Musicians are getting really tired of this AI clone ‘bullshit’

This is how musicians, producers and others in the industry describe the relentless spread of AI clones. Of course, AI fakes are nothing new, but as scammers become more brazen, artists are responding with increasing fury.

We got a taste of this in 2023 with several AI Drake tracks. But over the past two years, the problem has gotten worse. From Beyoncé to experimental composer William Basinski, fake songs, likely generated by AI, appear to be playing alongside their names. And this week, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard found themselves the latest target. Frontman Stu Mackenzie responded angrily, but also with resignation, saying Music“we are truly doomed.”

Spotify has taken steps to address the issue, formalizing its anti-spoofing policy and removing 75 million spam tracks from its service. But the scale of the problem and the way the system currently works make it difficult to control. Deezer claims that 50,000 AI-generated tracks are uploaded to its library every day, representing more than 34% of the music it ingests.

Bad actors take advantage of the fact that music is not uploaded directly to Spotify and several other streamers; instead, it goes through a third-party distribution service like DistroKid. It’s unclear what controls, if any, are in place to ensure that someone who uploads a song is who they say they are. (DistroKid did not respond to a request for comment.)

That’s how the apparently AI-generated reggaeton song ended up on the Spotify page of William Basinski, an artist who specializes in ambient pieces built around the sounds of colliding black holes, ruined tape loops, and shortwave radio broadcasts. “It’s total bullshit,” he said The edge. “Luckily my label and distributors keep an eye on this nonsense… What a waste.”

The response from Here We Go Magic’s Luke Temple, whose dormant group was reactivated by AI impostors, was similar. Here We Go Magic hasn’t released new music since 2015, but after an AI track made its way onto the band’s Spotify page, Temple said NPR that, “it’s so horrible”. Similarly, when an AI-generated song called “Name This Night” appeared on the band Toto’s Spotify page in July, guitarist Steve Lukather called it “shameless” in a statement to Ultimate Classic Rock.

Now, it’s possible that some of these fakes aren’t AI, but AI makes producing them much faster and easier. Although Suno is designed to ignore artist-specific prompts, it’s still easy to generate entire songs with just a few words.

Breaking Rust is not a clone of any specific artist, but Blanco Brown has accused the creator of modeling it after his voice. Brown told P.A. about someone texting him to let him know that “someone typed your name into the AI ​​and created a white version of you. They just used Blanco, not Brown.”

Brown’s manager, Ryan McMahan, took to LinkedIn, saying: “AI can run a formula. It can’t recreate Blanco’s life experience that he draws inspiration from. It can’t recreate the humanity, conviction, or life of emotion that shaped his artistic voice.”

Breaking Rust gained attention by climbing to the top of the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart, resulting in misleading headlines about AI topping the national charts. But these aren’t the Country Streaming Songs or Hot Country Songs charts. The song sales chart measures things like iTunes purchases, and since almost no one buys songs on iTunes anymore, “Walk My Walk” was able to reach the top with just 3,000 purchases. It’s possible that whoever is behind the song simply bought their way to the top.

Solomon Ray, a gospel creation of AI, enjoyed similar chart success and received negative reactions. Christianity today said Ray “has no soul,” a sentiment echoed by Christian artist Forrest Frank, who said on Instagram that “AI doesn’t have the Holy Spirit inside of it… It’s really weird to open your mind to something that doesn’t have a spirit.”

Although Solomon Ray does not appear to be a direct clone, there is a real person, Solomon Ray, who is also a singer and worship leader. Ray (the real one) said Christianity today“How much of your heart do you put into it? If the AI ​​generates it for you, the answer is zero.”

In addition to dealing with AI, some are trying to capitalize on the growing furor. A producer named Haven went viral after not-so-subtly suggesting that a song with AI-manipulated vocals was an unreleased Jorja Smith track. Of course, the singing wasn’t actually Smith’s; they were processed using Suno and the track was removed from streaming services.

Harrison Walker (the man behind Haven) attempted to cash in on the song, re-recording the song and even trying to recruit Smith for a remix. Now, Smith and his label FAMM are demanding royalties from Haven. In a statement on Instagram, FAMM said “creators are collateral damage in governments’ and corporations’ race toward AI dominance.”

The United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) has made no secret of its position, calling AI music “exploitation.” Organizer Joey La Neve DeFrancesco said The edge that “AI has given Spotify and major labels the ability to completely eliminate human artists and the royalties owed to them. The streaming giant and major labels have already made deals with AI music companies.”

As some of the biggest labels like Warner gear up for generative AI companies, musicians have found an ally in iHeartRadio. The company’s president, Tom Poleman, said on Instagram that “music is a uniquely human art form: creativity, storytelling, and soul that no algorithm can truly replicate.” He promised that the company would “never release AI-generated music with synthetic singers pretending to be humans” and “never use AI-generated on-air personalities or podcasters.” “Sometimes you have to choose a side, and we are on the side of the humans,” he concluded.

Holly Herndon is more comfortable with AI than most musicians, having used it extensively, notably on her album. Proto. But even she warned artists to be wary of exploitation. In an episode of The most interesting thing in AI, She said she took many of her concerns about training data and artist rights to some AI companies and “was blown away by the fact that they just weren’t really thinking about this issue, they didn’t think people would be upset about it.”

DeFrancesco says: “It is clear that we need regulation to force streaming services to identify AI content and remove it from streaming royalty pools. » The United Musicians and Allied Workers union is pushing for Congress to pass the Living Wage for Musicians Act, which they say would “protect artists from corporate AI exploitation” by creating a new royalty paid directly to musicians, by streaming platforms, that would “only be paid to human artists.”

For now, it is up to artists and their fans to be vigilant. Because, just like videos and photos, music should be approached with skepticism in the age of AI.