When Mark McKenzie first saw a synthesizer that could replicate the sound of an orchestra with one piece of equipment, the budding composer had a moment of gratitude.

“I remember going, ‘Holy smokes, I’m sure glad I’m not a musician,’” McKenzie said. “‘I’m a composer, nobody’s going to replace me.’”

An Oscar, four decades of credits and 125 movies later, machines are coming for his job.

Studios and producers are always looking for the least expensive and easiest ways to do things, McKenzie said.

“AI is coming down the pike very fast,” he said. “This is very hard to figure out exactly where this is going.”

McKenzie, a Lake City, Minn. native, serves on the board of directors for the Society of Composers and Lyricists. He traveled to Washington on behalf of the board and other composers to testify before Congress as lawmakers consider legislation at the crossroads of creativity and artificial intelligence.

The testimony covered ethics, legal issues, copyrights, and even a bit of philosophy when it comes to machines and creativity.

For McKenzie and his fellow composers, he advocated that Congress consider three things: credit, permission and compensation.

He advocated for bipartisan legislation that McKenzie hopes will protect artists in the era of AI. Lawmakers are mulling the Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act, which would allow copyright holders to discover if their creative work was used to train generative AI models without their permission.

It would also create some restrictions on the legal status of AI-generated content.

“We don’t want people creating something with 100% AI to be given copyright protection,” he said.

McKenzie has composed or orchestrated scores for more than 125 movies. He’s worked with renowned musicians, conductors, filmmakers and actors. He orchestrated the Oscar-winning score to “Dances With Wolves.” His composition resume includes the films “Mission Impossible,” “Spider-Man,” “Lilo and Stitch,” “Good Will Hunting,” “A Few Good Men,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Men in Black,” “Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Ice Age,” “Sister Act” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

With that resume and at age 70, one could understand if McKenzie decided that charting the composing industry’s course into the era of AI should be left to the next generation of composers.

“It’s not something I sought out,” he said. “The funny thing about life is you just don’t know where your life will go.”

He said seeing lawmakers in action was eye-opening. Political coverage portrays no-holds-barred sparring, he said.

“That’s not what I saw,” he said. “The humanity was beautiful to see in action.”

Most lawmakers in the hearings took time to listen to the testimony, ask questions and give honest feedback, McKenzie said.

“I think we began a dialogue,” McKenzie said. “There’s so much noise in D.C., but what I did accomplish is I built relationships.”

While some participants in the hearings seemed thoughtful and attentive, McKenzie said he watched others arrive minutes before they were scheduled to testify, speak and then leave immediately.

McKenzie said he’s not against artificial intelligence per se, but couldn’t picture himself using it in his work.

“I’m just not interested if I’m using machines to do my job; it’s just not interesting to me,” he said.

Artists will continue to create even if AI tries to replicate that creativity, he said.

McKenzie said he thinks there will always be a demand for genuine human-created art.

“Live music will never change because we’ll always want to hear an artist sing their song and experience the beauty and soulfulness of an artist,” he said.

However, being in the arts is already financially difficult, but is still spiritually fulfilling, which is why people will continue to create even in the age of AI, he added.

“It’s just not an easy task,” he said. “People don’t reward artists for being artists.”

Good legislation should give credit and outline compensation to artists whose work is replicated by or fuels artificial intelligence.

McKenzie said lawmakers he spoke with told him they would give the issue a close look, but that it was going to be difficult to legislate some of what he brought up in the hearing.

Consideration of the issue and backlash against what some people call “AI slop” are reasons McKenzie said he’s optimistic about the legislation and the future for creatives in general.

“I think there’s good reason to be hopeful,” he said. “In the end we’ll figure this out and maybe we’ll see value that we didn’t see before.”