AI is dangerous

Why AI is dangerous and handy at the same time

The thing with AI is, simply put, that it’s too perfect. That’s what makes AI so dangerous. Not only can it kill an artists’ job, it also replaces humans. Robots, AI foremost, can never replace humans, as humans are unique. Wanting to replace them with AI or robots is respectless to the human aspect in society, and then I’ve chosen my words carefully.

‘Okay, Tommy. You’re absolutely right; AI is dangerous… But why do you use it to generate music?’ Good question, and here’s why. The simple answer is because I wanted to keep up with the latest technologies. But there’s a bit more to it than just that.

Since a couple of years, AI has been growing excessively, at a speed no one probably had predicted. Whereas you could first hear that certain music was generated with AI, it’s barely noticeable nowadays. AI almost replaced a band, and that’s very dangerous.

Back in the old days (yes, I like sounding old), I used to write music in a classical way, with musical notes, time signatures, keys, dynamics and everything else. I really had to create riffs out of thin air, and I’ve always seen it as a craft; a craft I always really enjoyed.

But there was one downside; I couldn’t record any vocals. Yes, I could use an instrument as the vocals and choose which notes it should be playing. I could basically ‘steer’ it the same way as I’d do with every other instrument. But the vocals wouldn’t be sung; one would only hear the melody, not the lyrics. And that’s a bit of a shame, I’d like to think.

Another result of writing music this way and with no real (AI) vocals sung, is having to add the lyrics in the video. It’s not really tough to add the lyrics in the video, it’s only the timing of when the lyrics should be appearing in and leaving the screen. But it leaves no room for actually making a video that fits with the song.

Making music with AI did give me the space to actually create a video for the song, since the lyrics would actually be sung. It offered me a space to fill, which I couldn’t fill in before. So in that way, it was actually a positive change and it has brought forth many great songs, such as Rolling into me, Mona Lisa Chaos and Back to the city.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I support using AI to make music. Because it sounds too perfect, takes away jobs, and another flaw is the energy it costs to actually generate a song. Though it doesn’t take long for AI to build a song from scratch, with only the lyrics and some styles to work with, it takes a lot of electricity and energy. I once read that making a song with AI equals to using a computer for fifteen minutes straight, so there’s definitely a lot of energy being used just for one song.

So, there are serious downsides to use AI for making music. And do they outweigh the good sides? That’s not as easy to answer as it should be. Because making music is a craft, but being able to actually make a voice sing while still having made the song myself, is a difficult balance. And that’s what makes it tough to decide whether or not to use AI for making music.

If there is a way to actually making a voice sing my song, without the usage of AI or having to pay a vocalist for it, I think I would’ve dived into it. If I could sing, I would of course have sung my songs myself, but it’s really unfortunate I can’t sing. At least, not in tune. Singing out of tune is pretty easy, but it’s not very pleasant to listen to.

So, unless I can improve my singing skills and find a right software to help producing my songs, I think I’ll be stuck with using AI. And just for the record, it’s okay for me to use AI for now. But AI is too perfect, and that’s dangerous.

For the foreseeable future, I think it’ll eventually bounce back; the usage of AI for making music will probably decrease. That’s often how things go in society. For AI, this may mean it has started small, before growing and growing, until it has become so very popular, that it’s not really unusual to use AI with making music. And that’s how artists lose their jobs and why they complain about AI, and why may eventually fall back.