Artists rise against AI: stop devaluing our music


Artists are demanding that AI developers, tech companies, platforms, and digital music services pledge not to develop AI music technology, as it undermines the rights of human creativity.

More than 200 artists signed the petition by the Artists Rights Alliance, demanding a halt to the use of AI to train their creative work without permission and proper compensation, as it infringes the rights of human artists.

Stevie Wonder, Robert Smith, Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, R.E.M., Peter Frampton, Jon Batiste, Katy Perry, Sheryl Crow, Smokey Robinson, and the estates of Bob Marley and Frank Sinatra are among the artists who signed the petition.

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While in their statement, the artists acknowledge that AI has “enormous potential to advance human creativity,” however, according to them, some of the tech platforms are using AI to “sabotage creativity and undermine” artists, songwriters, musicians, and rightsholders.

Artists claim that the current trend is aiming to replace the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-generated content that will dilute the royalty pools that are paid to artists.

“When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identity, our music, and our livelihoods,” reads the statement.

“This assault on human creativity must be stopped. We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators' rights, and destroy the music ecosystem.”

Musicians are not the only ones protesting against the AI. Last year Hollywood scriptwriters held a five-month-long strike to protest against AI being used in writers' rooms to replace human writers.

A tentative agreement has been reached between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to limit the use of AI to write scripts.

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