Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still

Grimes makes worrying prediction about AI in the music industry

Tue 2 April 2024 9:45, UK

As the debate surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in the music industry wages on, the Canadian singer-songwriter Grimes has provided her opinion. While many artists have been critical of the role of AI, Grimes seems to be a lone voice fighting in the corner of artificial intelligence.

It should probably come as no surprise that Grimes is presenting herself as an advocate for AI. After all, she has already unveiled GrimesAI, which allows anybody to generate AI music using her vocals as a basis. The project also comes alongside an X, formerly Twitter, account posting the musings of Grimes’ AI self. Although there have been some claims that the account is actually just Grimes, using the shield of AI to post some of her more outlandish thoughts.

Recently, during an interview for the documentary series A Brief History Of The Future on PBS, Grimes waxed lyrical about how new technology can drive musical innovation. “When I started making music,” she said, “there was sort of this revolution happening in music production, more people were being able to make music at home on their computers.”

While it is true that being able to create music from your bedroom gave rise to a variety of incredible artists, from A Guy Called Gerald to The Streets, AI seems to be a different brew altogether. For one, the technology is incapable of original thought, it simply draws upon whatever material you put into it. Furthermore, as Roger Daltrey recently noted, it is incapable of empathy, and therefore incapable of creating emotionally effective tracks.

Nevertheless, Grimes continued, “I see some of the new stuff coming with AI, all this stuff that is about to explode, when everyone has the same tools that can make professional quality stuff, then you get to see the actual talent really rise to the top,” She concluded, “What we do in the things we create over the next few decades will probably shape all minds going forward for the rest of time.”

Worryingly, Grimes is possibly on the money. AI is only going to become more and more present within modern society and our everyday lives. For the creative industry, of which Grimes belongs to, that is fairly worrying. If music production, writing and performance can all be done by computers, for how long will record company executives keep paying artists and production staff?

Thankfully, for the time being, AI has not yet mastered human emotion, and so cannot replace the intense emotion of human songwriting. If Grimes is right, though, then that fact could change very soon.

Listen below to a song generated by GrimesAI.