MindMatters notes an increasing discontent with AI among musicians.

“We tried to use these machines to express something extremely moving that a machine cannot feel, but a human can,” he continued. “We were always on the side of humanity and not on the side of technology.” Bangalter said that the timing of Daft Punk’s 2021 breakup was intentional. “As much as I love this character,” he said, “the last thing I would want to be, in the world we live in, in 2023, is a robot.”

The authors seem to think there’s a blurry line between musical tools and AI. It’s not blurry at all if you focus on the INPUT of the machines instead of the OUTPUT. Every musical instrument is a machine, and we’ve had supercomplex and partly automatic music machines since the 1500s. Music boxes and hurdy-gurdies were automatic. Organs and harpsichords were partly automated with octave connectors and stops and such.

Clocks in 1200 had robot musicians and other effects:

The Clavecin Oculaire was a highly mechanized light and music show.

The problem with AI isn’t the OUTPUT from the mechanism. The problem with AI is the SUCTION of art and skill from every musician and artist and writer in the world, without credit or payment, as expressed best by Jectoons.

Player pianos and phonograph records didn’t SUCK in a universal way. Their makers, like old-fashioned book publishers, paid close attention to licensing and copyrights. Record companies didn’t always pay fair royalties to artists, but they did pay, and defended the IP ferociously.

In business and music and international trade, BILATERAL CONTRACTS serve human skills best. Global and universal arrangements always suck.