Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
If the rise of artificial intelligence has a soundtrack for the arts community, it may sound something like the ominous two-note shark theme from Jaws.
For Australia’s screen composers, meeting for industry awards at Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall has also been a chance for urgent discussions about the impact of the technology.
On Wednesday night, composers Josh Hogan and Ned Beckley won all four categories in which they were nominated, for their work on the ABC children’s animated series Tales from Outer Suburbia.
Hogan believes a shift towards “AI slop” will have a huge impact on culture – a musical diet equivalent to fast food.
“We have the possibility of everyone eating McDonald’s all the time, do we want that as a culture?,” he said.
“When we make art, when we make stories, do we want everyone just to be eating McDonald’s?”
Hogan, who is on the board of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers, wants to see a licensing regime for music that has already been taken to train AI systems, as well as for content used in the future.
Composers should be paid each time their tracks are used by AI models to generate music, he argues.
“There’s pretty clear consensus amongst people around what needs to happen in terms of retaining the value of what we do, and having it exist as a profession in the future, because that’s really what’s at stake,” he tells AAP.
AI soundtracks are usually generated from the mass “slurping” of human-made music from the internet without permission in order to train systems using large amounts of data.
AI soundtracks are usually generated from the mass “slurping” of human-made music from the internet without permission, in order to train systems using large amounts of data.
Earlier in 2026, US publication The Atlantic created a dataset search tool that revealed millions of creative works had been used to train the disruptive technology.
But it still has a way to go. An AI-generated version of The Odyssey, made with Elon Musk’s Grok Imagine software, has been eviscerated by critics in recent days, soundtrack and all.
Composer Nicholas Gardiner, who took out the Best Music for a Short Film award for his work on the Radheya Jang film Trading Cards, said potential clients were turning to AI to generate tunes.
“I’ve been making music for 23 years and it feels like I’m being robbed, decades of experience just compressed into a machine and spat out,” he said.
Almost all of Gardiner’s work is with independent filmmakers and he’s worried about the creeping use of the technology on low budget projects and expectations humans can create music faster.
“I hope a lot of them understand that if they start to replace music with AI, then really anyone is replaceable,” he said.
The composers’ appeal comes as 150 musicians band together under the banner of the Artists Alliance of Australia to advocate on behalf of their sector on issues such as AI regulation and copyright changes.
The alliance includes prominent performers such as Bernard Fanning, Kate Ceberano and G Flip.
A joint parliamentary committee examining AI, including the use of Australian creative output in the training of models, will report by the end of November.
2026 Screen Music Award winners:
* Best Music for an Advertisement – Lego Project Vehicles; Benjamin Lam
* Best Music for Children’s Programming – Tales from Outer Suburbia (Episode 10); Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan
*Best Music for a Documentary – Sentient; Helena Czajka
* Best Music for a Short Film – Trading Cards; Nicholas Gardiner
* Best Music for a Television Comedy – The Witchy Girls (Episode 6); Peter Corrigan, Georgina Darvidis, Matthew Sheers
* Best Music for a Television Drama – The Artful Dodger (Season 2, Episode 3); Antony Partos
* Best Music for a Video Game or Other Interactive Media – Hollow Knight: Silksong; Christopher Larkin
* Best Original Song Composed for the Screen – ”Nothing Stays the Same” from Tales from Outer Suburbia; Ned Beckley, Joni Hogan, Josh Hogan
* Feature Film Score of the Year – Addition; Piers Burbrook de Vere, Rose Mackenzie-Peterson
