Saying You Listen To AI Music Is Like Saying You Have An AI Girlfriend
Republished here, with permission, from Caitlin’s Newsletter, Caitlin Johnstone, September 30, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/
It pisses me off whenever I see someone claiming that “AI music” is about to make normal music obsolete.
There is no such thing as “AI music” or “AI art”. AI cannot make music. It cannot create the experience of an artist using skill and intention to transport something from inside them into an audience through vibrations in the air. It can only mimic the noises of that encounter.
It’s like someone going “There’s no need to converse with anyone anymore because they’ve invented a machine which makes noises that sound like human speech!” You’d want to tell them “Hey, that’s not the same thing mate. You’re talking about a completely different experience which in no way satisfies what people are looking for in a conversation.”
Proponents of generative AI will sometimes say things like “I played an AI song for my friend who hates AI, and he loved it!” like that proves something, the argument being that if you can’t tell the difference then there is no difference. But that’s the same as saying there would be no difference between getting catfished by a chatbot and truly finding the love of your life.
When you’re talking about human interaction, which is what art is at its very nature, it absolutely does matter if there’s someone on the other end of it. Of course it does. There is not a species on this planet that produces art or music without doing so to connect or communicate with other members of its species. “AI art” does not meet the same needs as real art, in the same way a chatbot that generates friendly words would not meet the same needs as a real friend.
Sure generative AI can produce a noise that sounds a lot like the noise made when a fiddler runs her bow across the strings. It can even produce an effect that looks like a video of a fiddler playing a fiddle at the same time. But there is no fiddler, and there is no fiddle, so it’s not fiddle music. It’s just something that SOUNDS like fiddle music.
The same is true of all music, and all art, and the entire range of ways human beings connect to each other. Merely looking and sounding like something is not the same as being that thing. They can generate a chatbot effect for you that looks and sounds like your dead husband, but it will never be your dead husband, and it would not be healthy for you to pretend it’s the same thing.
Generative AI fans frequently display their aversion to exploring the depths of their humanity in the way they’ll stand in public saying “Look, this machine can mimic the sounds of a musician, so normal music is obsolete!” It’s like, what? What do you think music is, exactly? Just noises with a beat you can dance to? I mean I guess that’s all it is for some people, but those people are having a very shallow experience of the thing that music is, and probably a very shallow experience of life in general.
An effect that simply goes through the motions of imitating art can only appeal to someone who has just been going through the motions of living their life. If you don’t understand the significance of the difference between real human connection and something that merely looks and sounds like it, then that means your whole life is about the appearances of things rather the things themselves. It doesn’t matter if your boyfriend really loves you, it just matters that he never leaves. It doesn’t matter if your wife really enjoys having sex with you, it only matters that she puts out and makes it fun for you. It doesn’t matter if your adult children enjoy spending time with you, it just matters that they turn up to family functions and show you the respect you feel you are owed.
People like this are missing out on so very, very much of the human experience, but they don’t know it because they’ve never explored anything outside their immediate comfort zone. They want custom-made music feeding them “infinite personalized tunes” that sounds like the songs they already know they like. They want custom-made podcasts of artificially generated voices feeding them political opinions they already agree with. They want a robotic spouse that caters to their every physical and egoic desire, and they’ll buy them up as soon as they become available.
Don’t be like them. Don’t live like that. Don’t life your life running from true human connection. Don’t be a coward hiding from your own inner dimensions. Dive into the depths of this crazy human adventure. Explore. Expand. Be vulnerable. Be brave. Otherwise you’re just killing time and waiting for death in the shallow end of the pool.
