Does It Matter Who Makes the Music?

On Could 21, 2026, Spotify introduced that it’s releasing an upcoming characteristic that can permit customers to make use of generative AI to create covers and remixes of their favourite songs. Though Spotify has not revealed the person interface or an exhaustive checklist of particulars for a way the characteristic will work, the final thought is that customers, for instance, may take a Taylor Swift music and remix it to sound like a metallic band cowl. In contrast to asking AI to create a completely new music, the unique inventive work right here has already been accomplished by a human. 

However what occurs once we hand the interpretation of that work over to a machine as an alternative of one other human musician?

There are quite a lot of issues I need to credit score Spotify for. In contrast to one other generative AI music instrument, Suno, which finds itself in a lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement and plagiarism, Spotify is making an intentional effort to make sure artists consent to having their songs remixed, in addition to obtain truthful compensation. Additionally, bluntly, this sounds enjoyable; it’s a approach for audiences to interact with their favourite artists with the artists’ permission.

Regardless of the positives, it nonetheless begs the query: are there any prices or downsides to encouraging using generative AI to create music, even remixes and covers?

To suppose by that query, I stored coming again to a dialog I had with my co-worker Cyrus. Cyrus grew up in Austin, a metropolis that has been formed by its musicians. In 1991, Austin declared itself the “Stay Music Capital of the World.” Whereas the title is debatable, what’s much less up for argument is that Austin has traditionally produced and attracted artists like Willie Nelson, Janis Joplin, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Cyrus was influenced by the artists that formed town that formed him. Though he’s now a full-time software program engineer, he performed his first present on sixth Road in highschool. As a multi-instrumentalist, you’ll be able to hear Vaughan’s affect significantly clearly in his musical fashion.

Though he attended a non-public Christian faculty rising up, Cyrus will not be a Christian. Not too long ago, we had been having a dialog at work about how generative AI is gaining prominence. I requested him his opinion as each somebody who understands LLMs and music at an knowledgeable stage. Regardless of seeing the worth in AI-assisted instruments, significantly round music manufacturing, he expressed a common discomfort about utilizing AI to generate songs from scratch. Once I requested him the supply of his discomfort, he couldn’t concretely pinpoint the place it got here from.

Whereas he talked about the purity of artwork and a few ideas about reducing corners and outsourcing it to effectivity, he finally got here to say, “I don’t actually know, it simply feels gross.” It introduced up a bigger query for me: if artist discomfort with generative AI is rooted in one thing deeper than vibes or effectivity, the place does the discomfort come from?

When generative AI first turned outstanding, I instantly discounted it as a result of every thing that it produced was tacky. Whereas I believed this was a powerful argument in opposition to utilizing it, just a few years later, generative AI has grown in its capability to create genuinely stunning music. 

Some of the attention-grabbing tales round this level was advised by my pal and fellow author and musician, Jay Bragg. Not too long ago, Jay’s dad reached out to him and shared a music that was so emotionally shifting to him that he needed it performed at his funeral. After Jay listened to the music, he realized that it was utterly AI-generated. When he shared that along with his dad, his dad pushed again and shared that he found the music on America’s Acquired Expertise. Nevertheless, when Jay investigated that, he discovered that the episode was additionally fully AI-generated.

Jay anticipated the revelation to vary his dad’s thoughts, however it didn’t. He nonetheless needs the music performed at his funeral. Jay shared with me that he had at all times assumed human-created artwork was the one form of artwork that could possibly be emotionally shifting, however this expertise disproved that inner conclusion for him. 

So, if AI-generated music will be stunning, emotionally shifting, and indistinguishable from one thing a human may create, does human creativity really matter?

I feel most of us, no matter our worldview, would say, “Sure!” However some worldviews have a tendency to carry up higher than others. 

There are lots of compelling the explanation why and the way people create. We will clarify the processes that create music. We will clarify why sure frequencies and sounds evoke completely different feelings. There are lots of evolutionary, neurological, cultural, and social explanations. However explaining how people create artwork will not be the identical as why human-created artwork has distinctive and inherent worth.

If music’s worth comes subjectively from the “ear of the beholder,” then an AI-generated music can be simply as useful. If music’s worth comes from the standard of a product, then once more, AI-generated music is not any completely different than a human creation. 

