Is it Game Over for Musicians?
Click create.
Is this what music making has come to?
If you dare to try Suno, the AI music service, you are welcomed with this message.
Welcome to Suno! We are a community of musicians and technologists creating a world where anyone can make music. No instrument needed, just your imagination.
With Suno, you can make a song for any moment with just a few short words.
Type in a prompt (for example, “a groovy house song about my dog Luna”)
Click “Create”
That’s it…
This is your chance to express yourself in new and exciting ways. So, what are you waiting for? Dive in, start creating, and see where your imagination takes you. We can’t wait to hear what you make.
Self-expression = click create.
This is how music is being made now. This is “making” music.
This reminds me of grade 10 biology when our teacher explained that flowers have sex, that sexual reproduction is no more than the sharing and combining of DNA. To my buddy’s dismay, “but, where’s the unh, the flow, the love? Aaargh, this can’t be true!”
What will be next? Will our love making be reduced to: click create?
Yay, that sounds like super happy fun times! Actually that sounds terrible.
Making music is so much more than combining sounds and words. Why has it been reduced to, click create? Because it is easy, mindless, accessible and profitable.
Do we have a choice? Always, but the right choice is never made easy.
The Guilty
AI is taking over the world right now. It’s not like the Matrix where an AI being creates robots to physically contain and control us. It is a war for our attention. It is happening right now in our minds, psychologically and behaviorally. You’ve gotta be the boss, not your device.
Apps and social media are stealing and controlling our attention. And now we are learning that making music is: click create. Everyone who has used it has already been infected. The biggest record companies Universal, Warner and Sony have sued Suno and Udio the AI generative music services for copyright infringement. Copyright may be a reason but the real reason is control. They want to have control over the content, over the technology, over us.
Lawsuits have come just months after nearly 200 artists including Billie Eilish and Nicki Minaj signed a letter to stop the “predatory” use of AI in the music industry. Sorry ladies it’s already done.
This predatory use of AI is happening now. The biggest music distributors are accepting AI created content. The biggest streaming services are making their own AI music and pushing it, leaving less royalties to pay out to real artists.
The Resistance
I really love discovering new music and artists, but I don’t want to have to keep asking “is this made by a person or AI?” It sucks that I have to now do that — and it’s honestly exhausting.
How do you know that the music you are listening to is not AI?
There are AI detection tools like ircam amplify & AI Voice Detector, which can help. Google has also started to “Watermark” their AI generated content so that it can be recognized and identified as AI.
The best is to educate yourself and familiarize yourself with AI music and use your intuition.
Try to find out as much about the artist as you can. See that they are real people, anyway isn’t that what music is all about? Connecting with people.
There are independent labels and distributors that are resisting AI generated music. They can be a beacon for real musicians to empower their voices against the big wheels. Would you rather spin or be spun? Let’s stop the spread of AI Music.
