Page 86 - Fortune-November 01, 2018

TECH
FOCUS

A.I. SONGWRITING “IT’S CHEATING.” That’s the response you’ll hear
from self-proclaimed music purists talk-
ing about technological innovation in song
creation. Sampling, synthesizers, drum ma-
HAS ARRIVED. chines, Auto-Tune—all have been derided as
lazy ways to make chart-topping hits because
they take away the human element. (With
apologies to Vanilla Ice, Gary Numan, Prince,
DON’T PANIC and T-Pain.)
The new argument among fans and musi-
cians will be about the use of artificial intel-
ligence in songwriting. According to several
estimates, in the next decade, between 20%
Welcome to the next great debate and 30% of the top 40 singles will be written
about the legitimacy of creativity. By Dan Reilly partially or totally with machine-learning

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FO R T U N E. CO M // N O V. 1 . 1 8 ILLUSTRATION BY AARON FERNANDEZ