This might be my last ever story.
You see, I could be fired any minute now. I’ve told my boss I’ve been “working on an Udio story” for days now. But every time I go to write, I get sucked in. I end up playing around with the prompts and making hypnotising songs about Zebras walking through the Melbourne CBD, or Goku singing a love song about Vegeta, Sinatra style.
If you’re not aware by now, Udio is an AI music generator that’s currently free for anyone to use. And while there have been many that have come before, and indeed many you can still play around with today, it’s Udio that has really broken through and reached The Masses beyond AI nerds, much like ChatGPT did in November 2022.
And it works much the same as ChatGPT. You input a prompt. Let’s say something like “I would rather jump in front of a train than be sitting at my desk right now”, and it will spit out a pretty catchy 30-second clip of a song.
If you’re really feeling the song, you can extend it by about 30 seconds, like I did above. You can do this multiple times, or you can add an outro (or a new intro), and also remix the track if you’re feeling spicy.
To me, all of this feels like magic. You’re telling me I can just make songs now, out of thin air? I hold the power of symphonic creation in the palm of my hand, an infinite pool of creativity at my fingertips, and you want me to check my emails? My brother in Christ do not ping me on Slack, I’m simply too locked in to Dune, The Broadway Musical.
I broke in a similar way when I first tried ChatGPT. I broke again the first time I played around with DALL-E. Consider this my resignation because I simply cannot do anything else but play with these machines. No, I cannot come to a meeting; I’m too busy listening to you spilt a coffee on my dog.
Like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and bestowing it upon the mortals, I brought word of Udio to my colleagues. “Lol give me some prompts”, I declared on the company Slack, “I shall feed them to the machine and conjure magic”.
Behold, a hypnotic diss track about Jacob from Twilight (it wouldn’t let me download this one as a video for some reason, but it still slaps).
By now I have listened to My Man Sh*% In His Pants At Work more times than I have called my own mother, probably ever. Please, do indulge below.
Another colleague asked me to beckon the machine and summon a tune about chicken Twisties being the superior Twistie (a true and right opinion).
Now, I shall rein in my robot simping for a moment to acknowledge the clear and obvious concerns — but these are the same arguments that are made about AI in general. I could wax lyrical for the next 1000 words and barely scratch the surface of everyone’s complaints (some of which are valid), but they basically boil down to Robot take my job, and Robot steal from artists.
Look friend, I don’t know what rock you’re living under but Robot will take your job. There’s no sugarcoating that. I’d argue that’s a good thing. Hell, take all the jobs. But that’s another article for another day.
As for the theft, I get it. I’m a writer — whether I’m any good or not I’ve been doing this for more than a decade. Hundreds of thousands of my words are on the internet — LLMs have no doubt stolen those, along with the words of anyone else who’s ever typed anything on a screen that’s connected to the internet.
Whether Udio is a ‘good’ thing is not the point. One can affix their gaze at something destructive and still marvel at its power, be amazed at what is possible and what it signals for the coming days. How can one fear God and Satan and the great that lies beyond death when we are so blessed in the present moment by Shrek Stole My Girlfriend.
And it’s not just songs. This is some pretty decent stand up, for a robot.
And it’s not just stand up!
My friends, we are living in a moment where Music Is Different Now. We have entered the AI-generated music vibe shift.
So I’m sorry, I can’t come into work today.
Main image: Udio
