AI Singers Are Unnervingly Good and Already Ubiquitous

[highplainsdem]

From New York magazine's entertainment-and-culture outlet Vulture:

https://www.vulture.com/article/ai-singers-drake-the-weeknd-voice-clones.html

In 2021, five musicians from Hastings, England, noticed a hole in the market. “There were no massive rock bands making huge, catchy, stadium-worthy anthems,” says guitarist Chris Woodgates. So they started a group called Breezer and hit the recording studio. “We shared our songs with friends, and everybody told us, ‘This could be the new Oasis,’” says drummer Jon Claire. But while tracks like “Alive” and “Forever” bore the obvious influence of Noel Gallagher’s early songwriting, and front man Bobby Geraghty sang through his nose like Liam Gallagher, Oasis-size success never materialized. “Breezer didn’t quite get the momentum we’d hoped for,” says Claire. They played their final live show last summer, or so they thought.

Then something weird happened. A few weeks ago, Geraghty was surfing YouTube and came across a series of videos in which someone had used brand-new generative-AI software to mimic Liam’s voice and swap it into Oasis songs that had originally been sung by Noel. The results — on tracks such as “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Half the World Away” — were uncanny. “I thought, Oh my God. I didn’t even know this was possible,” says Geraghty. “But it sparked something in my imagination, and I wondered what it would be like to hear Liam sing our songs.”

Geraghty watched a tutorial on the software and went to work replacing his own voice in eight Breezer tracks with an AI-generated model of Liam’s. He uploaded the new versions to YouTube under the name AISIS, billing them as an “alternate-reality concept album” by Oasis’s classic mid-’90s lineup.

AISIS immediately went viral, amassing 300,000 streams in a week. To many listeners, it sounded like the record they’ve wanted the real Oasis to make for years. (The band has been obstinately broken up since 2009.) Even Liam himself approved. “It’s better than all the other snizzle out there,” he tweeted. “I sound mega.”

-snip-

Much more at the link.

Re Liam being okay with this - I suspect that might have something to do with AISIS, using his voice, having upstaged his brother Noel's single released a few days later, which the article mentions in the next paragraph.

I've been posting about the AI threat to singers, musicians and the recording industry for a while now, here in GD as well as in the Musicians and Music Appreciation groups.

I ran across discussions of AISIS two weeks ago on Steve Hoffman's music forum. Along with a thread on a Wired article about AI-generated music flooding steaming platforms:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/wired-article-ai-generated-music-is-about-to-flood-streaming-platforms-is-this-the-end-of-music.1173093/

I didn't post about it here because

1) there are way more very worrisome articles about AI than I could ever post, and

2) I found it both infuriating and depressing to read replies on a music forum from people who are supposedly music fans but don't care if AI takes over. With "fans" like those, artists don't need enemies.

Some people involved in the arts don't see how much of a threat this is. I saw an article recently where two filmmakers happily imagined a future where anyone can have personal AI generate any sort of film they want. They imagined a guy who's depressed coming home after a rough day at work and telling his AI to generate a rom-com starring himself and Marilyn Monroe to cheer him up. The filmmakers were smart enough not to mention a living, still-working actor or actress, since many of them are well aware of the threat from AI. They didn't mention that AI will be used - already is being used - to generate XXX porn, either.

And they didn't seem to think their own jobs might also be threatened.

The people pushing AI generally seem to feel their own jobs will be safe. Which is delusional.

[Beakybird]

1. What's the software?

[highplainsdem]

4. Using it is unethical.

[Beakybird]

7. I'm an amateur with no ambition to monetize.

I just want to hear how my song would sound with a great voice.
This isn't unethical.

[highplainsdem]

10. There are almost certainly local singers in your community with

great voices who'd be happy to sing your song. And if you did a YouTube video - which is easy these days - and it got attention, it would be good for both of you.

[Bonx]

14. Software/process

[Lancero]

2. Anyone else remember how Auto Tune was going to destroy the music industry?

[highplainsdem]

3. Not the same thing.

[Bonx]

12. I thought it was sampling that would do everything in

[shrike3]

15. I believe it was in 1982 that Pete Townsend said microchips would replace guitars in 15 years.

So much for that.

That said, platforms from which people can download music for free has done a lot of damage.

[Wingus Dingus]

16. It kind of did.

[sakabatou]

5. Newer/updated voice banks of Vocaloids coming?

[highplainsdem]

6. Last thing we need.

[Chainfire]

8. It is called moving into the future.

If you can't tell that it is AI, what difference does it make?

[highplainsdem]

9. Because it's cutting out human artists, and humanity is

important.

How would you feel about posting on DU if you found out that any - or all - of those you were having discussions with were bots?

Would you be fine with human-seeming androids as companions or even sex partners?

Do you want AI lawmakers and officials?

There are people who would call that moving into the future, too.

It's the kind of future usually called dystopian.

And AI music is beginning to hurt real musicians, just as AI-generated text is hurting real writers, professional writers.

[Chainfire]

11. I don't know the answers to your questions until I experience them.

I wouldn't rule it out.

If I was having a conversation with AI and it was a pleasant and intelligent conversation, how would I know and why would I care?

If AI is hurting real musicians, maybe the musicians need to step up their game. Of course, you do realize, that blacksmiths were making the same kinds of arguments at the beginning of the 20th century.

I would rather have an intelligent machine making my laws that MTG, Rick Scott or DeSantis. I can unplug a machine, they would put me in jail if I unplugged MTG, no matter how much she deserved it.

[miyazaki]

17. Heh, if you can't beat em', join em'.

And no, we're not gonna beat em'. For all intents and purposes, the singularity is already upon us.

[Wingus Dingus]

13. I wonder what the legal/copyright issues are surrounding this--

say, if you wanted to use Kurt Cobain's voice on your song. It's not really his voice, he has nothing to do with it. Is that legal? Interesting.