Why AI Can Never Truly Replace All Musicians feat. Rick Beato

We have been fans of @RickBeato for a while now so this was great! We went all in on his creative process, the influence of AI, and what it all means for the future of musicians.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE: throughtheweb.buzzsprout.com
INSTAGRAM: / throughtheweb.podcast
Twitter: / throughtheweb
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro to Rick
01:01 - Who is Rick Beato?
01:23 - How Rick got into the music industry
01:57 - Rick’s childhood influences
03:19 - What defines a quality song?
05:13 - First time encountering computers in music
06:17 - Thoughts on tech in music
08:30 - Logic vs. Pro Tools
10:23 - Recalling when Rick first heard about AI in music
12:50 - Are governments prepared?
15:25 - Suno and Udio Takeover
18:30 - Is using AI different to using other tech in music? Will people care?
20:26 - Does the tech scare Rick as a music teacher?
25:03 - Standing out as a musician in an AI world
26:46: - AI Musicians and Artists
28:21 - Will AI HELP the industry?
31:30 - Streaming platforms vs. AI
37:29 - Is there anything exciting about this at all?
39:08 - Will eventually completely replace humans in music?
40:03 - Will becoming a professional musician be harder?
43:27 - Billboard Number 1 AI Song
46:17 - The latest Beatle track
47:00 - Advice for the new musicians in an AI World
47:59 - Generative AI vs. Live Music
49:05 - Outro

[@VariantAEC]

Liked this interview because Rick Beato's take is very realistic. Humans will not care, and humans won't stop making music, but AI will likely affect musicians' pay, devaluing music as a way to make money even more overall over time. Tay Tay and all other singers... might need to get a side hustle.

[@mhfs61]

Good conversation. I applaud the fact that you were able to suppress your own fears and allowed Rick to voice his opinion. Every new technology is met with fear, because of the unknown and the fear of losing what you already have. Current music is created using technology. Look at AI as an additional tool for music creation. I really like the examples Rick gives how to use AI.

[@crypticallegory]

Yeah bud, the problem though is now we can’t tell if you’re an AI comment bot. Or if i’m an AI bot. It’s the complete breakdown of any real trust or truth that makes AI uniquely dangerous, more than any other tech we’ve developed.

[@soggybiscuit6098]

Lol the problem is the AI will be able to do it all and make humans redundant. Sure you can do it for fun as a homeless person, forget a career though. The supply will far exceed demand, if people can magically create music why would they pay for yours.

[@alexissercho]

Very well done interview. Congrats!

[@franciscokirhman8673]

Imagine a dj prompting in real time, you see the prompt " horse laser on ice planet" you have no idea what that sounds like. Suddenly to the composition you are already hearing a realistic sound you have never heard before is added. I would attend that concert. For classical music could be something like monet on acid idk hahaha

[@nestorlovesguitar]

I respect Rick a lot but this was a masterful lesson on how not to answer questions straight and honestly. You gotta understand that Rick's already made. He's set and financially secured, so of course he is not "worried", and the same goes for all artists who already have a name to themselves and enough financial assets to be able to spout any optimistic opinion about this matter. The reality is it is already insanely difficult to make a living as a musician. This new tech will only put the final nail in the coffin of an already evident trend. Also, some of the questions asked were very imprecise. "Will AI eventually replace all musicians?" Man, that's a very poor question. Of course not. Not all musicians will die out. Watchmakers did not die out entirely neither, but how many people live off of creating luxury mechanical clocks in this day?

[@TheFazulo]

love it!

[@mylex817]

I think rick misunderstood the question about whether ai will substitute professional musicians. It doesn't matter if people still enjoy making music themselves - in order to be a *professional* musician you have to find someone to pay your for that. And this will get harder and harder the better ai generated music becomes.

[@mehranmosaddeq6030]

Exactly, he didn't get this question. I really wanted to hear what his thought is.

[@DarkSideofSynth]

This is common to not only Rick. Oh but I still enjoy making music, drawing, shooting photos, etc. Great, we all do. Does that keep a whole industry alive allowing people to do that as a job? Nope, it does not, or at least not with the same current large numbers. When a customer instead of sending you the brief to get a custom piece of music, simply enters it as a prompt and gets N versions of the brief in a few minutes or seconds, it is NOT like learning how to program MIDI instead of writing on paper or go from the type writer to a word processor - it's like going from employment to unemployment ;)

[@drummermike5150]

Someone will still need to play these AI generated songs live with real instruments and most “creators” will need to hire someone to do that.

