As the age of artificial intelligence dawns, a new era of human creativity and technological collaboration is emerging. The intersection of human ingenuity and AI-driven innovation is giving rise to fresh forms of artistic expression.
Music Can Thrive in the AI Era
The birth of ChatGPT brought a collection of anxieties regarding how large language models allow users to quickly subvert processes that once required human time, effort, passion, and understanding. Furthermore, the tech sector’s often stormy relationship with regulation and ethical oversight have left many fearful for a future where artificial intelligence replaces humans at work and stymies human creativity.
While much of this alarm is well-founded, we should also consider the possibility that human creativity can blossom in the age of AI. In 2025, we will start to see this manifest in our collective cultural response to technology. To examine how culture and creativity might adapt to the age of AI, we’ll use hip-hop as an example.
The Rise of AI-Generated Music
Hip-hop is one of the most lucrative forms of music ever invented, and it has already been influenced by large language models. We’ve all heard the AI-driven rap songs by popular artists and seen them go viral, easily mistaken for authentic, original music. For instance, during the recent rap feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, an AI-generated song called “One Shot” was released, and was incorrectly attributed to Lamar.
The Three Faces of Creative Engagement with AI
In 2025, we believe that creative engagement with AI will begin to take on three different forms. The first might be described as “full surrender”: Don’t run from the technology, but rather lean into the fact that artificial intelligence can create terabytes of music in minutes, much of it as enjoyable as the music made by our favorite artists.
While this strategy will include leaving the music-making to the robots, human-driven aspects to music culture will remain. For example, one human element resides in how AI music is curated (think successful DJs), and in a new industry of art critics and commentators. This is not unlike the TikTok influencers who currently drive the widespread popularity of relics in the arts and technology.
Hybridizing Human and Machine Creativity
A second strategy will involve an indirect engagement with AI, where human artists use AI as a tool to augment their creativity. We may observe elaborations on this model: growth of a battle-rap scene driven by AI algorithms trained on the data sets of human artists. Or maybe even rap duos composed of two members: a rapper and their AI-trained sidekick (with refrain hooks also by a mix of human and AI singers).
The Appreciation for Classical Human-Made Relics
Lastly, 2025 will mark the formal start of a great irony: AI art will foment a new appreciation for classical human-made relics. Because the volume of AI creations will rapidly overtake human ones in volume, highly regarded human relics will become more valuable. For instance, one of the messages that emerged from hip-hop’s 50-year celebration was that society still lacks a general appreciation for the art form.
Fewer than a dozen hip-hop artists or groups have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Also, very few of hip-hop’s founding acts are wealthy, as they built the art form during an era when it wasn’t financially lucrative. Similar to how a retro-tech industry has emerged that celebrates the simple devices of yesterday, we will see a renewed appreciation for music from the analog era.
The rise of AI and related technologies will cast a new light on original music that was made prior to its advent. This will implore an appreciation for proto-hip-hop, which may translate into a lucrative industry around the preservation of original music, and an associated valorization of the artists.
- wired.com | Music Can Thrive in the AI Era
