And now we have another breakthrough moment, another chat GPT-like thing that’s happening to the music industry. Now this is blowing minds, and I think it’s going to accelerate the impact of real people losing jobs very soon. The platform’s name is called Udio. Think of Udio as kind of like Chat GPT, except for creating any kind of music that you want. So I tried this out for myself, and I asked it to create me a short soundtrack that’s based on Andrejic, the YouTuber about finance and investing, and then one minute later, here’s what it made me. Let’s roll in the charts; they lifted portfolio greens. Rip, click, and toss a light for the new games.
Why you came down on that was pretty good; it took me way too long to prepare for and then shoot like 10,000 takes up, then reedit, and then do the whole thing, but that deserves a smashing of the like button because the cardistry is sold separately. That’s not AI yet. But you guys remember, like 25 years ago, we used to watch those commercials on TV, and then they’d try to sell us music on those CDs, and then the voice would come on and it would be like, Call the 1-800 number for a lifetime collection of classics such as The Power of Love by Celine Dion and The Vision of Love by Mariah Carey, all yours for $16.99. Well, what I didn’t imagine is that 25 years later, humans would be given access to the most advanced technology on Earth, and then we would use it to create our own modern classics, such as I just shaved my bush and I’m ready to go, I just busted a nut in my pants, and I got a b***h and a broken oken heart.” And other classics that are now trending But the crazy part about them is that they’re actually kind of fire. I want you to listen to a short one right now. I’m going to add some of my own magic to it. Some Riz, some Pizzaz, and some Riz When I asked you to dance, I was taking a chance. Or was I headed for a broken heart? When our bodies touched, I felt that rush. Then I got a boner, and I ripped the fart or the shark on your face. You ran out of that place. Was it the boner or the damn fart? So this is what human beings do when we’re given access to the most advanced technology the world has ever seen. We make fart songs. But these platforms are now available to the public, and they’re 100% free. So in today’s video, I want to show you exactly how to use these platforms so you can create your own works of art. I’m going to show you the latest advancements in this field, how this technology will impact the global economy, and how many people can potentially lose their jobs because it can do so much more than what I just showed you.
And then later in the article, I also want to show you copyright law with AI and how countries around the world are fighting this technology. So let’s get into it. Hi, my name is Andrej Jick. I hope you’re doing well. I’ll come for the finance and stay for the magic of AI, which is probably the craziest intro I’ve ever done. Because even though this technology is less than one week old, it’s already getting musicians asking if this is the end of their career. And that is a big deal. Now, Urio was created by ex-DeepMind employees, the same people that used to work on Google’s artificial intelligence technology. And let me just show you how it works and how you can use it. Now, there are actually two separate platforms. One of them is called Suno AI, and the other is Urio. Now, Urio is considered to be the better of the two platforms; it’s also the latest one that just got released, and it has much more realistic-sounding vocals. But both Urio and Suno are kind of doing the same thing. At their core, they were trained by sampling millions of real-world soundtracks, which are then used by predictive technology and neural networks to create debatably original melodies and lyrics. Basically, I have no idea how it works. It works like magic. You tell it what you want, and it creates a song for you. And here’s one of the really cool examples you can do with it. You can ask it to create specific instructions on how to create pasta, except as a song in the style of heavy metal. Sorry, I got carried away. That whole thing deserves its own separate video, but I’m going to leave a link down below to the original soundtrack for you to listen to because it’s worth it.
Now here’s how you can use these platforms to create your own music. I don’t think I’m going to dedicate an entire section to this, because it’s pretty self-explanatory. All I did was, at udio.com, I just signed in through my Google account, and then at the top, where the prompt is, I just put in the song that I wanted it to make me. In my example, I asked it to make me a song about Dave Ramsey’s financial advice on saving money and eating rice and beans. If you know Dave Ramsey, that’s his thing. So I click Generate, and then five minutes later, it automatically generates two different soundtracks. The first version that it made me, it created the right vibe. The instruments were correct. It sort of reminded me of very Midwest, very country music, which, for some reason, I immediately associated with Dave Ramsey, even though I didn’t tell the prompt that that’s who Dave Ramsey was. It just knew by itself. The thing that I didn’t like were the lyrics. They didn’t really make that much sense to me. So what’s cool is that I was able to make adjustments by just editing the soundtrack and then giving it more specific instructions. And then it created a masterpiece, a song that’s called Beans and Dreams, which, if you know Dave Ramsey, is the perfect soundtrack name for him, and here’s what it sounds like. While it gets tight in the budget forms There ain’t a dime to keep us warm. All about the cash, not the fancy screens Living on a plan, like a money dream From death to wealth, there are no in-betweens. He’s preaching that financial routine. That is pretty amazing, though. Also, I have no idea if Dave Ramsey actually wears hats or cowboy hats. I just imagine that if I ever got to meet him in person, which I probably never will, he’d seem like the type to. So those are just some of the things this technology can do, and I’m just barely scratching the surface, but it does have limits on what it allows you to do.
