Every creative needs a position on creative AI.
Image and words Suno (AI)
Every creative needs a position on creative AI. To be clear, I make a distinction between ‘creative AI’ and AI in general, as AI encompasses a range of tools that have been ubiquitous for years. No one was particularly concerned when spellcheckers, thesaurus or grammar checkers first appeared. In its broadest sense these tools are AI. Apart from the annoying predictive text errors on phones, most people accept AI’s help to correct spelling mistakes or poor sentence structure. But creative AI is a different matter. Creative AI has crept into so many areas of what we do. Even the latest version of Microsoft’s Edge browser touts itself as being ‘AI Powered.’
Image: An AI image with an obvious error. It was meant to illustrate a priest, an Iman and a rabi entering a bar! (Source Chatgpt)
The proverbial hit the fan when ChatGPT entered the market. A free (mostly) product that was quick to impress with its widespread capabilities. But there were also warning signs. There’s no guarantee that information generated by products like Chatgpt is factual. I tested it by asking it to create a 500-word bio for this blog. The first 200 words were reasonable, but then the text switched to describe a completely different person with the same name.
Image: An AI rendition of what an AI writer looks like (Source: Chatgpt).
The ability of creative AI to generate impressive visual images is equally notable. Simply providing a few prompts is all that’s required. You can see examples of AI generated images in some of my previous blogs (e.g.January 29 2024, January 17 2024). The AI tool I used didn’t seem fazed by how specific my request was. For example, it was able to generate the image of a steampunk-clad person in a wheelchair in a tropical setting, as below. Pretty impressive don’t you think? A fun game is seeing how bizarre you can make the prompts before creative AI veers off course.
Image: Still looking obviously fake, but a pretty good attempt (source: Chatgpt)
Organic creatives (i.e., artistic people) are right to be concerned about creative AI. There’s no doubt that it has changed the game. A recent (9/3/2025) article in The Australian asked, “Is AI burning down the songwriting house?” The article opens with revered songwriter Nick Cave setting the creative AI songwriting app Suno a task to write a “dark, slow, gothic song about a banana.” The result was “The Dying Peel.” Cave had to admit he was impressed.
Image: Nick Cave - looking cool. (Source: Rockarchive)
Cave graciously conceded that the song was “good; it had a good chorus.” While Cave was reserved in his praise, he couldn’t mask his astonishment at how quickly the song was produced. In less than 15 seconds, it was complete, including the music. Rather than spending weeks hunched over a keyboard, drawing on years of personal struggle, the song was created almost instantly. To be fair, Cave’s next prompt wasn’t as successful, but even the most acclaimed human creatives don’t always hit the mark either.
Image: How I thought AI was going to look, Will Robinson and Robot (Source: Google Images).
As with any new technology, the moral and ethical implications lag behind the pace of change. For example, we know that apps like Suno, and other AI tools, train their systems by feeding them works created by human artists. Yet, I’ve never seen any human being credited in an AI-generated work, even though it’s human inspiration that powers these systems. When I ‘ve asked Chatgpt to acknowledge how it has produced an image it states “the image was generated using AI based on the description provided. It wasn't drawn from an existing source but rather created uniquely”. My understanding was that AI ‘learnt’ from existing sources, but after many iterations the original sources are obscure.
Cave said that he’s not terrified of creative AI easily producing lyrics for bands, because it’s already happening. His concern lays in the devaluation of the ‘artistic struggle,’ now replaced by a few keyboard prompts to an AI-equipped computer. While the current AI-generated songs, like “The Dying Peel,” may sound somewhat banal, give it time. I’m sure we will see AI refined over a (short) time. The initial version of Chatgpt is now surpassed by more recent and more capable versions.
Image: Australian artist Tina Arena, who has been vocal in condeming AI (Source: The artists website).
Cave isn’t alone in his concerns. An APRA AMCOS (Australia’s peak body for music and performance licensing) survey last year revealed that 82% of Australian music artists were worried about the encroachment of creative AI. Many have called for government regulation, but the cat is already out of the bag. Beyond a disclaimer in fine print stating that "AI has assisted in the work," what can be done?
Singer-songwriter Tina Arena has been vocal on the subject, claiming that apps like Suno are taking money out of the hands of already struggling artists to line the pockets of tech companies.
I expect that the legal battles over what is and isn’t possible will unfold over time. Billy Corgan of 'The Smashing Pumpkins' offers a more neutral stance, suggesting that fighting against creative AI is akin to arguing against electricity when it was first introduced to households in the 1880s.
Image: The Smashing Pumpkins (Source: Google Images)
The debate over creative AI is likely to continue for some time. Meanwhile, the juggernaut of creative AI will continue on its path, ultimately reaching a point where listeners will no longer be able to discern how a song was created—or even care.
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Image: Perhaps the next step is for AI to argue agaisnt itself in an AI assisted court (Sourece Chatgpt).
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