{"id":412523,"date":"2026-01-17T07:59:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412523\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T07:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:59:17","slug":"holly-herndon-says-bandcamps-ai-ban-is-misguided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412523\/","title":{"rendered":"Holly Herndon Says Bandcamp\u2019s AI Ban Is Misguided"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, Bandcamp issued a blanket ban<\/a> on generative AI and deepfake impersonations. This new measure makes Bandcamp an exception on the streaming landscape, were AI music is becoming more and more inescapable. Most of the reactions to this Bandcamp announcement were positive, but one artist who’s not applauding it is Holly Herndon, an experimental artist who has long messed around with what she sees as the artistic possibilities of AI technology. <\/p>\n

Holly Herndon has a PhD from Stanford’s Center For Computer Research In Music And Acoustics, and she made her most recent album. 2019’s PROTO<\/a>, with Spawn, an AI baby created by Herndon and her partner Mat Dryhurst. A few years ago,. Herndon and Dryhurst Dryhurst launched Spawning, a tool that allows artists to choose whether or not their work will be used to train AI, and that work earned them Austria\u2019s first Digital Human Rights Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, in response to Bandcamp’s new policy, Herndon tweeted:<\/p>\n

Putting the ban in bandcamp! <\/p>\n

It is a wicked problem so I understand what they are trying to do. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure the human moderators won\u2019t be banning artists exploring AI, rather I hope will just be looking to filter out soundspam <\/p>\n

The gray area will only get larger<\/p>\n

Putting the ban in bandcamp!<\/p>\n

It is a wicked problem so I understand what they are trying to do. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure the human moderators won\u2019t be banning artists exploring AI, rather I hope will just be looking to filter out soundspam<\/p>\n

The gray area will only get larger https:\/\/t.co\/DVG0ZK7QqN<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 14, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

After getting a negative response too that tweet, Herndon elaborated with a thread<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I understand why Bandcamp is taking this measure but it’s a tourniquet <\/p>\n

The human \/ AI binary is not going to hold, and will become a matter of superficial optics <\/p>\n

I already have more authorship in my models than most pop stars do in their songs <\/p>\n

People will already be using models to generate songs they then put a human filter on <\/p>\n

Artists will integrate generated passages into works they orchestrate, and will soon train their own models <\/p>\n

Another protection might be to flag accounts that post an inhuman amount of content, but that too may seem retrograde <\/p>\n

We live with infinite media now<\/p>\n

I encourage platforms to be more curated, but enforcing a hard human \/ AI binary is not the right way to address this long term <\/p>\n

If an expert uses AI to help them write an article they otherwise would not have the time to complete, it will not be of less substance than a non-expert with time on their hands writing something by hand. <\/p>\n

A practice, or reputation, of thought and work developed over time is the best filter. <\/p>\n

The contemporary demand for 24\/7 content from people is the problem.<\/p>\n

I understand why Bandcamp is taking this measure but it’s a tourniquet<\/p>\n

The human \/ AI binary is not going to hold, and will become a matter of superficial optics<\/p>\n

I already have more authorship in my models than most pop stars do in their songs<\/p>\n

People will already be using\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/GmIZ5jSrDA<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

I encourage platforms to be more curated, but enforcing a hard human \/ AI binary is not the right way to address this long term<\/p>\n

If an expert uses AI to help them write an article they otherwise would not have the time to complete, it will not be of less substance than a\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

She kept going with the conversation, and you can see some of her responses below.<\/p>\n

I will announce if I have been banished<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

it is not destroying the earth.<\/p>\n

It is here for good, so we have to have ideas to live with it. Avoidance will make things much worse.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s fine to disagree but I think that is hyperbolic. Data centers and Gpus are efficient and the models I train use much less energy than if I had played a game<\/p>\n

Models are here forever, denial does more harm than good as anyone close to the field knows this<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

I make tools for people to release work as me without my permission so authenticity is not my concern <\/p>\n

If people argue that those using AI models are less legitimate than those who are not on grounds of authenticity, my argument in the tweet challenges that claim<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Those are complicated issues that differ by location. Increased demand for energy can bring prices down or up depending on capacity, and a gold rush mixed with terrible policy in some areas can cause problems. <\/p>\n

Data centers and Gpus are very efficient, they have to be as the\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Ai models are here for good. Today you can run a Chinese open model locally that competes with gpt 5.<\/p>\n

Every state of the art feature of models today will soon run on your desktop as an open model. It won\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n

Data centers are efficient (energy policy is not) so we can\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not upset!I don\u2019t think it will work.<\/p>\n

We built something that was hard to build! You tweet insults!<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

That is true and I think already is the case for many people (definitely me)<\/p>\n

Performing is a separate economy to passive streaming and competing for attention online which is more vulnerable to cheap media. Arguably performance becomes even more important.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

I agree it is a spam issue<\/p>\n

If someone only posts one song that came out of a model as a final step, how will we know what went into it<\/p>\n

Bandcamp should curate for spam<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 16, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

I think they will too<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think it will be so easy to distinguish soon though<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

it will have to be ok (thanks)<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

By human hours we practically lived in infinite media before too<\/p>\n

It is good to curate environments to be free from spam but the distinction will erode<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

All I said is it is here for good so it is better to not avoid the issue but think of ways to deal with it<\/p>\n

\u2014 Holly Herndon (@hollyherndon) January 15, 2026<\/a>