There’s a lot of concern about how generative AI may affect the livelihoods of musicians, composers, and others working in music creation. However, the introduction of generative AI already has an historical parallel, which we can learn from.
For as long as most of us can remember we’ve used a term for the sector that makes music for commercial purposes, we’ve called it the Music Industry. However, the use of that term implies it can be compared to the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, which began in the late 18th century, marked a profound shift in the production and manufacturing of goods. It replaced the traditional agrarian and handcraft economy, where products were made by hand or with simple tools, with an industrial system characterised by machine-based manufacturing. This transformation was fuelled by advancements in technology, such as the steam engine and mechanised looms, which significantly increased production efficiency and output. As a result, goods that were once painstakingly crafted by artisans could now be mass-produced in factories, drastically changing the nature of both work and products. This shift not only revolutionised the British economy but also had lasting impacts on social structures and the global economic landscape.
When you consider the Industrial Revolution, the term Music Industry seems somewhat premature. After all, whilst it might be a global business, with millions of people involved, and generating billions in revenue, it hasn’t borne the hallmarks of true industrialisation. Until now.
As we consider new generative AI technologies, they bear far more of a resemblance to the tools that powered the Industrial Revolution. They offer automated creation of something, in our case music, on a large scale. What was once done by artisans, using skills developed over a lifetime, can now be done by a machine.
Industrialisation takes something that once took one person a day to make and has a machine do it in seconds. We’ve seen it happen to everything from car manufacturing to clothes. It’s a model based on scale, the more you can make, the cheaper it is. It fueled the consumer revolution, neither a Ferrari or a handmade suit was ever going to do it.
We’re All Doomed
At this point you may be feeling somewhat depressed. That is, if you accept that the only inevitable outcome of this story is that everything ends up being mass produced and our skills become irrelevant.
The great thing about history is that it also helps us to see how these things play out. Let’s take a look at another industry for comparison, the food industry, or to be more specific, eating out.
One of my favourite films is ‘The Founder’ starring Micheal Keaton. It’s a dramatised story of how McDonalds became one of the biggest fast food chains in the world. It’s worth a watch for several reasons, one being, seeing how the original founders industrialised the burger industry. Now you don’t have to drive far to find a McDonalds, wherever you are in the world. There are some cultural differences in the menu, depending on the country, but on the whole, wherever you are, you get exactly the same food. That’s the basic principle of industrialisation, you use a process to ensure the same thing comes out at the end, irrespective of who is working the machine. Burgers, jeans, iPhones, cars… almost anything can be industrialised. So if you want a Big Mac, you can have one.
But you can’t have a fillet steak, or a rack of lamb. You certainly can’t get Fleur de Courgette, stuffed with a luminous green mousse of herbs, mushroom and scallop and it won’t be an Orkney hand-dived scallop poached in girolle liquor. If you want to eat that then you need to visit Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. One of Britain’s top restaurants, owned by Michelin starred chef, Raymond Blanc.
Perhaps you know the punch line to this story?
It’s clear, almost anyone can flip a burger. That’s not to diminish those who do it as a job. It’s simply that the system has been designed that way, the outcome is not determined by the operator. But few can make food that earns them two Michelin stars, like Raymond Blanc. Few can also afford the food at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, after all, it’s some of the finest ingredients, prepared by some of the best chefs in the world, in a sublime setting.
The way we beat generative AI is to continue to be the artisans we’ve always been. To make original, captivating, beautiful music. However, one word of warning.
Flatpack Heaven… Or Hell
Another industrialised industry is home furnishing, and none more so than IKEA. I doubt there are few people reading this who don’t own something from IKEA. When I first furnished a flat with my wife we were so broke we not only bought IKEA furniture, we bought second hand IKEA furniture. You can buy almost anything for your home at IKEA, according to The BBC; “Now there are 60-odd million (Billy book cases) in the world, nearly one for every 100 people - not bad for a humble bookcase. In fact, so ubiquitous are they, Bloomberg uses them to compare purchasing power across the world.”
You can even buy art for your walls at IKEA. When I say art, I mean a print. Some of them are quite nice, they fill a void on a wall, but like AI, there’s nothing original about the art. It’s mass produced, it has almost no resale value, given enough time, and the staggering bookcase numbers, you will see it on someone else's wall sooner or later. It’s no Mona Lisa, but even if we exclude the idea of owning a masterpiece, as few of us will, it’s not the individual expression of an artist, it’s a hamburger in a frame.
As I said, when we first started out, our entire home was IKEA, however over time we realised, not a single item was something we could leave to a loved one when we die. It’s the kind of stuff that will end up in a skip, someone will be paid to clear the house! As the years have passed and we’ve managed to make more money, we’ve replaced the IKEA furniture, and the prints, with original furniture and art. Little by little we are making our home personal, with things that have been created by artisans. Things of beauty that won’t end up in a skip, that someone will cherish.
Why do I tell this story? It’s simple. If we choose to make music that can be industrialised, then we don’t have much of a future in music. If we make music that has our unique DNA and fingerprints all over it, nothing can replace it, not even AI, however well trained it is.
Do People Really Care?
Perhaps you are thinking, people don’t care about music, they’ll go for the industrial AI stuff. You are completely right, many will choose AI music, just like they choose a burger over a Michelin starred meal. I’ll sometimes choose a burger, but sometimes I’ll choose food prepared by people who care, who treat it like art, and I can tell the difference. Someone will always choose a Ford over a Ferrari, or a pair of Levi’s over a handcrafted suit. Both have their place, for both financial and aesthetic reasons, but both co-exist. Industrialisation doesn’t destroy art, it reminds us of the essential need for it. This is the moment when the artist can really shine, by avoiding the mediocre and creating something truly sublime and entirely personal.
Make no mistake about it, generative AI is about to industrialise the music making process, just as McDonalds did with burgers. You can’t stop it, but you can beat it. The only questions we need to ask, figuratively speaking, do we want to make burgers or Michelin starred meals?