AI Artists

Should This Be A Thing ?

In the past week I read two articles about artificial intelligence that got my attention.  

The first was about a recently released song that made its way to number 1 on the Billboard Country Charts. This song, entitled, “Walk My Walk” was generated entirely by AI, was credited to a fictional artist named “Breaking Rust”, who didn’t exist two months ago and whose avatar is depicted as white.  The ethnicity of the avatar is important because it turns out the song was developed based on the voice and stylistic DNA from someone who does exist: Grammy-nominated country artist Blanco Brown, a Black music artist who has worked with Britney Spears, Childish Gambino and Rihanna.  Blanco Brown had no knowledge of the song, and he didn’t have any idea his voice and DNA were used to create this song.   He didn’t learn about the chart-topping AI track until his phone was flooded with messages from friends. “My phone just kept blowing up,” he said.  This is the latest example of how AI is upending the music industry, giving anyone the ability to instantly create new songs by typing prompts into a chat window, often using AI models trained on real artists’ voices and styles without their knowledge. The credits for the track “Walk My Walk” list Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor as one of the song’s creators, with streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify identifying him as both the songwriter and producer. Another person from Blanco Brown’s past seems to be connected with the AI-generated song: Abraham Abushmais,  who co-wrote a couple of songs on Brown’s 2019 album “Honeysuckle & Lightning Bugs”.  Brown wasn’t notified about their involvement in the AI hit,  and the collaborator (Abushmaius) that he once mentored, has since become unreachable. “Abe’s number changed,” Brown said. “We used to talk. I ain’t heard from him in a year or two.” The Associated Press reached out to Abushmais for comment but did not receive a response. The digital avatar fronting “Walk My Walk,” a white, AI-generated country singer built with a vocal approach modeled on Brown’s sound, is when this incident shifted from creepy to uncomfortable. “It’s a white AI man with a Black voice,” Brown said. “And he’s singing like a Negro spiritual.”  Brown could argue this was theft on the part of Abushais, but it’s uncertain if the current laws will afford Brown justice from Abushais’ egregious act because the United States doesn't have a complete set of AI laws or regulations. 

The other AI story was uncovered by CBS News this week when it reported on an AI-generated actress named Tilly Norwood.  News of the AI actress triggered a range of reactions, from Whoopi Goldberg ("Bring it on, because you can always tell them from us"), to Emily Blunt ("Good Lord, we're screwed"). The creator of Tilly Norwood, Eline van der Velden, says she did not expect the backlash: "No, not at all. But at the same time, I had created her to become a global superstar."  Van der Velden, a former actor and comedian, felt AI is ready for closer examination – saving money, and adding creativity. "I was just trying to educate those industry individuals about what's possible," she said. Creating Tilly Norwood took van der Velden's team thousands of iterations, which included teaching the avatar to  act.  In an interview this past July with the British publication Broadcast International, van der Velden made the following statement, "We want Tilly Norwood to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman, that's the aim of what we're doing."

"Yeah, the Scarlett Johansson of the AI genre," she further clarified. "I think that was what was missed. There was a lot of misinformation. She's not meant to take real acting jobs in the traditional film and TV industry. She's meant to stay in her own AI genre, and that's where we want her to stay." Despite that intention she says her firm has fielded requests for Tilly to appear in a film opposite real actors. "We have said no to any offers," van der Velden said.

Not everyone sees it that way.  "There's a difference between pushing the envelope and tearing it up", said Sean Astin, who is the president of SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union, where Tilly Norwood has struck a nerve about the state of AI. Asked what Tilly represents to him, Astin replied, "Avatar and character seem like fair labels. Calling her an actress, not so much. She simply will not replace our people."  Astin went on to say that in Hollywood artificial intelligence feels like a tsunami: "The onslaught of AI products and AI technology and its uses is overwhelming”.

For the actors’ union, protections against artificial intelligence were a major point of contention in the 2023 strike, and Astin says safeguarding a performer's name, image and likeness from being harvested without compensation is a top priority going forward. "Eline has every right to use open source, publicly available, legal information to build her creative things," he said. "My issue and our company's issue is with the companies that design those systems and scrape the internet and ingest them. They're not allowed to do that." Astin applauds producers who are trying to push the creative envelope using AI. But, he adds, "There's a difference between pushing the envelope and tearing it up. If you push the envelope, you say, 'Hey, how can human-centered artistry collaborate with this technology to achieve some communication that feels good to an audience?' And then there's like, 'Oh, by the way, we think it's cheaper, easier, and you know, we don't want to hire you as an actor.'"

