AI and the Future of Pop Culture

As AI-generated artistic artifacts continue to proliferate in the domains of music, cinema, and elsewhere, pop culture is being catapulted into a crossroads situation, as crucial decisions must be made that will have far-reaching consequences: Will the future of pop culture as we have known it continue, with humans and technologies working in collaboration to create content, or will the machines become autonomous creators of content? In a simulacrum culture in which AI plays an increasingly significant role, has pop culture morphed into a DIY (do it yourself) culture, with diminishing mass appeal? Are text-to-music computer programs, which allow anyone to generate any kind of music, reshaping how we experience and create music itself? Or do they signal the demise of a century-old experiment in musical creativity that started with jazz? Does anyone really care, so long as the music is enjoyable (no matter who or what created it)? This chapter deals with such questions, which have profound implications, not only for the future of pop culture, but also for the direction that social evolution itself might be taking. The discussion revolves around the partnership that has always existed between pop culture and technology, as far back as the 1920s—an era when the partnership coalesced definitively, shaping the subsequent history of modern societies.