The music industry has always felt like the last safe place for real human creativity, a world where genuine talent and emotion could still make it big despite the emerging AI technologies. We have all seen artists work for years, pouring their hearts into their music, just to get a tiny bit of attention. But now, everything seems to have been turned upside down. The recent news that an AI artist named Xania Monet signed a $3 million record deal is not just a news story – it feels like a punch in the gut to anyone who loves art.
This is not some far-off idea about the future, it is happening right now, and it is taking up real space in a business that is already incredibly hard to get into. That huge amount of money went to an “artist” who is not even a person. Sure, there is a human creator behind her, a poet named Telisha Jones, who uses the AI tool to make the music. But the “artist” the public sees is a machine. This brings up so many big questions. How can we compare the hard work of a human artist to a computer program that can spit out a perfect song in minutes?
This whole situation has left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths. When you listen to a song, you want to feel a connection to the artist’s life, their struggles, their happiness. But with Xania Monet, the connection is to a set of code. Artists like Kehlani and SZA have spoken out about their frustration, pointing out that this technology is “out of our control” and messes up what art is all about and namely, authenticity. They are right. It is discouraging for every up-and-coming singer and musician to watch a program get the fame and money they dream of, just because it can create music from data instead of from real life.
The deal shows a major change, moving the focus away from the artist’s real talent and towards a product that can be sold. The music industry has always been about making money, but now with AI, it seems even more focused on speed and profit, losing what little soul it had left. This is not just a danger to the careers of artists, it is a danger to the spirit of music. So the question is, when creativity can be automated, what makes art special anymore?
References:
Larsen, J., Felton, K., & Grisham, M. (2025, September 24). Celebrities speak out after AI artist signs multimillion dollar record deal. Straight Arrow News. https://san.com/cc/celebrities-speak-out-after-ai-artist-signs-multimillion-dollar-record-deal/
Marshall, E. D. (2025, September 24). AI artist Xania Monet has racked up millions of streams. How much money is that worth? Billboard. https://www.billboard.com/pro/ai-artist-xania-monet-how-much-money-songs-made/
Although I am not familiar with Xania Monet or other artists who purely use AI for their songs, I do agree that generated art becomes less special. AI-generated art is not only happening in music, but also in other sectors, such as YouTube videos, photography, and literature. For example, Kwebbelkop, who is a Dutch YouTuber with over 15 million subscribers, experimented with generating new videos based on his old real ones. While every video is unique, it feels more like a static, impersonal video with little to no emotional connection. I think this would also apply to AI-generated songs. A “real” artist is trying to deliver a message, build a connection, or show emotions, whereas an AI-generated song tries to combine the perfect words to get as many streams as possible. Even though I think AI art can be special in its own way, it leads to a weaker connection with artists, since the human touch is missing. AI can definitely help generate art by giving suggestions and advice, but it shouldn’t fully replace human creativity.
This is new news to me, and quite frankly, it’s scary! When generative AI first came out, my assumption was that AI would be trained do repetitive and professional tasks that don’t require human input and creativity so that people would be able to focus more on the creative and social aspects of their life that they otherwise did not have time for. The infiltration of AI into the arts can undermine thousands of years of human expression and creativity, because one of the main ways that we have been to characterise past generations’ lives have been through their artistic works (songs, poems, books, letters, paintings etc…) that detail their struggles and joys. If AI overtakes artistic fields, the main purpose of these mediums of self expression will be tainted and in my opinion, ruined. I am glad that artists are recognising the problems of this and using their platform to protest this.
Wow I am someone who is very tapped into the latest AI news, and I knew that AI personalities existed but had not heard of Xania Monet before. Thank you for sharing. I think with the advancement of so many different types of AI, its bringing forward so many philosophical questions that challenges our world view. When AI art first surfaced, many people criticised it because it was essentially “stealing” art from artists that it learned from during training. However, many counter argue that its hard to draw a line from “stealing” and being influenced. If you dig deeper into how generative AI creates output you will see that from its foundation, it is trying to simulate a brain (aka neural networks). So why is it that we value the work of a human and not a machine? Is it because it is not synthetic, made of flesh and blood? Why is that something that we value? Is it because machines learned it “too fast” and “too easy”? Well, then that brings up the question whether we should value the work of an untalented musician over a talented one because one worked harder. I don’t know the answer to these questions and its something really interesting and existential to ponder. However, I think the one word that can justify why human art is more valuable is last word of the title of this article: “soul”. AI is soulless, plain and simple. As someone who tries to think rhetoically I don’t like how “soul” is the only answer, but at the end of the day art is about creative expression, and that requires some soul.