The problem with Suno and AI music

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Problem with Suno and AI Music

The Vergecast — July 14, 2026
Host: David Pierce
Guest: Terrence O’Brien (Weekend Editor, The Verge)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the disruptive rise of AI-generated music, focusing on the popular platform Suno. David Pierce and Terrence O’Brien explore how tools like Suno are reshaping the music creation process, the music industry, and even our fundamental experience of art. The discussion covers the creative possibilities, ethical dilemmas, industry threats, and the cultural debate swirling around AI music.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Suno—and What Is It Really?

• Suno’s Public Pitch:
  • Suno's CEO Mikey Schulman claims it's about “democratizing access to the tools of creation,” lowering the barrier to making music (04:04).
• Reality Check:
  • Terrence argues most real-world use is for generating “genre transfer covers” (e.g., blues covers of Taylor Swift songs), rather than truly original art.

    “He very famously quoted as saying, people don't enjoy making music. And then I would just say, you don't belong making music.” (04:25)

2. AI Covers and Genre Transfers Dominate

• Viral Examples:
  • Reference to users like Nick "the Professor" Harrison, who gained fame for yacht rock and other covers using AI (05:33).
  • The novelty fades and ethical issues arise as more such AI covers flood the internet.

3. Suno as a Streaming Service—A Dystopian Prospect

• Pierce’s Concern:

  “I find that dystopian ... the idea that you would make and listen to music on Suno and that's your whole destination is, I think, antithetical to the idea of art in general.” (07:38)

• O’Brien’s Take:
  • AI music can be a therapeutic tool for personal expression, but:

    “It's an exercise in narcissism... you're making art for one. You're not building connections. And that's the whole point of art.” (09:09)

4. Why AI Music Lacks Human Connection

• AI as Self-Therapy vs. Empathy:
  • Pierce and O’Brien agree that music’s power is in connecting people through shared experiences, which AI-generated diary-songs lack.

5. AI Music Flooding Streaming Services

• Discovery and Spam:
  • Even if most AI songs aren’t widely listened to, their sheer volume threatens to bury human-made music and mess up streaming search and discovery (12:18).
• Current Solutions & Shortcomings:
  • Some platforms (Deezer, Qobuz) label AI tracks but don’t let users filter them out; Spotify is exploring manual approvals and other controls but remains profit-motivated (13:55–15:59).

  • “Spotify is very excited about watering down the royalty distribution pool with a bunch of nonsense.” (15:06)

6. Financial and Existential Threats to Musicians

• Industry Impact:
  • AI music could gut the music industry’s middle class—replacing session musicians, songwriters, and others with automated tools (20:12).
• Copyright Abuse:
  • Suno’s weak filters mean anyone can easily generate convincing knockoffs of hits like Beyoncé’s “Freedom” (21:33).
• Impact on Viral Culture:
  • AI covers can outpace genuine, human-made covers on platforms like TikTok, which now drive music discovery (22:44–28:55).

7. Case Study: “Eye to Eye” Cover on TikTok

• Incident:
  • AI Suno-generated cover of Disney’s “Eye to Eye” went viral, leading to heated debates in comment sections as to whether AI or Magnolia Park’s human cover is better (24:08).
• Community Reaction:
  • O’Brien points out loss of rightful credit, money, and visibility for the actual band; highlights how AI preys on nostalgia with little true creativity or emotional connection:

    “Pseudo doesn't have an emotional connection to anything. It's … preying on people's nostalgia in a weird way that is kind of gross, kind of cynical ...” (27:53)

8. Spam vs. Existential Crisis

• Pierce asks if this is just a search/ranking problem or something deeper:
  • O’Brien: “It is an existential threat... Drown everybody else out and that's threatening their livelihoods... The moment you start scratching beyond the ‘oh, it’s harmless genre transfers,’ it’s worse than that.” (28:55)

9. Future Fears: AI ‘Slop’ Will Be Indistinguishable

• Pierce’s Warning:

