Will The Music Industry Embrace AI? Musician Grimes Invites People To Make AI Songs Using Her Voice

Canadian Artist Grimes Allows People To Make AI Songs Using Her Voice

On 24th April 2023, Claire Boucher, stage name Grimes, via a tweet, welcomed musicians, or rather, AI model users to generate and create new songs with her voice using Artificial Intelligence.

Grimes tweeted, “I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI-generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist I Collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”

The Canadian artist went on to add that she is currently working on software that will be able to simulate her voice well. She also added that she is open to releasing vocal tracks for people to use to train AI models.

Grimes’ announcement comes about a week after the release of a controversial AI song using the voices of Drake and The Weeknd titled “Heart On My Sleeve.” Generative AI models have taken the world by storm over the past few months. They have had several sectors in turmoil including education, art, music, and even politics.

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In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of AI-generated tracks that feature vocals from popular artists including the likes of Drake, Kanye West, Ice Spice, Michael Jackson, and many others. Many have used AI models to produce covers of popular songs while others have written and generated entirely new songs using the vocals of a separate artist.

However, the problem AI poses to the music industry, became clear when “Heart On My Sleeve was released with almost indistinguishable vocals from those of The Weeknd and Drake. The song was posted on several platforms and gained millions of views before being taken down due to copyright infringement.

Following the attention gathered by the “fake” song, Drake’s record label, Universal Music Group (UMG) was quick to respond. The label called for the song as well as other AI-generated songs to be banned from music streaming platforms.

In a statement, the label noted, “The training of generative AI using our artists’ music” was “a violation of copyright law”. Despite the song being removed swiftly from the platforms, there is no legal backing as of yet, to back UMG’s claims.

Another issue that has plagued AI models, is their use to spread violent, anti-semitic, and even politically biased productions. To this end, many models have resorted to banning and even restricting some words and prompts. For example, the image generation AI model, Midjourney has banned the word “arrest”.

When questioned on what she would do if people were to use her voice to produce violent and antisemitic songs, Grimes said, “(I) may do copyright takedowns ONLY for rly rly toxic lyrics” or if the songs were “anti-abortion or [something] like that,” The Guardian reports.

“That’s the only rule… [I] don’t wanna be responsible for a Nazi anthem unless it’s somehow in jest, a la Producers I guess,” she added.

However, there is an issue with her response on the cause of action if there was such a case. In March the US Copyright Office made a ruling that it is impossible to copyright AI-generated art (including music) since it is “not the product of human authorship.”

The music industry like many others, finds itself in unchartered waters as far as the use of AI is concerned. While Music labels are adamant in fighting AI, it is clear that there are those, like Grimes, who have (or will) decided to embrace the chaos.

Grimes, who has 2 children with Twitter CEO and developer of X.AI Elon Musk is in no way new to AI and she has utilized it before. She worked with the music label Endel in 2020 to produce an AI-generated lullaby for her baby X Æ A-12.

She remarked, “I think AI is great,” to the New York Times. In terms of creativity, I believe AI can take the place of people. Therefore, I believe that as a species, we should eventually discuss how much AI will influence the arts.

Will more artists follow in Grimes’ footsteps or will they view AI as the antagonist to their careers, only time will tell.