ChatGPT Is Knock Knock Knockin' on Spotify's Door

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Songwriter James Blake's most recent album, Wind Down, plays in my ears on my way to meet Oleg Stavitsky, the co-founder of Berlin-based audio-technology company Endel. As sunshine turns to rain, the melancholic, piano-led ambient tracks echo my mood. That may not be a coincidence, says Stavitsky, pointing to the album's credits where Endel is cited alongside Blake as co-creator of the music.

While Wind Down carries Blake's name and face, and was mixed from his ingredients — he provided individual “stem” tracks featuring drumbeats and melodies — Endel's technology generated the final product. Its sound engine, trained on thousands of in-house stems, creates personalized “soundscapes” for listeners by adjusting to externalities such as listeners' heart rates, the temperature or the time of day. Stavitsky cites Brian Eno's “generative music” as an inspiration, with humans building a framework that machines can then arrange and rearrange.

If music AI's Turing Test is good taste, the Blake-Endel album doesn't pass mine. I prefer soundscapes that are a little less chilled. But I'm not Endel's target audience. “Functional” music — whale song, white noise, anything designed to play in the background — garners 10 billion streams per month, Stavitsky says, double last year's total and contributing between 7% to 10% of the entire streaming market. Real humans are listening to the machines: Endel says it gets more than 2 million monthly listeners across all streaming platforms, has struck a playlist partnership with Amazon.com Inc. and released an “AI Lullaby” with Canadian electronica artist Grimes.

This is all serious enough to rattle record labels, who are rightly starting to wonder whether functional music is the thin end of a