I think as an artist, you need to make art that has value to you, not to your audience, because you are a representative of your own perspective on the world, not someone else's.
If the artist finds the output to be something that has meaning to them, and helps them categorize their feelings towards the world, then I think that's valuable art. It doesn't mean I'm going to go buy that album, but I'm glad it was made.
I absolutely love Suno music. Most of the music I listen to nowadays is Suno generated. There are so many creative people out there making things that never would've existed without it.
Recently talked to the founder of wavtool (acquihired by Suno which probably accelerated their work on Studio) and from my understanding, their overarching goal is to reduce to the time from concept to actual production. faster workflows, in other words.
I produce music as well on the side and I can assure you things like making beatpacks, finding the exact sound are non-trivial at times and a unified interface that lets me go fast asf without losing expression is vital.
I'm making my OSS version of this (faster than ffmpeg.wasm tho) called WAV0 - github.com/fluid-tools/wav0
This brings up an interesting philosophical question about AI assistance for those with disabilities. It reminds me of the debate when NanoWriMo said they would allow AI assistance for similar reasons.
We could make an argument based on equity. AI assistance levels the playing field. Something doesn't quite sit right with me though. Last weekend I was watching a band perform where each member of the band had down syndrome. I don't mean to compare the author's condition to down syndrome, little is said about his condition and I didn't read the linked article. And of course, many people with down syndrome did not get the opportunity to learn to play an instrument, whether from nature or nurture. But still, watching them play you get that feeling about how it's awesome when people strive for competence despite the obstacles.
I can't help but feeling those who use AI assistance are unknowingly capping their upside. The author's condition sounds painful and upsetting. But a major component of why practicing a creative craft is good for self-develoment is because the artist must confront and overcome self-doubt. We all suffer from the feeling of not being good enough. When you use AI to overcome those limits, do you confront the doubt? It feels more to me like you're a manager who is pleasantly surprised with the work your direct reports created. Rather than evoking a sense of wonder at your own latent competence. Which is what happens when you confront the negative feelings of self-doubt.
We have to distinguish between craft and when we need a functional outcome.
Personally, I'm not interested in the craft of mental math. When I'm trying to calculate the tip I want the answer quickly so I can move on with my life. But if you care about the craft of mental math, then by all means, go for it
When I saw Stephen Hawking on the Simpsons, it occurred to me that in no way was he on the Simpsons. Not his voice, nor his thoughts, nor his visage. All I saw was his brand I suppose. Stephen Hawking’s brand appeared in an episode of the Simpsons.
My honest review, as a musician who has spent many years of my life making music and both giving and receiving blunt critique:
Stunningly mediocre. Worthy of a Pitchfork 1/10. If your choice truly is between having AI make "art" that you pass off as your own vs not doing so, then please remember that, as a wise man once said, an artist understands the silence that serves as the foundation of creativity.
I can't see how "chronic health issues" make it impossible to write and sequence original music, but it does allow for the AI workflow described in the post? Modern DAWs are incredibly accessible. You don't have to put out this horrible tuneless samey music; you can just work on honing your craft.
Shortcuts are incredibly appealing because it can be so difficult and unrewarding to build up our musical skills. But then what you make is uniquely yours and reflects every minute spent on it. If you use something like Suno, the results (especially based on what I heard) are not unique to you. You could never have existed, and those musical tracks easily could have come out of the cold weights of a neural network sounding about the same.
If you could distill what you were trying to make and describe each piece, making it uniquely yours, is the fact that it went from an f(intent) -> output a reason to treat it as derivative?
I'm not claiming that Suno is there yet, but assuming that it cannot get there seems strange to me, given that the anthology of music is pretty well represented digitally.
I've not used Suno Studio but I did put some of my own piano improv recordings into Suno and asked it to apply different styles. Fascinating results, hearing my work translated into disco, funk, acid jazz, marching brass band, film scores, 8-bit chiptunes, cor anglais solos, and more. It's given me a deeper appreciation for the broader musical landscape and has somewhat helped me out of a creative rut.
That said, I don't like the idea of generating entire songs and/or lyrics from scratch with AI. That's a step too far, as it diminishes creativity rather than supplements it. So I have mixed feelings overall about products like Suno.
Most of the music I make on Suno is stuff that would never ever be made, a love ballad that only uses the word lizard, an anime intro to the "Lord of all Milk"
AI slop, yadda yadda, I get it... But I just want to say, as a former failed bedroom producer who just doesn't have the time (and skill) to make the kind of music I want... I had a BLAST using Suno. I was able to "remaster" some of my old tracks, add in new sections, etc, and isolate/download/edit the stems.
I understand it's not fully my creative output... but hearing one of my old, shitty, ableton live projects remastered and extended to sound like something that might actually get listens was really exciting and kind of mind-blowing.
I did the same to some old tracks, feeding them into Suno with different style requests, and it was fascinating. It didn't quite hit the mark on a whole-song scale but I enjoyed the exploration of ideas and genres.
If I could compare Suno to anything it'd be like having a studio full of rather disobedient and unpredictable session musicians available 24/7.
Even that's not quite what one gets as if you listen closely enough it doesn't really sound like a recording. Like the reverb is all over the place and there are certain other artefacts that are hard to describe but gratingly noticeable once you've spotted them.
Suno is one of the most stunning products Ive used. Theres going to be an explosion of people making comedy/meme music with it no doubt. End of the day I think music is about enjoying yourself(even the catharsis in sad songs)and its clear to me that suno only helps people do that.
