AI vs Music Composition

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the topic of AI has blown up online. My inbox and news feeds have been flooded by videos and discussions about AI and whether or not it is beneficial for our future. For a long time, the notion of an AI so advanced that it could create art has been a far off futuristic concept, not expected within our lifetime. And yet, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere (or maybe we just weren’t paying attention), the technology is seemingly almost there.

Just to steal a quote about ChatGPT from Wikipedia, it seems that…

“Although the core function of a chatbot is to mimic a human conversationalist, ChatGPT is versatile. For example, it can write and debug computer programs, compose music, teleplays, fairy tales, and student essays; answer test questions (sometimes, depending on the test, at a level above the average human test-taker); write poetry and song lyrics; emulate a Linux system; simulate an entire chat room; play games like tic-tac-toe; and simulate an ATM.”

Now, of course, at the moment the quality of the creative output, such as composing music or writing poetry, isn’t necessarily equivalent to that of ‘great artists’, and so, many people are saying that it is nothing to worry about. However, just because it can only create fairly low-grade art now does not mean that it cannot ‘learn’ how to create better art in the future, as the technology continues to advance.

I remember when I was still studying back in 2018, there was this composing competition by Folk RNN; a website that helps you generate folk music with the assistance of artificial intelligence. I didn’t do the competition because I was quite put off by the whole idea, and also, the quality of music outputted was so terrible to me, I couldn’t see the point of even trying. I have no idea whether Folk RNN has been at all improved since then, however it is startling to me that in under 5 years other artificial intelligence programs are starting to become more successfully ‘creative’.

And so, where does that leave us as creative people? We have likely all seen the videos where AI has imitated the work of real artists without giving credit, or has emulated the voices of famous singers almost perfectly. It seems that creative jobs aren’t all as safe as we thought they’d be, including something like music composition.

Therefore, I believe that our creative individuality and intuition is more valuable to us now that ever before. I have discussed in previous blog posts my enthusiasm for intuitive composition over and above strict methodologies (such as pitch sets or tone rows), since I have always found that the music more specifically represents the composer who has created it. It leads them to develop their own compositional voice and individual sound world, whereas, often strict methodologies are a surefire way to sound the same as someone else who is also following a similar set of rules.

Now the concern isn’t only in regards to sounding the same as someone else, but also because rules are what AI thrives on. It isn’t hard to believe that AI would be able to reproduce or ‘create’ its own music using the pitch sets that have been programmed into it, right? The more methodical, technical, and academic our approach to composing is, the more easily AI could copy what it is that we are doing. Instead we need to disband with the rules and become unconfined, chaotic creatives that cannot be so easily plagiarised… in the hope that AI won’t be able to catch up with us.

And yet, on a more serious note, as the increased prevalence of technology and AI seeps into our lives, our intuition and individual human spirit or experience is one of the few things that will always set us apart. It is a core aspect of how we communicate, interact, relate, and create, and so is something that we should use to our advantage, rather than disregarding it in favour of machines.

It is easy to always prioritise and favour progression on all fronts believing in all the wonderful things that can come out of a new idea. Yet, in doing that we cannot fail to recognise everything that could be lost as a result of these big changes. For, if we don’t protect our industries and creative skills, we might one day be looking at a future that is without everything that makes the world beautiful and life enjoyable.

And to be honest, who can say that AI won’t turn out to be our modern day version of Frankenstein’s monster?
A ‘successful’ experiment with fatal consequences….