The birth of ChatGPT brings up a collection of concerns about how large language models allow users to quickly subvert processes that once required human time, effort, love, and understanding. And in addition, the ever-stormy relationship of the technology sector with regulation and management behavior leaves many afraid for a future where artificial intelligence replaces people at work and stifles human creativity.

While most of this alarm is well-founded, we must also consider the possibility that human creativity may improve with age. AI. In 2025, we will begin to see this manifest in our collective cultural response to technology. To explore how culture and creativity might fit into the age of AI, we’ll use hip-hop as an example. This is one of the most useful forms of music since invented, and one that has been influenced by major language models. We’ve all heard AI-driven rap songs by popular artists and seen them go viral, easily mistaken for real, original music. For example, during the recent rap feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, an AI-generated song called “One Shot” was released, and wrongly attributed to Lamar. In 2025 we should expect more AI-generated fake music, especially to fuel the social media circus where the loudest and most provocative will attract the immediate attention of millions.

By 2025 we believe that creative engagement with AI will begin to take three different forms.

The first can be described as “total surrender”: Do not run from technology, but trust in the fact that artificial intelligence can produce terabytes of music in a few minutes, most of it as fun as the music made by our favorite artist. While this strategy will involve leaving music production to robots, the human-driven aspects of music culture will remain. For example, a human element resides in how AI music is curated (think successful DJs), and in a new industry of art critics and commentators. It is not different from the TikTok influencers who are currently driving the widespread popularity of relics of the arts and technology. Human-led discussion of AI products will be big business, and will spawn a neo-influencer culture that compares and evaluates this progress.

The second strategy will involve the indirect embrace of artificial intelligence in the arts, where creativity becomes a healthy hybrid of human and machine. In the case of hip-hop, artists like 50 Cent have recently announced their enjoyment of AI-assisted country-music renditions of hip-hop classics (often done for humor). This is a pattern we see over and over again: AI-aided reimaginings or remixes of classic songs. In addition, we can observe the elaborations of this model: growth of a battle-rap scene driven by AI algorithms trained on data sets of human artists. Or maybe even rap duos consisting of two members: a rapper and their AI-trained partner (with hooks to hold back a mix of human singers and AI).

This kind of Robo-Franken-Hip-Hop leaves a lot of room for creative engagement and can spawn new subgenres of music. It also has business implications: Artists can be paid based on their training data, which could be an improvement on hip-hop business models past and present. The possibilities are only as limited as the infinite combination of human ingenuity and computational power.

Finally, 2025 will mark the formal start of a great paradox: AI art will prompt a new appreciation for classical man-made relics. As the number of AI creatures rapidly overtakes the number of humans, prized human relics will become more valuable. For example, one of the messages emerging from the 50-year celebration of hip-hop is that society still lacks a general appreciation of the art form. Less than a dozen hip-hop artists or groups have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Also, few of the founding acts of hip-hop are rich, because they founded the art form at a time when it was not financially profitable. Just like how a retro-tech industry has emerged that celebrates the simple tools of yesterday, we see a renewed appreciation of music from the analog era.

The rise of AI and related technologies will shed a new light on the original music that was created before it arrived. This would require an appreciation for proto-hip-hop, which could translate into a lucrative industry around the preservation of original music, and a related valorization of artists. AI may help hip-hop to its origins, finally earning it the respect it has always deserved, and a place among the high arts.

Human technology and art are two institutions defined by their ability to surprise us. Yes, the relationship between creativity and AI will be a storm in the immediate future, but 2025 will be a turning point where we will begin to accept greater possibilities. Perhaps there is creative light at the end of the technological tunnel, one where analog-era art forms like hip-hop can thrive in a land of multiple language models and whatever the age of AI.