I think I speak on behalf of all musicians when I say AI is extremely intimidating. Half of us are scared to lose our jobs to it, and the other half are still trying to figure out an ethical way to use it. While it can be a useful tool, it’s important to know your way around it before trying it out. As an artist, you need to understand that your listeners want to listen to you - not a bunch of randomly generated words. Your soul and humanity are what help you connect with your audience, and stripping that away from your music will more likely hinder your success than help it.
AI can be used in many different ways, particularly for people who struggle with structure and arrangements while writing. It can be a foundation upon which you build your song but not a tool on which you are fully reliant. Your ability to make music should never fully depend on AI due to its unpredictable nature. You have to picture it as a helper to achieve your vision - meaning you need to have the reigns in your hands at all times. it can also be used to create metadata which makes music discovery easier for listeners (and it's also a pain to do by yourself).
On the other hand, I'm sure we're all aware that AI is a threat to our jobs as musicians. Numerous platforms and apps have popped up offering services like full song generators, voice changers and other extremely intuitive software programs. This is a growing issue due to how AI uses a black box of information from everywhere to randomly generate anything based on the instructions given. This means the original author of a particular melody or lyric won't be credited if that melody gets generated by someone else. This is causing a huge international debate about copyright and intellectual property.
It's important as musicians (especially women!) to be educated about every possible threat to our intellectual property and our art. Knowing the pros and cons of these technological developments can protect us from being taken advantage of and keep us in control of our careers. With all these powerful resources at our fingertips, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, but you only need to use what you feel comfortable with. If it doesn't feel right to you, don't use it. Your brand is based on your values, and those values should be unbending, regardless of trends and technology. That's what helps people relate to you, so stay true to it.
Artificial Intelligence, in general, needs to be handled with precaution - it's fairly new, so we have no idea of the long-term effects on the music industry. But as our artists, our goal should be to protect our intellectual property and keep striving for a more even playing field in our industry. At the same time, it's important to be adaptable to new technological changes in the industry which can take our creativity and innovation to the next level.
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