‘Music Should More Closely Resemble a Video Game in the Future’
In 1810, Ludwig van Beethoven called music a “higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy”. A little push through the timeline, in 1986, Billy Joel of ‘Piano Man’ fame said that music is an explosive expression of humanity. Cut to 2025, Mikey Shulman, CEO of Suno, an AI music creation platform, said in an interview that music should closely resemble a video game in the future. How did we get here? Technology has redefined how music is made throughout history. But the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) is bringing a shift that is unlike any other. “We’re not making music; we’re making musicians,” Shulman said. According to him, with AI, a listener’s relationship with music is going to be more interactive and engaging, which he believes will resemble video games. “Nobody plays video games half-heartedly the same way people put on music in the background and pay only half attention to it,” he added. Shulman indicated that creating music with an AI tool will develop a participatory experience and make it more fun to collaborate with friends, just like in multiplayer games. But, of course, it isn’t all about users. The other dimension of AI-generated music is the artists. From Anirudh Ravichander to Paul McCartney – They All Love AI That said, a few musicians have positively embraced AI in music, but only in an authorised manner. Tamil music producer Anirudh Ravichander used AI to recreate the voice of late singer Malaysia Vasudevan for the song ‘Manasilaayo’, which features actor Rajinikanth. Oscar-winning Indian musician AR Rahman used AI to recreate the voices of late singers Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed in an album titled ‘Lal Salaam’. Paul McCartney, a member of the legendary band Beatles, used AI to compose a song from a demo by his former bandmate, the late John Lennon. Notably, the song was also nominated for the best rock performance at the 25th Grammy Awards. German DJ Zedd said that he would have never been able to make the music he did if not for AI. “It can be really inspiring when you’re stuck.” Meanwhile, will.I.am, lead singer of the band Black Eyed Peas, said in an interview that AI can redefine how music reaches people who speak multiple languages. “In all these different countries, they’re [people] forced to adapt to the language I speak.” “Tomorrow, they’re going to hear it in Hindi; they’ll hear it in Japanese and Chinese,” he added. When asked if there is an artist he wants to collaborate with to bring AI into their music, he said, “No, the artists I wanna collaborate with are the AI programmers to create AI artists. Why would I [want to] work with artists? I wanna make artists.” Shulman also said that if artists can co-create music with their fans, it would be more engaging than ‘AMA’ (ask me anything) sessions on social media. Shulman expressed his wish to see a future where artists get paid whenever users generate music based on their style by using their name on the prompt. There is a Song With Pathos to The Story That said, Suno hasn’t had just bright, sunny days throughout its journey. The company was also slapped with a lawsuit. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed two lawsuits against Suno and its competitor Udio on behalf of Sony and Universal Music Group, which alleged that both these platforms used copyrighted music to train their AI models. Hitting back, Suno said, “What the major record labels really don’t want is competition…Where Suno sees musicians, teachers, and everyday people using a new tool to create original music, the labels see a threat to their market share.” However, the company also admitted to training its models with music available on the internet. Shulman claimed that much of the open internet contains copyrighted materials owned by major labels. “The major record labels are trying to argue that neural networks are mere parrots – copying and repeating – when in reality model training looks a lot more like a kid learning to write new rock songs by listening religiously to rock music,” Shulman said, in his defence. In addition to lawsuits, musicians from the Swedish band ABBA, Radiohead, The Cure, and thousands of other artists signed a protest against the alleged unlicensed use of music to train AI. Katy Perry, Billie Eilish, and other artists signed an open letter against the generation of AI music. AIM also spoke to co-founder of Udio, Andrew V Sanchez, who insists that AI music platforms will need to tread carefully. “We’ve put a significant amount of time into ensuring that our system does not generate outputs which would infringe the rights of anyone else. This is something that we’re constantly working on and improving, and it’s an area that we’re very committed to,” he said. That said, isn’t AI already quite a mature aspect of modern-day music production? “Everything you all use is AI, from Auto-Tune on down. I don’t know who you are onstage. I don’t know what your voice sounds like. When Auto-Tune first came out, it was a tool,” said Timbaland, an American music producer. He argued that AI in music is like any other tool musicians have been using.
Mikey Shulman, CEO of Suno, is confident that AI will get us there.
Mikey Shulman, CEO of Suno, is confident that AI will get us there. 
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Supreeth is an engineering graduate who is curious about the world of artificial intelligence and loves to write stories on how it is solving problems and shaping the future of humanity.