Can machines make music that feels human—without stealing from humans? In this episode, Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli unpack the ethics, creativity, and emotional reality of AI-generated music, challenging each other (and listeners) to rethink what we call art.
Guest: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder, ITSPmagazine and Studio C60 | Website: https://www.marcociappelli.com
Host: Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine, Studio C60, and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast & Music Evolves Podcast | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com/
In this candid episode of Music Evolves, Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli unpack the creative, ethical, and deeply personal tensions surrounding AI-generated music—where it fits, where it falters, and where it crosses the line.
Sean opens with a clear position: AI can support the creative process, but its outputs shouldn’t be commercialized unless the ingredients—i.e., training data—are ethically sourced and properly licensed. His concern is grounded in authorship and consent. If a model learns from unlicensed tracks, even indirectly, is it sampling without credit?
Marco responds by acknowledging how deeply embedded influence is in all creative acts. As a writer and musician, he often discovers melodies or storylines in his own work that echo familiar structures—not out of theft, but because of lived experience. “We are made of what we absorb,” he says, drawing parallels between human memory and how AI models are trained.
But the critical difference? Humans feel. They reinterpret. They falter. They declare their intent. AI does none of that—at least, not yet.
The discussion isn’t anti-technology. Instead, it’s about boundaries. Both Sean and Marco agree that tools like neural networks can be fascinating collaborators. But when those tools start to blur authorship or generate perfect replicas of a human’s imperfection—say, the crackle of a vinyl or the slide of a finger across a string—what are we really listening to? And who, if anyone, should profit from it?
They wrestle with questions of transparency (“Did you write that… or did AI?”), authorship (“If you like it but don’t know it’s AI, does it matter?”), and commercialization (“Is it still your art if someone else feeds it to a machine?”). And perhaps most importantly, they invite you to answer for yourself.
🎧 At the end of the episode, Sean and Marco each create a 1-minute piece of AI-generated music based on their own interpretation of the conversation. Their challenge: same topic, different vibe. The listener’s challenge: can you feel the difference?
Newsletter (Article, Video, Podcast): From Sampling to Scraping: AI Music, Rights, and the Return of Creative Control: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-sampling-scraping-ai-music-rights-return-control-martin-cissp-flxde/
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: Sean, is that you or artificial intelligence? What's Who? Who wrote that? Be honest. Be honest. Don't hide it from me. Is it AI or it you?
[00:00:30] Sean Martin: Yes.
[00:00:33] Marco Ciappelli: I know it's
[00:00:34] Sean Martin: Uh, it's
[00:00:34] Marco Ciappelli: I can see the guitar if
[00:00:36] Sean Martin: Guitar is here.
[00:00:37] Marco Ciappelli: the guitar is
[00:00:38] Sean Martin: I love, I love a guitar. I don't know how to play guitar, but I love a guitar
[00:00:42] Marco Ciappelli: Well, you
[00:00:43] Sean Martin: and, uh,
[00:00:44] Marco Ciappelli: it sounded, it sounded all right. And that's what I'm wondering if you wrote it or you, or AI did it for.
[00:00:52] Sean Martin: Well, funny enough, I literally just picked it up and that's what came to my, my head. That's what, that's what came in and came out. But [00:01:00] uh,
[00:01:00] Marco Ciappelli: That's how it is. I can't learn anything. I, I, if, if I don't improvise, like I can't even remember a Christmas song. I have to kind of like find it while I go.
[00:01:10] Sean Martin: There
[00:01:10] Marco Ciappelli: Which, uh, you know, that's, that's what I like to do is my meditation. I said that many times and, um, Hey, I'm glad to be on your show. Music evolves.
Tell me about it. What the hell is that?
[00:01:22] Sean Martin: it's, what is it? Well, it's where I, uh, what the hell is it? I get to, uh, explore how technology and oh technology shapes music and, uh, impacts creativity, and ultimately look at how we. Create music, produce music, present music, perform music, consume music, everything around music, and eat music, drink music, smoke, music, I don't know, whatever, whatever you like to do.