  “As it gets better ... you can sort of tell immediately as soon as the vocals come in that it's AI. That probably won't be true forever ... the whole thing gets more alarming as that is the case.” (30:26)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Suno’s Purpose:

  “People don't enjoy making music. And then I would just say, you don't belong making music.” — Terrence O’Brien, quoting Suno’s CEO (04:25)

• On AI ‘Slop’:

  "Nobody ever talks about listening to the AI music of other people... Nobody wants to listen to the other AI slop people made. They just want to listen to their own." — Terrence O’Brien (11:52)

• On Music’s Purpose:

  “The reason you like the music you like is because that artist makes you feel seen ... It's about building empathy and connecting with other people.” — Terrence O’Brien (09:08)

• On Spotify’s Incentives:

  “Spotify is very excited about watering down the royalty distribution pool with a bunch of nonsense.” — Terrence O’Brien (15:06)

• On AI’s Threat to Musicians:

  “It is a fundamental and existential threat to your creative livelihood as an artist ... it essentially guts the entire music industry middle class.” — Terrence O’Brien (20:12)

• On AI Music’s Flaw:

  “Pseudo doesn't have an emotional connection to anything ... preying on people's nostalgia in a weird way that is kind of gross, kind of cynical.” — Terrence O'Brien (27:53)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [03:38] — Introduction to Suno’s real-world impact
• [04:25] — Quotation from Suno’s CEO & debate on music creation
• [05:33] — Genre transfer covers and ethical challenges
• [07:38] — Is Suno as a streaming service “dystopian”?
• [09:08] — The purpose of art and music; critique of self-centric AI creation
• [12:18] — Impact of AI music flood on streaming services
• [13:55]–[15:59] — Spotify and Apple’s response to AI-generated content
• [20:12] — AI as an existential threat to musicians
• [22:44] — TikTok case study: AI vs. human covers of “Eye to Eye”
• [28:55] — Is it a spam issue or existential problem for music?
• [30:26] — The increasing indistinguishability of AI music

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Notable Finale

• Best AI Song Joke:

  “The only truly great AI song ever written ... I’m in San Juan Miho, capital of Puerto Rico. ... The whole plane clapped when we landed.” (31:21–31:52)

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Conclusion

David Pierce and Terrence O’Brien conclude that while AI tools like Suno enable new types of musical expression, they risk devaluing authentic human connection and creativity within the music industry. The primary impact, they argue, isn’t just a matter of spam or search pollution—it’s an existential threat to working musicians and the culture of genuine musical exchange.

If you care about technology's effect on art—or you like debating the ethics of AI—this episode is essential listening.

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Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to the vergecast, the flagship podcast of the Puerto Rico song. I'm your friend David Pearce, and today on the show we're talking about AI Music. Specifically, what happens when you can suddenly make a song with just a prompt, and then you can let other people listen to that song, either on the app that you use to make it, or you can publish that song and millions of others like it to every streaming service everywhere. How does that change the way we make and experience music? How does that change the music business? How does that change music even is going forward? The Verge's Terence o' Brien is going to come on and we're going to

[B]

talk all about it.

[A]

But first, here's everything else going on on the Verge today. This is 90 seconds on the Verge for Tuesday, July 14, 2026 the X algorithm is a disaster, and it might be about to get at least a little tiny bit better. Nikita Beer, who's the company's head of product, said that the algorithm hasn't been considering whether you follow someone back when deciding who to show your post to, and that your friends, your mutuals, were showing up less in your replies as a result. Beer said that this turned your replies into a battleground with people you don't recognize, which is a perfect description of the X experience. Beer and X appear to be working on a bunch of changes designed to promote original content and stuff you actually care about, rather than Ragebait and Elon Musk. I'm not holding my breath on any of it. Meanwhile, we've gotten a very clear look now at the next generation of Pixel and Pixel Watch. The big news here is colors. If some now deleted Amazon listings are to be believed, at least we're getting green, blue, purple, orange, black, and most of all, hot pink pixels and black, silver and two shades of gold on the Pixel Watch. Plus some cool new BAM colors. Listen to me. If you've never bought a cool color phone, I promise you it's worth it. I have a green iPhone 17. I love it, and it's mostly because it's green. Finally, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the US first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers, all in order to give the state some time to figure out proper environmental and energy regulations. The moratorium is written to last up to a year, which is basically time to figure out how and whether data centers can be good neighbors. More and more people would just tell you the answer is no. You can read more about all of [e-mail] that's 90 seconds on the Verge for Tuesday, July 14th this episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, Compatibility and availability Various 18 support for the show comes from ServiceNow. AI is moving fast across the enterprise, but without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place, what it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com all right, let's talk AI and music. Joining me now, the Verge's weekend editor, Terence O'. Brien. Hi, Terrence, welcome to the show.

