The Debate About Music and Performing Arts Education and AI
When we were children, it sounded like a fantasyland, but as we observed and experienced the rise of technology and its influence in everything, we slowly saw about the use of AI could actually happen, and could actually become mainstream. That time has now arrived and we are experiencing its influence in our daily lives- for better and for worse.
Sure, in some ways it can make our lives easier, help us accomplish tasks in our professional lives quicker and it can provide us with information in a faster way. But there are two VERY serious downfalls that accompany these conveniences: the negative impact of the data centers that fuel this information, and the decrease of creativity across humanity. If you’re unfamiliar with either of these negative points, please take a moment and open a new tab to read a little more about it. This article isn’t meant to provide you with that information. And sadly, the information on the loss of creativity in society is lacking. The information is still speculative and new. There are studies that support it, but even the findings are in their early stages.
How to Balance The Existence of AI with Performing Arts Education
I think for most of us, it’s enough to remember that we are performing arts and creative arts professionals and educators. It is absolutely our professional responsibility to ensure that our next generation does not lose touch with the satisfaction and true magic of manual creativity, without the use of technology (unless it is technology that is the vehicle for their creative ideas, like a keyboard or a music publishing program, for example). We need to consistently remind students about the following:
Creativity is a muscle that needs to be exercised very regularly
The “short cut” of AI is not always the answer
We cannot predict how this is going to affect their careers and workplace experiences. Actual thinking still needs to be developed
Performance skills are still important. Who’s to say that a workplace might not want an AI bot to present business financial data to the board, but an actual human, for example?
AI doesn’t create the innovations, people do, even if they use AI to guide them and provide help with the developmental steps and the “how”. The ideas have to come from somewhere, and the ideas come from creative abilities
There is no guarantee of the future of AI. It isn’t too late for it to be shut down, so students cannot learn to become reliant on it
Serious musicians understand that the future of music guarantees that music will become superficial and could result in copyright infringement, since AI data is recycled from content that has already been published. Only human creativity is able to create something truly new, and develop actual style and personality. At least today that is the truth.
At this time, AI cannot replicate actual musicality and expression, at least not beyond the very superficial.
Students need to be taught the reality and importance of these aspects, despite the increased use of AI in our everyday lives and in modern education.
Truly, this list has been generated based on the sad reality that this is what our world is coming to, not ignoring its existence, despite the negative impacts. I don’t suspect that AI is going anywhere anytime soon, but the future is so uncertain how much it will continue to change and encroach on our lives, or if the people in power can put a stop to it, or at least limit its influence.
Uplevel U: Music and AI Use: A Statement
Another thing that I wanted to cover in this blog article was the use of AI in the Uplevel U: Music platform. For those that follow my project here, Uplevel U: Music is an online platform that houses music and performing arts professional development courses for teachers. To date, it is still in its growing stages, but with the intent of becoming the go-to community for teachers to get the support they need to strengthen their abilities as teachers and influencers of their students. Music teachers especially have multiple years with their students to help form them as people, as unique individuals, as empowered thinkers, and as professionals for the next generation through tasks and processes not seen in most other classrooms. The course content in Uplevel U: Music helps with the less-instructed everyday skills that performing arts teachers need, and the soft skills for efficient and extremely effective delivery. It has the potential to have a powerful impact on teachers throughout the world.
And as a consumer of its content, you deserve to know how much of the content is created by an actual human being, and how much is created by AI. Here is what you need to know:
The platform for course creation on the Uplevel U: Music website contains a feature to create a course using AI. It is ignored and not used.
The video instruction in every single module is recorded by the creator, Karen, (who often goes by Kay) DuCotey Janiszewski.
One blog post was created by AI a while ago to see what the result would be. It was edited thoroughly and no longer resembles the original AI-created post. It also lacked any sense of tone that made it sound like Karen’s original writing.
ALL video and audio content (the Uplevel U: Music podcast) is UNEDITED. This has been a feature from the beginning, in order to demonstrate the authentic personality of the creator. Some may call it unprofessional, but today, where it is becoming more and more difficult to tell what is real and what is AI-generated, human stutters and mistakes are clear clues to authentically-created content. Before, it was to create the feeling of being in a live, in-person instructional session with a human speaking in the front of the room, despite being an online platform. Now, it becomes credible evidence of authenticity. Even reading off of a script doesn’t fulfill that as well. Besides, what would have created that script? A human or AI? No script is used in Uplevel U: Music content.
Uplevel U: Music has used AI-generated images. They are present in the logos and in the graphics for the blog posts. They were generated at a time when the ecological effects of AI and data centers were not yet known. At this time, they are not going to be changed because the creator values the photographic images of people to help market the content. Because these images contain the likenesses of children, the creator does not want to use real images of children to help promote Uplevel U: Music. Generally, facial images are a blend of many, so exact images of children would not be traced to an individual. The identities of our children should be protected, and we refuse to use real photographic images in our content photos. Currently, graphics in the blog posts are beginning to revert back to images that are not created with AI.
In Summary
In general, Uplevel U: Music has a relatively strong opinion against the use of AI, especially with the new data about its detrimental effects on human creativity and ecology. Moving forward, its further use on our platform is going to be severely limited. However, we understand that not everyone feels this way and that the world continues to proceed in the direction of the increasing use of AI in education, and that it may become mandatory for some of the teachers in our audience and community to use AI in their planning and creation. In order to not be divisive in our stance on the topic, please feel free to email and consult us with questions on how to balance the requirement for AI use and the further encouragement for student creativity. There is a way and most of all, Uplevel U: Music is here for you. After all, we’re only human.
This article was written by Music Room/Uplevel U: Music's owner and creator, Karen (Kay) Janiszewski. This article was written by Music Room/Uplevel U: Music's owner and creator, Karen (Kay) Janiszewski.
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