You've probably seen a headline or two about creators going against AI for threatening their livelihoods, but that's not stopping AI tools and social media platforms from integrating it within apps. TikTok is the latest to do so as you can now create music using it.
TikTok's Music Generating AI
AI-generated music is not exactly new. You'll be able to find them even on apps like Spotify and YouTube. Despite artists fighting to keep AI from creating music and diluting the craft, it looks like the tools are here to stay, especially through a more accessible app like TikTok.
Users will be able to generate songs by writing lyrics on the text field that can be added to a post. TikTok will then automatically recommend to a user that they can add sounds to the post using AI song, as well as choose the genre that will be generated.
You can try to check if you already have the feature, but the tool is only available to select users, so it's likely that you do not have it yet. It's still in an experimental stage, but even so, the quality of the songs that are generated isn't so great.
TikTok users have already sampled the tool and created their own music. A user named Kristi Leilani tried to create a Britney Spears song, but it turned out terrible as it was out of beat and out of tune, as mentioned in The Verge.
The company will probably make a few adjustments and improvements before they release the tool more widely, if at all. For now, a drunken-like singer who might add a few extra syllables than you intended is what you'll get.
Despite the terrible outcome of TikTok's AI-generated music, there are already decent apps and tools out there that can do the same, but better. That was made evident when an AI-generated song using Drake's voice emerged, even managing to become trending.
If the app does make the tool better for users to create better-sounding songs, it might even be the next big thing in the short-form video app. After all, it has been instrumental in launching music hits, even old songs being revived.
YouTube Has the Same Tool
It's not just TikTok who thought about adding AI features for creating music. YouTube was way ahead and added a feature called Dream Track back in November 2023. It's also arguably better than TikTok's, especially in its current state.
With Dream Track, you'll be able to generate AI songs using the voices of popular artists. So far, the voices you can use are those of Alec Benjamin, Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Papoose, Sia, T-Pain, and Troye Sivan, as per Smithsonian Magazine.
However, they will not be full songs as they are limited to just 30 seconds for YouTube Shorts. Users will also be using a text prompt to describe the kind of sound they want the AI to generate. So far, it is also only available to certain creators on the platform.
