Another six months, another huge leap forward. It’s truly scary to think of three years down the road. AI content basically didn’t even exist three years ago. Now it’s already up to casual commercial use and a huge chunk of commercial illustration is being farmed out to AI rather than human illustration.

I know at the very high end of the industry the edge that human creativity gives will always have value, but the industry as a whole survives on a far more prosaic level. For every John Williams, there are hundreds (thousands!) composing for local commercials, video game soundtracks, YouTube content and so much more. Destroy the base of the industry, where does the NEXT John Williams come from?

We’ve seen the results of studios getting replaced by home computer based creation, and despite some standouts (Jacob Collier springs to mind as a talented ‘bedroom studio’ success) the end result has been a decline (IMO) of the quality not only of songwriting but particularly the quality of pop arranging and recording. And sadly, the popular acceptance of this lowered standard.

The thing that worries me about AI is the popular acceptance of the lowered standard that AI will bring. I’ve always felt art is a pyramid. To reach high up, it needs a broad base. Destroy the broad base, where is the peak going to go? The shared knowledge that thousands of lesser creatives bring is a springboard for the best of us. How do we think we can lift up another DaVinci or Art Tatum if there is no community to raise them?

Right now AI is a fun tool, but it careens onward at breakneck speed, and a day is coming where we won’t be needed. Like the craftsmen of old who got replaced by mass produced goods (it’s almost impossible to find craftsmen nowadays that can hand duplicate the best of the 18th and 19th centuries), are we heading for a world where composers and musicians will be a rarity?