We continue to closely follow the development of AI in the field of music and sound. We see creative potential as well as ethical, cultural and ecological implications to be considered.

At MOST, we support the Core Principles for Artificial Intelligence Applications as laid out by the Human Artistry Campaign. Widely recognized cornerstones of the ethical use of creative works, also reflected in these core princples, are permission, fair payment and transparency.

In this sense, our position around generative AI is no different from how we collaborate with other creative professionals in general: whenever we hire a session musician, singer or voice actor to work for us, we will pay them fairly and be transparant about the use of their creative output we ask them to grant permission for.

Voice over & AI

Just like we wouldn’t use a recording of a voice-over artist without a specific permission for that usage, we will not alter this recording and create a new version using generative AI without permission. With permission however, we are happy to do so if it solves the problem at hand – and we’ll always be transparant about it. We also make sure that, when using AI to generate or amend a recording, the talent’s voice is not used as training data for further development of the AI tool. We only use tools that allow for an opt-out (as required by the EU AI Act) and we have enabled this opt-out.

Music & AI

When it comes to music, these principles apply too. So, we embrace AI tools that aid our composition and production work – for instance to improve mixes, to enhance audio restauration, or to provide options or alternatives in a music search context. But we will not use AI tools to create music tracks with little or no input from our side, especially when there is no transparancy about the data the AI was trained on and the fair compensation for the creators of these works.

With the current state of affairs (January 2025), for most Generative AI music engines, conditions of permission, fair payment and transparency have not been met and lawsuits by rightsholders are unfolding. In Europe, the AI Act is being implemented. When using AI-generated music in commercial applications, there is also a risk of unintentional plagiarism: there have been ample examples of AI-generated music that was way too close to original music tracks to be considered an original work – possibly leading to (unintentional) copyright infringement.

Creativity first, technology second

Aside from the legal arguments, we are ultimately driven by what makes us tick: we love creating music and sound first and foremost – and we love technology as a tool to help us with that, second. While we embrace new technology, we aim to stay on the side of human creativity when navigating the fine line between AI as a tool for enhancing our creativity and AI as an autonomous creator.

Further reading

If you’d like to know more about what influences our thinking about this matter, here are a few links:

• Opinion piece by Ivo on the Private Kitchen platform about the relationship between AI and artistic development
• Roundtable discussion (with Ivo) and article by Etienne Valk on the Digital Constitutionalist
• Ted Gioia in discussion with Rick Beato about AI’s threat to music (also check Ted on Substack)
• The Human Artistry Campaign
• Research paper: Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content