Artificial intelligence and authorship: what I'm sure of and what I'm not

When you talk about music made with artificial intelligence, people expect a firm opinion. They want you to say whether music made with artificial intelligence has an author, who that is, what rights they have and what rights they don't. I understand, because the subject is new and people want certainties. But it would be dishonest to hand them out. What I can do is sort my thoughts into two piles: the things I feel solid about and the things I have doubts about. The second pile is taller than the first, and I'd rather admit it.

First, a disclaimer. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not going to tell you what any law says or how any case will be settled, because I don't know, and because the rules on this are being debated in lots of countries at once. What follows is the opinion of someone who works with these tools every day and asks himself questions as he goes.

The pile of things I'm sure of

I'm sure the lyrics are mine. I write them myself, word by word, in my notebooks and on my phone; I correct them, throw them away and write them again. No tool has ever given me a single idea for a PLANETA GAYFOLK song. The ex-boyfriends, the neighbour across the landing, pride and learning to love yourself a bit more: all of that comes out of my head and my way of looking at things. If anyone wants to argue about who wrote those words, it'll be a short conversation.

I'm also sure the direction is mine. I produce the music with Suno, which is an artificial intelligence tool, but the tool doesn't decide anything on its own. I tell it what I'm after, I listen to what it gives back, I throw out most of the versions and I choose. I decide the tone, the rough tempo, whether it leans towards copla or pop, whether a song should be more for the dance floor or for quiet listening. I also decide what doesn't get released, which is a huge part of the job that almost nobody sees.

Finally, I'm sure it has to be said out loud. I call myself "the first AI songwriter" precisely so nobody is misled. Anyone listening to my songs knows from the outset how they're made. I'd think it shabby to let people believe otherwise.

The pile of things I'm not sure of

This is where it gets hard.

I'm not sure where the line falls between directing and creating. When a film director doesn't operate the camera, nobody doubts that the film is theirs in some sense. When a producer doesn't play any instruments, the same. I recognise myself in those jobs. But I also know that the tool I work with generates sounds I couldn't generate any other way, and that difference matters. How much? I don't know. Some days I feel like the full author of a song, and some days I feel more like someone who has chosen very, very well.

Nor am I sure how everything I use was trained. I know it's one of the big questions of the moment, and that there are musicians who feel they've been used without their permission. I don't have enough information to judge it, and I don't want to pretend the problem doesn't exist just because it would suit me if it didn't. It's a discomfort I work alongside. I'd rather say so than hide it.

I'm not sure what the word "original" means in this context. We've always learnt from what we listen to. My lyrics echo copla, good old-fashioned pop, the way people talk in Madrid. Nobody would say that takes away my authorship. But a tool that has listened to vastly more music than I have, in far less time, raises a question of scale, and I don't know whether the old ideas still hold in the same way.

And I'm not sure how credit will be shared out a few years from now. Maybe in a while this whole debate will look as dated as the one about synthesisers. Maybe not. I don't dare play the prophet.

What I do in the meantime

With so many doubts, I could sit still and wait for someone to resolve them. I don't. In two years I've put out 273 singles and well over 280 music videos, and every single one has been through my hands from start to finish. I write, direct, discard, choose, edit the video, think up the cover, prepare the song's page. That's what I can control, and that's where I put in the effort.

I also try to be consistent with what I ask for. If I want to be recognised as the author of my lyrics, I have to respect other people's authorship. I don't imitate specific artists, and I don't try to make a song sound like someone famous. My label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, is small and I run it on my own, and I want everything that comes out of it to be something I can explain without looking at the floor.

That's why I give the albums away. The GAYFOLK trilogy and the singles can be downloaded for free, with no sign-up, on my website. I don't do it to dodge any questions about rights. I do it because I want the songs to travel and because, frankly, I feel more at ease that way while all this gets sorted out.

If you made me sum up my position in one sentence, it would be this: I'm the author of what I write and responsible for what I release, and I'm not sure about everything in between. That seems a reasonable position for someone working with a technology we still don't quite know how to name.

I'm wary of people who are certain about everything, either way. Those who say that with artificial intelligence nobody is the author of anything, and those who say it makes no difference, it's just another tool, end of story. I'm somewhere in the middle, with my notebook open and quite a few questions.

If you want to see how I work, every song has its own page with lyrics and music video at mikesaintlouis.com.