The Toaster Made Me Do It: My Complicated Love Affair with AI Music

I recently listened to an old-school R&B song that seemed to be from the 60’s by an all-male quartet I had never heard of. The song was amazing and very much gave off that warm and loving feeling of what your mom or grandma would play while cooking a meal. I decided to do some research on this obscure band that I never heard of and expected to find that it was, perhaps, a side project of Eddie Kendricks, Sammy Strain, Levi Stubbs, or some other tragically under-celebrated purveyor of soul. To my extreme disappointment and dissatisfaction, I discovered the song was completely AI-generated; from the lyrics to the vocals to the music to the song’s artwork, which was a sepia-toned illustration of a 60’s all-male quartet. I felt hoodwinked, cheated, and on a hyperbolic level... “assaulted.” A machine, a glorified toaster, made a piece of art that I connected to on such an ethereal level that it started a journey of connecting personal memories and experiences with its themes and messages. Finding out that it was created, performed, and distributed by a computer stopped that journey in its tracks, and I almost vomited at the idea of being bamboozled by a robot.

This, curiously enough, happened while I was acquiring an all-consuming addiction to the AI music-generating app "Suno." A musically inclined friend happened to mention it in passing, and as a complete lark, I downloaded the app, threw in an old poem I wrote, and in 60 seconds it spit out one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. It was a poem I wrote over a decade ago, and to hear it with vocals and a fully produced music track felt something akin to magic. I imagined I had somehow peeked into a multiverse where I was an actual performer, writer, and producer, and that this was part of my music catalog. My addictive and obsessive tendencies went into overdrive as I threw a litany of poems and lyrics I have written over the years into that toaster, and I now have accumulated 50-60 pieces of AI-generated toast.

National Poetry Month, celebrated every April since 1996, is the world's largest literary celebration, initiated by the Academy of American Poets to honor poetry's vital role in culture. I try to post a poem a day during this month to flex that muscle, inspire others to try their hand at prose, and just have a little fun. With several loaves of musical poetic compositions on my hard drive, I figured it would be a fun experiment to create visuals for each composition, some AI-generated and some not, and post these “elevated poems” each day for National Poetry Month.

I have run this idea past several friends, including actual working musicians, producers, and artists, and their feedback has run the gamut from AI, specifically Suno, being a severe act of artistic treason to it being a useful tool for outlining artistic ideas, particularly for non-performing artists. My personal opinion lies somewhere in between. While I am absolutely in love with the music that Suno has created for me, I also remember that appalling feeling when I found out that the song was AI-generated and how it felt like I just finished having sex with a robot that was pretending to be human.

I have since been waffling between abandoning the entire project or just going forward, confident that opposing opinions will be harsh, swift, and indignant, to say the least. But after much meditation and contemplation, I decided that as an artist... fuck it. I’m gonna play my songs.

But with that nagging feeling from being “catfished” by that AI soul song, I have developed some personal guidelines for distributing and enjoying AI-related musical content.

1. Transparency is a must. I think I would not have been so disgusted if I had known beforehand that it was AI-generated. In the work I’ll be releasing for National Poetry Month, I want to make it very clear that those pieces do not have my physical voice at all. I did not compose the music; I did not play any of the instruments; I do not know how to play any musical instrument. I am not trying to cosplay as an actual producer, musician, or performer, nor am I trying to co-opt the actual work that goes into creating music. What I am doing is putting my lyrics through a machine and showing what it comes up with.

   
   

2. Human interaction would be nice. Although I am not a producer, musician, or performer, I am a writer and a lyricist. And while the voice is not mine, the words, the intent, the emotion, 100% is. And if you just so happen to relate to some of the pieces on an ethereal level, and begin that journey of connecting your personal memories and experiences with their themes and messages, rest assured... there’s an actual dude at the end of that yellow brick road. Yes, the road was constructed and built by machines, but keeping in line with the idea of full transparency... dude... I am no wizard. I’m just trying to get my words out there. But the idea of songs in which AI fully constructs music, and instruments and vocals... I’m not sure about that. But I can tell you, I would appreciate you letting me know if it’s a marital aid or an actual human with genitalia you’re asking me to copulate with. (And in THAT metaphor, my stuff would be a strap-on. It’s technology, but it’s some human interaction behind the thrusts.)

   
   

3. The capitalistic aspects. This is also something that I have been waffling on. I am not confident about putting these compositions in the marketplace for profit. I am writing this weeks before National Poetry month, so by the time I release them, I might have changed my mind. But it does feel akin to duplicity and catfishing to have these in the same marketplace as ACTUAL performers, musicians, and the like. On the off chance that it does wind up on Apple Music or Spotify, it will have to be clearly noted that it is AI-generated music, and if you’re cool with that, ok. But there is something unsettling about AI-generated music financially outperforming actual music by actual performers. Maybe it will raise everybody's game? Yeah... I'm not sure about that one.

   
   

4. Enjoying the experience. If on the off chance this somehow causes a stir, minute or seismic, keep in mind, I just want people to enjoy the experience. It’s poetry, it art. If you feel anything, I’ve done my job. And that is the beginning, middle, and end of this whole project... processing emotions outside of a vacuum with other humans.

   
   

With that said, I actually do hope this tracks in greater conversations about how AI is integrating into cultural lexicons, delivery systems, and responsibility. These are some of my thoughts and the tenets I keep in mind while using AI. I think of it more as a tool than a substitution for the actual work that needs to be done. But I do think this is a much longer dialogue that is way overdue. I definitely would love to have that dialogue. How about you take a listen to a couple of pieces during National Poetry Month... and let’s talk about it...