AI Is Creating a 'Human Premium' for Art Made by People

A DJ played music at a crowded dance night inside an old bank building in Falmouth, Cornwall. The room was loud, sweaty, and full of energy. Every part of that night — the crowd, the music, the performers — came together to make something special. It was something only humans could create, at least for now. But AI is changing the way art and music are made, and people are starting to ask: does it matter who — or what — made it?

Technology has already changed music in big ways. Back in the 1990s, DJs had to mix songs by hand using vinyl records and turntables. Today, software can do a lot of that work automatically. Apps like Apple Music and Spotify even offer AI mixing tools. If you were dancing and loved every song, would you care if a computer picked and mixed the music instead of a person?

That question is now being asked about all kinds of art. The music app Deezer reported that 44% of the songs uploaded to its platform are made by AI. Its research also found that 97% of listeners couldn't tell the difference between AI-made songs and human-made ones. But here's the interesting part: more than half of the people surveyed said they still cared whether a human made the music. Even if they couldn't tell the difference, knowing a person was involved mattered to them.

Daniel Susskind is an economics professor at King's College London. He says people value human effort in art in a way they don't with everyday tasks. He explains it like this: if you go to an accountant, you care about getting your taxes done right — not about the personal touch. But with art, it's different. Knowing that a real person created something moves us in a way a machine cannot.

Susskind also points to chess as an example. In 1997, world chess champion Garry Kasparov lost to a computer called Deep Blue. Many people worried that chess would become less popular since a machine could now beat the best human player. Instead, chess became more popular than ever. Susskind says that's because people care about watching other humans compete, not just about seeing the best possible moves on a board.

Some experts believe that the rise of AI has actually made human-made art more valuable — not less. This idea is called the 'human premium.' Kyle Chayka, a journalist at The New Yorker, says that AI writing has come to be seen as plain, overly agreeable, and boring. Because of this, readers are starting to appreciate writing that feels personal, and designers are trying to make things that AI simply can't copy.

Because so much AI content exists now, some people are working to create a label that means something was 'human made.' It would work similarly to the 'Fairtrade' label that shoppers see on some food products. Some books, films, and albums are already using labels like 'AI-free' on their covers. This shows that for many creators, being human-made is something worth advertising.

C Thi Nguyen is a philosophy professor at the University of Utah. He says you can figure out what you truly value by asking 'why?' over and over until you can't go any further. The big question, he says, is whether human connection will always end up at the bottom of that chain — the thing people care about most. His point is that our deepest values will shape how we respond to AI art.

Author John Lanchester is hopeful about the future of human art. He agrees with the idea of a human premium. He says that when one type of thing becomes easy to mass-produce, the things that can't be mass-produced feel more precious. In other words, if AI can make millions of songs, a song made with real human feeling and effort might mean even more to us.

Algorithms — the computer systems that recommend songs, videos, and articles based on what you've liked before — are already shaping our taste in art and culture. Kyle Chayka says algorithms have made people lazy and stop them from going deeper into culture. He worries that people are swapping challenging, life-changing art for easy content that just 'turns your brain off for a few hours.' We've already accepted algorithms guiding our choices — so when AI starts making most of our art, will we just accept that too?

There are still some things AI can't replicate. A sweaty, joyful crowd of 250 people dancing together at a live event is one of them. Alex Mahon, the chief executive of Superstruct Entertainment, one of the world's biggest festival companies, says more people are seeking out live experiences. 'The special moment is live,' she says. In a world shaped by screens and AI, a moment that can only happen once — in real life, with real people — might be the most valuable thing of all.