AI music backlash: 200+ artists demand end to AI-driven music

AI music is facing backlash. In an open letter on Medium.com organized by the Artists’ Rights Alliance, over 200 musicians took part including Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, and Frank Sinatra’s estate, raising concerns about AI’s predatory use within the music industry.

AI music backlash is stirring the web as 200+ artists join together to stop AI-driven music

AI adoption devoid of control may be dangerous in music production, as pointed out by the artists in an open letter organized by the Artist Rights Alliance. The musicians warn that if not properly regulated, Artificial Intelligence could lead to a “race to the bottom” and undermine human songwriters and artists’ craft.

According to BBC, artists are concerned that tech giants like YouTube are experimenting with AI-based tools for creating music because they believe that this might infringe on creative rights and devalue their work. These companies want these organizations to pledge not to create AI that could replace or undermine human creativity or deny fair payment to creators of art.

Taking into consideration such trends Tom Kiehl from UK Music gave unauthorized use of works belonging to musicians as training data for AI “music laundering.” For him, it’s important for artists to give their consent and get proper credit as well as remuneration due to them having contributed to AI systems.

When a song made by AI mimicking Drake and The Weeknd went viral, the question became prominent. Moreover, Drake did not like the song because this was an example of the challenges that musicians face when trying to defend their work against AI-generated products. Sting also insisted on keeping the human touch in music production saying that “the musical building blocks are ours.”

Some artists still support AI, saying it’s a great tool to generate copyright-free tracks

However, there are musicians who support AI in music. For instance, Grimes has encouraged her fans to create tracks with her voice using AI without infringing copyright while offering to share royalties for successful songs created by AI. David Guetta is another musician who supports the use of artificial intelligence tools.

Hence, it can be seen that the arguments concerning artificial intelligence and music have been illusory and must consider moral implications as well as safeguarding artists’ intellectual property rights. Recently BBC has asked Google for its comments on this topic.