[@mylex817]

@@drummermike5150 but those performers would probably get much less money than current artists, as they would be replacable. Besides, we already have concerts solely eith DJs and even with holograms. I'm sure those will also become more common. And ultimately, no one is saying 100 % of professional musicians will get substituted. But it may well be > 50%. And this should be concerning to everyone whose livelihood depends on being paid to make music.

[@dewdrop3503]

Exactly that! When I heard this piece of the interview on Cold Fusion's main channel, I was baffled at Rick misunderstanding this question. How can he ignore the fact that people need an income to survive? Or that "professional" means that "it is a profession" which means that it generates an income.

[@wildhorsemusic1111]

Wow a hidden Gem 💎 🎶⚡️

[@brutexrp7207]

I think becoming a professional musician will become more difficult as it will be for sound engineering etc. Becoming wealthy from being a musician will be even more remote, but making music for enjoyment of doing it yourself will not disappear, and performing live will remain a human emotional enterprise.

[@c-LAW]

5:31 "The first programs were Performer and Composer" -- SAME HERE! I loved Performer and started on it about 1991 until the mid 2000's. Ran them on my Macbook 185 and others Apple computers. I still have my Yamaha and MOTU Synths.

[@kirkydaturkey]

As always. This podcast deserves so much more attention

[@DingDong-fq2mo]

Great interview and discussion. Thanks guys!

[@REVIEWSONTHERUN]

Good discussion. Thanks for sharing it. ✌️

[@ereceeme]

My favorite youtubers together. Great

[@Amor.Noctis-dr3od]

Wow, it's kinda spooky how AI music is starting to sound just like stuff we humans make. It’s wild to think we might have to start calling tunes ‘human made’ just to tell the difference

[@RubenMillsOfficial]

It should be mandatory everywhere that if it’s made by AI it has to be explicitly labeled AI generated. Certainly when the entire song is nothing but an AI output.

[@Edbrad]

In a sense it is human made, because it was trained on patterns of human thought

[@crypticallegory]

The problem is in specifying what counts as AI made… Obviously if AI generates a whole song, but what about a musician who uses AI ti generate a chord progression they end up playing themselves? Or a track where just the drums are AI generated for example using something like Garage Band’s drummer? What if Diplo uses an AI trained exclusively on Diplo tracks to generate new Diplo tracks? Would we even be able to tell the difference lol?

[@gilsozinho5426]

@@crypticallegorygood points indeed..

[@flangelus]

I'm sticking to bio music myself...however I did generate a cool song on UDIO the other day and honestly it's still stuck in my head

[@chrisbranch8022]

Harry Mack needs to get on that audience based prompted music freestyle idea!

[@jameshurt6116]

Live music in small venues, please...

[@user-ti4tf4kn3o]

Ai does not need to replace musicians. It will simply create its own market and take over (some) of the services (esp with repetitive tasks)that musicians provide for especially a certain demographic

[@fekkyb]

Ha ha!! It reminds me of Milli Vanilli. 😂😅

[@marcellkovacs5452]

44:12 (accidental?) Westworld reference is on point

[@ImproMooray]

"if you cant tell… Does it matter?"

[@storiesreadaloud5635]

Intentional. It's a Jewish take

[@PeterWetherill]

Great interview! Love the thought experiment such as jamming live to AI generated tracks. I am going to try this! I already Jam to loops,, AI tracks the next step for me!

[@shubus]

Rick's insights into our AI future are fascinating.......and frightening. Glad to be an old buzzard who won't be around to see how this all plays out.

[@rjung_ch]

Which should I watch first? Am on the CF side... 👍💪✌

[@rjung_ch]

Am back now.

[@ereceeme]

My two favorite KZbin channels together. Wow

[@enilenis]

