First of all, I understand your point of view. And I've been looking at artists being undervalued like your potential client for decades, before AI was even a thing. So I definitely feel you on that point, and I wish it would be different. That said, here's my response. (It's a bit long, so I put it in spoiler tags)
I told him he wasn’t looking for a composer, but rather a programmer or something
spoiler
Yes, but maybe also no. Do you use computer software to compose or assist you in composing?
Like FL Studio, Audacity? Or maybe you use a microphone to record the played version of your composition?
I know maybe one or two composers, and they wouldn't go without that while I worked with them. But I'm sure you can agree using those things does not make you a programmer. It just takes a composer with a more technical mindset and experience with those tools. I don't deny there are composers that do without it, and maybe you are one of them. If so, rock on, but I'm sure you can see using computer tools does not stop you from being a composer, it just enhances it. Now if you were to never learn anything about composing and just use AI blindly, then I would agree with you.
But AI in that manner is no different, and like those other pieces of software it still requires expertise to make something actually good. However, judging from the manner your client spoke to you, I think the issue wasn't that you weren't making good music, it's that you were making too expensive music for the value he wanted to derive from it. That's sadly how the free market goes, and I agree that it has disproportionately screwed over artists because their work gets systematically undervalued. However, AI is not the cause of that, it merely made it more apparent, and it will not stop with the next thing after AI, unless we tackle it at the root cause by giving artists better protections that don't end up empowering the same people that undervalue them, which is really quite nuanced to get right and the current system we have already makes it worse than it is. This is what I fight for instead. _
I could also tell you about the written assignments that students hand in, and for which I can identify in less than 30 seconds which ones have been produced by AI (students overreact to their writing skills, it’s often laughable).
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Students are probably the worst example of this though. Because that's basically what students are known for before AI was even a thing. The average student has no conception or feeling yet of what has artistic value or not, and most will not go into creative fields. Students used to hand in fully plagiarized works they just downloaded or took from other students, and it is indeed laughable for anyone that actually wants to make it somewhere in their field. So yes, if that's the majority of AI produced works you've encountered I can totally understand your point of view, but I implore you to broaden your horizon to people that actually work in the field. Those that already have built up the artistic mindset.
As I tell them, those who have used chatgpt have “learned” to use AI, those who have done the work have learned to carry out research, to synthesize their ideas and to structure, articulate and present them.
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But these people have not learned how to proficiently use AI, just very shallowly. They have learned how to be lazy. Which mind you, is the same laziness that you learn from plagiarizing directly. This has literally been the reality of people growing up for the entirety of human existence. You're right that the ones that did go through the effort learned more, but that does not mean they could not also value from enhancing that process with other tools. And you wouldn't even know the ones that did. Because they will not hand in something that looks like it came directly out of ChatGPT. They might have only used it for brainstorming, or proof reading, or to make a boring passage more entertaining. Someone who understands why their own effort and sense of ownership matters would never just hand in something they had zero say in, that's what lazy people do. And we have no shortage of those.
A small subset of your students will go the extra mile, and realize that they need to get better themselves to produce things with more artistic value. They too will see what AI can help them with, and what it can't. Some students that are lazy now will eventually see the light too, and realize that they're lacking behind. That's life - maturity takes time to develop.
But just because lazy people can play the guitar by randomly stroking the strings, doesn't mean a competent guitar player can't create an incredibly intricate banger with the same guitar. AI is no different. _
One last thing. As far as innovation is concerned, AI can endlessly produce pieces that sound like Bach, but it took Bach to exist in the first place, and Glenn Gould to revolutionize the interpretation of his scores for this to be possible.
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You're right that AI requires existing material. But you said it yourself. Glenn Gould would not be able to make his work without Bach. And just like that Bach has inspirations that would mean Bach as we know him would not exist without those. And if paper did not exist, Bach could not write down his pieces for us to remember now and learn from. In the same way, an artists of any kind in the future will not exist without their influences and tools, of which AI could be one.
AI can indeed produce endless pieces that sound like Bach, but only a human could use AI to produce a piece that has evokes feelings, passion, thoughts - anything to be considered to be real art. A machine cannot produce the true definition of art on it's own, but it can be invoked by an artists to do work in furtherance of their art. Because it takes a creative mind to be able to spot, transform, extend, and also know when to discard, what an AI has produced. Just like we discard sources we perceive as low in value, and sources that are high in value we take as inspiration. _
EDIT: Just want to add to this:
I have no interest in replacing this practice by entering prompts into an algorithm, even if I could make easy money from it.
That's not something anyone should do. Because that's not using it as a tool. That's making it the entire process. That's not the kind of AI usage I'm advocating for either. And you're free to forego AI completely. Just like there are probably some instruments you never use, or some genre you never visit. I don't like taking the easy way either, that's why I make creative stuff as a living too. If I just wanted money I would go elsewhere too.
Definitely not just you, I instantly said "holy shit this is one ancient meme". I remember it too from the early 2000's.