Does it matter to you whether a song is written/performed by a human, or instead generated by AI?

Yes (82%) – "There is such an intimate human connection with music. Hearing someone go through the same word and having same dreams is what makes music so magical. Having a code makes it all seem fake. All the feelings and emotions gone. For me it gives the ick."

"I don’t like the idea of AI writing and performing songs that end up in the Top 10. Real artists spend years grinding, learning their craft, pouring their heart into every note. Letting an algorithm skip the whole struggle and still take the spotlight just feels wrong. It cheapens the blood, sweat, and late-night studio floors the real musicians stood on to get there."

• "AI is meant to assist, not replace. If you need royalty-free music for a DnD campaign for example (I assume AI music can be made to be royalty-free) and you want it to sound a certain way, AI would be helpful. However, for music that you buy, it should be made by a person. People train for this, people are passionate about this---companies will use AI to take away livelihoods for dedicated craftspeople."

"It does matter because songs created by humans carry the weight of real life experiences. When you know a human wrote and performed a song you’re connecting to another’s personal life & that’s part of music’s emotional power and meaning. The human connection is the very thing that we lose in being too connected & consumed with cell phone use & social media, & now AI, but it is the very thing that we should all be looking to hold on to."

• "I don’t think the quality of a song could be the same. Art is about expressing your life experiences and AI doesn’t have life experiences. It might know what its about, but it won’t have a deep individual take on it."

"It bothers me because in order to produce the song, it needed to be trained on music that was already established. It may not be a direct copyright issue but it’s not giving the credit to the musicians it trained on. Plus, programs like Suno make it pretty clear in their terms that a song you create is not 100% yours. So that can be an issue with ownership as well."

• "I think there are ways that AI can greatly benefit our lives but feel strongly this is not it. I already think there is too much content in the world. Quality over quantity. Creating art (in any form is what humans live for (some might argue consuming too.. which we can consume enough content made by humans). Train AI to take over the jobs no one wants instead of the ones that give people more joy"

"I want my art to be real, raw, and made by humans. I want the imperfections, to hear real instruments. AI is taking too much away from small and even big artists."

No (11%) – "If real people are allowed to use autotune and essentially mask a portion of their voices using technology, why would the use of AI to create music be much different? I don't really care who or what is singing when I'm streaming music or listening to the radio so as long as I enjoy the song, how it was created doesn't matter. Obviously people aren't going to pack arenas and stadiums for concerts with AI artists so that will always be a differentiator."

Unsure/other (7%) – "While I will likely never listen to an AI artist, I hope that this pushes human artists to write more meaningful songs and not just go for the easy earworms. Making music meaningful is something I doubt machines can do. But catchy pop music? Sure."