Suno CEO Mikey Shulman found himself in an unusual place for the founding father of a generative AI music company: a songwriting class at Berklee College of Music.
“It seems like going into the lion's den,” Shulman said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “The approach of just getting into there and saying, 'Don't worry, there's no disruption here, every little thing is OK', that's probably not the fitting approach.'”
So how could he win her over (at the very least attempt to)? Shulman had students use Suno to see what it was prefer to make a song with AI.
“You understand it's actually quite an empowering tool whenever you have a look at it in a rather different light,” he said.
AI developers could argue that they’re making tools that help creative people improve their work, comparable to the drum machine or synthesizer. And some artists might say that these tools are being faraway from their work without giving them permission to market a product that would take their jobs away. However, some entrepreneurs consider these powerful music, video and image generators to be unavoidable.
“I dare anyone to inform me that photography is someway less useful today than it was 50 years ago,” Shulman said. All across the audience, people were taking photos and videos of the discussion with their iPhones, showing how universal smartphones have grow to be.
“That is the promise of technology – technology will not be finished, or any technological arc will not be ready until it’s literally within the hands of each person,” said Amit Jain, CEO of Luma AI.
Digital photography is definitely more ubiquitous today than it was in the times of flip phones, and a few people could also be less inclined to rent professionals for photo shoots or events. However, there may be a fundamental difference in quality between the work of skilled photographers and a fast snapshot with a smartphone.
“I feel those that have taste and skill can do rather more,” Jain said.
On the opposite hand, there are firms like Splice which were providing services to musicians for years but have only recently began incorporating AI.
“Over the previous couple of years, we've been bringing these recent AI-based tools to market which can be really helping our customers take their craft to the following level,” said Kakul Srivastava, CEO of Splice.
Still, the entertainment industry's response to those tools has been mixed. Hollywood writers advocated for protections against losing their jobs to AI. In the music industry, firms like Suno have been embroiled in lawsuits from record labels alleging the unlicensed use of copyrighted songs of their training data. And yet the musician Timbaland is a strategic advisor to Suno.
“Maybe jobs will probably be lost, but I actually consider more art will probably be created because more of us may have the flexibility to bring that truth to life,” Srivastava said.
