Should Artists Admit They Use AI? (ft. Dr. Joel Carnevale)

What happens to an artist’s reputation the moment they admit they used AI?

Does admitting how they used AI make a difference? New research suggests the stakes are higher than most realize, and the answer is far from simple. 

This week on the podcast, Dr. Joel Carnevale, assistant professor of Management at Florida International University, joins Dmitri to break down the findings from his recent article in The Conversation that put that question to the test. Using a music composition scenario with Hans Zimmer asa stand-in for established reputation, Joel and his co-authors designed experiments to find out how disclosure affects the way listeners evaluate a creator’s competence and credibility.

The conversation covers why authenticity is at the heart of the debate, what different types of AI disclosure actually signal to audiences, and why how you disclose may matter more than whether you disclose  Dmitri and Joel also explore what all of this means for a music industry where nearly every working producer is already using AI in some part of their process. 

The news

• Global recorded music revenues hit $31.7B in 2025, up 6.4% YoY; users of paid music subscriptions reach 837M

• Why Mark Cuban Thinks Music Is (Basically) ‘the Worst Industry Ever’ for Investors

• Live Nation Employees Bragged About ‘Gouging’ Customers and ‘Robbing Them Blind’ In Dozens of Leaked Exchanges—Here’s a Look at the Unsealed Documents

Listen wherever you pod your casts:

Looking for Rock Paper Scanner, the newsletter of music tech news curated by the Rock Paper Scissors PR team? Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Friday!

Episode Transcript

Machine transcribed

[00:00:00] Dmitri: Dr. Joel Carnevale is an assistant professor of Management at Florida International University's Department of Global Leadership and Management, primarily interested in the interpersonal dynamics that shape organizational members' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors at work. His current research focuses on understanding how individuals develop, manage, and leverage their reputations at work.

Last month, Joel published an article in the conversation titled Artists and Writers are often hesitant to disclose. They've collaborated with AI and those fears may be justified. Really cool title since Joel researches how people establish, maintain, and defend their reputations, particularly in creative fields.

I brought him on the Music Tectonics podcast to find out how people are reacting to the use of AI by artists and other creative people. Welcome to the show, Joel.

[00:00:47] Joel: Thanks for having me. How are you?

[00:00:50] Dmitri: I'm doing great. I'm really excited to talk about this with you. because I think you bring this expertise around reputation, which, is not the lens that I've thought about this whole AI concept, but let's dive in.

What was the experiment you conducted recently to test the impact of AI use on the reputation of artists?

[00:01:07] Joel: Yeah, absolutely. You know, before I go into the specifics of the experiment, I just wanna first acknowledge the contributions of my amazing co-authors, so Anand Benegal at Syracuse University, along with, uh, Lynne Vincent.

So, Lynne Vincent is a, uh, professor in the management department and Anand, uh, so that was my former institution and he was a student that we, mentored and, this was really his brainchild. project that he came to us with. So in this experiment, and he has a background in music, which I don't.

So, uh, you know, that's what led to this initial, first experiment focusing specifically on the music industry,

[00:01:37] Dmitri: Got it?

[00:01:37] Joel: So in this study, we looked at a couple of experiments. We ran a couple of experiments, but the first one in particular, and the one that's been kind of the one that's captured most attention and that I discussed more fully in, my article in the conversation.

So what we did was we wanted to assess, to what extent does a, composer's or to what extent does the disclosure of AI use, lead to negative evaluations from, observers. And particularly we put subjects into the role of consumers evaluating a music, piece composed for a upcoming video game.

This is the kind of the backstory that we told them. In truth, music composition was actually composed by Anand himself, who has a background in, jazz and classical piano. So, uh, what we did was we had two primary groups where some participants were told that this music composition was created by Han Zimmer, right.

 the Academy Award-winning composer. And in the other group we had participants, they were told that the composition was created by a first year undergraduate student in music. Right. But this was the same piece. but we just kind of. Manipulated the different backstory. And then within both of those groups, we varied whether, participants, so some participants were told that, this piece was created in collaboration with ai.

