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Irish Examiner

Tom Dunne: AI age sounds a worrying note for Irish musicians

That's the things about tech. One minute it's all VHS recorders, CRT TVs, CD players ad floppy disk drives and the next minute it isn't. You wake up and can't find a floppy drive for love nor money. Could music be next? Could it be all Hozier, CMAT and Fontaines DC one minute and just AI elevator music the next? It might seem extreme, but if the song is the building block and AI can write songs, well, where do you begin? Everything is based on the song: The Oasis comeback, viral TikTok hits, entire radio stations, local venues, PA hire companies, merch sales, production companies. Take out the song and nothing happens. But can you take its survival for granted? Two things happened this week to make we think we can't. Firstly, there was The Rest in Entertainment podcast. Its host Richard Osman asked AI to write a song in the style of 'indie landfill, guitar, jingly pop'. The result was to these ears was a perfectly good Kooks' song, Luke Prichard's wonderful Brighton four-piece. It wasn't classic Kooks. It was no She Moves in Her Own Way, but it was good enough. The Kooks have written worse. But Osman got AI to write it in 45 seconds as an illustration of just how jaw-droppingly simple it is. They'd been discussing a band called the Velvet Sundown. They're on Spotify, have two albums and their single Dust in the Wind, a classic slice of CSNY influenced alt-country, has 1.65 million streams. Except the Velvet Sundown – its music, image and back story- are all AI. Then, on the Brendan O'Connor Show on RTÉ radio, the poet Rita Ann Higgins was invited in to read out two poems. One was hers, the other AI generated. When asked which poem was original, 70% of the audience, myself included, got it wrong. We opted for the AI Rita. Mark Little, former RTÉ journalist and tech innovator, pointed out that the AI version is created to be 'familiar' and people like familiar. It's the same reason supermarket curries sell so well. They aren't great. They are fine and inoffensive. Most people are happy with that. These revelations came in the same week that IMRO published its Core Research report on the Cultural and Economic value of Music in Ireland. It will come as no surprise to you that we love it, although the extent of that love might surprise you. Music in Ireland generates revenue of over €1 billion a year. It employs 13,400 people in performance, production and event management, mostly in Dublin, Cork and Galway. Live events generate €786m annually. Around 71 % of adults say it is an important part of their lives, vs 49% for sports. About 53% of us have a music streaming subscription. Our average the spend on streaming is €209 per year which totals €375m a year. We spend on average €298 p.a on live events, more - €326 - if we'd class ourselves as music fans. But when you dig down it's not as rosy. Only 43% of that 13,400 who are employed in music are full time. And whereas nationally the average income is €46,567, for musicians its €28,123. Most – 68% of IMRO members - take a second job to supplement this. They do this because they love it. And on nights when they celebrate those songs with gigs in small venues all over Ireland we love them too. They give us nights we will remember forever, moments with friends that we will treasure. These are the people most at risk. With physical sales gone, and streaming and YouTube not only dividing up income parsimoniously but also undermining the traditional media like radio that paid a fair rate, what will be left? AI could flood the market with 'familiar sounding' songs trained on the very works they are competing against. Trained, by the way, without permission from or recompense for the original artists. The Government needs to do stuff here. Apply the EU AI act to protect copyright, fight for a fairer share of streaming revenue, aid grass roots music venues, extend the Basic Income for Arts, look at extending the Section 481 tax credit into music. Music is a huge brand for Ireland, from trad to U2, Bob Geldof to Hozier. It's something we excel at, but some countries, Sweden and South Korea for instance, seem to take its potential more seriously than we do. You don't know what you got 'til…