I. What Do I Really Think About AI and Music?
What do I have to say?
What do I feel?
This is not a technical breakdown of AI tools or a hot take about copyright. This is about something deeper—something that starts in the gut, not the brain.
Because when I think about AI creating music, I feel that something important will be lost. And I think that matters. Not just for me, but for anyone who’s ever found healing or connection through sound. If music is a human-to-human and an internal self communication, what happens when one side of that equation is missing? In my opinion, nothing good.
II. The Thing About Music
Music is powerful for its instantaneous effects on our bodies and minds. The timbre of sound is perhaps the most fast acting on our brains (read more about the incredible power of timbre here). You know this already. You’ve felt it. A single chord, a certain harmony, a rhythm—suddenly your body changes, your emotions shift. It’s an ancient primal evolved trait.
But music is also powerful in another way.
It’s communication. Not just sound—it’s someone saying something.
It’s humanity captured in vibrations.
There’s intent. Someone created this music in a specific moment for a reason. Maybe they couldn’t say it out loud, maybe they didn’t even fully understand it, but it mattered enough to make.
And I believe that intent matters.
Permit a short digression:
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts.
This Buddhist verse underscores how intention and choices shape our being and experience.
Intent changes everything. That’s why there’s a different punishment for murder and manslaughter…same result, but different intent. Humans rely on intent and it is a crucial part of our lives and that’s why it’s important to music.
III. So What Happens When There’s No Intent?
With AI-generated music, you lose intention.
Yes, the music can sound amazing (same results). In fact, it’s wild how good AI already is.
But here’s what we want to believe AI can’t do in the realm of music:
- Human-to-Human Communication
AI music isn’t a message from one person to another. It’s not someone reaching out, needing to say something. But I readily admit a strange thing—listeners may not care. We’re really good at filling in the blanks. Our minds may simply fill in a “person” behind the sound even when we know it’s just code.
Perhaps we’ll reason, “Well, it was trained on love songs, and songs about loss and pain so in some way doesn’t the AI understand heartbreak?”
No. Current AI doesn’t “understand”. But it will mimic our own behavior back to us so convincingly that we will believe AI has had its non-existent heart broken. I think that despite the fundamental hollowness of the music, many people will connect with it anyway.
- Creativity and Ingenuity? Sort of.
AI can replicate creativity. It can blend genres, write counterpoint, generate catchy hooks. It can even “innovate” by mashing together influences in ways no human thought to.
But let’s not confuse novel output with lived inspiration. - Live Performances? Why Not.
You could have a robot on stage. AI could design an incredible light show with holograms or screens. AI could build an AI avatar that performs better than a tired, jet-lagged human.
It might even be more compelling than most concerts.
That’s not science fiction anymore. - Fan Connection and Experience, But Scaled
AI artists could communicate with fans at scale. Every fan could have a “personal” relationship with the music. Imagine an AI that remembers your preferences, responds to your DMs, gives you a custom version of every album.
A real human can’t do that. An AI can.
So yeah—maybe AI has the upper hand.
It’s cheap. It’s fast. It’s scalable.
But could this be its weakness?
IV. When Art Becomes Too Easy
AI music may collapse under its own weight.
Because it’s not just that AI can make music—it’s that it can make millions of songs. On demand. At the click of a button.
Already, there are an estimated 43 million tracks added to streaming services every year. That’s over 120,000 new tracks per day. AI will blow past that number like it’s nothing.
We’re heading toward a flood. And in a flood, nothing feels precious.
We’ll drown in music.
And the paradox is this: The more music AI creates, the more some people will crave something real. A face they can talk to after the show. A body that made mistakes. A human.
V. AI Copies Faster Than We Can Live
Here’s a darker thought: as human musicians innovate—capturing the sounds, emotions, and tensions of their geography, politics, social dynamics, intimate and macro events, their relationships—AI will be watching. Listening. Learning.
A human might spend months writing a song after years of practice and effort honing their craft that reflects their reality.
AI will absorb that music and add it to its 120,000 data points that day and turn around churn out countless copycats in a day.
It won’t just be a few songs that sound similar to that original piece of true work from a musician—it will be an onslaught.
You create, and within hours, your art is assimilated into the machine and redistributed, optimized for virality. Faster than you can finish your next track.
What does “trendsetting” even mean when the system can outpace the trend before it’s a week old?
VI. AI Has No Conviction
No matter how feverishly someone types the prompt, there’s no conviction in AI music.
No “do or die” feeling. No risk. No sense that this song had to exist or the artist might’ve exploded.
There’s no struggle.
And maybe that’s the real line in the sand.
Yes, AI can mimic imperfections. It can insert tempo fluctuations, add vinyl hiss, even “forget” a lyric. But it’s just style.
It doesn’t care. It can’t.
For many audiences, that won’t matter. They’ll get their dopamine hit. They’ll move on.
But for others, the absence will be deafening.
VII. We Already Live Artificial Lives—Now We Want Artificial Art Too
Let’s be honest.
We already live in highly artificial environments.
Air-conditioned and heated, algorithm-curated, filtered, optimized, isolated.
Music may just be another step in this march towards artificial and away from how humans evolved.
I see this it’s affecting me, affecting us. Mental health is declining. Speaking from my observations, we are feeling more disconnected than ever. We’re already living lives decoupled from how we evolved—and now we’re decoupling our art too.
We are the experiment. And the results don’t look great.
VIII. AI-Everything Is Coming—Unless We Stop Worshipping Efficiency
Music. Work. Relationships. Beliefs.
All mediated, filtered, managed by AI.
Why?
Because it’s efficient.
It’s more efficient to click a button than to play an instrument.
More efficient to let an algorithm find you love than take a risk of going out.
More efficient to have an AI decide what you value.
But efficiency is not a virtue.
And if it becomes our north star, we will get lost.
IX. What We Might Still Have
There will always be some who want the real thing.
Real food. Real conversations. Real art. Real struggle.
But what happens when an entire generation grows up in a world where the artificial is normal, even preferable?
Where the idea of a flawed, unpredictable, sweaty artist seems strange?
I don’t hate AI. I’m not a Luddite.
But I do think we’re at a crossroads.
And I do think we need a new set of values.
Because right now, efficiency equals good.
I reject that.
I think that the hard way—the slower, messier, more human way—might just be the one worth keeping.
I’ve written a short book for composers that explores how music is organized and the roles it can play across the globe. The book is called Formative Forces in Sound. If you are interested, it’s available on Amazon here for $0.99 www.amazon.com/formativeforcesinsound