Singing with Suno: A Tale of Circuit-Crossed Lovers, Socrates, and Schrödinger’s Cat

I’ve always been interested in how music can help us remember important concepts, while it also can help us tap into deep feelings. Just for fun, I decided to try out Suno, a free app that will create a song in any style, with just a text prompt.

To begin, I wrote this prompt: “Write a country song about a tragic love affair. An AI and a human can never be together because their parents don’t approve.” 

What I got was amazing. I even felt myself getting sad about the circuit-crossed lovers. Here’s “Heartbreak on a Hard Drive.”

Now let’s consider what we could do with something like this to help support learning. Neuroscience tells us that music, math, language and learning are all intertwined in our human brains.

How it Works

Our brains are wired to use a form of statistical analysis called Bayesian Inference to make sense of our world. This form of reasoning developed by a medieval monk draws patterns from our past experiences to anticipate future outcomes. When we listen to music, we’re predicting the next note, the next chord, the next word in the lyrics. This act of prediction is a powerful learning tool, engaging learners in their own internal creation of the content as they are experiencing it. So, I thought it might be fun to have a song about something I teach about, the Socratic Method brought to life as a chatbot. For this project, I wrote this prompt: “A hip hop song that explains how Socrates used questions to teach in his famous Socratic method. How today he would use a chatbot and AI to do the same thing.” Here’s “Socrates 2.0.”

Simplifying Complexity

What do you do if you need to place a string of words in alphabetical order? I mentally replay the Alphabet song, which magically gets first-grade students able to perform this truly complex feat with ease. I wondered what Suno would do to reimagine the alphabet in a new song with this prompt, “a pop song that reimagines the alphabet song as a story of love in the first grade.” It turns out there is a limit to how long of a song the free version will produce, so in “Love in the First Grade” we only get to learn about half of the alphabet.

Let’s go for more complexity. Most people find the quantum physics concept of superposition a bit daunting (or am I the only one?) So, I asked for “A country song that explains Schrödinger’s Cat and the concept of quantum superposition.” Here is “Schrödinger’s Cat.”

Ethical Questions Abound

While these parlor games are fun and seem harmless, we must be wary of how we use these impressive new AI tools. While the output appears to be an original work of art, underneath these lyrics and melodies are models that are built by copying human creations. Because of this training practice, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claims that Suno used the works of human artists, including Mariah Carey and the Beach Boys, to teach their AI what patterns humans will likely expect in their musical experience. The result is something new, but it is built on the work of others who have not been compensated. There are many lawsuits making their way through the courts, and the legal landscape is murky right now. While I don’t have the answers to these questions, I have come up with a few conclusions that I’m using as working guidelines for now:

• If you’re using AI to create content, be transparent about your practice.
• Check AI output for any results that are overly reminiscent of the works of others.
• Be aware of changes in laws and professional ethical standards in this fluid environment. 

The thought experiment about Schrödinger’s Cat tells us that there are many different versions of the world, which is called “the multiverse.” At any point in time, a cat can be alive in one version while it is dead in another: it’s in a state of superposition. The only way to know the truth is to open the box. This act of observation selects the version you’re looking at. Now we know if the cat is alive or dead. It’s a gruesome allegory that illustrates where we are right now: In a state of superposition between the world where anything goes in AI and a world where there are clear guidelines to follow. 

We just don’t have the clarity we need yet, so we’re all looking at the box and trying to figure out what that crazy cat is doing inside. 

Still, we might as well make music about it while we can.