AI Music is Singing Like a Canary in a Coal Mine [Podcast]

Every technology in music history leaves artists behind. What if one left them all behind? AI-generated music is severely undermining artists’ ability to make a viable living. Is it a canary in the coal mine for music and for how AI will affect the future of work more broadly? Grammy-nominated musician Tift Merritt and Professor David Hoffman of the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy discuss the research they are conducting with students to address these issues.  

Conversation Highlights

Responses have been edited for clarity.

On hearing an AI Song Made 'in the style of' Tift merritt

Tift Merritt

I mean, I was angry. I immediately could envision how this would impact me economically. I was angry that my work had been stolen. I was angry that my work had been imitated, and I was angry that this is going to flood the already difficult and devalued marketplace where all I'm really trying to do is make my life work. 

For me, one of the reasons that the policy advocacy is very close to my heart is that I have always, always wanted to be a working musician, a career musician. I am in a community of really wonderful career musicians that we get better the more we practice, that we get better the more we do it, and to just pull the rug from under that is a very profound disrespect, I think, for a lot of people that I care about and also just the regular workings of my single mom life.

On What Musicians are Paid by Streaming Services

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Tift Merritt

I can tell you that I haven't been able to sleep all of this month because I'm about to go into the studio for the first time in a while because I had already once walked away from the music business because it was too difficult. But I've been convinced to come out. Just to simply foot the bill for my recording expenses, I need to get 10 million streams. I put a reissue out in September, and I got the Spotify-for-artist thing like, "Congratulations. Your new single streamed 150,000 times.” The math on that is about $35. So, unless you are in the top one percent of Spotify, the system is not designed to support you.

On the Impact of AI music on an artist's payment

Tift Merritt

Already 25% of the music on Spotify is 100% AI generated and not labeled as such.* That's totally devaluing the very murky black box of pro rata payment that already exists. Within three years, that whole economy will be devalued by another 25% with the flood of AI music. I would think that's at the very least. So, it's just simply an untenable equation because having a manager hasn't gotten less expensive. Traveling to a gig hasn't gotten less expensive. Going into the studio hasn't gotten less expensive. Paying a lawyer to look at your contract hasn't gotten less expensive. I mean, a burrito is $25.

*This is an estimate, based on data from the streaming site Deezer which is public with an estimated amount of AI-generated music on their platform. (A new Deezer report says the site is now up to 34% AI music.) A Duke team is exploring potential research to quantify AI-generated music on other music streaming platforms like Spotify.

ON Why the Public Should Care About AI Music

David Hoffman

I think it's very troubling if we start thinking (number one), that musicians may not be able to do this work and create this art because they won't be able to make a living doing it, but also (number two) -- social movements actually might be influenced by technology. It might not be humans causing us to feel a certain way and want to come together, but actually technology that's doing that. There's something that I think is deeply troubling to me about that, of who's pulling the strings, who's pushing individual buttons to try to manipulate human emotion that causes people to come together.

Is AI in Music the Canary in the Coal Mine for the Future of Work?

David Hoffman

Yeah, I think that we need to start having this conversation in a broader way right now. It's not just the creative economy - it's going to be all of the economy. I think at the most charitable way to think about this, we're going to have major transitions in different sectors of the economy with people needing to move from one sector of employment to another sector of employment. I think there are real questions (as to) whether we're prepared to really be able to do that. …What are we giving up a society if we're saying, "We need to transition everybody out of making music," or "We need to transition everybody out of storytelling or the authoring of books because we're just going to let technology be able to do that." So, I think we've got real questions to answer, and we're hoping to do the research that helps do that.