YOU: Hey Bing, arrange the Jazz Masterpiece 'Infant Eyes' by Wayne Shorter as a Sax Concerto, orchestral.

Bing: You got it buddy!!! Whatever you need is yours!!

YOU: ...just do it, Bing

Bing: Sorry...

Imagine the implications

The above music is created by me. The melody is indeed Wayne Shorter's Infant Eyes (You should absolutely listen to this right now). It took me a bit of time in my afternoon to far this orchestrated version out. To be clear, I simply took the chords and spread them into rhythm-less block chords without any other consideration to voice leading or anything else.

Each bar took, let's say a few seconds for me type out, with some time wasted when I sat appreciating just how incredible the harmony in this piece truly is.

Any composer asked to put even a fraction of effort into a job like the above music would be asked to be paid, and would take time to do. You would get your result perhaps within the day, or week, and you might not be happy with it. Give them constructive feedback, repeat until the job's done. Send your money even though you're secretly not satisfied, and find another to try and do a better job.

But now, in our imaginary but probably inevitable scenario, why hire when you can just...

Hey, make me a playlist of unique music for a night out at this club in Berlin. It should last about 5 hours.

Hey, create a 10th Beethoven symphony he would have written in the modern day about being stuck in traffic

Jeff Buckley died too early. Give me a new Jeff Buckley Album, but create lyrics in the style of Charles Bukowski's poetry.

I need a song for my new hotel's lobby. Give me some Slayer, but re-orchestrate it into smooth jazz, replace the vocals with a tin whistle.

I need a jam track to improv over with my guitar. Make a backing track in the style of Hendrix but he's playing on a banjo. 4 chords, B-flat major. 110bpm. 10 minute loop. ABA structure.

Think about it. AI music is by no means new. I remember hearing some rudimentary but still fairly decent songs from some Google work back in 2008 or so.

How many producers are already using AI in the pop world to crap out the billion-view garbage we unavoidably listen to daily?

It ain't hard for AI to take over that job. Thousands can be generated per second.

Can you transcribe this song for me?

Certainly!

_{A segment of the above music. Damn, those chords are lush}

So theres the transcription service dead, too. Any album you can't find guitar tabs or piano music for - no worries! Coming right up.

So, what if it did?

Well, when I think of the world of pop music - T. Swift, Sheeran, all those nameless entities who are apparently the most hottest, famous people right now I've never heard of and sound exactly like everything else - I think how they are often either degenerate or dramatic.

I talked about this before briefly, how pop musicians will be relegated to their TikTok accounts, forced to become evermore extreme in their lifestyles to create shock value and cult followings in order to stay relevant.

After all, most of us who ever get particularly into an artist's music tend to become followers - you might go to their concerts, read their wiki, check out their relationship drama, click on the clickbait.

We give a damn whether we like it or not.

AI music has no such burden, which also means there's no concert to attend, no clickbait to visit. No leaked photography for the gossiping girls, or deepfakes for the perverted boys.

It just... functions.

Its music could be epic, anthemic, emotionally crippling or a hilarious parody. The music itself could not be distinguished from anyone you've listened to, because the data is all there to replicate with ease.

It could fill in some deep emotional gaps, such as the Jeff Buckley example above. I only discovered his music long after he died, and I was devastated to find out such a potentially brilliant artist left us before he could give to us his gift of music. I know it's not really him, but it would give me some comfort.

No matter how many applications it will ultimately accomplish, it could not replace the role of a musical idol. It could not shock us into disgust like WAP or create debates about fat singers (I refuse to use 'plus size') being empowered instead of being put on a treadmill.

No tattood husk of a human is going to get shot in gang violence for reasons seemingly unrelated to the artist themselves.

We may see a complete separation of music from idols.

Music by humans will not go away, but I suspect the people actually listening to them will collapse into the tiniest fraction of society who still reminisce about the 70's and 80's, and family members supporting their teenage son's Battle of the Bands.

What about innovation?

Perhaps AI will create music never before heard, as we can simply type our prompts to create wonders like we see in MidJourney. Perhaps we will hear ensembles which are rarely ever performed or funded to be recorded.

Perhaps we can create Sound Spaces; rooms with procedurally generated music designed for psychologically helpful or perhaps psychedelically helpful experiences. Or maybe just something to do on the weekend with friends like escape rooms or whatever.

For the most part, however, people rarely listen to music for the art of it all. People don't even go to classical concerts to enjoy classical music. Most simply go for the prestige, an excuse to wear something nice to take selfies in front of the building.

Most music will function. It'll be commuting music. On the train, in traffic, on your bike. Something to block out the noise of reality. Nobody is going to care, on the day-do-day, how many boyfriends the singer broke up with or who shot who in the whatnow.

Terrifying, and fascinating. And probably not that far in the future.