I’ve been geeking out on AI-generated music services Suno and Udio, and it’s been super-interesting to see them iterate and ship quickly. It looks like there might be a value niche in this particular neck of the woods in the larger generative AI space. There are tons of users with very active Discord communities for both, and it does not seem like the interest is waning.
The overall arc of the generative music story seems to follow that of Midjourney, with the interest primarily fueled by the phenomenon that I would like to name “casino creativity”. Let’s see if I can define what I mean by that.
I would like to start by positing that the craving to create is in every one of us. Some of us are more blessed than others in also having skills to satisfy this craving. Moreso, I am going to proclaim that most of us are unable to fully embrace our creative selves because we lack some of the skills required to take flight.
For instance, I can make music. I have been making music since I was a teenager. For me, satisfying my craving for creativity is just a matter of firing up Ableton. When I am skilled in the medium, the friction to create is low. All it takes is being next to my keyboard (and Push), a little inspiration – and a track begins to emerge.
However, I can’t sing. Like, not at all. Like, don’t even ask me. In the music school, when testing out for the choir or orchestra, I was asked to sing. After me belting out a few words (not even a full verse!), the teacher yelled: “The Orchestra! The Orchestra!”
Being a music producer without a voice is a story of unrequited love. I have to settle for tracks without lyrics. The instrumentals are nice, but it’s just not the same feeling without a voice.
So obviously, ever since the current generative AI spring blossomed, I’ve been on a quest to find a way to sate this creative craving. I played with Melodyne and Synth V, and while they both offered a path forward, the barrier to entry was just too high. Gaining a voice is not the same as knowing how to sing. It’s about the same distance between being able to buy a violin and knowing how to play one.
Things started shifting with Chirp. This was the original model created by Suno, and it was Discord-only, very similar to Midjourney – feed it the lyrics alongside a description of the vibe, and out comes a 30-second clip of music. Not just music – it also sang out the lyrics I gave it!
Brain-splosion. Sort of. The output quality of Chirp was pretty weak-sauce. It was not the music I could share with anyone except for minor giggles and an eye roll. I forgot about Chirp for a little while, until this spring Suno came out with the v3 of their sound model. I heard about it from Alex, whose work colleagues composed various songs to celebrate his last day at Stripe.
Ok, now we were getting somewhere. Songs generated with Suno v3 possessed that extra emotional weight that made them nearly passable as listenable music. When Udio came out shortly with their own model, it upped the barrier even more. I was blown away by some of the output. Just like that, my age of voiceless musicing was over. I could type in some lyrics and get back something that expressed it back to me as music.
Every generation took only about a minute and produced two variants for me to pick from. I could choose the one I like and extend it or remix it – or roll the dice again. All it takes is a click.
It’s this metaphorical rolling of the dice that gives the name to the titular term. As I was pushing the “Create 🎶” button, I realized that the anticipation of the output had a pronounced dopamine hit. What will come out? Will it be something like Duran Duran? Or maybe more like Bono? Will it go in a completely different direction? Gimme gimme gimme. I was hooked on Suno.
Casino creativity is a form of creative expression that emerges when the creative environment has such a low barrier to entry that the main way to express my creativity is through providing preference: selecting one choice out of a few offered. A creative casino is a place where all I need to bring is my money and my vibes: everything else will be provided.
Midjourney is one of the first environments where I experienced casino creativity. There’s something subtly addictive about looking for that prompt and seeing those 4-up images that pop out. I know peeps who can spend a very long time tweaking and tuning their inputs. We could argue that prompt craftsmanship itself is a skill that must be acquired. But this skill has a short expiration date – as the models improve and change, the need for prompt-foo diminishes rapidly.
At the end, what we’re left with is pressing the button and making choices. Casino creativity is less about the skill and more about the vibes.
Not to say that casino creativity isn’t able to produce interesting – and perhaps even beautiful – things. Vibes are important – and some of us have more latent vibes hidden within us that we could ever realize. Ultimately, casino creativity is very similar in spirit to the democratization of writing that we’d seen with the Web. I am not yet ready to proclaim that casino creativity is somehow less intriguing and full of potential than any other type of creativity. Just like my Midjourney-obsessed friends, I can see how unleashing one’s creative energy might lead to surprising and wonderful results.
Here’s a twist though. As long as I have the credits to roll the dice, I can see if my vibes work for others. Both Suno and Udio are vying to be the place where music happens. I can look at what’s popular and peruse the top charts. It’s all very naive and simplistic at the moment.
Yet, when executed ruthlessly (and it’s inevitable that somebody will do this), the creative casino is not just the place where I can express my creativity. It’s also the place where I can get the extra dopamine release of seeing my song climb the charts – of my vibes becoming recognized. Come for the vibes, stay for the likes.
An interesting effect of introducing generative AI, it seems, is that we’re likely to see more creative casinos and more ventures capitalizing on casino creativity itself. And we have to ponder the implications of that.
One thought on “Casino Creativity”