Uh, it's all fair game. And, uh, yeah, I, I'm, for me, [00:02:00] the best conversations are when people are pushing the boundaries on, on creativity. And funny enough, as I say that, uh, that's, that's why we're kind of, I don't wanna say we're at odds, but we have perhaps differing opinion. Maybe I, we align on some things, but maybe at odds on where AI plays a role.
I think. Uh, so I wrote a, an article, I'll quickly say this and I'll let you jump in, wrote an article on, uh, the, the use of AI to create music and. Put a position in the article that I said use it for creative, uh, creative, uh, aspects of, of making music. Maybe don't, uh, use it for commercial. 'cause what I think that the issue I have is that AI and those tools are built using libraries of existing stuff, most of which has licenses and rights and [00:03:00] ownership and.
Somebody spent time making that stuff and creating that stuff and, and if it was me, I have, I have some music. The intro to the show I wrote, no, there's no AI in that. I wrote that piece and I performed that piece and I recorded it and produced it, and it became part of my show.
[00:03:17] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. Yes and no. That's, that's, that's, that's where I jumped in and I pretty much replied to your post with an entire post. And I was tempted to turn it into a newsletter, but I have another one I have to write, so I just made a long post about that. 'cause you, you talk about, I mean, one thing is being inspired and one thing is exploiting other people's music.
And I absolutely agree with that. Sometimes you do it not intentionally. And that's what I kind of highlight in my post, because first of all, I think it's hard now not to play other people music, um, even [00:04:00] involuntarily. I mean, I, like I said, you know, I just sit on the piano and I start going around. I'm like, Hey, wait a minute.
This is. The, I don't know, the soundtrack of El Postina or, 'cause it sounds familiar and I, and I naturally go in that direction. That's the melody in my head. And then maybe I'm like, Hey, this is, I know Game of Throne. Like, nah, nah, nah. Right? And, and it's like we are made of our experience. I think the difference is that, yeah, we do ingest.
Ears of tapes and vinyls, you know, people like me and you and, and digital music and it kind of forge who we are. I mean, any blue song, it's probably inspired by, you know, the blue scale and, and, and a certain, you know, riff and a certain. But the point is you, you then turn it into your own, right? You put your own emotion.
You can hold the note a little longer, or you make it a little set or whatever it is, the way you, the way you [00:05:00] feel. But you do that
[00:05:01] Sean Martin: there or you screw it up. Yeah, same
[00:05:03] Marco Ciappelli: do that with painting, you do that with photography? I do it with writing. I mean, I, I write the kids story and I'm thinking like, damn, this sounds like, I don't know, like a Disney movie.
But yeah, I've watched a gazillion of those. I'm not really intentionally copying and so it is very delicate to, to decide what was copied and was not. And I think that's where a lot of people bump head. You know when, when there are important, I mean, there is a judge involved and there is lawyers, and it's like, yeah, you copy that because there's more than seven notes in a row with the tempo, and I don't even know the rule, I'm just making this up, but AI is, is, it is different and, and, and I it is intentional though that copy or is intentional that it learn and then it just produce something that.
It [00:06:00] may not be art, may be may be kind of cool,
[00:06:05] Sean Martin: Yeah, I mean there, there's a lot of ways to, uh, to talk about this topic and yeah. Is is it good music? Is it better? Is it too perfect? Is it missing the, the human element? Some of that stuff came in to this as well. And I think for, for this particular piece, and, and hopefully we're, we're gonna put a panel together, uh, with a few folks, uh, who have some thoughts on this and opinions and have seen case law and whatever.
Um. Yeah, when, when is it overstepping? And I mean, in the article I write on, write about, I think you touched on as well, just, I mean, DJs use LPs and
[00:06:48] Marco Ciappelli: Sampling.
[00:06:49] Sean Martin: great new stuff and then, then they sample and mix things together. And then I, and yeah, I know, I know somebody wrote, has a few albums out and, and [00:07:00] she, uh, she had DJ's remix for the club.
So her stuff was very ethereal, uh, with, with beats behind it. And then, and then the DJs, like three or four of them famous DJs remixed and took it to the clubs. And it's cool, but they, she asked them and or they got their permission to do that. And, uh, I think that's the the's, the key thing is if you're using, I think maybe that's the other key thing.
