Artificial Intelligence Tools & Platforms are the subject of hot button discussion in most industries in recent years, we have seen the commentary from the music industry  with industry thought leaders and artists alike commenting that the emergence of AI within the artistic space will wreak havoc on traditional musicians as the absolute abundance of any style or genre being permeated into the public sphere, diminishes the individuality of whole human created music through saturation. 

I would agree with that sentiment largely, as an electric guitarist myself as a hobbyist for over 25 years, when I consider the raw emotion, and moreover, the experiences or creative thoughts required to produce an improvised guitar solo, I wonder, is it truly possible to convey these things in an emotive manner through input prompts and artificially generate compositions.

To say nothing of the changes the rise of the use of artificial intelligence in the music industry presents in the form of economic displacement, through redundancies and a diminished workforce as a result of the continued development of AI, I have to consider in a practical sense, can AI create art? 

I certainly think it can, and I certainly think a musician, or, a “non musician” can use artificial intelligence platforms and applications to create, what I would call authentic art, now, is it the same as non AI art, i.e. the regular music most of us all have listened to for most of our lives, no, but, in my opinion, its still art, if we wish to ascribe to the philosophy of “code is poetry” well AI is code, so its already art, thus the human race, using its own artistic creations, to create further artistic creations.

What we really see, is a derivation of genre in my opinion, in much the same way that we can classify a delineation between classical music and heavy metal music, the same can be done between non artificial intelligence created music and AI created music,  which is perfectly fine ,  as is the invariable hybridization of both, what we see is a progression of options available to creative types, not the destruction of music, there will be socio and economic change as a result, but that is not actually the fault, of the AI but rather the consequence, of introducing artificial intelligence into a capitalist economy.

That, in and of itself, the effects of artificial intelligence in our present day and its impacts on society as they result in wages, specifically the transfer of labour, intellect, or talent over time in exchange for currency, goods or services required to live, is actually a societal & political issue, but it is actually confused with a technology issue.

For example, if you, as a country, have a percentage of your workforce, displaced from their role by private enterprises innovation through artificial intelligence, how then, do those people obtain gainful employment, if, relevant cross section roles have also, or are, in the process of similar transformation across industry verticals.

Well that, is a very challenging scenario, quite often, the common response I hear, even as an advocate for the use of artificial intelligence is that such individuals would re skill, or, so to, those that would have gone into those roles will now simply look towards other roles – with full disclosure and respect, I am open to a presentation of facts on this matter if anyone has a viable societal model for it but I don’t see it as being sustainable myself.

Without giving an in detailed breakdown (though I may make one as an info graphic in the future)  if we have a variable number of population, that is increasing, and a variable number of jobs that is declining, it seems to me, without some sort of socio economic measures at a federal level of governments it is inevitable there be issues in economic sustainability of individual citizens, which essentially, temporarily, create a “welfare crisis”” and while an aside, I think once you are at a “welfare crisis” you may as well re-arrange your economic structure to include some sort of base universal income because in effect one would already be doing that for large parts of its displaced population.

I really think the question, as to the impacts of artificial intelligence on our society and day to day lives really comes down to how we approach the issue, do we address the impacts of the emergent technology in a mature way and work towards an improved society, or, is there a conservative reaction that wishes to recoil from the technology in order to protect itself.

To use a pop culture analogy, Star Trek, or Dune ?

Despite the overt of the silver screen, both of those pop culture science fiction franchises, offer a futuristic insight into some hypothetical variations of a society that incorporates heavy use, or lack there of use, of artificial intelligence, on the one hand you have Star Trek, a very egalitarian version of humanity, off into the stars with advanced technologies and amazing intelligences such as Captain Data assisting humanity in their exploration of the unknown in the name of science and discovery, on the other, you have Dune, a galaxy so ravaged by the use of Computers, Artificial Intelligence and similar that they decided to ban the use of it entirely, lest problems they incurred in the past occur again.

To circle back to the obvious, any technology can be used for great good, or great evil, some just have a much more far reaching impact than others, what is important as a society is how we approach these issues and so far as artificial intelligence is concerned how to be ethically responsible in its use so as to help humanity, and not be to its detriment, we must be careful in its use, just in the same way as we must be cautious and ethical with the responsible use of Atomic energy which we can use for clean electricity, or, to create devastating weapons of mass destruction.

What is clear to me, is that Artificial Intelligence is a tool humanity can use and it also seems logical to me is a technology that we can use to a assist us in progressing from our current status as a type 0 civilization, towards a type 1 civilization, as is described by the Kardashev Scale, and in my opinion, progressing towards a type 1 civilization is of imperative importance for the survival of the human species, the points for consideration are, that while our  technology that will take us to that place are increasing rapidly across fields in the private sector, in the public sector, there is little being done in the economic sphere, or political sphere, to work towards a type 1 civilizations version of our current economic structure and that to me is the greatest concern.

I started out this piece by discussing the music industry, and the implications of AI, for those of you who are music aficionados of the pop music scene, you may be aware the first artist to use the digital effect “Auto Tune” was Cher, with her 1998 Single “Believe” at the time, it was progressive, now in the present day, it is almost impossible to find a single artist on the top 100 billboards in any western country that has not had the “Auto Tune” effect applied to it, and … there is still great debate among musicians, and producers, about this yet for all that, I still see Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, who all use “Auto Tune”” loved and enjoyed by millions for their music on the top 100 charts of Australia.

Shall we talk about technology and go back further? Shall we talk about the implications of the technology devices required to create recorded music? Recorded music was the death of the pub musician, the travelling minstrel, no longer did individuals have to wait for the musician to arrive in their town to hear music, now they could hear them whenever they liked, due to the advent of recorded music, did this affect the music industry, yes – did it adapt – yes – did it result in loss of income streams for certain types of musicians, sadly yes, but would we want to not have the ability to record media? I don’t think so, for that matter, at the counterpoint, would musicians have been able to produce some of the art we all know, love and enjoy without such technologies? Well no .. some genres of music would just straight up not be available to humanity, and so to, others would be entirely lost to the sands of time in the modern psyche, it is very challenging for us today, to consider, there was a time, where there was no recorded media or ability to record media, yet … that was only our Great Grandparents generation was it not? Perhaps some short 120 years ago? 

So does artificial intelligence have a practical place in the industry of credit hire and as an adjunct, the Insurance Industry, of course it does, if in my day to day as a claims handler, I was able to use my time to focus on challenging investigations that AI can not assist with due to the presence of to many spatial variables, while it assists a member of the public streamline the basis of their simple motor vehicle accident claim that does not require a great deal of investigation and perhaps only a few human validation questions, that is not only more efficient, but also more logical.

 What is not logical, is not considering how to increase efficiency, customer experiences and processes by utilizing technology, simply for the sake, of keeping a process in an arbitrary analogue form simply out of self-preservation of occupation, that is counter productive, and stifles innovation, humanity and its progress.