Is AI ruining music? | Dustin Ballard
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 11.9K Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What makes music “real” — is it the instruments, the voice, the creator’s intention or something else entirely? Dustin Ballard, the creative force behind the viral channel “There I Ruined It,” explores the weird, wonderful and sometimes unsettling ways AI is reshaping music. With fiddle solos and AI-powered mashups of your favorite songs, he invites us to ask: Are new tools fostering creativity, or just making noise?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:12.9 | I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Did you know that when the phonograph first came out in the early 1900s, |
| 0:19.4 | some argued that pre-recorded music wasn't real music? |
| 0:23.3 | In this talk, musician and social media creator Dustin Ballard says, we're still wrestling with that question today. |
| 0:30.3 | What makes music real music in the first place? |
| 0:33.9 | Dustin is known for his popular YouTube channel. There I Ruined It, where he uses artistry and AI |
| 0:39.4 | to quote lovingly destroy our favorite songs. |
| 0:43.6 | He weaves us through a few hilarious examples |
| 0:46.0 | of different ways he's quote ruined songs |
| 0:48.7 | and complicates our questions around AI's role in music making. |
| 1:01.4 | Thank you. around AI's role in music making. Two titans of Silicon Valley, one prize, dominance in the world of artificial intelligence. |
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| 1:34.8 | This episode is sponsored by PWC. |
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