How can musicians use AI today to improve their lives?

The new open language model ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Suddenly communicating with an AI is as simple as a chat window. It has an almost limitless number of possibilities for pretty much everyone. Let’s have a look at some ideas for how musicians can make the most of these tools right now.

1. Updating your bio:
   If you, like me, have always hated writing biographies, you should try putting your latest into ChatGPT. If you ask it to improve your text, it will give you back a refined version, generated completely using AI. You can even ask it things like “Can you make it sound wittier?” and it will modify the text accordingly.
2. Programme Notes:
   For those of you writing programme notes for recitals or CD booklets, and assuming the piece is well known, you could try asking it “Please give me 500 words about Mozart’s Requiem” and seeing what it gives back. Care should be taken when asking it for anything factual, as it has been known to make things up sometimes, but it can at the very least be a good starting point for you. It may reveal a few facts you didn’t know, and it could be used as a structural guide for your own writing.
3. Album Art:
   As well as language models, there are also generative AI tools that will take a given input and try to output a completely AI-generated image based on your request. You could ask it to make “a square album cover with a cello burning in a church” and it would make something for you in seconds. There are some ethical questions surrounding the data set that they’ve used to train these generative AIs, with artists around the world trying to grapple with whether or not their art, which is included in the data, has been stolen.
4. Writing emails:
   Do you have some difficult emails to write? Dodgy employer? Maybe you’re just applying for an audition? AI writing tools can help you nail the tone and polish up your communications.
5. Generating Tweets:
   As well as emails, you can use AI writing tools write now to brainstorm subtle variations of sentences to find the perfect one for your social media.

And of course, there are new AI tools popping up daily which will no doubt shake up the industry in a plethora of ways. If you try some of these out and they work well for you, let me know!