And for the other half, uh, they were told that,

 AI was used in the making of this composition. The other half was told nothing about AI whatsoever.

[00:03:05] Dmitri: Right.

[00:03:06] Joel: Uh, so what we ended up with was four different conditions where we varied the, reputation of the composer and whether the composer used AI or did not use ai. And what this allowed us to do was to, to look at, to what extent. Does disclosure of AI by a highly reputed or somebody, some novice in creativity, affects the evaluations, of observers of particularly consumers in this case.

[00:03:29] Dmitri: so I wanna hear about the outcomes of the experiment, but what spurred you to conduct this, and then we'll get into what came from it.

[00:03:35] Joel: Yeah, so as I mentioned before, Anand, you know, is really the brainchild behind this, and he comes with a music background. I myself, I don't have any background in music, but Anand came to us and he was interested in, AI and creativity, for the most part. And so, you know, me and, my colleague Lynn, you know, our research is primarily within creativity and reputation.

And we knew from the background of, you know, there's been already some existing emerging research on how, people evaluate creative output when AI was involved. Right. And what we know from that research is that there tends to be this anthropocentric bias where, when people know that, actually first I should say that when people.

Are given options between, they had to choose and evaluate whether, you know, which piece of art they like or which piece, you know, whether we're talking poetry or you know, paintings. people actually. Oftentimes prefer AI generated, content.

[00:04:28] Dmitri: Oh, wow.

[00:04:29] Joel: Until they know. Yeah. Until they know. Once they know that, it's AI generated, then they have an immediate aversion to it, and they prefer the human generated content.

[00:04:37] Dmitri: Wow.

[00:04:38] Joel: so this was kind of the backdrop and what Anand was particularly interested in was, you know, especially coming from his music background was, well, what happens when we throw a reputation into the mix of this? Right. Typically what we know from the reputation research is, there's kind of two perspectives here.

One is that people who have a strong reputation often are provided greater leeway to deviate from normative standards of behavior. Right? So if we're talking about creators. We're talking about, these individuals who, you know, using novel technologies, or innovative tools, right?

 you're more likely to be perceived as forward thinking, innovative, provocative, whereas maybe a novice using some of these tools will be viewed as. Incompetent or lazy or, using it as a crutch as opposed to something that's really going to help generate or, compliment their own existing creativity.

Whereas, there's an alternative perspective though, and that is that an existing especially for creators, right, a reputation kind of comes with a, this expectation of image, consistent behavior, right? Where, you're held to higher standards, normative standards of kind of what you should be doing.

And when we're talking about creativity, where, you know. It really oftentimes involves personal expression. Right? And that gets back to that anthropocentric bias that people often have is because they, it's not just about the output, it's about how the output came about to begin with, right? So, you know, under that perspective then maybe those with a higher reputation might suffer a, a greater hit when it's known that they've used AI in the process.

And so this was the tension that we were looking at. And, yeah. So that's.

[00:06:14] Dmitri: That's cool. No, that totally makes sense why you wanted to do the experiment, to kind of go further into those, um, dynamics around reputation. So let's talk about what were the outcomes of the experiment.

[00:06:25] Joel: Yeah. So in our experiment, we looked at, two primary outcomes. the perceived creative competence of the creator themselves, and also, the reputation. And what we found was that, across the board, it didn't matter whether you had strong reputation or a weak reputation.

You suffered a, hit, an a evaluative hit if it was found that you, upon disclosure of using ai. so in short, reputation provided no protection. except there is one piece where reputation actually did provide some layer of benefit, and that is where people were more likely to attribute more credit to the established creator than to the novice, right.

