AI doesn't have a soul, but we do.

In the face of technological challenges, we human beings with souls have to be bold and open.

I've always heard employee rumors about having fun with people who aren't employees producing creative work using artificial intelligence or AI and then recognizing themselves as true workers. Recently on social media, I saw music activists talking about this in a blunt tone.

I'm in the circle of painters, writers and graphic designers. They've been complaining about it for a long time. Some of them are anti-AI. Just like the music activists argue, they say AI-produced works don't have a soul.

These employees say people who use AI to produce artwork are not worthy of being called employees. They just press the button, and then the machine makes everything. When it's done, the chestnut says he's made a song, painted and so on. For some employees, the presence of AI is seen as a threat to rice pots and revenue streams. This issue deserves serious attention and should not be taken lightly. So, let's talk about this issue by focusing on the music and song industries because it's easier for society to understand as we sing and listen to songs every day.

If a company wanted to make jingles or commercial background music, they might have to find composers, arrangers, musicians and studios. Nowadays, with AI one can sit alone at home, type some instructions and... In less than two minutes, a song is available. Cost savings have been greatly reduced because we've "leaped" the manufacturing tradition that we've long followed. It's easy, right?

Disappointed by this development, we reject AI's work with the threat of saying 'AI has no soul'. Yes, it is. But if we're going to talk about the soul, instruments like guitars and pianos don't even have a soul. Even old-time musicians rejected synthesizers and drum machines that were also said to have no feelings. That's what we understand, all the instruments and software never make love and they never disappoint.

However, the advantage of AI technology is that it's not a passive instrument like a guitar. Guitars can't play on their own when they're told, but AI tells us to "make me a sad song, slow tempo, frustrated mood left by the lover", just for a moment 'he's doing it.

"Well, you can do it! But the AI song still has no soul". No more souls, for that reason!

Did you know that there was a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology last August, a blind listening experiment involving 71 participants who were actually trained in the basics of music. They've been listened to with music made by humans, as well as music made hundreds of times by AI, and music made in collaboration between humans and AI. They weren't told about it. Interestingly, participants who did have a basic knowledge of this music were also unable to consistently identify which one was human and which machine.

Looks like it's got something to do with psychology. When we tell the beginning of the song that it's an AI-funded project, our assessment will change. It means that the label "this is AI" itself can affect how we listen to music. If we were told a song was written by a man who had just lost his wife, before the song even started we'd be ready to grieve. On the other hand, if we were told that the same song was made by AI, automatically we would create a perception.

However, this argument does not prove that AI-powered music is as valuable as genuine human-made works. It's important for all of us to understand.

I actually enjoyed playing with AI to produce songs. It's not for business, it's just fun and exciting to feel shocked supposedly producing something. I write the lyrics, define the music genre, the vocal character, the type of instrument and its duration. The results came out. It's not good, I asked again and again until I got the same result as what I wanted. A song has been produced. Of course I'm not a composer. This is where we need to introduce some terms to distinguish them.

A composer is an absolute human being who creates original music such as melodies, harmonies or structures. If this composer makes a song using AI as part of his production tool, he's still the composer. But if AI plays a bigger role in the layout and develops the original idea, maybe the term "AI-assisted composer" is more transparent.

And then there's people like me who don't make music, but give instructions to the AI, pick out results, repeat "prompt" until they get a result. I don't mind being called a 'music promoter'. I made some creative decisions, but I can't claim to have composed a song when it was actually engineered. People like me should be aware of themselves and not notice. So is the title of creative work in other fields of art.

These terms may be out of date because technology moves so fast that no term has ever been invented. What's more important to me is that credit needs to be transparent. If Ahmad only wrote the lyrics and gave instructions to AI, don't put "song and music: Ahmad" on the credits. Responsibly write for example 'Lyric: Ahmad, music: created with AI' and 'Creative direction/curatorship: Ahmad'. If Ahmad created his own melody and then AI helped the movement, write 'Composer: Ahmad' and 'composition/production: AI help'. I think that's fairer.

It's not right for AI to be given moral rights like humans. What we need is transparency about the process so that human rights who really contribute can be identified. The public needs to be educated about these differences as well. If we just scream, "AI has no soul", then our conversation is bound to go nowhere. We have to finish this.

I understand the musician's concerns because I am also in the production business. I paint and write. I'm also being sued for the presence of AI. Customers who used to pay us for their work designing, graphic or illustrating books can now produce them themselves in just a minute by paying only RM20 monthly subscription fees. Customers who set aside thousands of ringgit for jingles can now get them faster and cheaper. That's because society, no matter what, is made by pure humans or machines. It's a good one, they just take it.

That's why the issues of copyright, credit, how AI is used and how creators are protected need to be discussed seriously. It's because AI already exists. We're gonna have to deal with him. Maybe that's the middle of it. Protect the original creator's rights. Give credit based on donations. Compare a composer to someone who just gives a prompt.

But at the same time, employees also need to see what's happening around them. Don't just anti-AI and question technology when it comes to us. Today, we order food through screens or phones, pay for it on our own at a self-service counter and do banking through machines and apps. Robots are already doing some of the human work in restaurants, warehouses and factories. We're having fun because it makes our business easier, but we don't care about people who lost their jobs there.

We don't care about the robots that send breadcrumbs to our table. We feel more comfortable with order on the screen than we do in human face until eventually humans are eliminated. The least fun to see is the music industry that opposes using AI to produce the song, while at the same time using AI to create concert posters. How's that? Where's the "no soul" crap going?

In the face of technological challenges, we human beings with souls have to be bold and open. If the competition gets fiercer, we can't keep grumbling and screaming. We have to embrace the challenge, master that technology so we don't fall behind.

This article is the author's view and does not necessarily represent FMT.