logo
episode-header-image
Aug 29
1m 53s

Coming soon from Tech Tonic: Will AI rui...

Financial Times
About this episode

AI music generators - platforms that use artificial intelligence to create new, original music from scratch - can make songs that are almost indistinguishable from human creations. For some musicians, they’re the next frontier in music-making technology. But for others, they represent a grave threat, flooding the world with low-grade AI music, stealing the jobs of working musicians, and even spelling the end of the creative process as we know it. Is this just technophobia, or is music facing AI annihilation?


In a new two-part series of Tech Tonic, the FT’s pop critic Ludovic Hunter-Tilney explores the emerging world of AI music, and the impact it could have on the industry.


Tech Tonic is presented by Ludovic Hunter-Tilney. The producers are Lulu Smyth and Josh Gabert-Doyon. Edwin Lane is the senior producer, Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Sound design by Breen Turner and Samantha Giovinco. Original Music by Metaphor Music. Manuela Saragosa and Topher Forhecz are the FT’s acting co-heads of audio.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Today
Elon Musk and the end of a telecom tycoon’s dream
In recent weeks, satellite business EchoStar has clinched multibillion-dollar deals with SpaceX and AT&T. It may sound like boom times for founder Charlie Ergen, but these deals illustrate something different: the abandoning of an ambitious, decades-long quest to build his own mo ... Show More
23m 40s
Oct 6
Coming soon from Tech Tonic: Mission to Mars
US President Donald Trump has pledged to “plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars”, China could send its first crewed mission to Mars within a decade, and Elon Musk wants people to actually settle on Mars, transforming the human race into an interplanetary species. In a ne ... Show More
1m 40s
Oct 1
The unsustainable boom in India’s Silicon Valley
India’s tech hub Bangalore has experienced huge growth of companies and employees in the past two decades. But the city’s infrastructure is not keeping up with such rapid growth. With the tech sector contributing more than $300bn to the nation’s economy, what happens to the count ... Show More
22m 45s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2025
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Artificial intelligence tools for musicians are getting eerily good, very fast. Their work can be maddening, funny, ethically dubious, and downright fascinating all at the same time. TV and podcast composer Mark Henry Phillips joins to describe his experience working with them. W ... Show More
59m 41s
May 2024
Music consumers are becoming the creators with Suno CEO Mikey Shulman
Mikey Shulman, the CEO and co-founder of Suno, can see a future where the Venn diagram of music creators and consumers becomes one big circle. The AI music generation tool trying to democratize music has been making waves in the AI community ever since they came out of stealth mo ... Show More
30m 26s
Aug 7
Is AI ruining music? | Dustin Ballard
What makes music “real” — is it the instruments, the voice, the creator’s intention or something else entirely? Dustin Ballard, the creative force behind the viral channel “There I Ruined It,” explores the weird, wonderful and sometimes unsettling ways AI is reshaping music. With ... Show More
12m 56s
May 2025
Music Meets AI: Creative Sound Generator
We explore Stability AI’s bold step into music creation with generative AI. Discover the implications for artists, producers, and the music industry at large. This episode examines how AI is reshaping the music production landscape.Try AI Box: ⁠⁠https://AIBox.ai/⁠⁠AI Chat YouTube ... Show More
7m 52s
Aug 7
Is AI ruining music? | Dustin Ballard
What makes music “real” — is it the instruments, the voice, the creator’s intention or something else entirely? Dustin Ballard, the creative force behind the viral channel “There I Ruined It,” explores the weird, wonderful and sometimes unsettling ways AI is reshaping music. With ... Show More
12m 56s
Feb 2025
Making money from AI: Searching for a ‘killer app’
Is generative AI over-valued? At the heart of the generative AI boom has been the premise that a ‘killer app’ for AI will make investors a return on their capital. But it’s unclear how those use cases will actually make money for businesses that deploy them. Plus - is the problem ... Show More
24m 25s
Aug 2024
The trouble with deepfakes: Liar’s dividend
A new breed of AI generated fake pictures, videos and audio clips is spreading across the internet - content anyone with an internet connection can generate. And some of these deepfakes are now so convincing that even experts struggle to tell the difference between what’s real an ... Show More
25m 56s
Dec 2024
The Year AI Broke Into Music
2024 was the year AI broke into the music industry. Record labels that had fought AI-generated songs at every turn started to consider how they might want to use AI tools. But as the technology creeps into more parts of the music production process, not everyone agrees on where t ... Show More
16m 11s
Feb 2024
The AI Advantage: Redrawing the Map of Business Success
What makes harnessing the power of AI in the near term all but an imperative for executives? How is the disruption artificial intelligence is bringing about different from the digital transformation we've seen impact so many industries in the last several decades? This episode of ... Show More
32m 55s
Jul 10
#965 - Rick Beato - AI Bands, Spotify, TikTok & The Death Of Songwriting
Rick Beato is a multi-instrumentalist musician, YouTuber, and a music producer. Music and the industry around it have changed dramatically over the past few decades. With the rise of AI, the dominance of streaming platforms like Spotify, and the fading relevance of traditional Po ... Show More
2h 1m