For example, you can’t ask it to create a song for you in the style of, say, Paul McCartney. I actually tried that, and it said we do not generate artist likeness without their permission, and it completely replaced the song and the voice with something else. Which is good, but I also think there’s people who have found ways around this, which is bad. And that brings me to some of the downsides and problems of this technology. Arguably the biggest impact this will have is, of course, on the jobs within the music industry. Think about all the songwriters, composers, engineers, sound designers, and employees that are part of companies like Epidemic Sound, whose platforms are designed to create royalty-free music and sound effects. What happens to them? That’s a lot of jobs that are potentially displaced. For example, there’s two million songwriters in the US alone, according to the Performing Rights Organization. And now this tool will allow any average person with no skill set or prior experience to create some really good music. Which, on the one hand, is a good thing But if you’re an artist, you’ll probably hear your clients say, Why should I pay you more when I can just create my own? music with the click of a button. And as someone who’s been a struggling artist as a performer here in Vegas and as someone who’s been a videographer and a video editor and who’s done dozens of weddings, I know what that’s like. And generally speaking, accessibility to an industry and the impact that it has on jobs and incomes are generally not good. If a client’s trying to hire you, but their perception of what you do is easy because it’s been democratized by the click of a button, they don’t pay as much because they don’t see the value in it. And the effect that that has on the entire industry is a shrinkage effect on not only the people looking to hire but also what they’re willing to pay. And as the artist, it’s completely not fair, because not only do you have to continue being talented at what you do, but you also have to learn how to use these tools if you want to stay ahead of the game. So you’re expected to do more but be paid less for it. This actually happened to the production industry in 2008 with the release of Vincent Laforet’s Reverie video, which was shot on the 5D Mark II, which made filmmaking accessible to everyone and reduced a lot of budgets.
But the truth is, that’s also how I got into filmmaking. I would borrow my friend’s 5D Mark IIs, and then I would just shoot a bunch of really bad videos, and that’s how I learned. So the effects are not all bad. Some of them are good. So it’s not going to get rid of every one of the music industries, but it will consolidate a lot of jobs and most likely reduce a lot of budgets. Luckily, we still haven’t completely lost our minds, and we still support live music and going to concerts, so hopefully that lasts a lot longer, unless there are robots. Another major problem with this technology is that it was created by sampling or learning from real music from real artists without their real permission. Even though it’s not publicly acknowledged that that’s the case, you can hear it in the music that it generates. You can listen to it sometimes, and you’ll think, This sounds really familiar. And that brings me to the hardest problem about all of this, which is copyright and legislation. How do we create laws that allow people to use this technology in a way that doesn’t limit their creativity but also respects the artist’s original work? Like, how close does something have to sound to the original before it’s considered stealing, and is sampling from or learning from the neural networks considered stealing? This is such a hard question to answer that governments all over the world don’t have one standard that they all agree to. Like the United States has taken the position of, we have no idea what’s going on; we’re not going to create any hard laws; we’re just going to wait to see how this develops. Europe, on the other hand, is like, No, if any human art or work was involved in the sampling of or in the creation of the AI product, even if the sampling was done in another country, it must be disclosed and scored on a three-tier risk system depending on how it’s used. So from a protection standpoint, Europe is in favor of the artist and not the machine. and that’s why they passed their Artificial Intelligence Act in March this year.
But Japan took the opposite approach to this. Japan’s Copyright Act says you can use AI however you want without anyone’s permission, as long as that AI creation does not conflict with the artist’s interests. So there’s a little bit of a gray area, but a lot of people have criticized Japan’s approach, and they say that they’ve sided with the machines and not the artists. Now, the United Kingdom’s approach is, yeah, all right, mate, pip pip, cheerio, we have no idea. And Russia’s stance is that you do not own AI; the government owns you. So globally speaking, there’s no accepted standard that everyone agrees on. Countries are still trying to figure this stuff out, but at least when it comes to government interests, you can bet that governments will side with their own interests. But when it comes to independent artists, the jury’s still out. So AI is here; it’s growing; it’s really, really cool; but it’s also kind of scary. I’d love to know your thoughts.
