There isn't this place in the world where teenagers come together to make music for each other. That place does not exist, and that's nuts! That thing needs to exist, and it will exist. And getting the AI working is the price of admission to build that thing…" Stephen Phillips, CEO of Australian startup Popgun, thinks that the early business models in this sector – AI-music as a replacement for production music, for example – are just a sliver of the ultimate potential for this technology. What's more, his thoughts on how AI music might disrupt the current music industry are less about people choosing to listen to AI-made music instead of human-made music, but rather about people (non-musicians) using AI tools to make music for one another. "Where's the'pop stars on training wheels' place where they make music for each other, release it and watch each other pretend to be pop stars, but then go on to become legitimate pop stars?

Should musicians, whose job relies on the unpredictable and mysterious workings of human imagination, heed the warnings about artificial intelligence driving humans into unemployment? Apparently, the answer to that question is bit complicated. Artificial intelligence is gradually transforming into a general-purpose technology that permeates virtually every aspect of human life and society. Just like electricity (another general-purpose technology) which had an impact on music and musical instruments, AI algorithms will inevitably change the way we create and perform music. While this does not mean an end to the era of human musicians, it is fair to say that some dramatic changes are lying ahead.

Last Thursday (May 18), music industry executives and potential investors flocked to Los Angeles's El Rey Theatre for a glimpse of the potential future of the music-tech industry. Inside was a demo day concluding the first-ever Techstars Music startup accelerator program. Headed by Bob Moczydlowsky, the former head of Twitter Music, the program invited 11 startups to work on their products from out of Techstars' LA office over the course of three months. Each company received a $120,000 investment, access to a hundreds-large pool of mentors (including members of program partners Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Sonos, and Harmonix), and lifetime support in exchange for six percent equity. The incubation period was, as Moczydlowsky told Billboard, "designed to be a year's worth of work in three months."

Artificial intelligence ( AI) is the latest buzz word of the tech industry, with smart algorithms powering your personal assistants and recommending which TV shows to binge on next. And now, AI is getting ready to make music: Brisbane, Australia-based digital music startup Popgun wants to use machine learning to figure out which music is trending on services like Apple Music and Spotify - and then train algorithms to write songs that the users of these services may also like. Popgun is just one of eleven music startups that are part of the inaugural Techstars Music class, a new program run by tech incubator Techstars that gives participating companies $120,000 launch capital as well as a three-month incubation program hosted in Los Angeles. Others include Hurdl, a Nashville-based startup that wants to incorporate wireless LED bracelets into live concerts; Jaak, a London-based startup that is building a rights management system based on the same technology as the crypto-currency Bitcoin; Weav, a new York-based company that is developing generative music for fitness studios that's timed to your heartbeat; and Pippa, a New York-based startup that is working on dynamic ad insertion for podcasts. Techstars Music is being led by Bob "Moz" Moczydlowsky, who previously headed Twitter's music efforts.