Was the song “I Run” created using AI, and was Jorjia Smith ever even on the track?
A song that spread across TikTok has been criticized by fans and industry giants for its use of AI.
The song, “I Run,” exploded on social media in October and was heading for the UK and US charts before it was banned by industry organizations.
The track has since been reuploaded with vocals from a real female artist after the producers of “I Run” said that they used AI to transform the male vocalist's voice into a soulful female voice, as per an X post found by the BBC.
“We just used AI to give our original vocal a female tone,” producer Waypoint said in response.
The song was produced by Harrison Walker, aka Haven, and Jacob Donaghue, under the alias Waypoint.
The original vocals were originally one of the producers, but were heavily manipulated using Suno, a platform that allows users to create music using AI.
The platform has battled against copyright infringement claims, stating that while its model is trained on copyrighted music, it uses this data under fair use standards.
Suno has been hit with various lawsuits from industry titans like Warner Records, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music, according to Music Business Worldwide.
Following the news that both producers used AI to create the track, Brit Award-winning artist Jorjia Smith’s record label said that it wants to receive royalties from “I Run,” the BBC reports.
This is because FAMM, Smith’s record label, believes that the vocals were an AI clone of Smith’s voice.
The label said in an Instagram post that artists are currently in “uncharted territory” as “AI is all around us and already impacting the way we consume music.”
“This isn’t about Jorjia. It’s bigger than one artist or one song,” the post continued.
FAMM suggested that Harrison misled listeners by making the vocal sound like Smith's while using her name without permission, making it appear as though Smith’s vocals were on the track.
The track was eventually reuploaded using human vocalist Kaitlin Aragon, but the label still wasn’t happy.
“We still believe both versions of the track infringe on Jorjia’s rights and unfairly take advantage of the work of all of the songwriters with whom she collaborates,” the post said.
Human vocalist speaks out following backlash
Prompted by the upheaval, Aragon took to social media and insisted that she is, in fact, a real person.
The Instagram post shows Aragon singing “I Run” with the caption “in case you’re wondering who the vocalist behind 'I Run' is.”
However, this seemed to mislead users as this post came after the original track, which Cybernews was unable to access, had been taken down.
“Wait, you were the actual singer for that? There was a rumor that it's AI, hence been taken down from streaming platforms,” one Instagram user responded.
“Yeah, it's sad the track had to become viral to force the "artist’s" label to take it down and finally hire a vocalist instead of using an AI copying Jorja Smith's voice,” said another user.
FAQ
Who are the producers behind the song?
The track was produced by two separate UK producers, Haven (Harrison Walker) and Waypoint (Jacob Donaghue).
Was the song created using artificial intelligence?
Waypoint said that it used artificial intelligence to feminize the vocals, which were originally sung by one of the producers.
What happened to “I Run” on Spotify?
The original song was removed from streaming platforms due to it being partially created using AI. The track has since been uploaded with human vocals.
What is the name of the real singer in “I Run”?
While it's been argued that the original song's vocals were cloned from Jorjia Smith, the reupload features the human artist Kaitlin Aragon.
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