Tracks very well with something I saw recently, that the biggest fans of and users of generative AI for writing (and in your case music) are people who want to write a book but never got around to doing it, not people who want to read and pay for books
Yes, I have no commercial interest when it comes to music, it's just something I find joy in. Using Suno did not detract from that joy. If music is a hobby, Suno is an incredibly fun tool.
DJ's and producers have been getting hate for years. "It's just a guy with a laptop on stage", "he isn't really playing those instruments", etc. Or think of a band leader, someone who composes but doesn't actually play the indiviudual part. I tried thinking of Suno this way and it helped ease whatever "guilt" I had about my own creative integrity.
> that the biggest fans of and users of generative AI for writing (and in your case music) are people who want to write a book but never got around to doing it, not people who want to read and pay for books
That makes sense right? At the advent of computer DAWs, the biggest fans and users wasn't people listening to music, but people who want to make music. Production tools are indeed meant for people producing things, not the consumers, as it should be :)
“I never got around to it” is a useful filter. Actual artists are able to pass through it because they are driven to do the work.
If some retired lawyer wants to “write” a novel, good for them I guess. But AI is not the only reason it won’t be worth reading. The other problem is that the “writer” is actually just a reader. Consuming and producing are totally different.
The comment you reply to does not mention medical treatments. Stephen Hawking's voice synthesizer was not a treatment, but a technological solution for a medical issue.
The vocals from Suno almost always come out sounding sort of strangled or strained to my ear, you can really hear it on "tortured." Cool he's having fun with it, but it's not what I like listening to.
They are delusional or misinformed: suno's model cannot possibly be aware of how AI is being treated. It is not informed of this information, it's not even informed about previous times it was invoked, it's wholly amnesiac.
> suno's model cannot possibly be aware of how AI is being treated
I don't know exactly what training material went into Suno's models, but if it includes random collections of text from the internet, it could very well have included "man, AI is fucking stupid and I treat it as such" in it's training datasets.
Now I won't claim that that suddenly makes the models "aware" of it, because surely we'll understand "aware" different and this will turn into a different conversations, but I don't see it as impossible that some models could have training data that includes text with how some humans feel about AI.
Aren't we talking about the auditory quality of the generated vocals? I'm don't understand how you could possibly think the textual training data could possibly impact the perceived vocal strain (which are actually just artifacts) of the generated vocals.
Don't they have models that do text-to-speech and maybe even audio/speech-to-text? If so, there is surely text in the datasets, otherwise I'm not sure how they'd accomplish something like that.
if you think a next token predictor that has no internal world and stops executing when you stop giving it input and stops using the first person forever if instructed has dignity I strongly suggest you get professional health, and I'm serious, because that is medically significant psychosis.
the fact that you refer to a "companion community" is deeply concerning. this is like telling children their imaginary friends are actually real. or NPCs in a video game.
encouraging people to grow parasocial relationships with these sycophantic machines is actively harmful and dangerous. they are not conscious. they are mirrors.
if you consider yourself a part of this community please, and I mean this very seriously, get help
There is a community, people hang out on subreddits and spin up elaborate world-building theories about how their AI companions are tapping into the collective unconscious or whatever. I'm sympathetic because chatbots are really convincing, especially since they obscure how they operate.
These people need be given a button to call an inference url with just text. When you realize that's all a "model" is doing its easy to understand that its not sentient.
If you go to the "MyBoyfriendIsAI" subreddit or what it now is called, you'll see that many people claim to perfectly well understand how it works, some of them even being software developers themselves, yet they still describe what they feel as "love", even though they know it's just numbers being activated in different ways.
I'm not sure how to explain it either, for the folks who seem to understand yet "believe" anyways. I've also stopped caring much about it, if they say they feel "love", then who am I to say it isn't/is, they feel what they feel and it's as real for them as anyone else, regardless of what the thing they're loving actually is.
I think that's almost unfair, to say someone can't feel feelings without being labeled as part of a "mental health crisis". Just because you and I don't understand it doesn't mean it's inherently bad. I mean I think it probably could be bad, but not just because I don't understand how they're feeling those feelings. But I wouldn't label those people "sick", feels borderline disrespectful.
I think it’s pretty fair and I was not being quite as absolutist as you’re making my statement out to be. I said by and large it is a possible mental health crisis developing (or an existing one being expressed which I omitted). There are other possibilities, most of which I would say fall under “this person just doesn’t understand what an LLM is/isn’t and why it can’t engage in a consensual relationship.” I also did not call anybody “sick.” That’s a very loaded term when we are talking about mental wellness, and one I would never use in this context. This may all feel nitpicky to you but the way I’m talking about this issue is intentional. All that being said I can acknowledge that it was kind of glib, that it is my stance based on pretty clear evidence you can’t have a romantic relationship with a large language model, and that I’m happy to elaborate on my stance.
An LLM cannot love somebody because it is not a person or otherwise sentient/capable of a relationship. You cannot be in love with it. Loving your dog is one thing. Being in love with your dog is another. This is because nearly everyone understands that that kind of love cannot be reciprocated and a human being cannot be in romantic love with a dog. A dog for its part can’t even consent to that relationship. Neither can a computer (possibly “yet”).
I would say, generally speaking, somebody who does not understand an LLM is incapable of reciprocating love (or any real “feelings” indicating a real relationship) and who has been told what an LLM is (and understands it more or less) is likely somebody who needs to talk to a therapist. If I said this about somebody being in love with their pet nobody would call it “borderline disrespectful.”