[B]

Hey, David, thanks for having me.

[A]

So I, I want both Terrence o', Brien, weekend editor of the Verge, and Terrence o', Brien, gigantic musician and music nerd, who currently has his laptop stacked on a pile of CDs, to both join us for this show. Do you think we can do that?

[B]

I think we absolutely can do that.

[A]

Okay, cool. I want to start by talking about Suno, which is the AI music platform that you've been covering a bunch over the last several months. And really kind of over the last year, I think this, this company has become increasingly important in the music space. And I want you to start just for people who don't know, by telling me both what SUNO says it is and what SUNO actually seems to be in the world right now. Because my sense is those are relatively different things at the moment.

[B]

I mean, they, they definitely are different things. If you would ask Mikey Schulman, the CEO of suno, you know, he would say that it's about democratizing access to the tools of creation. It's about lowering the barrier of entry for music, making lower.

[A]

Write a song with a prompt like, hooray. Great creativity. Right. Like, that's, that's a pitch.

[B]

I think Mikey Schulman kind of gives the whole game away, honestly. He very famously quoted as saying, people don't enjoy making music. And then I would just say, you don't belong making music.

[A]

Yeah, if you don't enjoy making music, you don't have to make music. I think that's, that's. That's fine and fair. It seems to me that sort of my experience of SUNO in the world right now is less that it is a completely creative set of tools for people to make music and just practically speaking, a way for people to make really similar covers of existing songs. Like, overwhelmingly, the stuff I have experienced in the world is, you know, and we've talked about this a bunch on the show, like a blues cover of a Taylor Swift song is like a thing people want to make an experience. And that stuff is out there in the world that I would think is not at all what SUNO would like you to believe that it's about both for, like, creative reasons and for sort of straightforward business and copyright reasons. But that's at least how I experience suno. Is that what you see out in the world too?

[B]

Absolutely. I think, like, there is some of that fully AI generated, like original music. And I'm using quotes for those who are listening and not watching out there. But I would say the most visible use case, the most popular use case for AI and SUNO or whatever other model you want to use udo, is these, like, genre transfer covers. There's Nick Harrison, I think they. They call him the Professor. He got very famous on TikTok and Instagram for a little while, making basically like starting out with like yacht rock covers of songs and then eventually spinning off into other genres. And sure, the first time you're like, oh, this cover of Disturbed that sounds like Steely Dan, sure is kind of funny. But how many times can you do that? And, you know, once you start digging into like the ethical stuff, as you keep doing it, it becomes a little bit problematic.

[A]

I do think you could argue that more most songs would sound better as yacht rock songs. But there's also something in that process that has tripped me up about SUNO for forever is I think you can look at SUNO as purely a creation service. Right. Put it next to Sora and Midjourney and all these other ways of making stuff. And I think at this point, if you want to make AI music, there are lots of ways that are not SUNO to do that. SUNO also seems to want to be a streaming service. Like it, it believes in, in some fundamental way that what you want to do is not only create music on suno, but listen to music on suno and that all of this is the new way that we think about art and music, is that it will be created by AI and Listened to by you. I'm guessing the musician in you hates this reflexively. But I'm curious what you think about even sort of this thesis that Suno can be one whole thought about how we make and experience music.