It's obvious right?
[00:07:30] Marco Ciappelli: Right,
[00:07:31] Sean Martin: now, now it's less obvious, and I use the word sneaky in, in my
[00:07:37] Marco Ciappelli: mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:07:38] Sean Martin: Um,
[00:07:39] Marco Ciappelli: That sucks. That's the part that
[00:07:41] Sean Martin: you and people using it may not even know right. That it's pulling from some famous song and, and using some model that, that the AI know works because. People always select that output when it's prompted a certain way and it says, well, people must [00:08:00] like this.
I'm gonna keep feeding that. And, and I dunno, it, it, it gets sneaky and, and, and I, I struggle with, and this is where I kind of circle, I struggle with my creative side when I'm creating something I don't want, I want tools to make it better, but I don't want it to take away from what I'm. Doing creatively in my head and my feeling and my, my mood, my around my surroundings, my environment, whatever, because it's all fed into it, which AI can't do. So I struggle with that. I struggle with, um, does it? Does it produce something that, that is good or not? Or like we, I think we both mentioned if it has a flaw, maybe that's better. Maybe that breath in there. I talk about the string
[00:08:53] Marco Ciappelli: Hmm.
[00:08:53] Sean Martin: when you're sliding your fingers on the strings, it's uh, that that's part of it.
Does AI get that? I dunno. [00:09:00] So
[00:09:00] Marco Ciappelli: that, that, that's kind of when I was, when I wrote the last steps about, uh, the, the newsletter, the, the lo-fi right, the, the imperfection of the music. That is actually what makes it special. And it's, uh, it is not as clear as is the digital. And there is that distortion. There is the crackle of the vinyl and, and it may as well be that if.
Artificial intelligence, go listen to an old blues. I'm gonna, today, I have blues in my head. But, uh, from, from the, on the, the thirties, for example, uh, you know, a blue grass or something like that with a, you know, bad microphone and you can really hear the banging on the guitar and the strings and it's crackle.
Maybe, maybe, I may think it's cool and may reproduce that. So here's the question is. If you go philosophical with that, what, what if AI is not coping, but it's just liking something [00:10:00] and decided to kind of play in that style like we do. I mean, we don't really know how AI works, so I'm gonna play devil's advocate there.
I mean,
[00:10:08] Sean Martin: I know.
[00:10:09] Marco Ciappelli: I talk with Maya Ackerman, um, she's a musician, and we talked about. Her books and, I mean, her book just came out and it's about, you know, creativity and ai and she said something that opened my eyes. In terms of ai, it's the, you know, the AI that we use, like the chat, GPT, the, the Cloud. It's actually on her opinion, it.
It's too, it's in chain, it's in chains, meaning it's not creative enough because we put too many boundaries around it. And for her, 'cause she does a lot of music, she is a pianist herself. If you really unleash ai, you can really unleash some crazy creativity, but you need to unleash it just for vocal. T [00:11:00] like create fucking amazing, crazy good music or you know, and don't be constrained to, you need to please the humans.
You can't, you need to be ethical about it or you know, she has a point. Creativity comes from, we don't know where.
[00:11:20] Sean Martin: Right. Yeah. And I, I think back to the DJs, I think about how, I mean, I, I'm certainly inspired by a lot of things and, and I might, might think of beats. Mixed with melodies, mixed with certain tones, mixed with certain feelings. Um, sometimes I do lyrics and whatnot, but sometimes I don't. And sometimes the music is what? Just the music alone is what, uh, drives me. And to your point, I mean, it's all inspired by, influenced by, I've heard something I'm, and the word intentions. I'm [00:12:00] purposefully not. Using a beat that I heard, I'm inspired by that beat, which may then allow me to say, okay, that's two, two bass drums and a snare and a couple cymbals and, and there's, uh, some chimes or whatever.
And I'll re reform that in a way. Maybe I'll set it off by a half a beat or a quarter beat or whatever, and, and make it my own. it's still inspired by something oftentimes,
[00:12:28] Marco Ciappelli: We don't know.