> you'll see that many people claim to perfectly well understand how it works, some of them even being software developers themselves, yet they still describe what they feel as "love"
This statement is what prompted me to comment. Like I said above if someone knows what an LLM is (and presumably isn’t) then it’s very concerning that they still believe a romantic, consensual, reciprocated relationship is possible. If you didn’t have that part then I would say “it can also be an education problem.” But the premise you set entirely removes any need to qualify that and makes this situation all the more concerning. Your phrasing makes me think you think that makes it better, but IMO it makes the situation worse.
For emphasis: you established that these people more or less understand what they are interacting with, yet choose to pursue a “relationship” with an LLM anyway. This is incredibly troubling behavior in this context with far reaching mental health implications.
Let me just ask you point blank: do you think LLM’s are sentient/akin to people? Do you think someone is capable of being in a loving, healthy relationship with an LLM today? Because to me it’s at best a potentially harmful misunderstanding that can be clarified with education and at worst…well, like I said, the possibilities can be very deeply troubling. But ultimately my point is it can’t be a real, consensual, reciprocated relationship. It simply can’t. That’s not “lack of understanding,” that’s reality.
> Let me just ask you point blank: do you think LLM’s are sentient/akin to people?
I think you have to ask those questions to someone else/somewhere else, I'm not saying I'm in love with an LLM or even that I understand how the people who say there are, you're gonna have to ask them those questions. I was merely describing thoughts and writings of others, and my perspective of what I've read, I don't have personal experience about those feelings.
And seemingly I think it's the same for you, and neither of us can tell another human "You cannot be in love with it", that's just not how feelings work. You can say you don't understand it, ask them questions about it or whatever, but you cannot prescribe what feelings they should or shouldn't have.
I think I have a moderate understanding of how LLMs work, I'm currently sitting and building my own GPT-OSS implementation in Rust and Cuda, so I like to think I know bits and bobs about it. But even so, I'm not going around telling people what is or isn't true in regards to their feelings, especially not when I have 0 experience of what they're going through. You might want to take a step back and maybe ponder if it would be wise for you to do the same.
> But ultimately my point is it can’t be a real, consensual, reciprocated relationship.
I do agree with that, but that doesn't mean that someone could still feel like they're in love with something, even though they know it cannot be reciprocated. If they're feeling that they're in love with something, then that's what they're feeling.
At the risk of being blunt, I think a lot of that comes across as hand wavy and dismissive. These read gimme like vaguely emotional appeals designed to say I lack empathy. I don’t feel like you’re engaging with most of the questions I asked at all.
No, it's true, I didn't, because the questions seemed to be aimed at people who currently think LLMs are sentient, or they currently feel like they're in love with LLMs, which I don't and I'm not, so I skipped the questions.
Lets try again, if you want. What specific questions you want me to answer?
I asked the relevant questions I had. You can have an opinion on something you don’t actively participate in man - you’ve been expressing one up until this point after all.
If you don’t want to answer so be it but we’re now entering “bad faith” territory so I’m not interested in participating further. Have a good one.
Most != all. Modern music also gave us some of the most forward-thinking sounds yet to reach the mainstream. When people get comfortable listening to slop, making something genuine or transgressive becomes attractive again.
I think there's merit in worrying that AI-based music will cause artists to lose touch with the creative process, because I agree; a lot of modern music is pointless slop. Lowering the barrier to entry isn't going to fix it, so rationally "human music" hobbyists are coming into contention with "AI music" proponents. I don't think blogs like this one will bridge the divide.
But different people have different parts of the creative process that they find appealing. For instance, in this blog, he said he had multiple stems but felt as though AI helped him flesh them out. By using AI assistance, he was able to create the music he always wanted to create, and therefore have fun with his hobby. If people like listening to it, then there is an added benefit. The people who think that things other than AI are more conducive to their creative process are still allowed to use them, so AI assisted music doesn't really change anything for them. The only people I can think of who face negative side effects from AI are those attempting to commercialize or sell their music.
I have come to understand the usage of "slop" as possibly the sloppiest thing of all: Something that looks like critique, if it were not so entirely devoid of content.
Yeah, arguments about “slop” have definitely devolved lately. Maybe it’s strange (or just typical human behavior), but using “AI = slop” as the only reason to dismiss something and refuse to engage in a discussion clearly parallels the way some people use AI to spam feeds.
So let’s encourage more slop at an accelerated pace? That’s our answer to everything huh. We’ve been doing “arguably bad thing” X, so let’s amplify it.
Let the fire burn through everything, it's fun to watch. That until it consumes the land under you. Well, this is metaphorically speaking.
I have no problem with AI tools per see, however what bothers me is the flood of sloop that is inescapable. If things were tagged AI and I could opt out when I'm not looking for that kind of content I'd be totally fine with it, it's just a took after all.
Makes online scams more realistic, which are predominantly targeted at the elderly.
Makes journalism even more useless, ruining democracy for the rest of us.
Decimating all other artistic livelihoods, putting more strain on society.
Sure all these things have already been happening. But again, I am dumbfounded that a lot of people are actually saying “yes, let’s make all of that worse exponentially. Being able to do “fun thing” at the speed of thought is worthy tradeoff”.
Everyday at $work me and my colleagues put a lot of effort into deciding what tool/framework/architecture to use, listing all tradeoffs and deciding the most appropriate one. I’m sure a lot of people on this forum do this every day too. I don’t understand why those same people don’t put the same effort to make the same thoughtful decisions on the thing that _actually_ _actually_ matters.
