AI is taking over industries around the world, leading to conversations about ethics and responsibility. One of the newly infiltrated areas is the music industry. On Monday, November 17, the #1 and #3 most downloaded country songs were written and sung by Artificial Intelligence.
The 1st place song, ‘Walk My Walk’, is a computer generated blue-country mix that was created by the AI country singer Breaking Rustasts. This song lasts a total of three minutes and 32 seconds, and has helped Breaking Rust obtain around 2.7 million monthly views on Spotify.
The 3rd place song, “Don’t Treat on Me” was written by an R&B AI singer Cain Walker, helping the artist gain 1.1 million listeners.
However, these aren’t the only instances of AI in the music industry. At least six AI or AI-assisted artists have debuted over the past several months, reaching positions on charts, and it’s extremely likely that number could be much higher. And on top of that, some have even gone as far as to sign multimillion-dollar record deals.
The recent rise to fame has led to controversy both amongst people in the industry as well as listeners. Most musical professionals feel that it isn’t fair that someone can push a few buttons to create a musical sensation when artists dedicate long hours to training and developing music.
In addition, most adults can’t tell the difference between AI-generated and real music, heightening the issues. If people don’t know which is which then it’s extremely likely that AI will continue to take over the music industry and replace actual artists.
While it can be very hard to differentiate between the two, there are some key features of AI-generated music that can help listeners.
AI-generated music tends to stick to generic chorus-verse structures and oftentimes don’t have satisfying endings. In addition, AI music isn’t very creative and tends to follow correct grammatics, preventing emotional reactions to the music.
Another tell-tale sign is an un-natural productivity level. If the artist releases an unrealistic amount of music in a short period of time, it’s possible that their music is AI-generated.
The rise of AI-generated songs is already having a major impact on the music industry and artists and listeners around the world should be aware of its prevalence.
