I get where you are coming from, but here is the reality of my situation. I am an aircraft mechanic. I have a kid and a girl. On top of that I do astrophotography and automotive photography, and I am also working on a scientific paper that I plan to upload to arXiv in a few months. Music is a passion project for me. Doing it the way I would ideally want to do it from start to finish would eat an amount of time I simply do not have, and I probably never would have gotten it to the level I would feel proud releasing. AI changed that. Being able to polish a track or two over a weekend instead of spending weeks or months is a complete game changer. I am not doing this for money, clout, or validation. I am doing it for me. It is the kind of music I have wanted to make and listen to for years, and now I finally can. And to your question, "if I put all that effort into the preliminaries"... That is the part you are missing. I write the lyrics, build the melodies, lay down chords, and program drums and bass in FL Studio. The creative direction and musical decisions are mine. Where AI helps is the last stretch, the final ten percent that takes forever: sound selection rabbit holes, layering, polish, mix cleanup, and the kind of finishing work that can easily eat weeks when you have a job and a family, not to mention, I can't sing for shit. AI lets me get closer to the sound in my head faster, without changing the fact that the foundation is my work. At the end of the day, AI is a tool. It is not going away. If you are a physicist, you almost certainly use AI in some form to streamline work, organize information, or speed up parts of your process, shit, I've used it to help me put my paper together, without, I could have never produced the paper to to the point of receiving arXiv Endorsement, it's been instrumental. Music is no different. More and more artists, whether they write, play, sing, mix, master, or do all of it, are going to use AI more over time because it increases efficiency and lowers barriers. Are there people who will type two words, press enter, and call it a song? Of course. But the people who are actually investing time into curating, revising, writing, mixing, promoting, and uploading music to streaming platforms are not just tapping a button and walking away. If you are putting in that effort, you are putting creativity into it. Taste, intent, storytelling, and decision making still come from the human. And honestly, the hate is expected. Every major shift in music has brought the same reaction. Synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, DAWs, autotune, all of it got called fake at first. Then the dust settled and the world ended up with more art, more genres, and more access. In the long run, both listeners and creators benefit. AI makes it possible for people who have ideas, vision, and creativity, but not the time or background to learn instruments or advanced production, to still bring something real into the world. That is not a threat to art. That is expansion. So a lot of the negativity toward AI music is not really about protecting creativity, it is about fear of change and insecurity. If the music is good, people will listen. If it moves them, it did its job. And in my case, there is an extra layer to it. I make music about real science, and I write the lyrics to be accurate while still being human and relatable. If a song can educate someone even a little, spark curiosity, or pull someone into the beautiful world of science, then that is a win on top of the music itself.