Had all these conversations with friends a month ago, when this AI first hit. The future was immediately obvious. Within a month a million musicians, within a year, mass permanent gig musician unemployment and chart topping machine-made songs. This stuff grows exponentially. You think you have time to adjust, when you really don't. The way AI has to improve is obvious. More tools are needed to guide specifics, like locking in vocal characteristics and setting fixed BPM. Maybe even some live functionality down the line, with songs adjustable on the fly with a pitch wheel or a midi controller. This is a gamechanger for people with amazing vocals, but no bands. All of those people singing along to their favorite bands, because they can't play anything themselves. Old stars who held the monopoly on old methods of production out and new AI artists in to flood the airwaves. I've already switched a month ago to AI songs for listening. Every person has a fixed number of spare attention hours during the day. If I'm listening to AI, that means I'm not listening to anything else. I'm discovering new genres without finding about new human instrument players. They're out of the picture. My own videos no longer have to be demonetized over a few seconds of copyrighted sound. I never have to rely on someone else's music again for the background tracks. Even if they pull the plug on AI, I've already made a library of hundreds of titles to use later on. A rainbow of moods for various editorial choices. I'm already set for life. And please, pay attention to comments below AI hits making rounds on youtube right now. See what people say and how they guiltily admit out loud that they can't stop singing to something, that takes away jobs. They already do know and admit, that if a song is good, they don't care how it's made. In a year, music will be abundant and entirely devalued. Live performances will still earn cash, but expect profits to plunge to single percent digits, literally over 1 year. This is what the invention of a car was to horse buggies.

[@Edbrad]

Yup. Anyone who doesn't get this is in the denial stage of grief, or they're a clinical laggard with no vision whatsoever.

[@enilenis]

​@@Edbrad If people who complain about AI, invested the same amount of time into learning it, they'd be on top of their game. But there are channels dedicated to nothing but whining about lost opportunities, where people pat eachother on the back for doing nothing, while passively observing another human-driven revolution. Yes, it is human driven. An AI algorithm doesn't just sit around one day and go: "I'm going to write a comedic rap song about inflation, because the rising cost of essential makes life unbearable". But a human might. And he'll create a banger that others will listen to, because they'll be able to relate. A content bot may be making a thousand pseudoscience videos straight from ChatGPT to youtube, but what audience does that type of content have? It's instant garbage. Computers have merely taken away the "how" from the creative process, but "what" and most importantly "why" remains with humans using these new tools. Computers don't desire to enrich themselves or get famous. AI without a human wants absolutely nothing.

[@Mistaken.Identity]

Considering the knowledge and experience of participants in the podcast, I was hoping for a more comprehensive conversation about the impact of AI on music, art and creativity. I also expected a deeper comment from Rick Beato. For someone whose entire channel is based on music technology, music theory, musical creativity and musicianship, it seems like he looked at AI from a somehow smaller perspective. Current GenAI and LLM based systems marketed as AI are not the same as DAWs, autotune, sampling or loops etc., there is a fundamental mistake there. Since he has closely observed the technical development of music technology for years, he has evaluated the current role of AI very limitedly, seeing it as a "new tool". This is the perspective of almost all AI supporters as well; “a new tool”. In a way, it is, but the technology currently marketed as AI is like a Pandora's box. This technology, which will obviously lead to huge socioeconomic changes, is actually a perfect weapon for transferring wealth in the hands of venture capitalists, billionaire tech capitalists and mighty tech companies. On the other hand, in addition to the legality of the data sets used in the AI training , copyright, consent and the ethics of AI, when we look at the basis of this technology, it is actually open to debate whether it is really an "AI" or not. But these aside; The main problem with these GenAI technologies is that it is a system that produces results by reducing creativity to the products of very complex probability distributions based on billions of parameters and codes defined only by a set of possible indicators. What is the impact of such a technology on the cultural evolution of humanity and human cognitive abilities? What concrete impact will it have on abstract concepts such as music and art, which are actually tied to real human experience? I'd love to hear what they think about this. Beato is someone who has closely followed the technological developments in the field of music and their impact on music. He occasionally makes Spotify top ten reviews and complains about the poor musical quality of new hits. So, the effect of all these technological developments on music is not always positive. As he said, if there will be separate "AI music hits" lists in 2 years, I am very curious how he will evaluate them.

[@amremorse]

This was pure fluff and surface deep. Treats the viewer like we’re dummies. It’s insulting. This is a huge topic and you hit on some of the main ones. Especially its impact on us culturally.

[@annode]

Attn: Barry Manilow. New lyrics have been assigned. I write the code that make the whole world sing I write the code of love and special things I write the code that make the young girls cry I write the code that writes the songs

[@paradiddle16]

There's already some great AI songs on the channel Obscurest Vynil!

