The dangers of Artificial Intelligence have been trumpeted loud and long, with stark warnings about job losses due to AI automation, increased social surveillance and – eventually – self-aware AI that brings about the end of humanity as we know it.
As far as music goes, artists have been quick to warn of dangers to their livelihoods as companies explore the possibility of training AI models to replace real-life musicians with ones they don't have to pay royalties to.
“Some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rightsholders", read an open letter signed last month by The Cure's Robert Smith, R.E.M., Peter Frampton and many more. "When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music and our livelihoods.”
If you're looking for an example of the kind of thing they're talking about, look no further than Dipping My N*ts In The Boss's Cup Of Coffee, an AI-generated single produced by Cubicle Riot, an AI-generated band. It's a lively slice of Sunset Strip glam that sounds like it could have come out in 1984 – think Ratt's Steven Pearcy fronting Poison – and it comes from YouTuber Duck Fuss, who claims to be a provider of "100% serious AI tracks."
Dipping My N*ts In The Boss's Cup Of Coffee and its follow-up, I Need To Let My Hog Breathe, clearly aren't 100% serious, and it's possible, of course, that they're not actually generated by AI at all, but by real-life life musicians pretending to be AI, which, given the state of the internet in 2024, is almost as likely.
But, taken at face value – with AI-generated music today as bad as it's ever going to be – it can only be a matter of time before AI is capable of producing music that's virtually indistinguishable from Faster Pussycat or the Bullet Boys. And that should concern us all.