In terms of their own kind of creative agency. So in other words, people tended to believe that the novice creator, the undergraduate student, was, uh, using ai, more heavily in the process, even though, which the interesting thing was We didn't disclose how much they were using ai. All we said was, AI was used in the making of this composition or some general statement like that.

 and so it was really up to the participants to just kind of, you know, consider well how much AI was actually used. And oftentimes they believed that the novice, used it more. The thing was though, even though they were more likely to attribute greater creative agency to the reputed composer, it wasn't enough to offset the reputational hit.

[00:07:45] Dmitri: Interesting. Very interesting. So, I'm curious, so does any use of AI make people distrust artists? I mean, I don't know if you've were able to figure this out or, or does the extent of AI use shift people's perceptions? Is it an all or nothing thing? That's what I sort of wonder, like Yeah, I'm curious about that.

[00:08:02] Joel: Yeah, I mean, I would say it's actually a little bit of both, right? So, I mean. Across the board, across both of our experiments, disclosing use of ai. in fact, you know, in our second study, which I could talk about more in a moment, but our second study we looked at, well, what happens if they're using AI for non-creative tasks and they explicitly disclose this?

Well, it actually doesn't matter too much. I mean, there's a little bit of a, It helps to lessen that reputational hit a little bit, but even then, even just disclosing that you use, AI for, you know, administrative tasks or the, the stuff that's surrounding the creative process.

[00:08:36] Dmitri: Yeah.

[00:08:36] Joel: But not internal to it. you still take a reputational hit. But with that said, how you use or the extent to which you use AI does seem to matter. And although our study can't speak too much to this because we really didn't dive into those mechanics, you know,

Our findings that subjects attribute the amount of credit to the AI is more likely, among the novice, creators, suggest that observers actually really do care, how much of the, what's going on in the process itself.

[00:09:04] Dmitri: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:05] Joel: Are these creators, are they just, you know, relying fully or predominantly on AI when creating their content?

Or are they just using it more as a tool? again, we didn't explore that, you know? At a deep level, but my hunch is that, I think there's interesting questions that still remain unresolved there.

[00:09:25] Dmitri: So in the first study, how do you think artists should think about what you uncovered?

[00:09:30] Joel: Yeah, so I'd say, you know, one of the main things is, you know, disclosure definitely carries a reputational cost.

 now one thing I wanna be clear is, you know, my study in no way makes any kind of, prescriptive statements on whether you should or should not disclose. Right. I think, the decisions surrounding that depend on, you know, the industry standards, right. And the requirements of, of certain platforms.

But I think, you know, creators shouldn't just go in assuming that your existing reputation is going to protect you if you are, using and disclosing. Right. And I'd say the, the second main point is this role of. the why, why is this occurring in the first place? Why are people, why are creators who use AI suffering a reputational penalty?

And so this is what we looked at more fully in the second study where we found that authenticity, authenticity of the creativity itself is what's driving this. So one suggestion that I would have is anything that you can do to try to, you know, unpack what's go, you know, in the black box of the creative process like.

Whatever you can do to demonstrate that, your own agency in the process, I think is going to be, particularly helpful. You know, I don't know how long these reputational, um, you know, uh,

[00:10:43] Dmitri: hits

[00:10:44] Joel: these reputational hits, will, will, will last, right? I mean, it, it really just depends on, you know, whether the norms in the, across industries, you know, change, but at least in, in the short term, this is an issue.

You know, I think one. Last piece of advice would be, and this actually comes from you know, Anand had mentioned this to me, you know, that being able to demonstrate your creative process live or in real time is probably going to become much more valuable.

[00:11:10] Dmitri: Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. 'cause people want to connect it to the human.

Yeah,

[00:11:14] Joel: exactly. Yeah,

[00:11:15] Dmitri: yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting 'cause you, you said, well, you don't wanna be prescriptive about anything specifically, but just to have that awareness, that reputation could, the way what your experiment showed was that reputation could take a hit by

Disclosing that you're using ai, but then it, so it could raise the question of should I or should I not disclose the use of ai? It also could raise the question of, should I use AI or not? You know? Um, I think part of what you're saying is listeners of music in this study. Kind of don't like the idea that their creative people are using ai, right?

 they're sort of saying, I'm not as into you if you use ai. So the, the other thing that artists could walk away with is maybe using AI is the problem, not whether I disclose using ai. Ai,

[00:12:03] Joel: yep. True, true.

