Episode 299: Suno 5.5, Cloning Molly, and the Future of Music

In this episode, Nathan and Tim kick things off with a few tech updates as Nathan prepares for his first real 70mm IMAX experience with The Odyssey and Tim shows off his latest foldable phone. That leads to a broader conversation about foldables, VR, smart glasses, Apple Vision Pro, and whether the future of computing is an immersive headset or just a pair of glasses that can quietly feed you information throughout the day.

Then Tim reveals what he’s been doing with the newest version of Suno—and things get considerably weirder. After extracting Nathan’s vocals from the old Molly era, Tim creates an AI version of Nathan capable of making entirely new songs, including a sequel to Molly and a brutally self-aware roast of the original project--among other crazy experiments. Nathan reacts to hearing an AI version of his younger self sing melodies and lyrics he never actually wrote, while the two try to figure out just how convincing the technology has become.

From there, the conversation turns more serious as Nathan and Tim debate what AI-generated music means for artists and creativity more broadly. They discuss whether they would have used ChatGPT and Suno if the tools existed when they first started making music, how AI could allow beginners to skip years of learning songwriting, and why there may actually be value in the frustrating, imperfect process of learning to create something yourself. The two ultimately wrestle with the increasingly blurry line between using AI as a fun tool and allowing it into the art, music, books, and other creative work that actually means something to them—before closing things out with an AI-generated birthday serenade from 2018 Bamba.