AI in image-making, video production, and animation has turned my world upside down. Consequently I have given the matter a lot of thought in that context. It's only dimly entered my consciousness that AI in music is also a thing.
My reflex reaction to AI in music is why would anyone want to listen to it? This is more-or-less Rick Rubin's useful hot-take, "What I will say is... What I find interesting about art is the point-of-view of the person making it. And I don't know that AI has a point of view of its own. So I don't know how interesting it would be, AI's point-of-view..." Elsewhere Rubin says completely the opposite so it's not clear to me he has his head together on the topic.
And certainly to be fair to him, once one gives it a little thought, it is a more difficult question. The dilemma which confronted us as a generation when Acid House first broke was, on the face of it, not dissimilar. It's easy to forget that pre-existing music fans thought that Acid House wasn't music. "Turn off that bloody fax machine!" - went the gag in the office. Sample-based music had the same charge leveled at it - Hip-hop wasn't real music because the people couldn't play instruments. And just like AI, Hip-hop was theft! The only difference was that its theft was framed as larceny, re-appropriation, or recycling - all of which were interesting perspectives when viewed against the politics of the Black community.
Although I think my (ahem...) classic sampling LPs "Moanad" and "Chunks" are a cut above any AI music by virtue of their ragged personality, deep musical knowledge, and the sonic ideas I bought to them; I have to admit that if one squints one's ears, they are kinda Proto-AI...
Anyone making a purely musical argument about the merits or otherwise of AI music is wasting their time. Yes, I do cling to the belief that some musics are better than others. That personal judgement of my own has nothing to do with the music's technical virtuosity or the performer's intrinsic musical skill, because some of the most ugly and primitive things touch me. I would claim that those sounds communicated some philosophical truth to me.
However, although it's painful to admit, the music I love has also acquired meaning to me by merit of it belonging to a whole framework of personal memories, associations, its perceived critical worth, through its historical context and that meaning, and its place in the history of ideas. Those beliefs are intrinsic to its musical value and impossible to subtract from my appreciation. But in a listening test would I be able to distinguish between a lost Kraftwerk LP and some artfully reconstructed AI offering purporting to be the same? I'd like to think so of course, but really? And which of the two would I welcome into my music collection? Obviously the authentic one!
The perception of AI music is going to take a little while to settle down. Speaking personally I'm relieved that I'm not going to need to bother with it. I've come to terms with my own mortality, and accordingly my music taste froze a decade ago. I have no need, as I was once compelled, to listen to the latest music.
However, I predict that for AI music to take off artists will need to find some way to personalise their offering, wrest it from large corporate music models like SUNO, perhaps by writing their own software, or training their own algorithm locally on their own material. Then you will have the seed of a situation where an educated audience will give it creedence, and will invest in it emotionally. This is what happened with Detroit Techno most obviously - the output of unusually selected machines (FM synths, Kurzweil keyboards etc) was imbued with a philosophical approach and a specifically local aesthetic to create a music in which an audience could make a religious investment. This is likely to be happening at the avant-garde cutting edge already - and these will be the AI music auteurs of the future - The Aphex Twins of the coming generation.