[00:12:05] Dmitri: Which is kind of interesting. I do wanna hear about this next experiment, but we have to take a quick break when we come back.

Let's hear about that. and, and some of the, the deeper things you learned there. We'll be right back. Okay, we're back. Joel, you did a second experiment. You've mentioned it about whether a creative person discloses their use of ai. Tell us more about what you did for that experiment and what you got out of it.

[00:12:27] Joel: Yeah, so in the second experiment, we shifted to a traditional organizational setting. So we had subjects evaluate. an advertising employee, an employee within the advertising, industry. you know, this, we provided the context around this employee. This employee was, uh, you know, highly reputed.

They won a bunch of industry awards. People came to them for, you know, creative ideas all the time, right? And so what, one thing that was important about this experiment that differed from the previous was we controlled across all conditions for, all participants. Saw someone with a, who was highly reputed, right?

And then. what we varied, however, was disclosure. So we wanted to provide a more granual investigation into what different types of disclosures, how that triggers, what, what type of evaluations that trigger for observers.

[00:13:13] Dmitri: Hmm.

[00:13:14] Joel: And so, uh, so we had four conditions. in one condition, the reputed employee disclosed that they use AI in their creative work.

In the second condition we had. the reputed employee disclosed that, well, I only use it for administrative tasks. I don't use it for creativity. In the third condition, they explicitly state, I don't use AI at all. It creativity should come from your own, you know, personal experience and expression. And in the fourth one, there was absolutely no mention of, AI use at all.

Right. And so this allowed us to see, well, what are the different effects of, of different types of disclosures? And so a few interesting things came out of this. So for one, just as in, our first experiment disclosing, AI use, for creativity, harmed, the reputed employees, creative reputation.

 but disclosing for AI tasks also hurt. it also led to negative evaluations, albeit somewhat less, but not enough to completely offset the reputational damage. But the thing that was really interesting for us and what showed kind of the asymmetries surrounding the decision to disclose is that while disclosing AI use in your creativity harms your reputation.

There's no benefit actually to actively saying, I don't use AI at all. Right. Versus just don't even mention it. Right. So you might have, going back to your previous point of, you know, there might be some people who say, I'm not, I don't, I'm not gonna use it at all. Right. And maybe you think you get. Some benefits or, you know, kudos for, planting your flag there and saying, Nope, I'm a purist.

I'm not using it. But at least from our results, it suggests that, there's really no benefit, to just not saying anything.

[00:15:02] Dmitri: I figured out your next experiment. Joel.

[00:15:04] Joel: What's that?

[00:15:05] Dmitri: It's to, it's to have an artist that uses ai. That, somehow the listeners know they've used AI because of the output 'cause of whatever happened in the end, but they don't disclose it.

What happens for an artist who it's obvious that their output has used ai but they don't mention use? Or maybe they do and they don't, maybe that's the experiment.

[00:15:26] Joel: yeah. I mean, I, I would imagine it would trigger some sort of. Proceed violation. Right,

[00:15:31] Dmitri: right.

[00:15:32] Joel: Yeah.

[00:15:32] Dmitri: And I think that's where we're going with the conversation in a way, you mentioned earlier in the conversation before our break that you're not saying you should or shouldn't disclose ai, that there's certain platforms, there's certain like industry standards around whether you disclose the use of ai, and so that becomes.

Kind of relevant at some, some point. You know, my question is, do you disclose or not disclose? What's the answer? And I know you've kind of already said it kind of depends in a way, right? Like you're not really saying you should or shouldn't, you're just saying you'll take a reputation, hit.

