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CEO of AI music platform claims ‘it’s not enjoyable to make music now’—and musicians have thoughts

A statement by Suno founder Mikey Shulman claiming that people don’t enjoy making music has musicians dropping diss tracks in droves. During a podcast interview, the tech entrepreneur defended the Suno software, which allows anyone to create AI-generated songs with simple prompts, by saying that the old methods take time and practice.

While there are still plenty of AI enthusiasts out there, responses to Shulman’s opinions about the creation process skewed overwhelmingly negative.

What did Suno founder Mikey Shulman say?

In an interview with “20VC with Harry Stebbings” posted to YouTube on Jan. 10, Shulman explained that he and the other founders of Suno sought to make music creation accessible to a billion people rather than making it somewhat easier for fewer. His justification for this came across as less than positive.

Tweet with a video clip of a 20VC interview with Suno founder Mikey Shulman including a quote reading "It’s not really enjoyable to make music now… 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. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of time they spend making music.”

“It’s not really enjoyable to make music now,” he declared. “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. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of time they spend making music.”

Stebbings attempted to compare the creative process to running, pointing out that it might not be enjoyable at first, but once people build up the related muscles, they tend to love it. Shulman countered that most people stop running before this happens.

Who is Mikey Shulman?

Mikey Shulman founded Suno along with Georg Kucsko, Martin Camacho, and Keenan Freyberg. They released the program on Dec. 20, 2023 and followed up with a mobile app on July 1, 2024.

According to his LinkedIn account, Shulman is also a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the former Head of Machine Learning at Kensho Technologies. He earned his PhD in philosophy with a focus on physics from Harvard.

20VC states that he raised $125 million for Suno from sources like Lightspeed, Founder Collective, and tech investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross.

His X profile currently reads, “Aspiring mediocre athlete. Former mediocre musician.”

‘These AI bros are getting old’

AI generation programs have already come under fire when it concerns visual art and writing, and the complaints are no different with music. The prevailing attitude from AI companies and their defenders is that the technology is a good thing because it allows anyone and everyone to make art, and how could that be bad?

Opponents, however, feel that the process of gaining the skills necessary to make art in the traditional manner is the point. It’s about the journey, not the destination.

Quote tweet reading "Currently working on a song I've paused working on for two weeks just to spite this fucking guy. The struggle to make art is what makes it art, and what makes it worth being shared. Not stolen. Shared."

“Currently working on a song I've paused working on for two weeks just to spite this fucking guy,” writes X user @Dimitri_Lecerf. “The struggle to make art is what makes it art, and what makes it worth being shared. Not stolen. Shared.”

Shulman’s added insistence that most people don’t enjoy the creative process is fueling additional anger from creatives who strongly disagree. Many of them find this process highly enjoyable and wouldn’t make art at all if they didn’t.

Mikey Shulman Suno quote tweet reading "This is such an absurd mindset from the Suno founder - “making music is hard, few people enjoy it, so let’s automate it”. What a waste of time and resources solving for a problem that doesn’t exist (and dehumanizes us in the process) No surprise from the AI cohort though."

Even those who may not consider themselves to be artists are taking issue with AI tech bros pushing the idea that expending more than the minimum amount of effort necessary to create something new is undesirable.

Quote tweet reading "It makes me feel insane that the idea underpinning every pitch for AI is that we all hate everything we do. We don’t just hate our jobs, but we hate our hobbies, we hate talking to other people, we hate expending any kind of effort. It’s so nasty."

“It makes me feel insane that the idea underpinning every pitch for AI is that we all hate everything we do,” says @TheTumboy. “We don’t just hate our jobs, but we hate our hobbies, we hate talking to other people, we hate expending any kind of effort. It’s so nasty.”

Tweet reading "Absolute dog shit opinion. Creating music is hard because it takes skill. It’s also really fun. And if you want to make good music, you have to learn how. I don’t know how to create an AI because I have no skill in that. These AI bros are getting old really fast."

Mikey Shulman Suno quote tweet reading "Oof. The founder of Suno really thinks this. It's very revealing. The solutionist language just doesn't make sense for art, or for other things where the work is the enjoyment, but the tech companies seem stuck in their story."

Tweet reading "I’ve f’dw Ai music. It’s silly. But I also make music in FL, and I hate when people market their Ai tools as if they are legit superior to traditional methods, or some sort of cure for artist’s ennui. Fuck off."

The Daily Dot has reached out to Mikey Shulman for comment via LinkedIn.

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