I have worked around the creative arts all of my professional life. For 20 years I have worked around talented music composers for whom I have the greatest appreciation. Over the last year, I have been working with digital audio software that lets one take lyrics and “paint” music around the initial “composition” of a song. AI provides the spark. Then, with a digital audio workstation one can “rip” (separate) the individual “tracks” (instruments) to produce a complete song. The vocals, accompaniment styles, and instrumentation are all configured with software commands. Fortunately, I have access to a brilliant poet (Jody) that can create and advise on the lyrics. I initially was apologetic because I felt it was cheating using the AI to spark the composition. But, then I realized that AI is just another tool.

AI is NOT “the robots taking over.” Rather, AI is spawned entirely from flesh and blood origins, and is – for lack of a better term – the  collective human consciousness. It is a gargantuan collection of human wisdom, experience, emotion, folly, creativity, grief, joy, despair, hope, observations, and so on forever. Robby the Robot is not on the other side of your computer redesigning your brain. You have nothing to fear. However, fear is also part of the wealth of AI.