Will any AI-generated music still be listened to decades from now

Another Friday random thought post, this time on AI and creativity, and music specifically.

This weekend is a far too infrequent music-playing one (geography gets in the way). We’re bringing together a few friends who have been making music together for over three decades. With one band, we’ll be playing our first album, released about 30 years ago, with music written by my friends in the band. Before you get the wrong idea, it was just a small independent release! But even now, about a thousand people a month are still streaming music we put out decades ago. With another band, I’ll be playing a set of songs written with a very old friend over the past couple of years (apart from one, another thirty-year-old survivor). These are largely for our own enjoyment, with the classic attitude of: if other people enjoy it too, that’s a bonus.

There’s a lot of concern that AI will kill creative industries. Impact, certainly. Destroy, I’m less sure. In the end, it’s all about human connection. Music doesn’t exist in an isolated bubble, it’s about bringing people together and creating and recreating times and memories.

Will any AI-generated music still be listened to decades from now? At the moment, probably not. At best, it provides a few minutes of amusement.