AI is very good at creating—or regurgitating—perfectly average, unoriginal music in extreme quantities. That is a big, big problem for human musicians who are also creating perfectly average, unoriginal music, regardless of how much of it they make.
On the latest episode of my Artist Expansion Podcast, I talk about what happens when musicians suddenly find themselves competing with technology that can generate an essentially unlimited amount of competent, listenable and often painfully boring music in seconds. We are entering a world where “pretty good” is available on demand. There is no scarcity anymore. If you want another pleasant ambient track, another competent pop song or another piece of background music that sounds vaguely like something you have already heard, AI can make thousands of them before lunch.
That changes the equation for musicians.
If AI has already mastered average, I do not think competing with it on volume, technical perfection or speed makes any sense. We are going to lose that contest. Machines can work faster, generate more alternatives and endlessly revise themselves without getting tired, discouraged or needing to go get a sandwich.
What they cannot easily manufacture is the thing I believe is becoming increasingly valuable: a recognizable human point of view.
I call this the human premium. As AI-generated music becomes cheaper, easier and effectively infinite, the qualities that belong to an individual artist become more valuable, not less. Taste matters. Judgment matters. Personality matters. Imperfection can matter. The strange decision that technically should not work but somehow becomes the reason you remember the song matters.
For musicians, simply making “good music” is no longer enough. There is too much good music already, and there is about to be exponentially more of it. We have to develop musical identities that are recognizable. We have to become better performers and communicators. We have to make choices that reveal something about who we are instead of constantly trying to approximate what is already successful.
Most importantly, I think we have to become more willing to take creative risks.
And that may ultimately be the unexpected gift of this moment. AI is going to become extraordinarily good at staying inside the lines. That leaves a tremendous amount of territory for human beings who are willing to scribble outside of them.
The future may not belong to the musician who can make the most music or even the most technically perfect music.
It may belong to the musician who can make something that could only have come from them.