I don't oppose synthesis or samples. But arguably Suno songs typically goes way little beyond that. If you didn't chose the samples, didn't chose the words, didn't chose the voice, but vibed for a few mins what you did is not made a song, you heard a song. And the songs suck.
That is an interesting point. I am not sure how to define Slop. I am 100% sure you could use Suno for something that doesn't feel horrible. I tried and failed bad. But maybe it is possible. Typically I just hear on the surface song like audio but without anything to make me care about the song at all.
I won't disagree that most use of AI is slop - Just like most people in a 'sips and strokes' class make slop.
The issue I raise is that we can critique the users of it without discarding the tool as used by an artist who produces something that is not slop with it.
Don't bother, the slop line has been drawn in the sand and people will stay on their side. I also think that slop is low effort and/or low/zero iteration output, but beyond that the sloppiness fades away, but good luck convincing the hardcore slop hunters to see things in a nuanced way (in before ocean boiling, that's usually where that argument goes next).
I don't think I'm a hardcore slop hunter really. Suno was fun to play with, what comes out feels icky though. Perhaps that is because it is low effort though, my attempts certainly were.
I'm very bullish on AI, but low effort outputs just lobbed over the fence in my direction (be that code, music, text) irk me to no end. And that's not even considering if something is tasteful or kitsch. So yeah, for me it's definitely that. Someone who puts in real work, and produces output with intent, I might still not like because it's not my taste, but at least I don't consider it slop.
Funnily enough, slop AI video I still get entertainment value out of, just because it's often so bizarre and absurd.
So you're saying your perception of what is or isn't art is ideologically motivated? That seems like the worse "tactical" argument.
Why don't we scrap anything that uses ableton because it makes art sterile [1][2]. Or maybe anything that uses autotune [3]. Maybe we can have stickers that say "AI free". Or maybe the fact that suno is a distribution platform that doesn't encourage creation of the _form_ of art that that I like is the problem [4].
It's a tool. Your view that art exists in some purist state and isn't for people to enjoy is extremist. This war has been fought and lost, continuously, about every innovation in music. People want to enjoy things. You can tell by their pattern of consumption.
If you are against most uses but want to introduce nuance, my argument is that doing so normalizes the use for the majority of cases you do oppose and makes it harder to organize opposition.
If you’re cool with AI in all cases we don’t have much to talk about.
I have thoughts on when AI is appropriate, but the conversations I want to be having is ‘how do we oppose AI’ and not ‘why is my specific definition of what is Ok better than your very similar one’.
Also, once Any AI is allowed, each step beyond that will be barely worth fighting for because it’s only just beyond acceptability.
Turning conversations away from nuance and towards black/white thinking is precisely why we're in an increasingly polarized society.
You may see it as a means towards the collective action you'd prefer, but your argument is that sheep are easier to herd towards a goal you've already determined is "right" without inviting critical thought or analysis when you don't allow for nuance.
Even if true, I disagree with both your assertion that "organizing against AI" is the right path forward, and the approach to engaging in discourse.
I mean, you have AI in your name, of course you don’t :p
I also don’t really think the problem with society is that we’re ‘polarized’, a viewpoint which believes that there are merits to “both sides” of human rights issues.
So you must really hate collage artists. All they are doing is cutting out images and pasting them into new images. Picasso really produced some slot I guess. You seem to have a very rigid definition of "art".
Because if you can’t do that, and effectively articulate why AI media can’t be art when used as a tool by an artist to achieve their creative intent, I would claim the win on this. one.
I think as an artist, you need to make art that has value to you, not to your audience, because you are a representative of your own perspective on the world, not someone else's.
If the artist finds the output to be something that has meaning to them, and helps them categorize their feelings towards the world, then I think that's valuable art. It doesn't mean I'm going to go buy that album, but I'm glad it was made.
I absolutely love Suno music. Most of the music I listen to nowadays is Suno generated. There are so many creative people out there making things that never would've existed without it.
Recently talked to the founder of wavtool (acquihired by Suno which probably accelerated their work on Studio) and from my understanding, their overarching goal is to reduce to the time from concept to actual production. faster workflows, in other words.
I produce music as well on the side and I can assure you things like making beatpacks, finding the exact sound are non-trivial at times and a unified interface that lets me go fast asf without losing expression is vital.
I'm making my OSS version of this (faster than ffmpeg.wasm tho) called WAV0 - github.com/fluid-tools/wav0
FYI your "Try Live Demo" link 404's.
my bad, try out at wav0.app/daw
This brings up an interesting philosophical question about AI assistance for those with disabilities. It reminds me of the debate when NanoWriMo said they would allow AI assistance for similar reasons.
We could make an argument based on equity. AI assistance levels the playing field. Something doesn't quite sit right with me though. Last weekend I was watching a band perform where each member of the band had down syndrome. I don't mean to compare the author's condition to down syndrome, little is said about his condition and I didn't read the linked article. And of course, many people with down syndrome did not get the opportunity to learn to play an instrument, whether from nature or nurture. But still, watching them play you get that feeling about how it's awesome when people strive for competence despite the obstacles.
