will.i.am has joined in sharing his own 2 cents on the state of artificial intelligence (AI) in music.
Over the past few months, online debates have sparked on whether AI is the future of music. From people creating viral songs with Drake’s and The Weeknd’s voices to those releasing an AI-generated “Travis Scott album,” the trend has been seemingly nonstop.
During an interview with SiriusXM, will.i.am broke down his viewpoint on the music industry as a whole, which has three levels of industries within it: touring, publishing, and recording. The rapper believes an incoming fourth industry will be accessible to anyone with a voice, which he believes is a bigger issue for concern than just AI-generated tracks.
“Everyone’s compromised because there are no rights or ownership to your facial math or your voice frequency,” will.i.am said. “Forget songs. Banks, people calling up your bank pretending to be you…Just family matters and wiring money.”
He continued, “You getting a FaceTime or a Zoom call and because there’s no spatial intelligence on a call, there’s nothing to authenticate if this is an AI call or a person call.”
During the course of the interview, will.i.am emphasized that the urgent matter is protecting one’s facial math rather than what’s been in the headlines regarding AI-generated music.
“I don’t own that,” he said. “I own the rights to ‘I Gotta Feeling.’ I own the rights to the songs that I wrote, but I don’t own the rights to my face or my voice? There’s new laws and new industries about to [boom]. And this time next year you’ll be like, ‘Oh, will.i.am said that on that radio station.’ The fact is these are all new parameters that we’re all trying to navigate around because the technology is that amazing. And with amazingness comes regulations and governance that we have yet to implement on the tech.”
While there have yet to be regulations on AI-generated music, companies are fighting back. As previously reported by AfroTech, Universal Music Group requested that streaming services block AI from having access to copyrighted content.