If you do disclose it, regardless of whether you say it's creative only or this other thing, that's like, oh, it's not the actual creative process. I just use it to get organized. It still makes people think, can I trust that this is your work in a way?

[00:16:18] Joel: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, to add to that, I would say that, you know, the devil is really in the details.

So I think in addition to, yeah, I, I can't provide any prescriptive suggestions on what to do, but I, I would say that. You know, the decision, if you do disclose right, or if disclosure is required. I think how you disclose becomes much more important now, right?

[00:16:40] Dmitri: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:40] Joel: So, when we think about, you know, before people mainly focused on the creative output itself, now, I think the creative process is going to be, much more important and people are gonna wanna know what's actually happening in that black box.

[00:16:53] Dmitri: Yeah, interesting. So in the music industry, we talk about music creation, innovations, opening up creativity to more people, right? So now all of a sudden, you might not need to go to music lessons or you might, might not need to go to music school or do your 10,000 hours to write a song. Not only write a song that's good, but just to even write a song, to even get all the parts, to get the melody, the harmony, and you know, multiple instruments, et cetera.

So there's this new type of musician who only uses technology to make music in songs. I'm curious. If you have thoughts about how your research reflects on purely AI artists or amateur music makers, aren't some of them gonna build a reputation with their audience entirely knowing that they only exist because of ai?

[00:17:34] Joel: Yeah, I think that's a fascinating question. And you know, I, I don't think, this research necessarily explicitly speaks to that, but I think, uh, you know, some of my initial reactions would be that. So I mentioned this, anthropomorphic bias, right? Or anthropocentric bias rather, that people tend to have towards creativity.

Well, you know, it's also quite possible that, you know, if the identity of the creator was, you know, I'm an AI first creator right from the start, right? Well then the evaluative frame that, consumers are kind of starting from, I think might shift. the evaluation, the perspective a little bit.

 I think the other thing is that, you know, we might see a generational shift in this too, right? So your AI natives, people who grow up with ai, you know, they're, they're likely to see it as more acceptable. so I think there's probably, you know, some level of that as well.

I think there's gonna be really interesting dynamics about, you know, so there's a recent New York Times article recently on, it was a. Author, that, she writes these various novels, but she doesn't disclose her AI use. I mean, she's like pumping out like 50 books a year or something like that.

 and one thing that she, she says, and I hear this a lot, I hear, oh, well the norms are going to change eventually, right? So, you know, yeah. People aren't very accepting about it now, and there are negative social evaluations, but that'll change, you know, and my reaction to that is. It's quite possible that people do change their perceptions towards it and become more accepting.

But I think it's also quite possible that we have literally no choice but to accept it, right? So if, if we're entering a a, an era where, you know, I've talked to AI experts in the field who you know, some believe in five, 10 years from now, literally everything you see online is going to be AI generated.

Then, you know, we're operating in a place where, well, I didn't really. You know, change my perspective on it. I, I was kind of forced to, you know, instead

[00:19:27] Dmitri: Yeah. Mean that whole concept of everything is AI generated also. Implies that it's all being AI generated to the same extent, you know,

[00:19:38] Joel: true

[00:19:38] Dmitri: in, in the music industry, you don't see it in, disclosures, let's say in public disclosures.

There's not like a lot of conversation about, well, this is how much AI used, or this is how I used ai, or I didn't use AI, or, or, or whatever. You know, like people just put out records, you know, like they just put,

[00:19:53] Joel: yeah,

[00:19:54] Dmitri: they put out music or they put out music that shows up on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube or, things like that.

So you don't necessarily. Know the, details, but what I do know running around at music industry conferences and festivals and events is. Almost every legit producer and artist out there is doing something with ai.

[00:20:11] Joel: Yeah.

[00:20:12] Dmitri: But a lot of times it's like I'm doing brainstorming with ai. Like I'm getting some melodic hooks.

