Hardly a week goes by without ChatGPT mentioned in a news article about its use or potential use in many different areas of our lives, like education. It’s very 2023.

But AI is not new - it’s been talked about and pondered for decades. The term artificial intelligence was coined in 1956 when the creators of The Logic Theorist presented their program designed to mimic the problem solving skills of a human at the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence – a summer workshop widely considered to be the founding event of artificial intelligence as a field.  

But like a lot of technical advancements made over the last 70 years, we often don’t understand until too late the consequences, or question their value, to our lives, or work places or the future of industries. We just leave it to the futurists to guide what we think - until it directly impacts us.

The music industry is beginning to understand the impact and threat of fake songs. They can’t move fast enough on this issue. AI has the potential to be the biggest disruptor of the industry since Napster.

Last October, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) warned that AI companies were violating copyrights by using artist’s music to train their machines. But what use is a warning?

In April this year, a song called Heart on my Sleeve featuring AI-generated vocals purporting to be Drake and The Weekend was launched on streaming services. It was later removed from TikTok, Spotify and YouTube for ‘infringing content created with generative AI’, but not before it had racked up 600,000 Spotify streams, 15m TikTok views and 275,000 YouTube views.

It’s not the first time Drake has had to deal with fake AI versions of himself. It is unlikely to be the last.

The music industry has to take this issue seriously. Artists deserve to be compensated for their talent and their creativity. They own – or someone does – the rights to the music they produce, and others shouldn’t be able to benefit from it.

A work of art, be it a song or a novel, is a series of creative decisions made by humans. People relate to them because they’re personal. Talking to my kids, who only know a digital world, and even they scorn fake songs.

Why would we listen to one they say? Songs only mean something because they come from an artist they relate to or respect on some level. Fake songs have no power according to them. And they’re teenagers.

This week, Tom Hanks came out and spoke about how he believes AI means there’s a genuine possibility he could keep appearing in movies after he’s dead. Now I love Tom Hanks, his body of work is impressive and if he passed tomorrow he would leave an incredible legacy – but importantly, it’s currently a legacy that he is responsible for. We don’t need him to continue working forever, with other people making decisions about his performance. It wouldn’t really be Tom Hanks acting.  

I’ve spent the last few days at the Auckland Writers Festival hearing from some incredible authors who all write about completely different subjects, in completely different tones and writing styles, and with their unique and incredible visions and talent. Sure, a programme could study an author and mimic them – but would we want to read endless versions of the same book over and over?

So it’s complex and wacky; but for anyone who has been moved by a book, a song, a movie, or an actor’s performance, we feel that way because of heart and authenticity, a term thrown about a lot but in this case absolutely appropriate.

I hope the intellectual property lawyers and creative industries get their head around this as quickly as possible.

For the artists’ sake, and for the fans.

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