Leaving any kind of artist negotiations up to an AI implies that AI has an inherent understanding of an artist’s value. I think that is an incredibly flawed assumption.
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I’m assuming the artist knows their value and agree or reject as they see fit.
You just said an artist’s AI would be negotiating with a venue’s AI. Now you’re basically saying there’s no need for the artist to have a negotiator because they know their own value. So it then becomes an artist who knows their own value negotiating against a machine that is using an algorithm to assess the artist’s value?
Machines are terrible at that sort of thing. Art is, almost by definition, a subjective experience that cannot be reliably assessed through objectively quantifiable criteria. An AI can’t really tell you if a band is “good,” at best it can tell you if it shares certain qualities with bands that are generally regarded as “good.”
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One of the worst trends in the business world over the last decade or so is that businesses are increasingly relying on recruiting services and websites that use algorithms to evaluate candidates’ qualifications based on their resumes. A little while back I heard an interview with the CEO of a company like monster.com who flat out said that you’d be foolish not to tailor your resume in a way that looked good to algorithms, because if the algorithms don’t like it a human will never even have the opportunity to see it. This is bad for everyone but especially creative folks who traditionally were incentivized to stand out from the crowd with unique, out-of-the box thinking, fun original formatting of their CVs, photos of their work, etc.
We don’t need more of that kind of thing. Ultimately it hurts everyone.
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Terms are negotiated and then the people the AI represents approve or reject. If an artist think they are worth more they reject and say that they are worth more. The AI take that information and restart negotiations with the venues AI. The AIs never set worth, the people on who’s behalf they negotiate set that and if there is no agreement between the people then there is no agreement.
Yes, because it’s better to literally ditch more than a century of the way a industry functions in favor of something that has yet to prove its able to do anything well. /s
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I am still struggling to understand how you believe the inclusion of AI in this process yields better results for anyone involved.
Neither side’s AI would have any real way to assess the value of the thing they were negotiating, because art can’t be evaluated by any of the criteria a machine can understand. It would be like two fish trying to negotiate the sale price of a bicycle.
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But techbros will get an unearned slice of the transaction! That’s the benefit! /S
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You are not the only one.
I hear hella ‘cons,’ a bunch of “yeah, buts” and almost no ‘pros.’
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The idea that this stuff will “empower” the artists against the labels is just bullshit on its face. People made the same arguments about streaming, and look how that’s turned out. Artists struggle now far more to make a living making music than ever before. All this will do is put another layer between artists and consumers, and suck more money out of our pockets, and keep more money from getting t the artists. It’s yet more chokepoint capitalism. 
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My belief is that an artists AI will be able to fill the roll of the label and therefore remove the labels predatory contract. AI is bad at art, but very good at handling legalese, math, creating plans with lots of moving parts and then refactoring when something changes etc. in other words the business of art. I think the best way to explain it is by watching the demo in the boing article and when they get to the part about a trip to London, imagine planning a show.
I think your apparent faith in the systems is severely misplaced, but to each his own; time will tell.
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Again, people said the same shit about streaming, and the reality is that artists are making far less off streaming than touring and sales of physical media.
There is already a robust alternative to the major label system that’s in existence since the 80s, and that’s the indie ecosystem. Streaming was in part adopted to help undermine that system. This is not much different. Automation was not what made the growth of an alternative system possible, it was people building alternative systems that directed money in more egalitarian ways.
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Artists don’t sign on with music labels because they don’t know how contracts work. They sign on with labels because the record label has connections, expertise and resources that the artists do not.
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And AGAIN, plenty do not, because they can figure out alternatives or they sign with less exploitative indie labels…
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Ah; just like streaming did?
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Jinx!
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… what?
No, A.I. is no good at any of that 
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Yeah, the one thing that you used to be able to count on a computer for was being good at math, but generative AI has changed that. And in some cases it’s getting even worse at math, not better:
And as a lot of lawyers have been finding out lately, depending on AI to help you with your work is a good way to piss of judges and tank your career.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/new-york-lawyers-sanctioned-using-fake-chatgpt-cases-legal-brief-2023-06-22/
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