Kyle Dhillon - Februrary 24, 2025
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Welcome to my personal blog! This post represents my own views, separate from my work at Kits.AI.
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I love YouTube instrumental mixes, especially to throw on in the background while working. A couple nights ago, I went to find one and was suggested a very interesting result: “Detective Rat Boogie.” The description promised an hour of "disco beats with a funky noir aesthetic", fronted by a dripped out rat in a golden trench coat. A few hundred thousand views? Let’s do it!
https://youtu.be/k4hjX6ZsplU?si=fc5VW-zJ2o4xODWx
Sure enough, I was served some tight drum grooves and classic 70s funk bass, gliding keys and guitar solos. Not bad. Perfect background music.
As the mix wrapped up, I had a sudden question — who made these songs? There was no artist info in the video description, and something felt off about the song titles: "Cheese Chase Boogie," "Sewer Soul." Why were they all rat-specific?
I scrolled through the comments, like a rodent detective scouring the sewers for clues. Most were cheese-themed puns. No one was asking about artist or producer credits. What was going on?
At last, I found a comment that confirmed my worst fears:
Whether made with Suno or another AI platform, I realized, the music was definitely AI generated. No artist credit for any songs. Generic LLM-sounding song titles. Dozens of other mix videos by the same channel (and other suspiciously similar channels), following the exact same format.
I was devastated! I’m a CTO at an AI music tech company, and had just listened to an hour of AI generated songs without realizing it. What’s worse: I had actually enjoyed it!
This traumatic experience left me with a few burning questions: