Foward
I spend too much time on Reddit, which is my drug of choice when it comes to social media. I do not care what people say, social media is an addictive drug, but that is a topic for another day.
Instead, I would like to make some observations concerning the use of Generative AI in music and whether it is, in fact, music. r/Musicians is "a community for anyone who loves making music". They currently have 120k+ weekly visitors and ~5k weekly contributions. They also currently ban AI-generated content. I am a member of this community and have witnessed a lot of discontent over AI-generated content, and specifically ire at people who use AI (exclusively or not) and call themselves musicians.
On the other hand, we have r/SunoAI, which is dedicated to creating "magic" (music?) with the popular Suno app. Suno allows a user to generate music using AI models with prompts and short sound recordings. The SunoAI subreddit currently has ~140k weekly visitors and ~9k weekly contributions, and many of the posts direct discontent and ire back towards the members of r/musicians in response to their discontent and ire over using AI.
It's a vicious cycle, but who is right here?
Some Groundwork
Before I go forward, I guess we should first define what it means to be a musician and what it means to make music. Some people group it all under one banner, but I think we should make some distinctions here to clear up some misunderstandings.
When it comes to making music, there are three distinct categories that we should first define:
- Performing, or playing existing music
- Songwriting, or creating new music
- Recording a musical performance
These three categories are very different things, but musicians and non-musicians alike group them in the same bucket. They encompass three distinct roles:
- A musician is someone who plays a musical instrument (or sings, their voice being the instrument).
- A Songwriter creates new songs or compositions, which involve lyrics, song structures (chorus, verse, bridge), melodies, chord changes, rhythm, etc.
- A Producer creates sound recordings of musical performances of written songs, which they group into albums or compilations.
Now, these three roles are not mutually exclusive. A musician might write their own songs or perform the written work of others. A songwriter might not know how to play any or all of the instruments for which their songs they have written. A producer may be all three or have neither songwriting nor musical experience. For example, look to Rick Rubin, one of the most defining producers of our time, who famously stated he has no technical ability when it comes to music or recording.
I want to think I am all three of these, albeit at an amateur/hobbyist level.
Artificially Intelligent
So, what does this have to do with AI music, and how does it fit into the narrative? Well, when we speak of AI, we are referring to generative AI, which is a subset of a much larger field of study. All modern AI tools use large sets of data to train "models", or a mathematical construct that simulates a real-world concept. We can train these models to recognize elements in a photo, glean insights from data, or offer predictions based on historical trends. AI models can analyze whole volumes of data quickly and efficiently; trends, insights, and correlations not thought possible appear as if by magic. Generative AI goes a step further in that it creates new content on top of what already exists instead of just restating the data in new, understandable terms. The result is one of humanity's best regurgitation devices ever created.
The fact of the matter is, no one knows exactly how it works. I have heard it referred to as a a black box. A prompt enters the model, the model does its thing, and spits out generated content as if by magic.
But is it indeed creating something new, or just vomiting up slop cobbled together based on the sum of its parts? The answer is yes, and no, and quite possibly, maybe?
To a certain extent, we can say the same about human creativity. Many artists and writers do not know where their ideas and art come from. One of my favorite authors, Stephen King, stated that many people ask him why he writes about such gruesome subjects, and his answer is: "Why do you assume that I have a choice?".
And to go further, the artist's output is highly dependent on the total of their experiences and knowledge. Often attributed to Isaac Newton (although it is much older than him), the aphorism "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" comes to mind. All works of art, in any form, are, in a way, a reference or tribute to what has come before.
Music is no different, and music, like most art, is quite simple when stripped down to the basics.
Twelve Notes / Infinite Combinations
Western music, at its most basic level, only has twelve notes (technically eleven without the octave). Other forms of music use microtones, which further subdivide the octave into smaller portions, but each subsequent octave doubles the frequencies of the octave before.
But with this simple system, humans have been creating music for thousands of years and have not run out of notes to play. Or have we? Are we simply building subconsciously on what we have heard and creating slight permutations of the same old thing?
There exist many examples in modern popular music where one artist appears to have stolen a riff or idea from another artist. Led Zeppelin comes to mind, as well as the famous Vanilla Ice / Queen & Davie Bower feud. Lesser known might even be Nirvana's top hit Come As You Are, where at least four previously recorded songs use a strikingly similar main riff.
Can we honestly say we humans are creating something new when the pen hits the paper, or are we just kidding ourselves?
What In God's Holy Name Are You Blathering About?
I realize that it may seem as if I got myself on a tangent, but I promise I have a point here, somewhere. If you've read this far, I applaud you and will soon deliver on said promise.
Let's revisit the three roles I described above and see if someone using AI has a valid comparison. Of all three, Musician, Songwriter, and Producer, I would say that within the current capabilities of generative AI applications like Suno, Producer fits the best.
A person using Suno will start with an idea and prompt the AI with text or a short recording of that idea. The AI will then produce a simulated song recording of the idea, which the user can then shape and fine-tune to their liking. This is similar to how a real-world producer might work, but instead with a group of musicians and recording engineers, giving them instructions and feedback until they achieve the desired result. As said before, a producer does not need to be a musician or songwriter to produce sound recordings; AI is just changing the tools available and allows people to generate content without having to work with a studio and other artists and musicians. Whether the quality of the content is better or worse, that is a topic for another time.
But can we say that someone who uses AI to produce music is a songwriter or musician? I would say the answer is a bit fuzzy.