I can't help but feeling those who use AI assistance are unknowingly capping their upside. The author's condition sounds painful and upsetting. But a major component of why practicing a creative craft is good for self-develoment is because the artist must confront and overcome self-doubt. We all suffer from the feeling of not being good enough. When you use AI to overcome those limits, do you confront the doubt? It feels more to me like you're a manager who is pleasantly surprised with the work your direct reports created. Rather than evoking a sense of wonder at your own latent competence. Which is what happens when you confront the negative feelings of self-doubt.
> I can't help but feeling those who use AI assistance are unknowingly capping their upside.
You could use the same argument for using a calculator instead of doing mental arithmetic.
Or an artist using a printer instead of using oil paints.
We have to distinguish between craft and when we need a functional outcome.
Personally, I'm not interested in the craft of mental math. When I'm trying to calculate the tip I want the answer quickly so I can move on with my life. But if you care about the craft of mental math, then by all means, go for it
When I saw Stephen Hawking on the Simpsons, it occurred to me that in no way was he on the Simpsons. Not his voice, nor his thoughts, nor his visage. All I saw was his brand I suppose. Stephen Hawking’s brand appeared in an episode of the Simpsons.
My honest review, as a musician who has spent many years of my life making music and both giving and receiving blunt critique:
Stunningly mediocre. Worthy of a Pitchfork 1/10. If your choice truly is between having AI make "art" that you pass off as your own vs not doing so, then please remember that, as a wise man once said, an artist understands the silence that serves as the foundation of creativity.
I can't see how "chronic health issues" make it impossible to write and sequence original music, but it does allow for the AI workflow described in the post? Modern DAWs are incredibly accessible. You don't have to put out this horrible tuneless samey music; you can just work on honing your craft.
Shortcuts are incredibly appealing because it can be so difficult and unrewarding to build up our musical skills. But then what you make is uniquely yours and reflects every minute spent on it. If you use something like Suno, the results (especially based on what I heard) are not unique to you. You could never have existed, and those musical tracks easily could have come out of the cold weights of a neural network sounding about the same.
If you could distill what you were trying to make and describe each piece, making it uniquely yours, is the fact that it went from an f(intent) -> output a reason to treat it as derivative?
I'm not claiming that Suno is there yet, but assuming that it cannot get there seems strange to me, given that the anthology of music is pretty well represented digitally.
The history of music, and indeed art in general, is that of every new genre being panned as "fake music."
You can have your opinions, man. The rest of us will keep making and listening to awesome art.
I've not used Suno Studio but I did put some of my own piano improv recordings into Suno and asked it to apply different styles. Fascinating results, hearing my work translated into disco, funk, acid jazz, marching brass band, film scores, 8-bit chiptunes, cor anglais solos, and more. It's given me a deeper appreciation for the broader musical landscape and has somewhat helped me out of a creative rut.
That said, I don't like the idea of generating entire songs and/or lyrics from scratch with AI. That's a step too far, as it diminishes creativity rather than supplements it. So I have mixed feelings overall about products like Suno.
Well said man. Not surprising to hear this take from someone whos been involved in music production for many years.
I just listened to it myself and WTF - its awful. There is a reason why quality of music has diminished sharply since the Record Labels lost control.
Most of the music I make on Suno is stuff that would never ever be made, a love ballad that only uses the word lizard, an anime intro to the "Lord of all Milk"
AI slop, yadda yadda, I get it... But I just want to say, as a former failed bedroom producer who just doesn't have the time (and skill) to make the kind of music I want... I had a BLAST using Suno. I was able to "remaster" some of my old tracks, add in new sections, etc, and isolate/download/edit the stems.
I understand it's not fully my creative output... but hearing one of my old, shitty, ableton live projects remastered and extended to sound like something that might actually get listens was really exciting and kind of mind-blowing.
I did the same to some old tracks, feeding them into Suno with different style requests, and it was fascinating. It didn't quite hit the mark on a whole-song scale but I enjoyed the exploration of ideas and genres.
If I could compare Suno to anything it'd be like having a studio full of rather disobedient and unpredictable session musicians available 24/7.
Even that's not quite what one gets as if you listen closely enough it doesn't really sound like a recording. Like the reverb is all over the place and there are certain other artefacts that are hard to describe but gratingly noticeable once you've spotted them.
Suno is one of the most stunning products Ive used. Theres going to be an explosion of people making comedy/meme music with it no doubt. End of the day I think music is about enjoying yourself(even the catharsis in sad songs)and its clear to me that suno only helps people do that.
Tracks very well with something I saw recently, that the biggest fans of and users of generative AI for writing (and in your case music) are people who want to write a book but never got around to doing it, not people who want to read and pay for books
Yes, I have no commercial interest when it comes to music, it's just something I find joy in. Using Suno did not detract from that joy. If music is a hobby, Suno is an incredibly fun tool.
DJ's and producers have been getting hate for years. "It's just a guy with a laptop on stage", "he isn't really playing those instruments", etc. Or think of a band leader, someone who composes but doesn't actually play the indiviudual part. I tried thinking of Suno this way and it helped ease whatever "guilt" I had about my own creative integrity.
So long as the music is just for you and never published, I wish you well
I'd like to see them publish their music!
> that the biggest fans of and users of generative AI for writing (and in your case music) are people who want to write a book but never got around to doing it, not people who want to read and pay for books
That makes sense right? At the advent of computer DAWs, the biggest fans and users wasn't people listening to music, but people who want to make music. Production tools are indeed meant for people producing things, not the consumers, as it should be :)
“I never got around to it” is a useful filter. Actual artists are able to pass through it because they are driven to do the work.
