> Are people asking for this to exist? There isn't a big enough pool of talented humans willing to work for low pay, that music needs to be made even cheaper and soullessly?

Hiring someone is work and takes effort, and can take a few tries. People, especially solo creators, generally don't want to bother, and are excited at what they can now do without requiring people to fill in skills they haven't acquired. This ironically goes for creatives as well!

I think it's been telling past week, when Astra demonstrated a step change in 3D modeling/art abilities. I have a few friends who are indie game devs, and who had been excited about AI because it allows them to create without requiring programmers all of a sudden. And they reacted with dismay to Astra - like what many programmers were feeling two years ago. But previously they had not quite been able to empathize and were in no way hiding their enthusiasm about making games without being handicapped by programmer inavailability.

This won't replace pop stars; those remain analog because they sell better. This is why South Korea for example went all-in on the idol system of kpop: South Korea had pervasive broadband before most other markets, so when MP3 came along physical album sales crashed over night. Music companies shifted to the most analog product they could think of: People. (I'm almost literally quoting J.Y. Park.)

It might well replace the session musician you hire to sing the demo tape that's delivered to those pop stars to model their performance on, though.

The moral debate also isn't entirely new to music production, with software emulations having replaced many physical instruments and having put plenty of instrument or gear makers out of work.

Counter-example: This is pre-AI, but I also have a friend who runs a very successful small company in a niche he's all but cornered. When he started he needed a programmer, and he found this almost-no-cost kid working from his parents' home in a small village in Argentina on a platform like Fiverr or something. It worked out so well he offered to make him a 50% partner, and now they're both incredibly well off and the kid, now in his 30s, is the richest man in his village. This could be you, but chances are you'll give the money to Sama or ElevenLabs because it's the path of least resistance.