CEO of AI music app Suno criticised over claims most people "don't enjoy" making music

The CEO of Suno, a generative AI music app, has been criticised after claiming that most people "don't enjoy" making music.

Mikey Shulman was interviewed on the podcast 20VC about the future of music and artificial intelligence when he told presenter Harry Stebbings: "I think the majority of people, don’t enjoy the majority of time they spend making music."

Read this next: Music industry workers to lose a quarter of income to AI by 2028, study finds

“It’s not really enjoyable to make music now," he said. "It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you have to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece of production software."

His comments have since been met with derision on Twitter.

Shulman addressed the backlash in a lengthy post on Twitter on Monday (January 13), admitting watching the interview back made him "cringe" and that he had expressed his thoughts "badly" on the podcast.

"This quote makes it sound like I'm discouraging people from learning music, enjoying music, or improving their craft — I didn’t mean to and that's my fault, not the interviewer’s".

"Music is my life, not just my job, and a huge part of Suno is making that joy accessible to more people in more ways," he added.

In June, Suno was sued (alongside a separate generative AI music app called Udio) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The plaintiffs included major record labels Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Records, who claimed that Suno and Udio had used their copyrighted music to train their AI models without permission.

The AI companies claimed their use of copyrighted material falls under "fair use", according to Music Business Worldwide.

Late last year, Suno launched V4, which it claimed would take AI music creation "to the next level", delivering cleaner audio, sharper lyrics and more dynamic song structures.

The recent development follows results from "the largest study of its kind", which found that 82% of artists are concerned that the use of generative AI in music could put them out of work.

APRA AMCOS also shared that 23% of artists' revenues could be at risk due to advances in AI by 2028, with an “estimated cumulative total damage of over half a billion Australian dollars (£257 million).

Henrietta Taylor is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Twitter