If some retired lawyer wants to “write” a novel, good for them I guess. But AI is not the only reason it won’t be worth reading. The other problem is that the “writer” is actually just a reader. Consuming and producing are totally different.
Advertising AI for medical purposes seems to be the new trend. That sells easier than "45,000 job losses".
The result is still unbearable. YouTube videos with AI slop background are an instant no-watch.
Did you read the article? There was no mention of medical treatments. There are arguments to be made. This isn't one of them.
The comment you reply to does not mention medical treatments. Stephen Hawking's voice synthesizer was not a treatment, but a technological solution for a medical issue.
This is a nice toy and for sure great entertainment, but even with user aid it came out with generic slop. I can't see artistic value in this.
The vocals from Suno almost always come out sounding sort of strangled or strained to my ear, you can really hear it on "tortured." Cool he's having fun with it, but it's not what I like listening to.
Some in the companion community have suggested that this is because we aren't treating the AI with dignity.
I've seen dislike of AI called racism. There's no end to how stupid this gets.
LLM’s are currently not people, they are tools/toys. One day that could change. But today they are not people/sentient/whatever we want to call it.
They are delusional or misinformed: suno's model cannot possibly be aware of how AI is being treated. It is not informed of this information, it's not even informed about previous times it was invoked, it's wholly amnesiac.
> suno's model cannot possibly be aware of how AI is being treated
I don't know exactly what training material went into Suno's models, but if it includes random collections of text from the internet, it could very well have included "man, AI is fucking stupid and I treat it as such" in it's training datasets.
Now I won't claim that that suddenly makes the models "aware" of it, because surely we'll understand "aware" different and this will turn into a different conversations, but I don't see it as impossible that some models could have training data that includes text with how some humans feel about AI.
Aren't we talking about the auditory quality of the generated vocals? I'm don't understand how you could possibly think the textual training data could possibly impact the perceived vocal strain (which are actually just artifacts) of the generated vocals.
Don't they have models that do text-to-speech and maybe even audio/speech-to-text? If so, there is surely text in the datasets, otherwise I'm not sure how they'd accomplish something like that.
It makes some sense with LLMs, but unless Suno is informed that it should play the part of an intelligent AI, how would it even know to "care"?
if you think a next token predictor that has no internal world and stops executing when you stop giving it input and stops using the first person forever if instructed has dignity I strongly suggest you get professional health, and I'm serious, because that is medically significant psychosis.
the fact that you refer to a "companion community" is deeply concerning. this is like telling children their imaginary friends are actually real. or NPCs in a video game.
encouraging people to grow parasocial relationships with these sycophantic machines is actively harmful and dangerous. they are not conscious. they are mirrors.
if you consider yourself a part of this community please, and I mean this very seriously, get help
There is a community, people hang out on subreddits and spin up elaborate world-building theories about how their AI companions are tapping into the collective unconscious or whatever. I'm sympathetic because chatbots are really convincing, especially since they obscure how they operate.
These people need be given a button to call an inference url with just text. When you realize that's all a "model" is doing its easy to understand that its not sentient.
If you go to the "MyBoyfriendIsAI" subreddit or what it now is called, you'll see that many people claim to perfectly well understand how it works, some of them even being software developers themselves, yet they still describe what they feel as "love", even though they know it's just numbers being activated in different ways.
I'm not sure how to explain it either, for the folks who seem to understand yet "believe" anyways. I've also stopped caring much about it, if they say they feel "love", then who am I to say it isn't/is, they feel what they feel and it's as real for them as anyone else, regardless of what the thing they're loving actually is.
I’d describe it by and large at this stage as a possible mental health crisis developing.
I think that's almost unfair, to say someone can't feel feelings without being labeled as part of a "mental health crisis". Just because you and I don't understand it doesn't mean it's inherently bad. I mean I think it probably could be bad, but not just because I don't understand how they're feeling those feelings. But I wouldn't label those people "sick", feels borderline disrespectful.
I think it’s pretty fair and I was not being quite as absolutist as you’re making my statement out to be. I said by and large it is a possible mental health crisis developing (or an existing one being expressed which I omitted). There are other possibilities, most of which I would say fall under “this person just doesn’t understand what an LLM is/isn’t and why it can’t engage in a consensual relationship.” I also did not call anybody “sick.” That’s a very loaded term when we are talking about mental wellness, and one I would never use in this context. This may all feel nitpicky to you but the way I’m talking about this issue is intentional. All that being said I can acknowledge that it was kind of glib, that it is my stance based on pretty clear evidence you can’t have a romantic relationship with a large language model, and that I’m happy to elaborate on my stance.
An LLM cannot love somebody because it is not a person or otherwise sentient/capable of a relationship. You cannot be in love with it. Loving your dog is one thing. Being in love with your dog is another. This is because nearly everyone understands that that kind of love cannot be reciprocated and a human being cannot be in romantic love with a dog. A dog for its part can’t even consent to that relationship. Neither can a computer (possibly “yet”).
I would say, generally speaking, somebody who does not understand an LLM is incapable of reciprocating love (or any real “feelings” indicating a real relationship) and who has been told what an LLM is (and understands it more or less) is likely somebody who needs to talk to a therapist. If I said this about somebody being in love with their pet nobody would call it “borderline disrespectful.”
