Dead Heretic

You may not have heard about a dude calling himself Jack Righteous, but quite a few have. Jack is a big proponent of AI music and even has a petition out there on Change.org calling for AI music to be kept available as a response to lawsuits that have been levelled at companies like Suno. I have chosen to respond to Righteous because he is one of the few people with enough passion to actually speak out in defence of AI music. He wrote a post on his blog entitled Defend AI Music Creation, in which he lays out a few arguments. It is these I am going to be responding to in this article. There has been a development arch of new technologies in music, and it is that which Righteous addresses in classing AI music generators as just another tool for musicians. In arguing this, he attempts to categorise AI generators in the group as Digital Audio Workstations, MIDI technology and even synthesisers. This argument is fundamentally flawed and I am surprised anyone would attempt to make such claims about AI in music.

The technologies listed, DAW’s, synths, and so on have one glaring, fatal difference to AI. In each, the artists are using the technology to refine and produce music which the artists have written themselves and played. They may be also using the tech on music someone else has written for them, such as a cover song, but they have still played the music and they have still created the sounds on real instruments. None of this is true for AI generators. The person using AI is not writing anything. It is the AI which is doing the work. Even the voices are, in a lot of cases, AI generated. Righteous’ claim that AI is a tool like a synthesiser is simply untenable and false.

Righteous follows up by claiming that AI music “[democratises] the creation process”. The emphasis here seems to be on the ideal of treating all people equally, a meaning of the word that only the Merriam-Webster dictionary lists. That aside, Righteous is using a word that sounds good and appeals, but is completely missing the point of a skill-based market.

Not all skills should be “democratised”. Some skills are in the hands of a select, well-trained group for a very good reason. By way of example, please imagine with me that you have a chronic heart problem that requires surgery on your heart. You got to the hospital, meet the surgery team and they fill you in on what to expect. It is not a risky operation and you are feeling good. The staff are professionals and you are going to be fine. On the day, the nurses and doctors prep you for surgery and you are wheeled into the theatre. There, by the tray of tools, in the lead surgeons place, you find yourself looking at me. Conveniently, you notice I have ChatGPT open, and it has helpfully listed a step-by-step process for performing the operation you need. I have little doubt you would not be hanging about to see what happens. My point here is that if there are some skills that should never be democratised as Righteous would like to see done with arts, then democratising skills is not always a good thing. One might argue, in the case of the arts, democratising artistic skills through AI is desirable. However, contrary to some opinion, generative AI does nothing to support the arts, but rather cheapens it. The flood of AI images and, increasingly, music and videos, has pushed real artists onto different platforms. It has also, in some cases, pushed their customers to the same platforms. Also, with art now flooding the market, the laws of the market will dictate a drop in price for real art in order to compete. Recently, Tik Tok axed a few hundred jobs in Singapore because AI could do the same thing. To say AI has no effect is, at best, wilfully ignorant.

My interpretation of the argument we need to “democratise creation process” is simply an argument for people to avoid the years of hard work and graft it takes to hone real artistic skill. If someone wants to be treated equally in the music industry, then they should actually pick up an instrument, (I recommend a banjo), and actually spend the required time learning it, practising it and developing their skills with it. Using AI is merely a short cut that reduces the so-called “musician” to “user”. AI is pure, unadulterated laziness and nothing more. Unlike Mark Knoefler, I have not spent years with fingers bleeding to learn the guitar. That is why he is a guitarist and I am not. He is a musician and I am not. And AI will never change that fact.

Support this petition to ensure AI remains a tool for everyone, not just the elite.

The quote above is by Jack Righteous on PRLog, referring to the petition mentioned above. As a trained linguist, I find the language Righteous uses suggestive of his opinions and beliefs. Here, he is referring to musicians as “the elite”. While the word has a positive meaning in some cases, such as ““elite forces”, Righteous juxtaposes “elite” against “everyone”. The New York Times, as far back as 2008, noted the word “elite” is now a pejorative term and it is likely Righteous is using in that sense to refer to real musicians.

At the very best, Righteous’ arguments in favour of AI music fall flat. He also has a vested interest in keeping AI available, as he is actually trying to sell music on Bandcamp. Along with weak arguments and a vested interest in the issue, the whole petition and position of generative AI in music is looking even weaker.

Photo by Luke Jones on Unsplash.