[00:12:30] Sean Martin: I don't know.
[00:12:32] Marco Ciappelli: I mean, we don't know. Meaning you, you. Sometimes you play something and it's inspired, but it is in the back of your mind. It's completely unconscious and you don't know. And then somebody comes out and is like, dude, that's the Beatles, or You were playing the other day. Remember that? I said,
[00:12:47] Sean Martin: this. Yeah.
[00:12:48] Marco Ciappelli: yeah, you said that.
[00:12:51] Sean Martin: now you say what? What you heard.
[00:12:53] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I mean, you were playing something and I'm like, are you playing Resy Chapman? And you know, like, uh, [00:13:00] and, and because it was, it was that, it was that chord, you know, I could hear that chord. You're like, what? What? No. So like, I'm just, I just came up with this and it was like, and to me just connected like that.
You didn't know it. There is seven notes. There's so many chords, right? I mean,
[00:13:17] Sean Martin: you, if you, if you play, I play guitar by chords. I'm not a picker. So yeah, there's only, only a few that, uh, that work well together and most, most musicians, I think, use those chords to, to create. Now they get in there and mix around and add stuff in. And for me it's kind of the same.
I haven't done much with the guitar in terms of recording. Uh, it's mostly, mostly keyboard and drums and things, but, um. Yeah, I think, uh, it's hard to, did you start your post with, you start your post with, you
[00:13:51] Marco Ciappelli: I said I have, I have it here. Um, it's not easy to play something that no one else before has played, [00:14:00] and, and I think it's harder and harder. I think it was a lot easier not to take anything away from the Beatles or you know, those guys, but. There was a lot to invent and discover that wasn't done right.
And now I feel like, okay, you really need to go nuts in order to do something that somebody's gonna come and like, eh, that sounds like Rolling Stone. That sounds like The Beatles. That sounds like Abba. Or, it's tough, you know, it's really, really tough that there is a limit to that. But it, I love covers. Uh, here's a good example.
I love covers. Right. I like when some, you know, hard rock band or metal band, they play something and, and they make it their own and, and I'm like, there reinterpreting a song. Sometimes I like it more than the original. It's like, you know, Berry Orchestra playing classic holiday music and throwing some [00:15:00] really distorted guitars.
I mean, I've seen them live and it's, it blows my mind. It's, I love that. And you're like, yeah, then they bring some of their own. And you remember that. I bring it up a lot, but the, the, the ship of the sea. When is the ship, not the sea ship anymore? Because you change and repair that so much that none of the original pieces is on it.
Is it still a ship or not? And I don't think there is really an answer there, but the thing is, how much do you need to change of a song or how little you need to change of a song and make it. It make it, your Honor, but the truth is you're declaring that you're using that song and that's the big difference
[00:15:45] Sean Martin: transparency, honesty, uh, declaration, um, the, yeah. Declaration of intent, I think. And one of the things that. That I touch on a little bit in the, in the article, um, [00:16:00] and I think I even included a hint of it in, in my response to your post is that, who cares, right? So
[00:16:10] Marco Ciappelli: I fucking
[00:16:10] Sean Martin: who, who, who has a horse in the race and it's the creator and who, who owns the license to the, the, the resulting creation?
And, and I think beyond that, beyond that, it's. It's a personal thing, so the, for me, I like to create. In, in raw form. Like I, I wanna use tools, but I, I don't want to replace my creative, um, adventure with tools.
[00:16:42] Marco Ciappelli: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:43] Sean Martin: Um, so that's my personal choice. Um, I'll, I, you won't hear any lyrics from me that, that have gone through ai.
You won't hear any music that, that, uh, is sampled from me. It's all from my head and my fingers. That's what, that's my personal choice. Now [00:17:00] when I, whatever I produce. If somebody's reusing it, I'm not gonna be very happy unless they ask. Right. And if, if somebody has a record deal and somebody owns a license to, uh.