Secular worldviews that prioritize particular person perspective or financial effectivity wrestle to supply a compelling cause that human-created artwork issues or differs from AI-generated artwork.

I consider, for the primary time in a very long time, the Christian Church has a singular alternative to fill a significant hole by caring for, defending, and valuing the output of human artists.

Christianity provides a strong clarification for the gross feeling that my pal Cyrus had, and what many artists are at the moment feeling. The Judeo-Christian worldview claims that people are made within the picture of God, by God, and subsequently have inherent dignity and worth. Not solely that, however God created people to mirror Him of their actions, together with by their creativity.

Theologians discuss with this because the Imago Dei. 

At first of the Bible, we encounter a God who’s a Creator. In actual fact, creating is among the first issues we study who God is. After God creates humanity, He not solely offers them the flexibility to call the animals, however He calls them to domesticate, steward, and create inside the inventive playground of the Backyard of Eden. When God creates, He calls it good, after which permits His image-bearers to imitate Him.

To be clear, after the Fall, when sin enters the world, not each piece of human creation is inherently good in the identical approach that God’s creation is. I’m not arguing {that a} machine can not create issues which might be good or helpful. However it does imply that there’s something vital about who is creating, and never simply the creator’s output. At any time when a human writes a music or creates one thing, they’re exercising a capability that displays the God whose picture they bear.

A Christian worldview doesn’t permit one to solely worth artwork due to what it does to us. We should additionally care about who created it and what it tells us about them. Take the traditional instance of a kid’s drawing. It could be objectively dangerous when judged purely as artwork, however dad and mom will grasp the drawing on the fridge for show. Why? As a result of the worth of the drawing isn’t discovered within the high quality of the art work itself. It’s discovered within the baby who made it.

The creator modifications the best way that we perceive the artwork and worth it.

If the worth of human creation will not be, at the least partly, present in people, then there will not be many arguments in opposition to utilizing AI to generate the way forward for music. Our tradition has spent generations praising artists for his or her capability to supply nice work, however what occurs when a machine can do these issues quicker, cheaper, and arguably higher than we will?

On a bigger scale, if human worth is tied to what we will produce, then AI presents an existential subject for humanity past the humanities. There’s a day coming quickly when AI could outperform people in a large number of the way. Whereas there are definitely financial advantages and realities wherein higher know-how has made our lives simpler, if our price as people is solely present in our productiveness, the extra succesful AI turns into, the much less useful we turn into.

Elon Musk has gone on document speculating that the long run economic system could finally permit people to cease working altogether, leaving us primarily to pursue hobbies and leisure actions. This raises an essential query—if work and productiveness are now not obligatory, what offers human life worth?

Christianity doesn’t floor human worth within the productiveness of an individual. Somebody’s worth doesn’t enhance based mostly on their intelligence, expertise, creativity or output—their worth comes from the Creator who they picture. 

Maybe that is the place AI can really be a blessing. As machines turn into extra able to conducting duties, maybe the phantasm of our price being present in our output shall be stripped away, and it’ll drive us to reassess the place our price comes from.

For artists, this may occasionally drive the query: if my artwork will be changed by AI, what makes me useful? Christianity would say to the artist: you might be useful since you are made in God’s picture, and your creativity issues since you had been made to make.

The Church, for the primary time in a very long time, has an unimaginable alternative to form the humanities. The individuals of God have the possibility to help artists and worth their artwork, even in a cultural second the place AI is trending towards having the ability to create much more spectacular expressions of artwork than people. The individuals of God can help human artists as a result of we all know that the particular person creating the artwork helps make the artwork useful.

There are numerous sensible ways in which we will do that. We will attend live shows and buy merchandise as an alternative of listening to the AI-generated model of a music or remix. We will fee the portray, buy the guide, grasp the drawings within the church, and present as much as the poetry slam even when it’s inconvenient.

The Church in the end has the chance to reply the query, “What makes a human being useful?” in a approach that each artist and each human being longs to listen to.

Spotify’s new characteristic could also be giving us a glimpse into the way forward for music. AI will make good music, and it’s not going anyplace. It’s simply getting began. However we, because the individuals of God, shall be confronted with the query: will we nonetheless care who made the music?

We have now one thing to say on this cultural second. The worth of human creativity was by no means present in what was created. The worth of human creativity was, is, and at all times shall be discovered within the Creator whose picture we bear.