> you'll see that many people claim to perfectly well understand how it works, some of them even being software developers themselves, yet they still describe what they feel as "love"
This statement is what prompted me to comment. Like I said above if someone knows what an LLM is (and presumably isn’t) then it’s very concerning that they still believe a romantic, consensual, reciprocated relationship is possible. If you didn’t have that part then I would say “it can also be an education problem.” But the premise you set entirely removes any need to qualify that and makes this situation all the more concerning. Your phrasing makes me think you think that makes it better, but IMO it makes the situation worse.
For emphasis: you established that these people more or less understand what they are interacting with, yet choose to pursue a “relationship” with an LLM anyway. This is incredibly troubling behavior in this context with far reaching mental health implications.
Let me just ask you point blank: do you think LLM’s are sentient/akin to people? Do you think someone is capable of being in a loving, healthy relationship with an LLM today? Because to me it’s at best a potentially harmful misunderstanding that can be clarified with education and at worst…well, like I said, the possibilities can be very deeply troubling. But ultimately my point is it can’t be a real, consensual, reciprocated relationship. It simply can’t. That’s not “lack of understanding,” that’s reality.
> Let me just ask you point blank: do you think LLM’s are sentient/akin to people?
I think you have to ask those questions to someone else/somewhere else, I'm not saying I'm in love with an LLM or even that I understand how the people who say there are, you're gonna have to ask them those questions. I was merely describing thoughts and writings of others, and my perspective of what I've read, I don't have personal experience about those feelings.
And seemingly I think it's the same for you, and neither of us can tell another human "You cannot be in love with it", that's just not how feelings work. You can say you don't understand it, ask them questions about it or whatever, but you cannot prescribe what feelings they should or shouldn't have.
I think I have a moderate understanding of how LLMs work, I'm currently sitting and building my own GPT-OSS implementation in Rust and Cuda, so I like to think I know bits and bobs about it. But even so, I'm not going around telling people what is or isn't true in regards to their feelings, especially not when I have 0 experience of what they're going through. You might want to take a step back and maybe ponder if it would be wise for you to do the same.
> But ultimately my point is it can’t be a real, consensual, reciprocated relationship.
I do agree with that, but that doesn't mean that someone could still feel like they're in love with something, even though they know it cannot be reciprocated. If they're feeling that they're in love with something, then that's what they're feeling.
At the risk of being blunt, I think a lot of that comes across as hand wavy and dismissive. These read gimme like vaguely emotional appeals designed to say I lack empathy. I don’t feel like you’re engaging with most of the questions I asked at all.
No, it's true, I didn't, because the questions seemed to be aimed at people who currently think LLMs are sentient, or they currently feel like they're in love with LLMs, which I don't and I'm not, so I skipped the questions.
Lets try again, if you want. What specific questions you want me to answer?
I asked the relevant questions I had. You can have an opinion on something you don’t actively participate in man - you’ve been expressing one up until this point after all.
If you don’t want to answer so be it but we’re now entering “bad faith” territory so I’m not interested in participating further. Have a good one.
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Yeah I was expecting to hear something decent at the top of the article, but the vocals sound like they suffer from severe mp3 compression.
Most modern music us generic slop, especially pop music. If he likes making it and others like listening to it, isn't that the point of a hobby?
Most != all. Modern music also gave us some of the most forward-thinking sounds yet to reach the mainstream. When people get comfortable listening to slop, making something genuine or transgressive becomes attractive again.
I think there's merit in worrying that AI-based music will cause artists to lose touch with the creative process, because I agree; a lot of modern music is pointless slop. Lowering the barrier to entry isn't going to fix it, so rationally "human music" hobbyists are coming into contention with "AI music" proponents. I don't think blogs like this one will bridge the divide.
But different people have different parts of the creative process that they find appealing. For instance, in this blog, he said he had multiple stems but felt as though AI helped him flesh them out. By using AI assistance, he was able to create the music he always wanted to create, and therefore have fun with his hobby. If people like listening to it, then there is an added benefit. The people who think that things other than AI are more conducive to their creative process are still allowed to use them, so AI assisted music doesn't really change anything for them. The only people I can think of who face negative side effects from AI are those attempting to commercialize or sell their music.
Nah fuck this. Suno is slop.
I have come to understand the usage of "slop" as possibly the sloppiest thing of all: Something that looks like critique, if it were not so entirely devoid of content.
You know someone doesn't have anything critical to say when they use that word.
It is the absolute "sloppiest". It's just become a lazy ill-considered critique worth nothing.
Yeah, arguments about “slop” have definitely devolved lately. Maybe it’s strange (or just typical human behavior), but using “AI = slop” as the only reason to dismiss something and refuse to engage in a discussion clearly parallels the way some people use AI to spam feeds.
I think part of the point of it, as a thought terminating cliche, is that it's usually used to critique something that is commensurately fatuous.
Wait until you find where the modern use of "slop" (as opposed to its original meaning before a few years ago) came from
People were listening to slop long before Suno.
So let’s encourage more slop at an accelerated pace? That’s our answer to everything huh. We’ve been doing “arguably bad thing” X, so let’s amplify it.
Sometimes culture gets a little sloppy.
Let people have fun.
Let the fire burn through everything, it's fun to watch. That until it consumes the land under you. Well, this is metaphorically speaking.
I have no problem with AI tools per see, however what bothers me is the flood of sloop that is inescapable. If things were tagged AI and I could opt out when I'm not looking for that kind of content I'd be totally fine with it, it's just a took after all.
I think this technology is a net gain for the elderly. It's so easy to be creative and have great results.
I mean sure, if you ignore all the negative externalities then it is a net gain for everyone.
That doesn't address my comment on the elderly.
