The work of music in the age of commercial GenAI: Politicisation, prophecy, and participation

Abstract

Technological advancements have historically reshaped how music was produced and distributed, causing disruptions while offering new opportunities. Although generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can be seen as an extension of this paradigm, its current commercial implementation poses a unique series of challenges. Using machine learning, commercial GenAI platforms turn millions of musical recordings into statistical distributions and generate new outputs from learned patterns. This article analyses the sociocultural and socioeconomic implications of this disruption. Engaging Walter Benjamin’s analysis of mechanical reproduction, Christopher Small’s concept of musicking and Jacques Attali’s theory of music’s prophetic function, we examine how this process reconfigures the conditions under which music operates as a social and political practice. We further analyse the political economy of AI, drawing on frameworks of extraction, technofeudalism and the displacement of musical labour. We argue that current trajectories are not intrinsic to the technology itself but to commercial imperatives and, through practice-based research, showcase interventionist approaches that contest the conditions commercial GenAI platforms have created. As GenAI increasingly mediates cultural production, the contest over music’s social function prefigures wider struggles over creativity, labour and democratic participation.