A Punjabi-themed Bollywood-inspired song was shared on X, overlaid onto the video of ‘Kala Chashma’. It might not sound fancy, nor did it gel too well with the video, however, the almost 2-minute song was completely AI-generated using the AI-music generation application Suno AI. 

Suno AI, which allows one to create songs based on simple text prompts explaining the theme or lyrics, has been widely experimented, generating impressive results. 

Not just Suno AI, the latest Stable Audio 2.0, by Stability AI also creates high-quality full tracks. However, as cool as it sounds, there looms a threat, or so the music artists believe. 

The Big Protest 

Last week, the Artist Rights Alliance (ARA), over 200 musical artists across musical genres, including Katy Perry, Billie Eilish, Jon Bon Jovi, estate of Bob Marley and Frank Sinatra, and other prominent musicians, signed an open letter urging tech companies to stop using AI that ‘devalues music’ and violates the rights of human artists. 

“AI has enormous potential as a tool for human creativity – but when used irresponsibly, it poses an existential threat to our art,” posted ARA on X. 

The primary concern, as emphasized in the letter, is the potential for AI to replace artists with AI-generated sounds, ultimately reducing the royalties that these artists traditionally earn. The letter quoted: “For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.” 

Interestingly, there was a recent study that said 71% of musicians fear AI.

The artists have accused powerful companies of using their work without permission to train AI models, a problem that has been raising its head ever since generative AI became a rage starting last year. 

Pink Floyd in a Pickle

Recently, one of the most influential rock bands in the world, Pink Floyd, got attention for the wrong reason. For the animation video competition of the 50th Anniversary of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, Damián Gaume’s video was selected as the winner. 

Interestingly, the winning video was AI-generated. 

Though the competition was judged by some of the eminent personalities in music, animation and video industries, the decision drew major flak by users online for embracing AI over human-generated content. 

“Nothing was created. Artists’ work was stolen to train this computer program, that someone promoted to spit out a Frankenstein spoonful. Pink Floyd should use actual art made by an actual artist,” said filmmaker and author Justine Bateman. She even ended her statement with the hashtag ‘AI is Theft’. 

Source: X

An Ongoing Problem in the West

Last year, over 8000 published authors wrote a letter to the founders of generative AI platforms requesting compensation for their copyrighted work for training their models. It wasn’t just published authors that raised the concern, but even Hollywood. 

Last year, the Hollywood Writers Guild of America held a five-month long protest over many problems, with one of them being the usage of AI in the film industry. The protest ended with an agreement of using AI as a tool and not as a replacement. 

Interestingly, Hollywood still seemed to be threatened by AI. 

AI to Help, Not Eliminate

The recent video-generation platform by OpenAI, Sora, raised a lot of questions by Hollywood filmmakers, with studios even putting a hold on its expansion plans. However, not everyone was seeing the big picture. 

The cost of creating a movie-duration video using Sora is exorbitant, with expenses running into billions of dollars for compute, thereby eliminating the possibility of AI completely replacing people. 

With a number of AI-generation music and video platforms emerging, these applications can be used as tools to help existing artists rather than replace them. Many artists have in fact embraced AI in their production, which is even helping them complete unfinished tracks. 

Music artists are finding different ways to integrate AI in their concerts and production as a whole. Pop queen Madonna recently used an AI text-to-video tool to create visuals for the giant screens behind her while performing.  

Source: X

While the conflict will continue, it is obvious that these AI applications are already providing an easy platform for people who not only want to experiment but also use the tool to augment their creative skills. 

I, for one, enjoyed creating my alternative rock-themed song using AI.