A song created entirely through artificial intelligence has made history by topping a Billboard country music chart, and sending shock waves through the industry.<\/p>\n
\n WTOP’s Nick Iannelli spoke with ABC News correspondent Alex Stone to discuss an AI-generated song that’s shaking up critics and the music industry.<\/p>\n
A song created entirely through artificial intelligence has made history by topping a Billboard country music chart and sending shock waves through the industry.<\/p>\n
The track, called \u201cWalk My Walk,\u201d hit Number One on Billboard\u2019s Country Digital Song Sales Chart. The success has sparked heated debate among artists and fans about what this means for the future of music. WTOP talked with ABC News correspondent Alex Stone about the AI-generated song, and discussed people\u2019s reactions.<\/p>\n
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.<\/p>\n
Nick Iannelli: <\/p>\n
When people hear that country AI song that\u2019s new, do they know it\u2019s fake?<\/p>\n
Alex Stone: <\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s hard to tell. So, it\u2019s the most downloaded country song right now, coming from the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart.<\/p>\n
This song is called \u201cWalk My Walk\u201d by an artist called Breaking Rust, and it\u2019s been downloaded over 3 million times in less than a month. It\u2019s beating out actual humans right now for the top spot on the Billboard charts.<\/p>\n
Nick Iannelli: <\/p>\n
It\u2019s one thing if you\u2019re seeking out AI-generated music, you know what you\u2019re getting.<\/p>\n
But if you\u2019re expecting real human beings and real music, and then you get AI music starting to creep into your actual listening experience, that can be disturbing for people.<\/p>\n
Alex Stone: <\/p>\n
This is all the talk on social media right now, because it\u2019s getting mixed reactions in the industry. Some people are saying, \u2018Hey, this is the future.\u2019 Others are saying, \u2018This is terrible.\u2019 Some believe it\u2019s an experiment.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s all over social media. Billboard says Breaking Rust is, in fact, an AI artist, and that it\u2019s one of at least six artists to chart in the past six months alone who are AI. There have been some R&B and Gospel music artists as well.<\/p>\n
One has amassed over 44 million streams. That\u2019s created by a songwriter who then, instead of having somebody perform it, just puts it in the computer and has the AI create the actual song after the songwriter does it.<\/p>\n
But, we were talking about Tilly Norwood a couple of weeks ago \u2014 a 100% AI-generated actress whose creators were going out to agents to try to cast her in movies. She looks incredibly real, and real Hollywood was freaking out about it, saying, \u2018This is not cool. This is not good.\u2019<\/p>\n
So you\u2019ve got it in the music industry and the movie industry as well. And companies say, hey, in the future, they don\u2019t have to deal with humans who have demands and want to get paid and get royalties and need breaks and have vocal problems and all of that. You don\u2019t have to deal with any of it.<\/p>\n
But on the other side of it, do consumers find it creepy? And I mean, at least based on the download numbers right now on \u201cWalk My Walk,\u201d unless it\u2019s just people checking it out to see what it\u2019s all about, it seems that the song is popular among people and they\u2019re downloading it. It\u2019s now No. 1 on the chart.<\/p>\n
There are others who are saying, \u2018Who cares? If you can\u2019t tell that it\u2019s AI and it\u2019s good music or a good movie performance, then who really cares?\u2019 But there\u2019s the other school saying, \u2018No, that\u2019s creepy, if you don\u2019t know.\u2019<\/p>\n
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