Noel King

He writes a newsletter called Hidden Layer.

And this year, like many of us, Ian encountered Velvet Sundown.

Reminiscent of a little something from, who was it, Kansas?

Yes.

We've spoken to people for this show who really love music, and some of them, you're not going to be shocked to hear this, some of them are really kind of appalled by the idea that people are listening to AI-generated music.

It has no heart.

It has no soul.

There's no real connection between the quote-unquote artist and the listener because there is no real artist.

It's artificial intelligence.

But here's what I wonder.

Your average listener is a person who is not a super music nerd.

Your average listener is a person who's on a platform and stuff maybe is getting fed to them.

And they're like, oh, I like this.

I don't like this.

What has your reporting told you about how the average listener thinks about AI music?

So what?

So they avoid it?

They don't click on it?

What do they do?

If we talk about the major players in the AI music space, what I'm coming to learn is we are not talking about individual people making music and then generating it through AI.