Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava on why push-button AI is “insulting” to musicians

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Today, I’m talking with Kakul Srivastava, CEO of music creation platform Splice, which is one of the biggest marketplaces around for loops and samples. You can just go sign up, pay the money, and download these loops to try to make pop hits all day long. Take, for instance, Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso, which was composed almost entirely out of Splice loops.

Now, if you’re a Decoder listener, you know that some of my favorite conversations are with people building technology products for creatives, and that I am obsessed with how technology changes the music industry, because it feels like whatever happens to music happens to everything else five years later. So this one was really interesting, because Splice is all wrapped in all of that.

Links:

• Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso highlights the way new music is made | Bloomberg
• Major record labels sue AI company behind ‘BBL Drizzy’ | Verge
• Splice CEO’s message for AI sceptics? “Trust the artists” | MusicTech
• Splice launches voice recording on Splice Mobile at SXSW | Splice
• OpenAI & Google ask government to let them train AI on content they don’t own | Verge
• AI Drake just set an impossible legal trap for Google | Verge
• Pharrell Williams: $7.3 million Blurred Lines verdict threatens all artists | Verge
• Lady Gaga, nostalgia, and the ‘reheated nachos’ phenomenon in pop culture | Her World
• AI music startups say copyright violation is just rock and roll | Verge
• Suno CEO says musicians don’t actually like making music | Vice

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/632036

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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