Human creativity built the music industry. Now it’s being pushed to the margins. As AI enters the studio, the fight isn’t about tools or trends but about the soul of the work. Art is inherently human, and without artists at the center, something essential is lost.
Patrick McAndrew* sits at the center of the conflict. As a Responsible AI Strategist and the Founder of the Future of Entertainment Alliance—a group uniting artists and technologists around ethical AI in entertainment—as well as an artist himself, he brings a rare dual perspective shaped by experience on both sides of the divide.
Playing second fiddle: “Arts and entertainment are so central to humanity that it would be a disservice to us as humans if we cast ourselves aside and made way for AI without any guardrails.” For McAndrew, that’s the line: AI belongs in the process, not at the helm.
“It's important to make sure that the human is using the AI and that the AI isn't using the human,” he says. Used well, AI becomes a creative partner. A musician can play a melody on piano and instantly hear it on a cello, or use it to speed up the slog of post-production. The goal isn’t to replace the artist but to empower them.
No pain, no refrain: This human-centric view pushes back against the tech-utopian idea that art is just a task to be automated. “The CEO of Suno AI said that people don't enjoy making music anymore,” McAndrew says. He dismisses the idea as short-sighted, the kind of conclusion someone might draw after picking up a guitar once and quitting the moment it got hard. "Yes, creating music can sometimes be a struggle," says McAndrew. "But when you commit yourself and follow through, you realize how much joy it brings to your life."
The dark side: But AI is advancing faster than the rules meant to govern it. “They’re bypassing copyright laws and scraping whatever data they can to train their models, even if it’s not exactly legal,” McAndrew says. “And that sends you down a rabbit hole. What does it mean for an artist if their voice is being stolen from them?” Voice cloning, deepfakes, and unauthorized scraping have left artists exposed. “A lot of artists are very concerned about what's happening, and for good reason.”
Started from the bottom: Headlines focus on AI clones of Beyoncé and Drake, but McAndrew says the real threat is lower on the ladder. “These celebrities have the money and reputation to take legal action,” he says. “My big concern is for the independent musicians who rely on their music for their livelihood. If AI is coming in and stealing what they've created, it's devastating. These are the artists who don't have the resources to take legal action.”
Signs of life: McAndrew stresses that the industry cannot self-regulate and requires outside enforcement, but he sees glimmers of progress. “There are moves being made, but they're not happening fast enough,” he says, pointing to Tennessee’s ELVIS Act as an early attempt to protect artists. He also highlights companies like Rightsify, which are “creating AI-generated music, but doing it in a way that is ethical and responsible by setting up licenses for people's work.”
Heart to heart: For McAndrew, the path forward is clear: artists must stay at the center. “As humans, I believe that we're always going to be drawn to the creations of fellow human beings,” he says. “As AI continues to advance and really infiltrate this entertainment space, there needs to be more conversation around what do standards and guardrails look like to protect that creation.”
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*Patrick McAndrew's opinions expressed in this article are solely his own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organizations or affiliations he is associated with.