Musicians face an artificial intelligence nightmare since the rise of song generators like ChatGPT, the world’s biggest record label says.
Universal Music has warned that AI-created music threatens “massive and lasting harm” to artists and a Napster-style crisis without strong copyright protections.
So-called generative AI models have created an uproar among illustrators for using human-generated work without compensation to create art. The rise of ChatGPT, which generates authentic poetry and essays, has publishers worried about a tidal wave of AI-generated content.
Both Google and OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, have developed software that creates voices and music in the style of specific artists and genres.
Okay, so what is this Ganocalpis? Let’s assume yes. We now have an unlimited supply of mildly innovative but largely derivative songs and music. This will screw up all those who make essentially derivative and mildly inventive songs – almost all songwriters.
Is it bad for society?
Well, back to basics then. Music is a public good. It is very difficult to produce one of any quality. But once produced anyone can copy it, that copying does not reduce the amount available to anyone else. It is non-rivalrous and non-excludable – a public good. We think that such things will be produced less. If there is no profit there is no incentive to work hard.
So, we institute copyright, to exclude and thus produce a potential profit, incentive and production.
So, where are we with AI music? We don’t have any more bottlenecks in supply, do we? We have moved songs from public good to non-economic good. There’s no constraint on supply (ok, somewhat, the cost of running the AI but Pfft) so there’s no need for profit or incentive to generate supply, is there?
Cancel copyright.
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