Nothing was more irritating than the Velvet Sundown narrative. It's like the industry is looking for evidence that AI is replacing artists and it's just not there. We've had 2 1/2 years of Gen AI music. Despite being a measurable percentage of music on DSP's, it's still less than a half percent of the royalty pool. Fans don't want it, and DSPs aren't supporting it.
It is dangerous to call AI a tool as it is born from the logics of cybernetics and this constitutive aspect matters.
A tool is an extension of the human body. A lens extends the eye, a paintbrush extends the hand, a guitar extends the temporal rhythms of human experience into sound. Tools are inert until picked up; they hold no agency of their own. Their meaning arises only when a human body acts through them.
AI is not inert. It is designed to anticipate, to predict, to act without waiting for intention. From its origins in cybernetic anti-aircraft systems during WWII, its logics are built upon the need to bypass the human as a lagging component. This is replacement, not extension of the human form.
Generative AI encodes the body and in so doing alters the very conditions under which expression is possible. What once operated as symbolic forms grounded in lived temporality and relation are reduced to parasitic imitations - what I call the ontological tether. They retain the appearance of meaning while feeding on its absence.
To call it a tool is to miss this ontological shift.
Tools preserve the wager of art, the irreducible risk and contingency of expression. AI collapses risk into prediction, ambiguity into certainty, freedom into compliance. It does not extend the human project of art. AI forecloses it, substituting symbolic meaning with scalable content.
I like your nuanced stance on AI. Yesterday I read an article about someone who'd started a podcast company, basically churning out hundreds of hours of AI-generated podcast content. They went on record saying that anyone who refers to AI content as 'AI slop' is probably a 'lazy luddite'. I love this alliteration. I will happily call myself a 'lazy luddite' from now on.
10% Happier is an amazing book. I read it over ten years ago, and it changed my mind about many things as well. Happy to hear you've started a meditation practice too. It's one of the most impactful things I ever did in my life. I had my reservations as well, but the good thing about it is that you can just experience its benefits very directly. One of my teachers likes to compare it to working out or brushing your teeth – it's not particularly fun, but you see the results.
Urgh - that person with the podcast just reflects the whole Silicon Valley mentality to me, where tech is The Answer and quality and depth is forsaken in favour of volume. Grim.
Agree completely with that comment about meditation being like working out. I think Harris makes the same comment in 10% Happier - i.e. that you are training your brain in the same way you'd train for a marathon. And, to that, I will admit that I've found it incredibly hard on some days, and (again, like the Dan Harris!) I think there's days where I could only summarise my efforts as a complete failure.... BUT... overall I feel much better for it, and welcome it. So I am glad I read the book and then engaged with it. I'd say that everyone should do it, but that feels a bit trite, heheh. But the benefits are clear and proven...
Great topic here, and I absolutely agree with you. I make all my music with AI voices, but what keeps me going isn’t the tech it’s the art. Every lyric, melody, and mix starts with me. The tools are just a way to carry the frequencies and stories I’m already hearing.
I agree that AI isn’t here to erase musicians or managers. In my case it opened a door that would have stayed locked if I had waited on studios or budgets. I’ve written and released over a hundred songs this way, and the heart of it is still songwriting and sound design.
For me AI is more like a new instrument. It helps me translate what’s inside, not replace the human spark. The best work I’ve seen my own included comes from treating it as a creative partner, not a shortcut.
I think that's really my thing here: if AI is another assistive tool helping someone realise their art, then great. It's when it seeks to replace the art entirely (looking at you, Suno and Udio) that I feel the point is being missed.
Thanks for clarifying that. I hear you on the difference between using AI as a partner versus a replacement. My process is very much the former…AI is just one instrument among many.
Nothing was more irritating than the Velvet Sundown narrative. It's like the industry is looking for evidence that AI is replacing artists and it's just not there. We've had 2 1/2 years of Gen AI music. Despite being a measurable percentage of music on DSP's, it's still less than a half percent of the royalty pool. Fans don't want it, and DSPs aren't supporting it.
Amen sir!
It is dangerous to call AI a tool as it is born from the logics of cybernetics and this constitutive aspect matters.
A tool is an extension of the human body. A lens extends the eye, a paintbrush extends the hand, a guitar extends the temporal rhythms of human experience into sound. Tools are inert until picked up; they hold no agency of their own. Their meaning arises only when a human body acts through them.
AI is not inert. It is designed to anticipate, to predict, to act without waiting for intention. From its origins in cybernetic anti-aircraft systems during WWII, its logics are built upon the need to bypass the human as a lagging component. This is replacement, not extension of the human form.
Generative AI encodes the body and in so doing alters the very conditions under which expression is possible. What once operated as symbolic forms grounded in lived temporality and relation are reduced to parasitic imitations - what I call the ontological tether. They retain the appearance of meaning while feeding on its absence.
To call it a tool is to miss this ontological shift.
Tools preserve the wager of art, the irreducible risk and contingency of expression. AI collapses risk into prediction, ambiguity into certainty, freedom into compliance. It does not extend the human project of art. AI forecloses it, substituting symbolic meaning with scalable content.
I like your nuanced stance on AI. Yesterday I read an article about someone who'd started a podcast company, basically churning out hundreds of hours of AI-generated podcast content. They went on record saying that anyone who refers to AI content as 'AI slop' is probably a 'lazy luddite'. I love this alliteration. I will happily call myself a 'lazy luddite' from now on.
10% Happier is an amazing book. I read it over ten years ago, and it changed my mind about many things as well. Happy to hear you've started a meditation practice too. It's one of the most impactful things I ever did in my life. I had my reservations as well, but the good thing about it is that you can just experience its benefits very directly. One of my teachers likes to compare it to working out or brushing your teeth – it's not particularly fun, but you see the results.
Urgh - that person with the podcast just reflects the whole Silicon Valley mentality to me, where tech is The Answer and quality and depth is forsaken in favour of volume. Grim.
Agree completely with that comment about meditation being like working out. I think Harris makes the same comment in 10% Happier - i.e. that you are training your brain in the same way you'd train for a marathon. And, to that, I will admit that I've found it incredibly hard on some days, and (again, like the Dan Harris!) I think there's days where I could only summarise my efforts as a complete failure.... BUT... overall I feel much better for it, and welcome it. So I am glad I read the book and then engaged with it. I'd say that everyone should do it, but that feels a bit trite, heheh. But the benefits are clear and proven...
Great topic here, and I absolutely agree with you. I make all my music with AI voices, but what keeps me going isn’t the tech it’s the art. Every lyric, melody, and mix starts with me. The tools are just a way to carry the frequencies and stories I’m already hearing.
I agree that AI isn’t here to erase musicians or managers. In my case it opened a door that would have stayed locked if I had waited on studios or budgets. I’ve written and released over a hundred songs this way, and the heart of it is still songwriting and sound design.
For me AI is more like a new instrument. It helps me translate what’s inside, not replace the human spark. The best work I’ve seen my own included comes from treating it as a creative partner, not a shortcut.
I think that's really my thing here: if AI is another assistive tool helping someone realise their art, then great. It's when it seeks to replace the art entirely (looking at you, Suno and Udio) that I feel the point is being missed.
Thanks for clarifying that. I hear you on the difference between using AI as a partner versus a replacement. My process is very much the former…AI is just one instrument among many.