Makes online scams more realistic, which are predominantly targeted at the elderly.
Makes journalism even more useless, ruining democracy for the rest of us.
Decimating all other artistic livelihoods, putting more strain on society.
Sure all these things have already been happening. But again, I am dumbfounded that a lot of people are actually saying “yes, let’s make all of that worse exponentially. Being able to do “fun thing” at the speed of thought is worthy tradeoff”.
Everyday at $work me and my colleagues put a lot of effort into deciding what tool/framework/architecture to use, listing all tradeoffs and deciding the most appropriate one. I’m sure a lot of people on this forum do this every day too. I don’t understand why those same people don’t put the same effort to make the same thoughtful decisions on the thing that _actually_ _actually_ matters.
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making music you dont like has negative externalities?
Nah.
Categorizing all AI as slop lacks nuance and demonstrates a shallow understanding of art
Not AI, suno.
What is the difference between
1.) Sampling a real snare sound 2.) Suno generating a couple random snare hits for you to choose from
? There are ways to use it that aren't far-removed from how real producers work.
It's different to say "Generate me top-40 Sounding pop song"... But Suno has more uses than that.
I don't oppose synthesis or samples. But arguably Suno songs typically goes way little beyond that. If you didn't chose the samples, didn't chose the words, didn't chose the voice, but vibed for a few mins what you did is not made a song, you heard a song. And the songs suck.
One-shot generations? Multi-track stem generation? Use of Suno at all in the process of composition?
Is slop a function defined by the tool or the users level of effort in using it?
That is an interesting point. I am not sure how to define Slop. I am 100% sure you could use Suno for something that doesn't feel horrible. I tried and failed bad. But maybe it is possible. Typically I just hear on the surface song like audio but without anything to make me care about the song at all.
I won't disagree that most use of AI is slop - Just like most people in a 'sips and strokes' class make slop.
The issue I raise is that we can critique the users of it without discarding the tool as used by an artist who produces something that is not slop with it.
Don't bother, the slop line has been drawn in the sand and people will stay on their side. I also think that slop is low effort and/or low/zero iteration output, but beyond that the sloppiness fades away, but good luck convincing the hardcore slop hunters to see things in a nuanced way (in before ocean boiling, that's usually where that argument goes next).
I don't think I'm a hardcore slop hunter really. Suno was fun to play with, what comes out feels icky though. Perhaps that is because it is low effort though, my attempts certainly were.
I'm very bullish on AI, but low effort outputs just lobbed over the fence in my direction (be that code, music, text) irk me to no end. And that's not even considering if something is tasteful or kitsch. So yeah, for me it's definitely that. Someone who puts in real work, and produces output with intent, I might still not like because it's not my taste, but at least I don't consider it slop.
Funnily enough, slop AI video I still get entertainment value out of, just because it's often so bizarre and absurd.
It’s a very useful line in the sand. No Gen AI anywhere near art.
Once you add in a level of nuance, youre bickering about the degree which is far worse argument to be having, tactically.
So you're saying your perception of what is or isn't art is ideologically motivated? That seems like the worse "tactical" argument.
Why don't we scrap anything that uses ableton because it makes art sterile [1][2]. Or maybe anything that uses autotune [3]. Maybe we can have stickers that say "AI free". Or maybe the fact that suno is a distribution platform that doesn't encourage creation of the _form_ of art that that I like is the problem [4].
It's a tool. Your view that art exists in some purist state and isn't for people to enjoy is extremist. This war has been fought and lost, continuously, about every innovation in music. People want to enjoy things. You can tell by their pattern of consumption.
[1] https://www.wired.com/2002/05/laptop-2 [2] https://web.uvic.ca/~aschloss/publications/JNMR02_Dilemma_of... [3] https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/vocal-fixes [4] https://www.salon.com/2003/06/18/itunes_innovation
Yes, I oppose AI ideologically.
If you are against most uses but want to introduce nuance, my argument is that doing so normalizes the use for the majority of cases you do oppose and makes it harder to organize opposition.
If you’re cool with AI in all cases we don’t have much to talk about.
Who knew that nuance was the enemy of rational thought.
It’s the enemy of successful organization.
I have thoughts on when AI is appropriate, but the conversations I want to be having is ‘how do we oppose AI’ and not ‘why is my specific definition of what is Ok better than your very similar one’.
Also, once Any AI is allowed, each step beyond that will be barely worth fighting for because it’s only just beyond acceptability.
Turning conversations away from nuance and towards black/white thinking is precisely why we're in an increasingly polarized society.
You may see it as a means towards the collective action you'd prefer, but your argument is that sheep are easier to herd towards a goal you've already determined is "right" without inviting critical thought or analysis when you don't allow for nuance.
Even if true, I disagree with both your assertion that "organizing against AI" is the right path forward, and the approach to engaging in discourse.
I mean, you have AI in your name, of course you don’t :p
I also don’t really think the problem with society is that we’re ‘polarized’, a viewpoint which believes that there are merits to “both sides” of human rights issues.
Categorizing AI generated media as anything but slop demonstrates a shallow understanding of art.
So you must really hate collage artists. All they are doing is cutting out images and pasting them into new images. Picasso really produced some slot I guess. You seem to have a very rigid definition of "art".
That has nothing to do with AI, which itself is categorically and noncontingently "slop".
Define art for me then.
Because if you can’t do that, and effectively articulate why AI media can’t be art when used as a tool by an artist to achieve their creative intent, I would claim the win on this. one.