As previously stated, songwriting builds on what has come before, and in many ways reuses and repurposes the sum of its parts to create something new. In a way, AI does the same thing, but AI performs its magic with a bunch of GPUs sitting in a datacenter somewhere instead of the human mind, which I think is the crux of the matter.
Additionally, when we examine the history of music, there are defining eras in the timeline, when a particular artist redefines what music is and creates something fresh, turning convention on its head. If we were to go back and only train an AI model on music produced pre-Beethoven, would it be able to create a symphony as revolutionary as his Ninth? Would it be able to develop popular music, bebop, jazz, rock and roll, etc.? Would it be able to produce this? To me, that remains to be seen.
As a musician myself, I would say that someone who uses an AI to 100% create their content without playing any instruments or singing is not a musician, and claiming otherwise is an insult to people who spend hours of their lives devoted to practicing and playing.
But a guitarist might use AI to make their drum parts, or a keyboardist might have AI write some counterpoint or help write some lyrics. I have no bone to pick with the latter if the artist discloses the use of AI, which leads to my next point.
Ethical Dilemmas
People have a nasty habit of inventing innovative technology without first considering its implications and potential impacts on society. Worse, some ignore implications in the name of "progress".
You can pin this on greed or capitalism. Still, really, it's a symptom of our society, and I think also because Ethics is an optional elective typically taught at the college level.
But I digress. The point here is that using Generative AI has some ethical implications, whether you like it or not.
Remember when I said that we train Generative AI on large sets of data? Well, where did the data come from, and how did the AI companies acquire it? The fact of the matter is, they sort of stole it, or if stole is not the right word (please don't sue me, Mr. Altman), they "borrowed for free". Most content on the web is free to access, and there are ways of accessing that which is behind a paywall. Data scraping, or extracting data from websites, either legally or not, has been around for many years, but AI training has taken it to another level. Models have gobbled up massive amounts of data from webservers, many times without the owner knowing the transaction has occurred or without compensation. The legality of what they are doing is very grey, though, as the legislation concerning AI does not yet exist, or is so chock full of holes it's worth about as much as the paper it is printed on.
When it comes to music, organizations such as ASCAP take royalties for songwriters and artists very seriously. Your local bar or restaurant that hosts an open mic night or has a jukebox pays hefty fees for performance licenses so that artists can receive royalties for their creations. Still, OpenAI and other similar companies pay little to no royalties to the original creators of works used to train their models. That means that while apps like Suno may or may not have used creations to train their models, they have not paid a penny to the songwriters or music producers who own the creations.
Additionally, the threat of "fake" artists on streaming services is a very real problem, and is already unfolding before our eyes; which seems more like an episode of Black Mirror than real life. New and up-and-coming artists now must compete with hundreds of AIs that can regurgitate slop that mimic their work. Many times, these AIs are enabled by the streaming service itself.
If that is not enough, the Datacenters needed to power the AI require lots of electricity, water for cooling, and computer parts, which threaten to drive up costs, contributing to inflation, pollution, and potential shortages.
Cool Story Bro
So where does this leave us? Certainly, we have already opened the box, releasing its curses upon humanity, and once open, it is almost impossible to close.
Which is not what I propose we do. Whatever opinion you may have formed thus far, I am not anti-AI. I have used Claude to help with coding projects, and I am cautiously optimistic with the results. I use Grammarly because I'm a dumb engineer who spells like shit.
I am not advocating for a ban on AI or the use of AI in music. I am simply trying to define the ethical responsibilities for an artist or music creator using AI. If you use AI in your music, you should know where it comes from and choose the source responsibly. If you use AI in your music, you should disclose it to your audience, as they have the right to know.
I also do not believe it will replace "real" music. Not everyone craves authenticity, but enough of us do, and therefore, there will always be a place for us. I do believe that if you are a songwriter or producer for a major pop label, you might want to polish up your resume, though.
End Note
A musician friend of mine who proofread this blog gave me a good analogy:
Imagine you want to build a rocket. You go and tell NASA: "Hey, I want a rocket. I want it to have three stages and be purple with polka dots." NASA then builds the rocket to your exact specs.
Can you now say that YOU built a rocket?
This entire situation reminds me very much of when streaming first came out (yes, I am that old). Before streaming, the only way to hear music was to listen to the radio, see a band live, or listen to it through physical media (i.e., records, CDs, tapes, etc.). All of these involved an investment from the consumer, which benefited the artists (and yes, the record labels more so), but it meant that the music had a quantifiable value.
Then came Napster, which changed the landscape of the music industry to what we have now. Those of us old enough to know will remember the famous Metallica - Napster Lawsuit, which at the time caused a lot of bad publicity for Metallica. Southpark perfectly summed it up in this episode. At the risk of sounding like "Old Man Yells at Cloud", Metallica was right to be outraged, and the lawsuit was instrumental in laying the groundwork for what streaming service providers pay artists today. Unfortunately, it is a pittance compared to what physical sales bring in.
Yes, I know, your big artists like Metallica have the cash and rake in lots of money from lots of avenues. But your midrange artists now make pennies on the dollar for their records. A CD sale might have brought in $9 worth of margin before but now requires nearly 4000 streams to make the same amount.
I fear that if we do not understand the liabilities now, we risk further diluting and devaluing music and thus shutting out a generation of new artists and creativity. Things change fast, and we leave people behind in the name of "progress", but I refuse to believe it has to be this way. We, as consumers of tech, have more power than we know, despite what the tech bros say. How we wield that power in the coming years through our decisions will have lasting consequences for future generations of human creativity.
-The Bear, April 2026