AI of the beholder: Instead of destroying the arts, artificial intelligence will redeem them (Rina Furano, 11 May, 2025, The Critic)
This hysteria, while common, is by no means universal; some find this social flurry amusing, even exhilarating. Among musical conservatives and the younger generation of composers — groups with considerable overlap — hope is stirring. For decades, many have fruitlessly lamented the state of the classical music business in Europe: politically entrenched institutions, forced adhesion to atonality as the only accepted language of contemporary composition, cronyism, promotion of mediocre-but-concordant talent, systemic suppression of dissent and innovation. It seemed as if no human could ever change this; now it appears that technology will.
To those with traditional leanings, it is sweetly paradoxical that the modern anguish is most palpable in those who, for years, pretended to be the avant-garde: composers who forwent their own humanity by producing serial, aleatoric or fully electronic music. They are now the first in line to be automated away — by an artificial consciousness much more proficient in the creation of such soundscapes than they could ever hope to become. But they are not the only ones for the chop: All composers, living or dead, are up for a reckoning, and many will likely be rationalised away. Contrary to the ubiquitous doomsday predictions, this is good news — especially for aesthetic conservatives.