To the music, whoever owns that license and is making money, um, licensing it to movies or commercials or, or for shows or whatever it is, they're not gonna be very happy. So beyond those two, I don't know if it's just down to personal choice. Um, I don't know. There may be other things in there and, and maybe when we have a, we pull a panel together, some other things will come up,
[00:17:38] Marco Ciappelli: Well, the panel will be good because. I mean, I threw a few names there. You threw some other names. I mean, one is the, you know, general manager of Nam, so if you join jump in. I'm gonna be very happy. I know Michael Sherick from a global citizen and may may be joining us. And um, I think it's gonna be amazing.
And I think that the, there is a [00:18:00] distinction and you were going there. So one thing is it's your art and. Nobody should exploit it and making money out of it or sell it as if it was its own. So there is that aspect or go out there and say, well, this is my stuff. Right? There's a, if there are Italian and listening, now there's a, a movie with bonini and, and throw that they go back in time by some weird magic in the 1300 and.
And they realize they know so much about the future, but they don't really know how to make it. But one of the guy pretend to write these songs to conquer the heart of a lady, and he plays Beatles song like yesterday and she loves it and he is like, yeah, I just wrote this this morning. So okay. He's not making money.
You know, it's funny story. I think it's a great movie. But the point is that that's [00:19:00] appropriation. It's like, go around and say, I, I did the Mona Lisa. Right? But that doesn't stop you from loving the Mona Lisa to, as a painter to try to recreate it, and you're not making money out of it. Right. So why I if, if somebody takes something I've done and yeah, inspire them to do something better, on top of that, making their own, I'll be happy.
If they steal money from me, then and then, no. I'll be pissed. So the intention again and what you do it for, you know, like let's say an amateur band that goes out and is you, you can do it, you go in a bar, you cover a band. Like plenty of people that do that, they make a little bit of money, but they're not gonna go and you know, Metallica is not gonna go and sue them because they make, you know, nothing el they play nothing else matter.
But if they're gonna record it, then they're gonna hear from them. [00:20:00] So, and I don't know how AI comes into this, but AI is not art. That's what I said. It's at least for what I know, it doesn't have the emotions that art require, but it could come out with something really cool, and I don't want to point the finger and say, well, that's shit because I did it. And there's people that do that. I may say, wow, that's a great drawing that AI did, or, that's really cool song. It's not art. I think our heart art needs emotion.
[00:20:39] Sean Martin: Uh, and,
[00:20:40] Marco Ciappelli: I.
[00:20:41] Sean Martin: and so that, that's a whole completely different, uh, part of the conversation, right? What is it good or not, what it generates? And again, I think that's a personal preference. Um,
[00:20:54] Marco Ciappelli: heard Good, good stuff, haven't you?
[00:20:57] Sean Martin: tell, if you can't tell and you like it. [00:21:00] Is it good? I dunno.
[00:21:02] Marco Ciappelli: All right. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring you this and I, I mentioned that. So commercial music. But really it's made with cookie cutters, right? It's
[00:21:16] Sean Martin: there's a formula.
[00:21:17] Marco Ciappelli: Even before ai, you know, you do the cars, you get a sample, you do the thing, and I don't wanna make names, but it's probably people, I wouldn't buy their shit, but people love it.
People go and dance out of it. It goes number one. They just, one can't wait to get it on the radio. And I may say that's not good, but it's. It's kind of in my ear. Okay, so is it that better than what AI does because it's made by human or it's a formula and I dunno, maybe AI going crazy, could do something [00:22:00] better.
[00:22:00] Sean Martin: yeah,
[00:22:01] Marco Ciappelli: What do you point the finger?
[00:22:04] Sean Martin: yeah. I know. Yeah. When we start talking about, uh, um. The quality and what is it and is it good or bad? And does it, uh, is it art? Does it miss the human piece? And does, does that matter? Um, yeah, there's there's a lot to talk about there too. And I have, uh, opinions on all of those things. I think for the purpose of this conversation though, it's, it's even in the, with those formulas, yes.
The formula is there. The notes are probably there too, right? It's the same seven notes. It's, but it's probably somebody, and maybe there's a team of people that are, that are capturing the thoughts and, and the mind and the, the moment and the experience and even the environment that songs during war, um, drum up feelings and emotion and that [00:23:00] comes out in music and, yeah.
