Norwich musician Ross Stewart, 21, saw his fears over AI realised when his mum sent him an album to listen to.
“We love music in my family and so we share a lot of music,” he recalls.
“She sent me an album and she said ‘how have I never heard this before? It’s fantastic’.”
Ross says it turned out to be “an AI album” of blues music and was “one of about 30 albums that have been released just this year by that one artist”.
Among the concerns for him is the “speed it’s just being pumped out because you can make a song in a minute”, which is “posing a danger — it’s affecting songwriters, producers, musicians”.
AI could be used to write lyrics, which he believes is “sacrilege”.
“I will struggle but I will write the song myself,” he adds.
He says he is aware of advertisers using AI-generated music instead of licensing a track from a musician.
That is “removing the exposure and the revenue for potential artists who are trying to grow”.
He believes AI’s output is getting better and could “start costing people jobs; it’s going to start costing people’s livelihood”.
But Stewart, who has just come off his first UK tour, adds that “people crave authenticity”.
“People want to go to shows and they want to see real people pick up guitars.”