Artificial Intelligence and Musicking

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) deployed for customer relationship management (CRM), digital rights management (DRM), content recommendation, and content generation challenge longstanding truths about listening to and making music. CRM uses music to surveil audiences, removes decision-making responsibilities from consumers, and alters relationships among listeners, artists, and music. DRM overprotects copyrighted content by subverting Fair Use Doctrine and privatizing the Public Domain thereby restricting human creativity. Generative AI, often trained on music misappropriated by developers, renders novel music that seemingly represents neither the artistry present in the training data nor the handiwork of the AI’s user. AI music, as such, appears to be produced through AI cognition, resulting in what some have called “machine folk” and contributing to a “culture in code.” A philosophical analysis of these relationships is required to fully understand how AI impacts music, artists, and audiences. Using metasynthesis and grounded theory, this study considers physical reductionism, metaphysical nihilism, existentialism, and modernity to describe the quiddity of AI’s role in the music ecosystem. Concluding thoughts call researchers and educators to act on philosophical and ethical discussions of AI and promote continued research, public education, and democratic/laymen intervention to ensure ethical outcomes in the AI music space.