Google is no stranger to AI slop. Over the past couple of years, it’s dabbled in slopifying our favorite mediums and platforms, including YouTube content, films, and certain aspects of gaming. With those broad interests, it’s safe to say that nothing is off the menu, and “nothing,” much to the dismay of people who like art, includes music.
In its latest bid to blanket the Earth with AI, Google acquired ProducerAI, a generative AI music platform, which it will fold under the Google Labs umbrella. Google plans to infuse ProducerAI with its Lyria 3 model for music generation, so you can lob prompts at the chatbot like, “make a lofi beat,” and watch as it snatches the joy of creation straight from your misguided hands. To celebrate the new partnership, Google tapped Alex Pall, the guy from The Chainsmokers, who said:
“We are so grateful to see how this platform continues to evolve. It’s truly crafted around the musician’s experience. The founders are incredibly technical, but natively musicians, and understand the nuances of what makes a platform truly be an additive tool in the creation process.”
Both Google and the founders of ProducerAI are cautious to distance themselves from the idea that ProducerAI and Lyria 3 are just making music slop, but based on everything it does and my (albeit brief) experience with it, this looks and feels like a slop machine. For instance, I entered a prompt to “make grungy rock music,” and about a minute later, I was listening to an AI-generated song with a corny blues riff, basic drums, and a couple of pretty repetitive parts. Obviously, how you use ProducerAI or Lyria 3 as a musician is entirely up to you, but if you wanted it to generate a whole song, you could do it. You can even prompt granular aspects of the song like lyrics, sounds, instruments, and how they sound. You’d be lazy and arguably misunderstanding the whole point of creating things by doing so, but you could do it!
Despite that very sloppy premise, Google says in its own statement on the acquisition that “Our focus is on enhancing human artistry, enabling exploration and expression,” which sounds about right considering this is the same company that thinks you want an “AI filmmaker.”
Unfortunately, there’s nothing particularly surprising about Google dipping its toes further into generative music since (as I mentioned before), it seems pretty hellbent on AI-ifying all sorts of aspects of human artistry, but it’s still deflating all the same. I’m all for using technology in music—even AI when it feels useful—but there’s still (and I can’t believe I have to say this) merit in doing things yourself. Contrary to the borderline ghoulish views of AI advocates like the CEO of Suno—another well-known AI music platform—I don’t believe that “… people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.” Maybe I’m wrong, and if I am, I guess I’ll join the Luddites in being wrongfully labeled as an opponent of progress. But maybe I’m right, and if that’s the case, we can all continue forth, worry-free, knowing the vast majority of real musicians will soon forget that AI music slop was ever on the menu.
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