In the midst of Grammy Week, Luminate hosted a fireside chat at West Hollywood’s Peppermint Club with Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, to discuss what lies ahead for an ever-changing music industry — or, as Luminate CEO Rob Jonas put it in their sit-down, “how we are trying to balance the math of modern music with the magic that makes a Grammy-winning record.”
Naturally, AI was the focus of the conversation, both in how it will impact the music world and how the Recording Academy will respond as AI songs and artists become increasingly commonplace in recording studios and on the charts. Mason sees AI as the latest wave in a lineup of music technology advancements that upended old ways and, in doing so, presented bold new creative possibilities.
“We believe in human creativity … but I also think there’s a place for AI, and it is a tool,” he said. “It’s not unlike some of the other technological disruptions we’ve experienced in the past. Remember when painters were so mad when the camera came out? It’s not something that’s going to decimate us, but it will be disruptive.”
Mason stressed that the Recording Academy’s overarching goal is to support and protect human creativity. For one, the Academy is a major backer of the still unpassed NO FAKES Act, which would implement stronger protections around AI cloning and deepfakes.
And when it comes to AI music’s Grammy eligibility, he made clear that while AI music can be entered for consideration, finding the proper category placement is a whole other thing. “You can submit a song that has used AI,” Mason said. “What we’re not going to do is give a Grammy to an AI artist for singing.”
Beyond music creators, consumers also need to warm up to the technology. Luminate’s latest U.S. Entertainment 365 survey results found music listeners are still widely uncomfortable with AI being used in any kind of music-originating capacity. Still, the chart placement of AI artists such as Xania Monet suggests at least some people are open to AI music.
For his part, Mason believes consumers will come to see AI music in a similar way to how they do genres — some like it, while others may not be into it. Still, he stressed, as AI continues to improve to the point of being able to “replicate human storytelling based off enough information that it can aggregate,” the artists who will succeed will be those who use the technology to maximize their creative potential.
“I don’t think you can discount the fact that we will be listening to AI music and AI artists in the very near future, and they will be successful,” Mason said. “But I don’t think it’s either that or human. Some people who raise their hand and say they don’t care about AI will listen to it; some people who are staunch ‘humans only’ will only listen and gravitate toward human artists. And that will be okay.”
Ultimately, Luminate and the Recording Academy share the same goal of exploring and highlighting the intersection between emerging technology and enduring creativity.