[00:23:02] Marco Ciappelli: holidays. Yeah.
[00:23:05] Sean Martin: All of that to me
[00:23:07] Marco Ciappelli: Still human.
[00:23:09] Sean Martin: Still human now can a human prompt, AI to capture all of that as well. Perhaps with purpose of this conversation though, is I, I don't necessarily like if it does that and the outcome of the prompt
[00:23:24] Marco Ciappelli: am gonna piss you off.
[00:23:25] Sean Martin: based on something that's already done that.
[00:23:28] Marco Ciappelli: you off for the purpose of this conversation. I will go on 11 laps. I'm gonna have it write a song based on this conversation, and you're gonna put it on this
[00:23:44] Sean Martin: Alright. All embed in. All embedded
[00:23:46] Marco Ciappelli: and we'll see how it goes with just one minute, or actually we can make it even more fun. Here's a good one.
If you want to do it, I'll make a minute song giving my own prompt based on this conversation. I'll pick the genre. [00:24:00] You do the same, and then right here at the end, people should listen to it. And see what they think because it could be a completely different
[00:24:09] Sean Martin: I
[00:24:09] Marco Ciappelli: opposite interpretation of it. And I know it will be because I know your taste.
So I,
[00:24:14] Sean Martin: Yes,
[00:24:15] Marco Ciappelli: I, I think it's gonna be fun. You wanna do it?
[00:24:18] Sean Martin: I'll do it.
[00:24:19] Marco Ciappelli: All right then? People should stay tuned
[00:24:21] Sean Martin: good challenge.
[00:24:22] Marco Ciappelli: I think it's gonna be fun, and then they can let us know.
[00:24:25] Sean Martin: I think they should let us know what they think of each piece, and I'll even invite them to, uh, to share their own AI generated
[00:24:34] Marco Ciappelli: love it. Yeah. In the comment, just go on your, on your, uh, AI of choice that makes music, if you have one. Um, or. Say, screw ai. Record yourself playing and say, here's my version of it. It can be a flute, a bass, standup bass with, you know, whatever you want. I, it can be the Moroccan, I don't care, you know, be, be, be [00:25:00] Liam Gallagher and play the Moroccan.
It's totally cool. It's totally fine. All right. I love this. That
[00:25:05] Sean Martin: I love it.
[00:25:06] Marco Ciappelli: could be a nice challenge.
[00:25:07] Sean Martin: Yeah, it could be fun. All right, well, well, we'll both do it. Um, we'll include that here, so everybody at the end of this, uh, enjoy that. And, uh, yeah, thanks for, uh, thanks for stirring the pot on this one.
[00:25:20] Marco Ciappelli: Hey, I love when we improve and, and we, we just get on and, and share our thoughts.
[00:25:26] Sean Martin: This is something that came to mind. Uh, just the other day I decided to write the piece at a brewing. I didn't go out last night to an event and finished writing it and putting it together. And, uh, yeah. So it's fun, fun to get these ideas out and hopefully, hopefully people enjoy it.
[00:25:43] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I think everybody has an opinion about this and, and you know, we don't need to agree as long as we're nice about it, as long we're nice.
[00:25:51] Sean Martin: Exactly. All right. Well thanks for, uh, thanks for this.
[00:25:55] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. Love it.
[00:25:56] Sean Martin: Everybody listening, uh, and watching, please stay [00:26:00] tuned to music involves, and, uh, be sure to catch Marco for his shows as well on society and technology and,
[00:26:09] Marco Ciappelli: Storytelling
[00:26:11] Sean Martin: storytelling and all kinds of fun
[00:26:12] Marco Ciappelli: kid story
[00:26:13] Sean Martin: Yep. So marco chap.com and, uh, sean martin.com.
For all of our goodness. Thanks for, uh, listening, watching, subscribing, sharing, and, uh. Yeah, creating some music and sharing with us. All right. Stay tuned for, uh, stay tuned for the next stuff. Thanks everybody.