[B]

I find that dystopian. Just to be like. The idea that you would make and listen to music on Pseudo and that's your whole destination is, I think, antithetical to the idea of art in general would fundamentally destroy an entire industry. Like if we want it, like if you're making music and listening to your music on Suno, that's. Why do we have musicians? Why is there a music industry? Why do we have other streaming services? That's like the, the. The very broad argument against it. But I think going back to this art thing, you know, I wrote a little bit about how nobody wants to tell me about why they listen to their own AI slop. After that came out, some people did reach out to me and start to, you know, volunteer to offer some explanations,

[A]

give me a little flavor of the. The case people made for doing this.

[B]

It allows them to create personal art. It allows them to put their experience in song in a way they might not have been able to before for whatever reason that is. It's a story and an argument that sounds good at first brush. You know, it's hard to argue with something somebody saying like, well, it's my art. I didn't have a way to get it out there. And it helps me or makes me feel heard, it allows me to exorcise demons or whatever. And you're like, well, yeah, I. I have a hard time saying anything bad about that. But I would argue that that's not the point of art. The point of art isn't to. And the point of music isn't to necessarily allow you to exercise your demons for your own purposes. It's not about spitting your trauma back at you. It's about connecting you to other people. The reason you like the music you like is because that artist makes you feel seen, because you relate to them. It's about building empathy and connecting with other people. If you're dumping your diary entry into Suno about how you broke up with your girlfriend or you lost a parent, and then you just like type a prompt along with it, like sad country song or alt rock power ballad, I'd argue that it's an exercise in narcissism to a certain degree. And those people wouldn't want to say that, and I understand that they wouldn't like that. And they probably get mad at me for saying this, but what you're doing is you're making art, for one. You're not building connections. And that's the whole point of art. I don't know. It seems it's a good distinction.

[A]

And I think you're making me think back to when, like, Sora launched or when Meta decided that it was going to do a whole Facebook feed of just AI generated stuff. And I think I in general have kind of been dismissive of most generative AI art things. Like, I think they're nifty novelties that don't actually accomplish very much for people. Everybody seems to like, make one studio Ghibli style piece of art and then move on with their lives. But there was something about we want to turn this into a community experience that like, it. It did. It felt dystopian to me. And it is like, this is such a fundamental misread of what people actually want to experience with each other. And like, Sora flamed out. Nobody goes to. I don't even know if the Facebook AI feed still exists. Like, the proof continues to be that people do not want the experience that you're describing. That actually there is something to making things for yourself, right? Like, I'm vibe coding proves it, right? Like, there are lots of people with specific creative needs for themselves. Knock yourself out. This is why I'm so stuck on. I don't buy the idea of Suno as a streaming service at all. Because the things that you make for yourself will never, ever feel the same to anyone else, because they just can't. And every musician talks about this cool moment where you make something and then you release it to the world and it now belongs to other people. And it does seem to me that AI precludes that. Just the way in which we make things with AI tools does not seem able, in a way to make that kind of connection.

[B]

Absolutely. And I think, you know, digging around in like the Suno subreddit or hanging around in the Suno discord, people talk a lot about the music they've made with Suno and they share it. But nobody ever talks about listening to the AI music of other people, right? It's all about what I've made or what I've released, and there is no connecting. Nobody wants to listen to the other AI slop people made. They just want to listen to their own.

[A]

Right? But there. There is an interesting thing happening there, which is that all of that stuff being made is flooding streaming services. And even if you believe that most people don't want to listen to it. And it seems like statistically speaking, this vast quantity of AI generated music accounts for a like teeny tiny percentage of actual listening and that most of it is accidental or fraudulent in some way. Yeah, you still have a real problem in that all of a sudden actual artists work is about to get harder to find and it's being buried in a just an avalanche of this AI slop that even if people don't want to listen to it as it comes on to streaming services, it is still going to cause huge problems for real artists.

