Taking Over AI

AI is inevitable and social media is ever-growing. The question is, as creatives, can we regulate the presence of AI within the creative industry?

The concept of AI

AI was created for the purpose of ‘problem-solving abilities’, eliminating human flaws. AI supports us in many fields such as economically- maintaining the standards within long labour work, curating out-of-the-box ideas, gathering research and data, refining and polishing work, and socially- providing companions, friendly and romantically.

Culturally, artists and creators use AI to forward their projects and take the visual aspect beyond the original thought…and it is much more easy to grasp, accessible for many and convenient.Right?

It is a growing concern of many, that AI will eventually overtake certain careers like ‘data entry, basic customer service (chatbots), telemarketing, and assembly line work, as well as routine content creation (writing/editing), bookkeeping, and paralegal research, impacting roles in finance, media, and logistics.’ It could also be an influence into the unfortunate decline in employment in the UK today. The more AI replaces human-filled roles, the more it is harder for people to get work. When applicants submit their resumes for a role, the primary screening is performed by AI that approves key words, skills and experience, matching the job description. Yes, this process aids the employers and makes the process much more efficient but however, it majorly disadvantages the applicants as they are held to a standard of spending more time refining and de-humanising their resumes and searching & applying to multiple jobs in a sitting. This ‘simple’ concept is a catalyst to the epidemic of unconcern.

AI is supposed to help artists have time for creation, not to be the artists.

The problem with the evident ‘unconcern’ the world is suffering from, is that everyone has an attitude of ‘I don’t owe you anything’, which means that people have a lack of patience for what an AI service can do faster. This eventually affects every aspect of life, whilst increasing the expectancy in higher standards.

As we all know, the music industry has developed far since the early 2000’s. Without the total elimination of record labels, stardom has become much more accessible through platforms like TikTok and Instagram. This demolishes the ‘hierarchy’ of becoming a professional musician as the playing field spreads out and randomises the spikes of virality. In return, this makes it extremely difficult to be seen in the industry as everyone is pushing to align and define their art with the standards of the algorithm, de-valuing the concept of music-making. Our collaborator, Mina, explores this topic further as a musician herself on her blog, ‘How TikTok Changed The Way I Listen To (And Think About) Music’.

Clearly, artists are not happy that AI has found itself imbedded into the literal creation of music. To some, AI music seems to be more superior than human music due to the effectiveness in technical perfection and emotional arousal. AI gathers data on human emotions and what triggers certain emotions, paired with relatable lyricism and trendy-sounding instrumentals. Essentially, AI has the power to produce a perfect song that appeals to the masses through statistics and data. For example, artists formed as AI personas, are climbing the charts. Such as, ‘Breaking Rust’ topping the US Billboard Country Digital Sales with song, ‘Walk My Walk’ gaining millions of streams on Spotify. As well as Xania Monet a Gospel/RnB AI artist who signed to a major label after multiple singles charted. ‘Artists’ like this produces songs much more than a conventional artist can. It takes a month to several for a human artist to write, record and produce a song whereas it takes AI between 30 seconds to 2 minutes (maybe more to fine-tune production). That, combined with technical perfection and emotional arousal, creates the perfect catalog for the AI artist to move up ranks in the music industry. This will lead to the record label signing the creators of the AI artist which would lead to a much more easier path to cutting expenses whilst reaping in majority profit.

Overshadowing artists signed to record deals, facing dept and independent artists fighting to be seen on algorithm-leading platforms, whilst non-talented tech representatives sign deals with music execs. Still convenient right…?

let’s not replace or replicate, let’s innovate.

Do you believe AI could be regulated within the creative industry?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyvjye18e9o