It's not gonna be the full song, but there's gonna be like a little piece to it. Or I'm doing stem separation of, you know, the vocals or the guitar so that I can practice and play along and learn something. or for demos, they do something where like songwriters or publishers will use AI to. Plop somebody's voice and say, Hey, do you think we get so and so?

Listen to how it sounds with their voice, or what about this person? Listen to how it sounds with this voice, or what about this style? You know, you can start to play with those things. You can ab test stuff before you go and produce and record it. You could then go, whether you've used AI for. Melody, brainstorming or workshopping a melody or even a harmony, or for education stuff and getting your licks up to speed the way you want 'em to.

 after doing that, or even using some AI for lyric generation, like maybe you wrote most of it, but you're missing a couple of lines and you need a couple lines there, all that stuff could happen, and then you could go and record it with a live band in a studio with no AI involved at all. Should you disclose that you used, it's kind of like what you said about the advertising exec, right?

That they're not using it for creative, but they are using it for their workflow to schedule their meetings or to organize their transcripts or what, whatever, you know, then there's that whole question is like, it's only being used as kind of like a, a foil or a, or a muse, and in the end you're still being original, you're still recording it from scratch with humans.

[00:21:40] Joel: Yeah.

[00:21:40] Dmitri: Super interesting.

[00:21:41] Joel: I think there's a couple of things there. You know, one thing that reminds me of is, um, you know, I think what we're gonna see is that the utility of ai, uh, in one's work is, and we're already seeing it, is it's not evenly distributed, right? So the people who are, have a deep expertise in certain areas are definitely getting the performance and, more of the performance enhancing effects of using ai.

Right. And I think, I would even say that there. They are likely more attuned to the how, how to actually, you know, implement it in ways that can, you know, complement as opposed to merely replace their creativity. but yeah, no, I think that's super interesting and I think it, just, once again, points to the need to.

Really unpack or, you know, when we're talking about disclosure, you know, how is it actually being used in the creative process?

[00:22:30] Dmitri: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I was talking about this idea that these, some of these artists might emerge as they are AI artists. I mean, there are already been artists that are avatars.

You literally don't even know who the humans behind them are. But there'll be other artists that are just like, yeah, I'm kind of like we have this word in the music industry of producers. Lot of times producers are putting out songs like, well, what is a producer? They're doing everything right. They're writing it, they're putting the beats to it, they're sometimes performing it, or the recruiting performance, et cetera.

There's gonna be producers who are AI producers, basically.

[00:22:57] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:58] Dmitri: But I'm curious, you have thoughts on, once we have this new generation of AI first artists, how will that impact the reputation of commercial and pop artists who are not talking about ai?

[00:23:08] Joel: Yeah, I think that's, that's a question that, you know, I, I think a, a lot about, not just in.

The music space, but in, you know, in academia as well. I wonder about that.

[00:23:17] Dmitri: Yeah.

[00:23:18] Joel: But yeah, you know, I would say I could see kind of two potential pathways here. Right? So on the one hand, you know, you have that, anthropocentric bias, right? And, you know, perhaps what that means is that. Weakens over time, right?

It, AI use does actually become normalized and it becomes accepted. and maybe we do just move to more of a, this blend of maybe there isn't a, a pure, you know, non AI generated content. Right. But I could also see, and I, my gut reaction is I think the more plausible pathway is one where we kind of have both, we have, you know, AI or AI collaborative work, and then.

We have in tandem a more of an artisanal space, which I think we're already seeing some of that, where people pay a premium for, artisanal creativity. Right. And so, which I, I think if. If the future does kind of tend toward that way, then it really makes the, the reputation of the creator even more important.

[00:24:19] Dmitri: Hmm, yeah. I think that it's gonna get more and more accepted and that AI is actually gonna get better. Where it's gonna be harder to tell whether AI was used. it's gonna take time, but that's gonna get better over time. Bangers are gonna be bangers. If somebody loves it, there's probably gonna be an artist involved.