[B]

Right? Absolutely. I think, you know, unfortunately it doesn't seem like there is a really easy solution there. I mean like from the user end it seems like the easy solution is just we don't want it, so please it away or at least, or at least let us filter it out. I would, you know, kill for a button that just let me say I don't want AI in my thing, so please just block it fully. Deezer and Qobuz have systems in place that will identify and flag AI generated content, but it doesn't remove it and it doesn't let you filter it just puts a little label on it and that's, you know. Thankfully they're doing some work to like demonetize and keep it out of their algorithmic recommendations, which means people are going to listen to it less, they won't put it in their curated playlists. But let's be fair, Deezer and Qobuz are small potatoes.

[A]

I mean Spotify and Apple Music are essentially the game. And Spotify in particular seems potentially to be very excited about the idea of you and I listening to more AI generated music because it doesn't have to pay royalties. That seems like a big victory for Spotify.

[B]

It does. And I think, you know, Spotify is. Spotify is a weird case again having been covering this and following it for a while now. In some respects Spotify is doing more than Apple to clean up, you know, the AI spam and AI generated content from its platform. Apple has seemed to have very little interest in addressing it at all. They've rolled out like a opt in system where you can label it as AI or using AI if you want to, but it's not actually required and it doesn't change anything on the user end as far as I know.

[A]

I think of those things as like pinky promise systems where it's like we, we would love it if you would tell us that this is made with AI, like please, please be cool everybody and that just it doesn't accomplish anything for anybody.

[B]

And Spotify is doing something similar, but at the same time also starting to roll out some more protections for artists themselves where they're. They can require that uploaded music be manually approved before it hits their profile, which. The fact that this wasn't a thing beforehand drives me insane. The fact that literally anybody could just go on and upload music to a random artist's profile essentially, you know, is bonkers. So they are doing some work, I would say probably not enough still, but they're. They're doing something. But yes, they also, I think, are very excited about watering down the royalty distribution pool with a bunch of nonsense.

[A]

Spotify has said as much that it is essentially happy to have music that is not made by and thus paid to people that like. It's. They're very clear about that. I mean, you think about like, do you remember that. That whole kerfuffle about all the money Spotify was paying white noise generators and how that became a whole like, boy, would Spotify love to just have all that be AI generated on Spotify and not have to pay anybody. Like, it makes sense. The, the simple business case there. I understand for Spotify, it just leads down sort of inevitably gross, weird roads.

[B]

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[A]

If I'm an artist right now, am I looking at Suno and tools like it as what amounts to a spam problem? Like you're, like you're saying that maybe it'll bump me down search results. But fundamentally, the Spotify's and Apple musics of the world are going to try to fight this thing. Or is this a real sort of fundamental existential creative threat to my work and livelihood?

[B]

I think it is a fundamental and existential threat to your creative livelihood as an artist. You know, there again, it's some of these things that sound good on paper, but essentially guts the entire music industry middle class because people will talk about how well now they'll use Suno to generate demos of songs even maybe it's not what they're going to release. But rather than go into a studio and rent Studio time. Maybe rather than hire a session guitarist, maybe rather than work with a second songwriter, they'll turn to Suno. This is a. A well known and well documented problem in Nashville. But now those. That guy who was making a living perhaps doing the occasional studio session and playing in a honky tonk, in a. In a bar band, well, he's just lost a significant source of income, right? What does he do? For the people who are at the top of the charts for your Beyonce's and your Taylor Swifts, Suno, at the end of the day is an annoyance because it is, let's be clear, stealing your music. Sure it is. It is. Ingesting it and scraping it and turning it into ones and zeros for people to rearrange for their pleasure.

[A]

You can make Suno generate a Beyonce song by saying artist rhymes with shmish monse. Like you literally can just do it. It's. It's just sitting there.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I've proven how broken their pop. Yeah. Copyright filters are. There.

[A]

There's a.

[B]

There's an article on the verge. You should go read it about how broken Suno's copyright filters are, in which there is a alarmingly accurate rendition of Beyonce's freedom. So, you know, for them, though, it is ultimately an annoyance more than anything else. And if you're at the bottom end, you are just playing shows at your local coffee shop because you like to play guitar and sing songs for your friends, it's not going to make a huge difference. But that middle class that, that those people who are working, touring musicians, who make a lot a living at it, maybe not a great living, but make a living at it. They're in real danger.

