While acknowledging that “AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity,” the letter, signed by an array of industry professionals representing nearly all genres, warns that “some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rightsholders.” AI development is seeing exponential growth, far outpacing regulatory guardrails many argue are needed to protect humans and how society functions. AI systems are already capable of cloning the voices of singers and rappers, as well as producing instrumental tracks indistinguishable from human-produced music. “When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music and our livelihoods,” the open letter states. Signatories to the letter, which include Benny the Butcher, Billie Eilish, Darius Rucker, J Balvin, Ja Rule, Jess Glyne, Katy Perry, Miranda Lambert, Nicki Minaj, Norah Jones, Pearl Jam, Q-Tip, Sheryl Crow, and Stevie Wonder, argue that companies are already using AI to engage in exploitative behaviors that reduce compensation for artists, producers, and writers. “Some of the biggest and most powerful companies are, without permission, using our work to train AI models,” the letter states. “These efforts are directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-created ‘sounds’ and ‘images’ that substantially dilute the royalty pools that are paid out to artists. For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.” The music industry is washed in countless AI technology platforms focused on everything from online music mastering, to extracting vocal and instrument sounds from a fully produced song, and even generating instrument sounds from a person humming into a microphone on their device. By the end of 2022, an estimated 30 percent of new music on streaming platforms was generated or heavily influenced by AI-assisted composition tools. “Unchecked, AI will set in motion a race to the bottom that will degrade the value of our work and prevent us from being fairly compensated for it,” artists warn in the open letter.More than 200 music artists have signed an open letter calling for a halt to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the music industry.
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