[@Edbrad]

I bet his son could tell only because he was primed first and told it was AI. The same way people say they can tell an AI photo, but when you actually test them blind they can't

[@jiweep]

His son has the highest level of perfect pitch and grew up surrounded by music. I don't think Rick gave his son enough credit because if anyone could tell it's AI it'd be his son 😅

[@qazmko22]

The top songs are very repetitive, if you can be replaced with AI you never had a job to begin with. The problem is that these jobs are too complex for a computer to replace them. I mean look at DJs they have thousands of songs on their Hard Drives, but only play specific songs at specific times, those computers can't replace the type of "computer conducting" that DJs have learned over a career. If they can't do that, they will never replace a live band.

[@ImproMooray]

You are right about top tens being formulaic but the dataset these models have been trained on are much bigger than all the dj hard-drives put together.

[@ereceeme]

Every thing is great until there is no electricy

[@midlifeadventures3138]

People seem to forget in this new doom & gloom ai trend. None of the music Ai creates can be copy written therefore no one owns it. So it cannot be sold or licensed legally. You cannot accept financial means for something you don’t own. Will people still do it? Yes, because there will always be crooked people.

[@andrelucassen9229]

If you can produce unlimited tracks at close to zero cost, copyright becomes obsolete.

[@ultimadum7785]

Exactly, the algorithm will be so flooded with garbage that it won't be able to detect plagiarism anymore.

[@jesselara1441]

Songwriters who use ai will create more songs mare quickly but it's still up to the ear to make a determination if it sounds good.

[@samaBR_85]

19:50 - i thought he was going to say Billie A.I.lish

[@tomrushpresents]

Just put out a single called Slight Infractions that is my lyrics with Ai music. You can find it on my page among human performances too.

[@stankwho]

AI is big techs trojan horse.

[@wietzejohanneskrikke1910]

🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶

[@andrelucassen9229]

1858: "Why a train can never really replace a horse&carriage." 1898: "Why an automobile can never really replace a horse." 1928: " Why an airplane can never really replace an oceanliner." 1988: "Why computer games can never really replace real world games."

[@GalaxyPedlar]

I don't think that was ever said by anyone.

[@boilinabag]

we're screwed kids. maybe small live shows will endure, but large scale work is going to go away.

[@johnb2602]

Great. It’s an AI voiceover too. 🤔

[@Des_Armoni]

It wont replace artists or live musicians but studio musicians? Yep writers ? Yep

[@JamesGowan]

✝️ Subbed! God bless in 2024! ✝️

[@isajoha9962]

The process of creating art is dead. Reaching out with music AI generated or not, is dead. Rick Beato posting "Hello" on social media once, gets 10000 more likes, than most producers/artists get in their lifetime for all their released tracks.

[@Stephenloizos]

Synthetic transhumans like synthetic transhuman muzak.

[@mhfs61]

That’s a different discussion. The fact that music or any other art form made by an AI-tool can be as pleasing as human art piece. The trust part comes in when AI generate art is marketed as human generated. But that would be plain fraud. Fraud exists as long humans exist.

[@mcclendonreport]

Music theory is obsolete. It is certainly a misnomer. The great bassist Victor Wooten contends, [paraphrased] " ...what we have determined as music theory is really only note theory..." He suggests that music is something else that has nothing to do with written notes, instrument playing or conventional musical training. Music is deeper. A.I. is a good thing if it leads the way a greater understanding.

[@amremorse]

This is the final nail in the coffin. Near total devaluation of music. Stock music is dead, almost overnight. Musicians were already getting fleeced and barely making ends meet playing live. This has been well documented over the last decade. How will we know when something is made solely by a human? We won’t know and eventually we won’t care and there goes a part of our collective culture. This is total thievery and we need legislation yesterday. This should be a much bigger story in the media.

[@Lemorande]

You can’t copyright a voice. He should know better, being held out as an expert. Generally, the interview is otherwise informative.

[@Gearrion]

He is so done; old guy not needed anymore.

[@michaeljurss9080]

At least he's lived to be old. Way the world is now you probably won't.

[@maccagrabme]

With that logans run attitude you won't have much longer before you are done. Enjoy while you can.

[@b_d_vn9651]

Give me a point he made that was obselete.

[@rhythmworkshop7926]

AI is the most disrespectful exploitation machine of anything of real value. Why should a real artist like that? It's so incredibly boring and cheap - It’s so sad 😢

[@maccagrabme]

But a great musician can make great music with or without AI. The AI tools need to improve and we will soon hear better human musician made music than what AI on its own produces.

[@Mr_Tummy]

Consumers will use AI to create their own music/playlists, no (artists, music gear, producers, record labels, streaming services, etc.) middlemen needed.

[@mtennantmusic]

That's exactly what's going to happen