Guy Chambers, long-time collaborator of Robbie Williams and hitmaker who worked with the likes of Kylie Minogue, has expressed his apprehension regarding AI's increasing relevance and usage within the music industry.
During a music apprenticeship talk at the Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies in Nottingham, Chambers told The Guardian that AI's potential as a replacement for songwriters like him is "terrifying."
Chambers, one of the UK's bestselling pop songwriters who has worked for and with Mark Ronson, Anastasia, and Katie Melua, also said there might come a time when a disclaimer saying "this is an all-human record" would be necessary due to how fast the technology is improving.
"Any person could put into an AI program something like 'I want a song 100 BPM that sounds like a cross between Abba and Arctic Monkeys,'" the songwriter said, as an example. "And some music will be created and it will be pretty good."
However, other established platforms like YouTube are taking the route opposite of Chambers' apprehension of AI and even announced an experiment with the technology last year.
Current AI Integrations in the Music Industry
Last November 16, YouTube officially released an announcement introducing its upcoming AI system called "Dream Track," a generative tool intended to produce "custom-made" tracks for utilization in its Shorts medium.
The system is its collaborative project with Google DeepMind that allows users to input prompts like: "a ballad about how opposites attract," and it will proceed to churn out a Charlie Puth-like track about exactly that topic, as can be seen in its announcement video below.
Puth and T-Pain join Demi Lovato, Charli XCX, and John Legend as artists who have approved the usage of their voices and styles in the project, which YouTube has since given out to "a small group of select US creators" to be tested in their shorts.
Of the recent integration, YouTube's Global Head of Music Lyor Cohen said: "With any new technology, we have to approach it responsibly. And that's not lost on us."
"It starts by recognizing that artificial intelligence is meant to amplify human creativity, not replace it," he added.
That said, in Chambers' talk last week, he expressed his worries that this innovation might influence the newer generation of musicians negatively and make them "lazy" despite the benefits and "incredible tie-ins with AI" that are still inconceivable even now.
In contrast, he advised young musicians to "be flexible" and build as many varied competencies as they could and even encouraged them to develop "very personal skills," citing "charm and hustle" among others.
Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies Founder Craig Chettle chimed in on the conversation, saying that AI "can be used as a force for good to enhance music" through its ability to reduce the tedium in repetitive and laborious parts of the music-making process.
However, he also said that "there is no substitute to doing it for real," which the Confetti Institute encourages through its recording studios and live events facilities, one of many ways the organization is exploring to help indigent musicians alongside providing higher education courses.
