Yancey Strickler

Yeah.

It's a conscious mindset, I think, a little bit of some intentionality and not allowing yourself to just be pulled by what you see.

I think this is probably all of our time.

So if you want to understand how challenging the future could be for creative people, just look at what's happening with musicians right now.

Up until the late 90s, people either listened to music for free on the radio or by buying a physical copy to listen to at home.

But then the internet happened, and now Spotify and other streaming services give us access to an infinite catalog of music.

We don't own anything, but we can rent pretty much all of it.

So people pay less money, which means musicians make less money, but the platforms make a lot of money.

Recently, researchers have discovered a new type of song on Spotify, a ghost song by a ghost artist.

These are unnamed, uncredited musicians who are paid to make music that sounds like what the Spotify algorithm says people want to hear.

In recent years, some of Spotify's most prominent playlists have seen real songs by real artists replaced with ghost songs by ghost artists.

Real songs have to be paid real royalties.

Ghost songs don't.

Something like this dynamic is playing out across every creative industry.

Maximize profits by minimizing creator compensation.

Now add AI, and the ghost artist doesn't even have to be human anymore.

A future of art without artists.

Now, I'm not an expert on AI, but I have spent the last 25 years working as a creative person and making tools for creative people.

I'm the son of a musician, and my career began writing about music for Pitchfork and The Village Voice.

I started a tiny record label, and I'm one of the co-founders of Kickstarter, which gave creative people a way to bypass the gatekeepers and go straight to the public with their projects.