Ethical Risk Analysis of the Use of AI in Music Production

Abstract: With the growing use of AI within new fields, the ethical problems that arise with AI have become a more prominent topic. Multiple ethical guidelines and frameworks have been proposed to aid companies and researchers to develop ethical products, but it is still lacking in execution. This project is a study into the ethical risks that are prevalent when AI is used for music production tools. The study was done by interviewing five different start-up companies about aspects of their company policies and products from an ethics point of view. The interviews were analysed, and six areas of interest were found. A final risk analysis was then done based on an existing ethical guideline, the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI by AI HLEG. Multiple risk areas were discovered, the largest ones being in connection to Diversity, Bias, Explainability, and Privacy. Another discovery was that multiple companies do not currently have an ethical framework, but that it was something that they were positive about implementing in the future.