When it comes to AI, there seem to be two broad camps of thought. The first believes it’s largely overhyped. AI is clever enough to help with a few everyday tasks, but ultimately it’s not going to change the world in any meaningful way. The second camp believes we’re only seeing the very beginning. That AI has the potential to reshape almost everything we do. I find myself in the second camp.
And, if I’m honest, I don’t entirely like admitting it. As a musician, producer and lifelong creative, AI has the potential to make many of my skills far less valuable. Perhaps not today, but look ahead five or ten years and it’s hard to imagine that our industries won’t look very different. That doesn’t mean I think creativity disappears but it will change.
I’ve always been fascinated by technology. Before music became such a large part of my life, I worked as an electronics engineer – even before the internet, then later as a web-developer. I’ve watched technology evolve at an astonishing pace during my lifetime. Computers that once filled rooms now sit in our pockets. Recording studios that once cost millions now costs thousands. The internet transformed how we communicate and consume entertainment completely.
Let’s imagine something that sounds slightly ridiculous today. Imagine attending a concert from 1972. Suppose an entire Deep Purple concert from the early 1970s had been filmed and recorded from a number of angles. AI would have enough data to reconstruct the event. Not just the performance in the audience but full access, backstage, from every angle as a fully immersive experience.
Could AI one day reconstruct that experience? Instead of watching the concert on a screen, could you actually attend it? Walk through the crowd, even stand beside Ritchie Blackmore while he plays or move behind Ian Paice’s drum kit. Not just watch from the front row but wander backstage afterwards. Not as a video game, not as virtual reality in the way we think of it today but as something so convincing your brain genuinely feels as though you’ve travelled back in time. That may sound like science fiction. Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it’s simply just a matter of time.
Entertainment has always evolved. People sometimes talk about protecting traditional forms of entertainment however, history suggests we rarely do. Silent films gave way to talking pictures. Black and white became colour. Mono became stereo. Stereo became surround sound. Cinema became IMAX.
Every generation adopts and demands whatever creates the richest experience. Would most of us choose to pay the same money to watch a silent film accompanied by a pianist when we could experience modern cinema? I’d suggest absolutely not, though we might enjoy the novelty as a one-off experience.
We might visit a museum to appreciate the past, but for everyday entertainment, we almost always choose the experience that feels more engaging. I suspect AI will be no different. The way audiences consume entertainment could change dramatically. Instead of watching a film, perhaps you’ll live inside it. Instead of attending a concert, perhaps you’ll become part of it. I could be completely wrong – nobody knows where AI ultimately leads. Equally, nobody can confidently say these things won’t happen.
History is full of technologies that once sounded impossible: the telephone, television, the internet and smartphones. Each seemed unbelievable before they arrived. AI may simply be the next chapter.
When I strip everything back, I think entertainment only has one real purpose. It lifts us out of ordinary life for a while. Whether it’s music, films, books, theatre or games, they all do the same thing. They fire our imagination and transport us somewhere else. If AI eventually allows us to be fully immersed in those worlds instead of simply watching them from the outside, then perhaps it isn’t changing the purpose of entertainment at all. Perhaps it’s simply giving our imagination an entirely new place to be satisfied.