[A]

Let me tell you about this very specific version of this experience I've been having recently. Um, you're not on TikTok.

[B]

I am not. Which.

[A]

Good for you. Um, I am. I am terminally on TikTok and it's a real problem. Um, I. I should preface all of this by saying this is all going to make me look nerdy and embarrassing in a bunch of ways that I'm fully comfortable with. Do you know the Goofy movie?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay. Do you know the song Eye to Eye from a Goofy movie?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So Eye to Eye, one of the all time great Disney songs. Shout out to Powerline about. Let's see, when did this come out? About a year ago, Disney put out an album called A Whole New Sound, which was basically a bunch of pop punk remixes of classic Disney songs, which is a sentence made for me. Specifically, it's like all of my favorite things all in one album. And the very first single they put out was this group called Magnolia park covering Eye to Eye. This song sort of had a moment. It went around people. People liked it. Magnolia park kind of had a moment on TikTok. When this came out, the album did pretty well. And then earlier this year, a cover of Eye to Eye starts going viral on TikTok. Let me just play you this cover.

[B]

If we listen to each other's heart we'll find we're never see too far apart and maybe love is the reason why for the first time ever we're seeing it eye to eye all right,

[A]

Terence, do you want to guess who made this song?

[B]

I mean, that is AI Suno. Like, it's the. The moment the vocals kick in, you can tell.

[A]

Yes. This is so, so very AI. This song went, like, lightly viral in. In one of the most fascinating ways. And I think I've seen with AI music all over social media, which is. Song comes out and there are two immediate responses in the comments. One of them is, this rips. Put it on Spotify. I need, like, inject this into my vans. And then under every single one of those comments is another comment saying, bro, it's AI. It's AI. And this one was really fascinating because every time you see this version on anywhere on TikTok, there will be hundreds of comments from people being like, why. Why did you post this and not the Magnolia park version? That one. That one's by people.

[B]

Great question. It's.

[A]

And I love this because there are a bunch of people who are like, the argument is not even necessarily that that version is better, even though it. It transparently is, but it becomes this argument about human music versus AI music. Like, let me just read you some of the comments on this video that I have here. And again, I pick completely at random. This is just a video that has this song. Magnolia park is actually a band. AI is taking over. There are many AI bands and songs and more popping up every day. Yes, it's good. However, an actual band will always be better. And then there's a response that just says, l take. It's very funny. You almost had me. But it being AI ruins everything, man. It sucks how many people are just lying to themselves saying this version is trash because it's AI this version and Magnolia Parks version now exist. Just enjoy them both. Again, like, people are just litigating AI and art in the comment section of every single one of these videos. And over and over, there are also people who are like, I hate how much I like this because it's. AI. I'm just curious how you feel about this whole. We've taken a Disney song, we've turned it into something else made by people, and then we have just completely aied the hell out of that second thing.

[B]

And.

[A]

And somewhere in that spectrum is either the absolute future of creativity or a perfect representation of how all of this breaks. And I, for the life of me, cannot figure out which one it actually is.

[B]

