I think we're mixing up several different things here: songwriter, musician, recording artist and live performer.

A songwriter doesn't have to perform live. A musician doesn't have to write songs. And a recording artist doesn't necessarily have to tour.

My son is a good example. He writes his own lyrics and melodies, plays several instruments, records and produces his own songs (never uses AI), sometimes brings in a vocalist, and has hundreds of thousands of streams and listeners around the world. He never performs live because he simply doesn't want to. I don't see how that makes him less of an artist or musician.

And I'm not convinced that live performance solves the AI authenticity problem either. Milli Vanilli were human performers. Plenty of "live" performers use playback or extensive backing tracks. A four-piece band on stage can still be performing songs they didn't write or recordings they didn't make.

So yes, I agree that authenticity is going to be an interesting issue with AI. But I don't think “can you perform live?” is the dividing line between a real artist and an AI artist. It only tells us that someone can perform live.