"Is it a friend, or is it a foe?"  Those are noble comments from Astin, who is trying to defend his constituency of real human actors, but this position shows a lack of understanding of AI.  Astin needs to understand that by definition AI uses real data, which includes images, mannerisms and vocal tone and patterns, to create content.  So if Astin applauds producers “pushing the envelope”, he needs to understand that means using other actors’ intellectual property. Either you support the use of AI in films and TV, or you don’t.  

Already, AI-generated scenes have appeared in TV series like Amazon's "House of David." There are AI commercials, and over the summer, an AI model appeared in an ad in Vogue magazine for the first time.

For producers, facing increases in production budgets, AI has triggered a range of reactions. Former entertainment executive Kevin Reilly explains: "Excitement, confusion, fear, trying to figure out how to use this, he said. "It is, in my opinion, very much a friend. It is the most transformative thing that's happened maybe in the history of Man." Reilly is now something of an AI evangelist. He's the new CEO of Kartel.ai, a Beverly Hills startup that makes AI videos and ad campaigns. "Everything comes with a downside," he said. "But that is not the reason to just categorically be fearful of this." I asked, "How much of this is driven by studios and streaming platforms and brands wanting to just save money?" "Yeah, I think it's not necessarily, 'Hey, we wanna save money,'" said Reilly.

There is a tug of war between artificial intelligence ("This tech is here. It's not gonna go anywhere. How can we use it as a force for good?" asks Eline van der Velden) and humanity ("Artificial intelligence will never replace us, ever," says Sean Astin), where the outcome is far from certain. 

Turning back to the incident of “music theft”, Blanco Brown’s management said his response to the AI song is a direct challenge to the legal, ethical and policy void surrounding AI-generated music. He wants to use his own experience to force the industry and lawmakers to confront who owns art and what happens when technology outpaces the rights of the human creators it imitates.  This yet another example of how the United States is falling behind in regulating AI. 

For musicians the success of “Walk My Walk” made one thing clear: AI-generated music has moved quickly from a technology experiment to an industry disruptor.  “We are entering a very strange and unprecedented period of both creation and industry,” said Josh Antonuccio, director of the Ohio University Music Industry Summit. “AI has essentially democratized the act of music creation itself.”  That democratization has come with no guardrails. Major record labels sued Suno and Udio — two most popular AI song generators — accusing them of training their models on copyrighted recordings without permission. “These companies trained their platforms on a volume of recorded music without permission,” Antonuccio said. “It leaves creators in this strange purgatory where they’re not getting compensated.”

Some labels have now shifted from lawsuits to negotiation. Universal Music Group recently settled a copyright infringement lawsuit with Udio and signed a new licensing agreement with the platform. Warner Music Group followed with its own deal on Tuesday, partnering with Suno in what the companies called a “first-of-its-kind” agreement to develop licensed AI music that both compensates and protects artists. “There’s no accountability mechanism at the moment,” he said. The sudden success of “Walk My Walk” also raises questions about the tools enabling it.

Bottom Line 

Blanco Brown has a right to be angry, even though he’s not.  He was blatantly robbed by an artificial entity that was operated by a former colleague of his.  The offense is clear-cut, and having listened to the AI generated song, there is no way to tell it’s not recorded by a real person. But in the meantime, the AI artist reaps real dollars from record sales and digital streams of the “fake” song.  The saving grace for Brown is that when music audiences wants to see a live performance of the song, they can’t - there won’t be a true “live” performance of the song - you’ll either have a laptop playing the song, or you’ll have an avatar image that tries to look like a real person, but isn’t.   And, this brings us to the other story of AI actors.  I have yet to see an image of a person, either as a still picture or a motion video, where the AI rendering doesn’t look fake.  The edges are too sharp, the colours are too vibrant…it doesn’t look real. 

The final say is in the hands of the consumer.  They don’t have to watch films or TV that consist of AI actors. I want real actors to portray the characters I watch. And, they don’t have to purchase and listen to music created by AI musicians.  I don’t want to listen to music generated by a technical genius who knows how to operate an AI agent, but who has zero musical talent.  

Many thanks to Jo Ling Kent of CBS News and Jonathan Landrum Jr. of AP News, who did the reporting I drew upon for this article.