Some composers are facing challenging times. Not me. I don't even write music for the public, and I don't require the income. Since my retirement, I've simply been trying to keep myself busy, especially during the autumn and winter months. I enjoy riding my bike, but not when it's cold and windy. Oh, how I miss my pupils. There's no one left to bully anymore.
It's not an ideal time to be a young composer aspiring to carve out a small niche in the music world. In the past, your competitors were other young composers. Nowadays, you have to contend with a ballroom full of high-end computers and the most sophisticated software ever developed. And while you're getting older, the software is getting better. In the future, you might need a walker, and AI will create the accompanying music.
Unless you write purely for the fun of it. Like me. That makes you an amateur, but let me assure you, leading an amateur's life in the arts is quite peaceful and fulfilling.
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I often hear this claim that human feelings or consciousness are merely electrical impulses in the brain, but I've yet to see conclusive proof of this.
Per Occam's razor, if those are the only apparent phenomena that are involved, and seem to have a causal relationship, ie, electrochemical brain activity causes thought, then wouldn't the burden shift to that of disproof?
I think we are so enraptured by our own sentience that we refuse to accept it at its apparent face value.
AI can only accumulate what's already been done. It will not be able to "ceate" until it develops self-awareness. In fact I don't regard most of what passes as AI as AI. It's just summarising, extrapolating or interpolating from the database at its disposal. Until it needs to express itself if won't create music for the consumption of humans for whom music is an important stimulus, not just a mind numbing background.
It's probably good for low-level incidental music such as often heard as background tor documentaries or that "please conitunue to hold" music on phones, designed to annoy and try to force you to hang up.
It seems to have made some inroad into commercial marketing but mostly on what's already been done - very little different from what cut-and-paste hackrs already do. I do a little work in this and it hasn't yet affected me.
It's possible that when AI does develop self-awareness and also possibly a survival instinct, that it could create music for consumption of AI listeners.
As an amateur composer (of non-commercial music) I still hope to get things performed at least locally as it would be nice if my expression could be communicated to others, just as with any other entertainment medium. Perhaps that's why when I get an idea I tend to write quickly; but that's rare. If I find myself struggling, either the magic is lost or my idea was a non-starter.
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