As generative AI gets better, what will happen to artists?

Suno CEO Mikey Shulman found himself in an unlikely place for the founder of a generative AI music company: a songwriting class at Berklee College of Music.

“It sounds like walking into the lion’s den,” Shulman said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “The approach of just walking in there and saying, ‘don’t worry, there’s no disruption here, everything is fine,’ is probably not the right approach.’”

So how did he (at least try to) win them over? Shulman had the students use Suno to see what it’s like to make a song with AI.

“You realize that it’s actually quite an empowering tool, viewed in a slightly different light,” he said.

AI builders might argue that they’re making tools to help creative people augment their work, like the drum machine or the synthesizer. And some artists might say that these tools are training off of their work without consent to market a product back to them that could take their jobs. But some entrepreneurs see these powerful music, video, and image generators as inevitable.

“I challenge somebody to tell me that photography is somehow less valuable now than it was 50 years ago,” said Shulman. Across the crowd, people use their iPhones to take photos and videos of the discussion, showing just how universal smartphones have become.

“That is the promise of technology — technology is not done, or any technological arc is not done until it is in the hands of literally every single person,” said Luma AI CEO Amit Jain.

Digital photography is certainly more ubiquitous now than it was in the era of the flip phone, and some people might be less likely to hire professionals for photoshoots or events. But there’s still a fundamental difference in quality between the work of professional photographers and a quick snap on a smartphone.

“I think those people who have taste and who have skill will be able to do so much more,” Jain said.

On the other hand, there are companies like Splice, which have been providing services to musicians for years, but only recently began to incorporate AI.

“Over the last couple of years, we’ve launched these new AI-based tools that really help our customers […] take their craft to the next level,” said Kakul Srivastava, CEO of Splice.

Still, the reaction of the entertainment industry to these tools is mixed. Hollywood writers campaigned for protections against losing their jobs to AI. In the music industry, companies like Suno have been implicated in lawsuits from record labels, alleging the unlicensed use of copyrighted songs in their training data. And yet, the musician Timbaland is a strategic advisor to Suno.

“Maybe there will be jobs lost, but I actually think that there will be more art created, because more of us will have the ability to bring that truth out to life,” Srivastava said.

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