'Generative AI' and 'Intelligent Performance System': Musico- Sociological Perspectives on Recent AI Tools

https://aimc2023.pubpub.org/pub/4122zt5f When claiming that AI technology has been ubiquitous in the society, that has only meant until recently that the technology has permeated the social infrastructure. In this statement, the use of the technology was deemed limited to big companies or academics. However, the situation is changing with the rise of ‘generative AI’. As part of wide distribution of ‘apps’, pieces of software oriented for numerous mundane objectives, people can now easily harness it for their everyday tasks, including artistic creation.1 Some ambitious artists have adopted AI much before this shift. They have claimed the special status of the new technology that transcends conventional technological ‘tools’, calling it as a ‘collaborator’ or ‘meta- instrument’, for instance.2 However, the popularity of generative AI seems to have brought attention back to its role as ‘tool’. Expecting its creative potential, people have experimented with such apps. What this paper questions is this expectation. In order to consider the way to incorporate such tools, this paper explores their potential and limitation from a sociological perspective, asking if such tools have a creative potential that would subvert the critical views that thinkers have long bore in relation to technology’s involvement with music (re)production. Firstly, I briefly describe the concept of ‘generative AI’ with introducing related terms. Following this, I investigate recent AI tools, referring to the sociological concept from two perspectives, the industrialisation and abundance of music. Reflecting on these, the final part considers the possibility of human intervention and argues for the importance of locating the human creator in the generation process as part of the system—the ‘Intelligent Performance System’