This research presents a paradigm shift in the philosophical and aesthetic debate surrounding AI-generated music. It argues that the current discourse is fundamentally flawed because it focuses on the "consciousness" of the machine rather than the cognitive mechanics of musical perception. Drawing from cognitive musicology, systems theory, and aesthetic philosophy, the paper dismantles the "Source-Dependency Thesis", the idea that artistic value must flow from a living creator's inner experience. Instead, it posits that musical "vitality" has never resided in the generative source; rather, it emerges from the interaction between structurally coherent sound and the human brain's predictive processing apparatus. The core contribution of the paper is the Delegated Vitality Framework (DVF), an original theoretical model that explains how perceived "aliveness" is generated in AI music. The framework operates on three axes: Structural Activation Potential (SAP): The formal properties of the sound that trigger human cognitive expectations. Intentional Framework Contribution (IFC): How the listener's interpretive posture shapes the meaning. Design Intelligence Index (DII): The human operator's skill in "constraint design" and orchestration. Ultimately, the research redefines the role of the human in the AI era from "author" to "orchestrator," demonstrating that AI does not diminish the human element in music, but rather shifts it from direct sonic production to high-dimensional constraint design.
Ziad Salah (Tue,) studied this question.
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