I. I mean, I think it's. It's the latter. I think it's the. This is how this breaks. I mean, I think this is a perfect example of how, you know, Magnolia park had this minor hit. The album does fairly well, but Magnolia Park's not playing Madison Square Garden. No, like, this is the. This is the sort of thing I'm talking about. This is that musical middle class where, like, this is now taking, you know, money out of their pockets and they probably actually need this. This is a band that, again, let's be clear, Spotify doesn't pay you royalties unless you cross a certain. Certain streaming threshold. It's watered down when you start doing this and you know there's royalties to be paid out from TikTok. And now this has gone viral. Instead of their ver. They're losing out on that. We can argue whether or not the technical quality is there. Like, does it sound good? I would argue no, but, you know, we can. People can agree to disagree on certain things, but at the end of the day, it's just a machine spitting out code. It's not. I don't care what your prompt is. That band had a connection to that song. Even if that connection was just as simple as I remember that movie from when I was a kid. I loved that shit. Pseudo doesn't have a emotional connection to anything. It's. I think it's preying on people's nostalgia in a weird way that is kind of gross, kind of cynical, like. And I think that's the best thing you can say about it.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's interesting. And I think that the more I think about this one in particular, the more I think about sort of the way distribution is changing all of this, right? Because there are a lot of people who are coming to this AI cover of Eye to Eye and being like, oh, punk rock, goofy movie covers. This rules. And there is. There. They're not finding the better version of this that this is just ripping from, right? And I think it's. It's a really strange thing. And this goes back to like, is this a spam problem or is this something more fundamental that like TikTok is how we discover music now? It just is. It has been for a long time. TikTok is how. How music is discovered for like a generation of people. And the fact that you can just absolutely flood the zone with every AI cover of every song you can possibly think of does change the dynamic in a way that is going to make it vastly harder for anyone else to get through. Just because they can't make music as fast as Suno can.

[B]

Absolutely. And I think that this is one of the things that, like, when I talk about AI music with people who are maybe not even defenders of it, but just are at the very least less vehemently anti than I am is, I think stuff like this presents as kind of innocuous. It seems like a harmless diversion. And, you know, I think there's a certain amount of it that does present as being primarily a spam problem. But I think the moment you start digging a little bit deeper or the moment you start actually like examining it, it becomes clear that it's actually a lot more than that. It is an existential threat. It's not just that, oh, it's a little bit of a spam. It's like you're saying you can flood it and drown everybody else out and that's threatening their livelihoods. This thing that might seem innocuous of, oh, I made a punk rock cover of a thing by telling Suno, well, there's an actual band that really did that and now you're pushing them down, you know, people's feeds with your AI nonsense. And that's not to speak again of the ethical implications of how we train AI, the environmental impacts of it, like just ignoring all of that stuff, which is incredibly heavy baggage to begin with. The moment you start scratching beyond the oh, it's harmless genre transfers, it's.

[A]

It's.

[B]

It's worse than that.

[A]

Yeah, I, I tend to agree and I think the more, the deeper down this, well, I have gone the, the weirder it feels to experience any kind of AI music. And in a lot of ways, as it gets better and it, like you mentioned, you can sort of tell immediately as soon as the vocals come in that it's AI that probably won't be true forever. And in a lot of ways this whole thing gets more alarming as that is the case. I think there is a debate about can AI make good music? And then there's a debate about what happens when you're not really paying attention. If you even notice the difference and what everyone is responsible to do, then it just gets messier and messier as this stuff gets better.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

All right, we should get out of here. But I do. I want to leave you, Terrence, with the only truly great AI song ever written. Would you like to hear it?

[B]

Sure, why not?

[A]

There is but one. There may only ever be one, but let it be known that there is in fact one. And I'm going to play it for you right now. I'm in San Juan Miho, capital of Puerto Rico.

[B]

Immediately, the Italy was enchanted.

[A]

The whole plane clapped when we landed. It's undeniable, Terrence. It's undeniable.

[B]

It is objectively very entertaining.

[A]

All right, buddy, thank you for being here. Appreciate you coming on.

[B]

Thank you for having me.

[A]

All right, that's it for the show. Thank you to Terrance for being here. And thank you as always, for watching and listening. If you have thoughts, questions, feedback, if you have a favorite AI song that you feel ashamed for liking as much as you do and you want to tell me about it, no judgment here. Call the hotline 866-verge11. Send us an email vergecastheburge.com we love hearing from you, and as always, the best thing you can do to support all of this is go to theverge.com subscribe and subscribe to the Verge. It gets you all of our podcasts, including this one with no ads. It gets you all of our exclusive newsletters. It gets you all of our coverage. Terence has been writing about Suno all year and has been writing great stuff. You can get all of [e-mail] subscribe thanks in advance. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Josh Kahas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kefer, Travis Larchuk and Aaron Lacasio. We'll see you tomorrow. Rock and roll.