Journal 006: What If the Consumer Doesn't Care?

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

I've been thinking about the reaction to my last Journal entry.

The response has been interesting.

A lot of people have strong opinions about AI and music.

Producers.

Engineers.

Artists.

Technologists.

People working in the industry.

There are arguments everywhere.

And honestly, I'm glad there are.

I think we need to have these conversations.

But something has been nagging at me.

We're spending an enormous amount of time talking to each other.

People inside the music industry debating what AI means for the music industry.

And I think we're missing one very important person in the conversation.

The listener.

The consumer.

The person who actually listens to the music.

Because what if they don't care?

I asked a few people.

Not music producers.

Not engineers.

Not DJs.

Not people who spend their lives thinking about production, copyright, mastering, synthesis or the ethics of AI.

Just normal people who enjoy music.

I asked them a simple question.

"If you found out the music you were listening to had been made using AI, would you care?"

The reaction was interesting.

Some people understood immediately.

Others looked at me almost as if I was asking a question that didn't really matter.

And I completely understand why.

Why would they care?

They're listening to a song.

They either like it or they don't.

It makes them feel something or it doesn't.

They might put it on in the car.

Listen to it at the gym.

Play it at a party.

Put it on while they're cooking.

Maybe they hear it on a playlist and Shazam it.

Their relationship with that piece of music is fundamentally different from ours.

We hear the process.

They hear the result.

A producer might hear an AI vocal and immediately think:

"That's obviously AI."

A mixing engineer might hear an unnatural transient.

A musician might recognise something that doesn't feel quite right.

A songwriter might hear a structure that feels algorithmically familiar.

But most listeners aren't doing that.

And why should they?

They're not supposed to.

They're listening.

That's the entire point.

If something sounds good to them, makes them feel something and fits into their life...

They may simply like it.

And that's where this gets uncomfortable.

Because we can sit here arguing about ethics all day.

We can debate whether AI music is "real".

We can argue about creativity.

We can argue about whether someone who uses AI is a producer.

We can argue about copyright.

We can argue about datasets.

We can argue about authenticity.

We can argue about whether something has a human soul.

But eventually...

Someone has to buy the music.

Someone has to stream it.

Someone has to watch the film.

Someone has to listen to the playlist.

Someone has to click the song.

And if that person doesn't care how it was made...

What happens then?

Follow the money.

This is where I think things get really interesting.

Imagine you're a record label.

You've got two artists.

Artist A makes everything themselves.

They've spent ten years developing their craft.

They've invested thousands of hours learning production, songwriting and performance.

Artist B uses AI extensively.

But the music works.

The audience likes it.

The streams are growing.

The engagement is enormous.

And let's say, hypothetically, Artist A gets one million streams.

Artist B gets twenty million.

At what point does the moral argument become a business decision?

That's the question.

A label might say:

"We only work with human artists."

And perhaps they genuinely believe that.

Perhaps integrity matters to them.

Perhaps they want to protect the creative ecosystem.

But businesses are businesses.

They have employees.

Investors.

Shareholders.

Targets.

Budgets.

Revenue.

And eventually someone might ask a very simple question:

"Why are we leaving money on the table?"

That's where the argument gets much more difficult.

Morality is easier when it doesn't cost you anything.

I don't mean that cynically.

It's simply human nature.

It's easy to take a moral position when the alternative doesn't materially affect you.

But imagine AI-generated music becomes significantly cheaper.

Imagine it becomes commercially indistinguishable from human-created music to the average listener.

Imagine consumers don't care.

Imagine the AI track performs better.

Now the decision isn't philosophical anymore.

It's commercial.

And that's when I think we're going to discover how strong the industry's principles really are.

This isn't the consumer's responsibility.

And I want to be very clear about something.

I don't think we should blame consumers for any of this.

It's not their job to protect musicians.

It's not their job to understand how music is made.

It's not their job to know whether a vocal was generated by a model.

It's not their job to preserve the traditional music industry.

They're consumers.

They consume.

And if they enjoy something, they enjoy it.

That's completely reasonable.

We can't expect the average listener to carry the moral responsibility for an entire creative ecosystem.

That responsibility sits much higher up.

With the companies.

The platforms.

The labels.

The publishers.

The broadcasters.

The people controlling the budgets.

And, to some extent, us.

But what if the consumer genuinely doesn't care?

This is the part that I think a lot of creatives don't want to hear.

We might be fighting a battle that the majority of listeners never asked us to fight.

We might be passionately defending the creative journey...

While the person listening to the finished song is thinking:

"Yeah, but I like the song."

And who's right?

Honestly?

Both.

The producer is right to care about the craft.

The listener is right to care about the experience.

They're simply valuing different things.

The music industry has always evolved this way.

Every major technological shift has changed how music is created and consumed.

Recording changed performance.

Sampling changed composition.

Digital audio changed production.

Streaming changed distribution.

Social media changed discovery.

And now AI is changing creation itself.

The difference this time is that AI isn't simply giving us a new tool.

It has the potential to produce the thing itself.

That's a much bigger shift.

And I don't think anyone really knows where it ends.

So what happens next?

I suspect the answer won't be decided by producers arguing with producers.

It won't be decided by people on Reddit.

It won't be decided by Discord communities.

It won't be decided by a producer telling another producer they're not a "real musician".

It will ultimately be decided by behaviour.

What do people listen to?

What do they pay for?

What do they share?

What do they ignore?

What do platforms promote?

What do labels invest in?

What do advertisers commission?

What do film and television companies license?

Money has a very loud voice.

And the music industry knows how to listen to it.

Maybe this is the real ticking clock.

Right now, there are still plenty of people who care deeply about human creativity.

People like me.

People like you.

People who believe the process matters.

People who believe craft matters.

People who believe there is something valuable about knowing that another human being spent months, years or decades developing the ability to make something.

But we can't assume everyone feels the same way.

And we certainly can't assume they'll always feel that way.

If AI music becomes cheaper, faster and good enough...

And consumers accept it...

Then the pressure on the industry to maintain its moral position will become enormous.

And that's when we'll find out what matters more.

Integrity or revenue.

Maybe the industry will choose both.

I hope it does.

Maybe human-made music will become a premium category.

Maybe people will actively seek it out because they value the story and the person behind it.

Maybe "human-made" will eventually become a selling point in the same way that certain products are valued because of how they're made.

Or maybe consumers simply won't care.

I don't know.

And that's why I think this conversation is worth having now.

Not because I have the answer.

But because I think we're still early enough to influence what happens next.

The technology isn't going away.

The consumer isn't going away.

And the money certainly isn't going away.

So perhaps the real question isn't:

"Will AI replace human creativity?"

Perhaps it's:

"When consumers are given the choice, will they value the difference?"

Because if they do...

We have something to build on.

And if they don't...

Then the people making the commercial decisions will eventually notice.

—

Raff Di Renzo

Founder, Eleven One One Audio

The future of human creativity may not be decided by the people who create. It may be decided by the people who listen.