If A.I. took the place of musicians, would you listen to it?

People really underestimating the abilities of AI going into the future. We are presently in the infancy stage of AI, AI will replicate all the emotion, imagination, skill and intelligence of living breathing humans ,however,  it can never be a sentient being. The question is, will that matter in the long run? If people perceive it as a sentient being isn't it a sentient being?  Some already interacting with robots as sentient beings, I expect human's relation to AI to only expand into the future, expect long term emotional relationships. Our emotional involvement with AI generated music will become ubiquitous and accepted given enough time, easy accomplishment vs. a personal friendship/relationship.

There will probably be many Zuckerberg-like, non-musician nerds getting rich from generating music through AI in the future, and some of it may even be good.  Good for them I guess, but I’ll never respect or wanna meet them, and I’ll damn sure never go see a buncha bots perform live music.  People will always be the heart and soul of music whatever AI brings to the table. 

@larsman

I'd be perfectly fine with it if I liked it. I don't care much how the sausage is made if it tastes good to me. And AI is still programs created by humans. 

Interesting. Would this extend to painting, novels, art, too?

How about sermons in church?

How about the things your wife or kids say to you? What if they were being written by A.I.? As long you are made happy by them, it doesn't matter where it came from? 

@sns

Interesting questions raised by your post. I definitely agree we can and will be fooled. I am wondering if there's a reason to care if we're fooled. The limit case here is the kind of situation we find in science fiction, e.g. the human who thinks they're in love with another human but is in love with a simulation instead. Some would say, "Sure, give me the robot spouse as long as they please me" whereas others would say, "Being in a relationship means having a partner whose ethical value matters, who I am responsible to and for." One cannot care for a robot and, for me, caring makes me human.

The systems analysts, at least in their roles as technologists advancing company objectives, are (in my mind) more machine than man.

As to your further comment, about sentience, I guess it depends on how that gets defined. One can imagine that if sentience is nothing more than us *thinking* something is sentient, then it is measured by our epistemic limits, which are fairly low.

@tony1954

Until AI is capable of actual creative genius, as opposed to merely clever mimicry

Ah, so it's just their present state of development, and you have no objection to AI in principle -- it's just not good enough. I feel the same way about butter substitutes, but not about art.

@robert53

Emotion, imagination, skill and intelligence are all utilized to play and write music. Does AI have all these?

No. And those are important, to me. To others, they may all be superfluous. E.g. for @larsman, all he/she/they want is to have the right kind of reaction. They need their buttons pushed, and nothing more.

Likely not.  For whatever reason I want to hear music that a human being has created of their own imagination after working hard to master (at least to some degree) a musical instrument.  I find AI interesting and use it in my work but in terms of artistic creativity I prefer human endeavors.

@hilde45 - 'Sermons in church'? Don't get me started there.

Not everybody here has a wife and kids.  

And yes, that would go for painting, novels, and other arts. An AI-written novel would not stop humans from writing novels or other humans from reading them. Same goes for paintings. I see it as 'more', not 'instead of'. ...