Sorry for long post
This topic is very interesting to me.
Quite interesting story, thanks for sharing!
But I must confess that for the life of me I'm not able to understand where one Drake's song ends and another starts.
I believe the only reason this got viral is because of Drake's name on it, so many fans immediately jumped on the hype train - not for the quality of its music. Sorry for even saying that but... I really think so.
Thought I must admit the bass riff is solid. I'm sure AI will rock in this style of music - repetitive and simple, not much efforts invested, no serious/interesting theory concepts or anything behind it.
It's all about the person, all about the guy who made an icon out of himself. It's basically the cult of personality right here, for whatever reason it's started. AI will not take his jobs simply because it can generate very similar song. Not many will listen to it if you remove "Drake" from the title. Name what made this viral. Not the music. The song itself is... average, to put it mildly. Not peak Dre D, not even close, IMO.
in fact bizarre you mention KNOWER and Jacob Collier as I've been listening to both a ton lately (Collier's latest album on as I type this)
SAME
Like two weeks of Knower almost non-stop plus mixing in Collier since the release. Absolutely mind-blowing stuff!
History is full of people feeling so confident that they're job is so unique and important that they could never be replaced who were left behind by automation
Oh, that's absolutely not the point I'm trying to express here.
But yes, there is no doubt SOMEONE will need to sort everything AI generates to find actual jems here. Yes, you can basically limit it only to high-quality stuff - like ask AI to generate a song but use commercially available libraries, and you'll get incredibly played (by humans) result simply by mixing stuff according to some rules. But someone will need to listen to it and make something of the result. Like that Drake song that was also "curated" by the person who put it on Internet.
The rest will use it to create songs more quickly and more, let's say, accurately, professionally sounding. So the role of the professional will most likely increase - actually good musicians will find a way how to be better than the rest by using the tools in creative ways.
And amateurs might get their shot to glory - just as many had since recording at home became available to literally everyone.
And you know what? Just one other thought. Again, a pure speculation, but what is not speculation here?
We all know how easy it is to understand "digital vs analog" when you see what you are playing, right? Pretty much everyone easily hears the difference between Fender Custom Shop and chinese replica when they see them. It's the "blind test" where suddenly many "golden ears" cannot understand if this is a genuine early Plexi in mint condition or say Fractal, and for the good reason.
Same - or I's say much worse - fate will fall upon AI. Right now it's everyone's favorite toy. Once people understand there is no real "I" behind this, they will not be able not to think it's all fake. Right now it's all fun and games, but people will still go look for a real person to follow.