Echoes of the Opaque

Here I'm going to do something that some people will probably dislike.

I've used an AI music generator to create a 11-track companion soundtrack for The Metis Imperative.

This isn't because I think AI should replace musicians or because I think the debate about training data, ownership, taste, labour and artistic value in the time of AI is settled. I've done this precisely because it is not settled.

The book series is about the Promethean Convergence: the moment when our power to alter mind, body and world begins to exceed our wisdom to govern the consequences.

AI-generated music is a small but vivid example of that convergence. It's already far better than most people realise. It raises uncomfortable questions. Is it really even music?

Is prompting akin to composing, direction, authorship, commissioning, curation — or something else?If a synthetic song moves someone, does its origin matter? If it was trained on the labour of human artists, what is owed?

If you think the output is mediocre, does that make it harmless?

If you think the output is good, does that make it more dangerous?

If I hadn't told you the soundtrack was AI, would you evaluate it differently? 

These questions don't have easy answers. So I’m sharing the album here not as a claim of AI superiority, but as an illustration and a discussion point.

The music is completely AI-generated, clearly labelled, and intended to provoke exactly the debate it belongs to. It took me about an hour to prompt the entire album, including an alternative version of mixes. I specified only the style and supplied a few key words for each song. The AI generated the music, lyrics and voices. I think this is proof the fire is already burning.

How do you feel about it?