Artificial intelligence is upon us. With AI technologies developing at an astonishing pace, we are trying to keep pace with what it all means. Writers and actors have been on strike in Hollywood as AI encroaches on their professions, threatening creative jobs. Singers like Drake and The Weeknd have been cloned by AI systems and their voices used on deepfake songs.

In May, Leipzig Ballet premiered a work called Fusion, billed as the world’s first AI ballet, that used generative AI for everything from the concept to the set and music. The cover of this magazine features a robot named EveR 6, which made its debut before a sell-out crowd in Seoul in June, conducting the National Orchestra of Korea. So what impact will AI have on music? Oliver Bown unpacks some of the issues at stake.