Happy New Year!

In his first podcast of the new year, Bobby Owsinski reviews his predictions for 2023 and offers his new set for 2024.

Of keen interest to me is how he describes the maturation of AI. I'll interpret and paraphrase as follows. 2023 was a coming-out year for the technology. 2024 will mark the shift from AI as technology toward AI as markets. Bobby predicts that "AI" will be replaced by buzzwords like "companion" or "assistant". He emphasizes that AI will not replace jobs, but people who master the technology will take jobs from those who don't. In our business, a wise audio engineer will virtually hire a virtual assistant for mundane tasks to save tedium, time and money; while hopefully matching or enhancing product quality.

My first thought is that it's time to become a luddite. Luddism was "a 19th century movement of English textile workers which opposed the use of certain types of cost-saving machinery, often by destroying the machines in clandestine raids. They protested against manufacturers who used machines in 'a fraudulent and deceitful manner' to replace the skilled labour of workers and drive down wages by producing inferior goods." (Wikipedia)

The problem is, in our field, what constitutes inferior or superior goods? Owsinski notes that AI could wholly replace background music placed in certain ads and video productions. This is already happening in countless animated tutorials for software products and services. The music is cheesy enough to be painfully noticeable after viewing a half-dozen such videos in a row, while not really interfering with the product message. And the quality of AI-assisted compositions will improve.

So why would I become a luddite? Well, I actually enjoy manually editing vocal tracks - plosives, sibilance, timing, tuning, harmonization, feel. While an "assistant" could do much of this work for me, do I really want to give it up? I also enjoy the craft of mastering, even as Owsinski rightly suggests that online services and automated tools can efficiently do much (not all) of what a mastering engineer does. In our world of self-producing, self-published artists, is the 80-20 rule good enough?

But if my personal interest evolves away from production toward songwriting and composition, I might see AI in a very different light.

My question here is, can AI technology be packaged and marketed in ways that an audio professional knows they can use it without losing creative control? If so, then does AI become accepted as a trusted assistant, akin to hiring a human intern or recent graduate from a media production program, or inviting a friend to hear and review a mix?

Sky