Artificial music will not come to rule our hearts

Artificial intelligence can enrich but not subvert music as we know it, which at its true best is a poetic endeavour of human emotion, enterprise and originality. Trust poetry to prevail

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Last week, Paul McCartney's mention of a last John Lennon song left fans giddy in anticipation of its release. A cassette recorded in the New York flat of the late Beatles member has been cleaned up by artificial intelligence (AI) and is slated for its debut this year, more than four decades after he was killed. Imagine that. While AI is expected to impact almost every field, we must not lose track of what it can do in the world of chords and keys, vocals and ear-worms, melody and harmony. Of late, voice synthesis by AI has been evoking many wonders. All it takes is a singer's voice sample for software to generate and belt out songs in it. Such vocal cloning has raised worries of intellectual property theft, even as vocalists spot a pay-per-use opportunity. Who deserves credit for Al-aided or generated output is another question. How can an Al-suffused market share its rewards evenly enough so that artists keep up their art and audiences also stay satisfied? Or what if AI is poised to grab the very core of this business? It's not just g