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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember going, \u2018Holy smokes, I\u2019m sure glad I\u2019m not a musician,\u2019\u201d McKenzie said. \u201c\u2018I\u2019m a composer, nobody\u2019s going to replace me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
An Oscar, four decades of credits and 125 movies later, machines are coming for his job.<\/p>\n
Studios and producers are always looking for the least expensive and easiest ways to do things, McKenzie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI is coming down the pike very fast,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is very hard to figure out exactly where this is going.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The testimony covered ethics, legal issues, copyrights, and even a bit of philosophy when it comes to machines and creativity.<\/p>\n
For McKenzie and his fellow composers, he advocated that Congress consider three things: credit, permission and compensation.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It would also create some restrictions on the legal status of AI-generated content.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want people creating something with 100% AI to be given copyright protection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McKenzie has composed or orchestrated scores for more than 125 movies. He\u2019s worked with renowned musicians, conductors, filmmakers and actors. He orchestrated the Oscar-winning score to \u201cDances With Wolves.\u201d His composition resume includes the films \u201cMission Impossible,\u201d \u201cSpider-Man,\u201d \u201cLilo and Stitch,\u201d \u201cGood Will Hunting,\u201d \u201cA Few Good Men,\u201d \u201cSleepless in Seattle,\u201d \u201cMen in Black,\u201d \u201cNightmare Before Christmas,\u201d \u201cIce Age,\u201d \u201cSister Act\u201d and \u201cMr. and Mrs. Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n
With that resume and at age 70, one could understand if McKenzie decided that charting the composing industry\u2019s course into the era of AI should be left to the next generation of composers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something I sought out,\u201d he said. \u201cThe funny thing about life is you just don\u2019t know where your life will go.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said seeing lawmakers in action was eye-opening. Political coverage portrays no-holds-barred sparring, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what I saw,\u201d he said. \u201cThe humanity was beautiful to see in action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most lawmakers in the hearings took time to listen to the testimony, ask questions and give honest feedback, McKenzie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we began a dialogue,\u201d McKenzie said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much noise in D.C., but what I did accomplish is I built relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
McKenzie said he\u2019s not against artificial intelligence per se, but couldn\u2019t picture himself using it in his work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just not interested if I\u2019m using machines to do my job; it\u2019s just not interesting to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Artists will continue to create even if AI tries to replicate that creativity, he said.<\/p>\n
McKenzie said he thinks there will always be a demand for genuine human-created art.<\/p>\n
\u201cLive music will never change because we\u2019ll always want to hear an artist sing their song and experience the beauty and soulfulness of an artist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not an easy task,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople don\u2019t reward artists for being artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good legislation should give credit and outline compensation to artists whose work is replicated by or fuels artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Consideration of the issue and backlash against what some people call \u201cAI slop\u201d are reasons McKenzie said he\u2019s optimistic about the legislation and the future for creatives in general.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s good reason to be hopeful,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the end we\u2019ll figure this out and maybe we\u2019ll see value that we didn\u2019t see before.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mark McKenzie first saw a synthesizer that could replicate the sound of an orchestra with one piece…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,954,2348,3146,13554,7711],"class_list":["post-88030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-entertainment","tag-minnesota","tag-music","tag-national-politics","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}