Squid Game Composer Jung Jae-il Warns of AI Threat to Music
Jung Jae-il, the South Korean composer behind the global Netflix phenomenon Squid Game, has issued a stark warning about artificial intelligence in the creative industries. In a recent interview, Jung stated that AI can be perceived as a significant threat to music composition and creation. With this in mind, he emphasised the critical importance of seeking out fundamentally human elements in artistic expression.
From Squid Game Whistles to Parasite Scores
The composer, whose distinctive work has reached over 265 million viewers through Squid Game alone, has built a career on embracing musical contradictions and unsettling familiar sounds. Jung deliberately subverts conventional musical expectations, transforming naive and genteel motifs into chilling harbingers of horror. His approach was perfectly demonstrated in Squid Game's opening theme, where he personally played a child's recorder with deliberate imperfection.
"I'm not a professional or an expert recorder player," Jung admitted through an interpreter. "We actually tried to correct it with auto-tune later on. But the director decided that the correct sound did not sound right."
The resulting composition became a masterclass in calculated imperfection, with thin, piercing notes frequently breaking into shrill, unintended squeaks. These sounds of an amateur struggling for breath and control served as an auditory metaphor for the desperation of Squid Game's doomed contestants.
Unconventional Path to Global Recognition
Jung's career trajectory has been anything but conventional. At just 15 years old, he joined a rock band and never formally studied composition. His creative practice remains rooted in improvisation, a method he discovered while composing the Oscar-winning score for Parasite.
"I was very much in despair," Jung recalled of his struggle with traditional composition processes. "Then one day I sat down in front of my computer and improvised as much as I could, and that actually got the OK from director Bong Joon Ho. I thought, maybe this is what I am destined to do."
This improvisational approach has defined his identity as a composer. "The fact that I start with a clean slate or a blank page means that I can tap into all kinds of music that I've been listening to since my childhood," he explained. "At the end of the day, having no identity very much defines my identity."
Live Performance as Human Bulwark Against AI
As Jung prepares for his Australian debut at the Sydney Opera House in April, where he will conduct a 41-piece orchestra performing the Parasite soundtrack, he is increasingly focused on live performance as a defence against artificial intelligence's encroachment into creative fields.
His transition to the concert stage represents more than a victory lap following global success. Jung views the concert hall as one of the last bastions of authentically human musical expression.
"I think we are all very much in the dark," Jung said regarding AI's impact on music. "AI can be seen as a threat when it comes to music composition or music creation. With that in mind, I think it's all the more important that we look for something fundamentally human, something only humans can do."
For Jung, this fundamentally human element resides in the very discordance that propelled his rise to prominence. The improvised, unpolished, squeaky mistakes that no machine would think to make and no auto-tune could ever improve represent the essence of human creativity he seeks to preserve.
Global Success and Future Projects
Jung's work on both Squid Game and Parasite has catapulted him from studio hermit to global stage presence. Parasite became the first South Korean film to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
"After my work in Squid Game and Parasite, my music gained global recognition – not necessarily my name, but definitely my music," Jung noted.
The multi-instrumentalist, who has mastered piano, guitar, bass, drums, traditional Korean percussion, and even the musical saw, continues to expand his creative horizons. His third collaboration with director Bong Joon Ho, the sci-fi comedy Mickey 17, featured grand orchestral arrangements with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Looking ahead, Jung is working on a project with Burning director Lee Chang-dong and preparing a new album with Decca Records. Through these endeavours and his commitment to live performance, he offers audiences a defiant assurance that the person at the piano represents not an algorithm but a human being, still creating in the face of technological challenges.