They're probably gonna be, people are gonna be more interested in music that has a reputation tied to it. An identity tied to it. Because music isn't just about the music, right? It's about the clothes, it's about the behavior. It's about the love life. It's about, you know, it's when you first heard it. Yeah.

There's this whole other aura around music that goes with it as well. And that's one thing that I think AI will have a. Harder time replacing or supplanting because yes, there'll be avatars. There'll be avatars that you can't tell, but somehow I think people will know, you know, they're gonna want to go to a show at some point and it's gonna feel different screaming to a hologram versus screaming to a human, you know, in the crowd, whatever.

So,

[00:25:16] Joel: and maybe you'll have robots by then. So you know,

[00:25:18] Dmitri: that's around

[00:25:19] Joel: for us.

[00:25:20] Dmitri: That's, that's true too. Um, it's all, it's all probably gonna happen down the road.

[00:25:25] Joel: Yeah.

[00:25:25] Dmitri: You know, as we wrap up, our, audience, our, our listeners are startup founders that are actually making these AI products for, for augmenting music creation or other parts of the music process, record labels, artists.

Is there anything else you want to add to that audience before we wrap up?

[00:25:40] Joel: Yeah. I'd say, For labels and for platforms. You know, I'd say there's, especially, we talked before about how a lot of these disclosure statements tend to be very broad. They're, you know, they're pretty blunt instruments at, at this point.

So I'd say, you know, probably more fine grain, you know, development of standards that communicate the nature and extent of AI involvement is probably going to be. necessary, especially if we do start moving towards a space of, you know, yeah, we have AI generated content, but we also have this other stream of, you know, AI purists, you know, artists who, you know, they, they stake their reputation on non-use.

 for artists, I'd say the, you know, just the acknowledgement that the reputation risk is real. Uh, you know, if you have a, you might think that your existing reputation is going to protect you, or at least our findings suggest that that's probably not the case.

 and so to the extent that you can demonstrate, where your creativity has emerged in the process, I think is going to be, of most important moving forward At least in the short term.

[00:26:39] Dmitri: Yeah. It's funny, there's, I don't know if you were around for this or saw this, but on CDs, compact discs, there's this little code on it that said A A D, A D, D or DDD, and it had to do with which part of the music recording process was analog or digital.

So, you know, if you record an analog, then with analog equipment, the first letter was an A, if you mastered it analog, the second letter was an A, and then all CDs ended with a D because the production was digital CDs or digital products. But I could imagine that there might be some kind of system like that.

In the future for, for the ai maybe, although honestly, man, I don't think anybody's gonna pay attention. So, but there is this moment, this transitional period that I think is really important because it actually could, it could impact how much acceptance there is for AI as part of the creative process.

Is, is how we handle this right now. Later, it might not matter, but it might get adopted less if people feel like it's disingenuous, if it's not authentic. There's no human agency involved with creativity, even though someday it might shift completely.

[00:27:46] Joel: Yeah. And you know, one last thing I'd add to that is we also just have no idea where, where any of this is going.

Right? We can, we can, you know, conjecture and, and make predictions, but I think we're genuinely an unchartered territory and. You know, I liked every, every scholar likes to, you know, think that their, you know, research will stand the test of time. But, you know, with so much changes taking place in the AI space, you know, really, who knows?

 in the long term, you know, I could see things drastically changing in terms of. reputational hits to AI use. Yeah.

[00:28:19] Dmitri: Yeah. Joel, this has been fascinating. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing the insights from your research and being willing to put on the lens of the music industry.

I know your experiment involved music. You're not from music, but it's super interesting to see this kind of research that comes from the concept of reputation and apply it through the lens of music tectonics. Thanks for being here, Joel.

Let us know what you think! Find us on LinkedIn, and Instagram, or connect with podcast host Dmitri Vietze on LinkedIn.

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.