Singing the A.I. Blues

The recording industry's future is threatened by artificial intelligence that can mimic the voices and styles of musical artists.

- JEREMY KAHN

FOR FANS OF the reclusive R&B artist Frank Ocean, the short audio clips posted to group chat service Discord in early April were tantalizing. They purported to be leaked studio tracks from Ocean, who hasn't released a full studio album since 2016 but has teased a forthcoming new project.

Ocean-obsessed music collectors offered to buy the tracks for thousands of dollars to get them before everyone else. There was only one problem: The tracks were fakes, created with a new kind of artificial intelligence that is sending shock waves through the music industry and raising thorny questions about ethics, copyright, and how artists can protect their personal brand.

These so-called musical deepfakes have exploded in number because in the past six months, the technology to make realistic imitations of someone's voice has become widely accessible and inexpensive. This is a potential nightmare for the recording industry. If current trends continue unchecked, artists could lose control over their sound and their earnings. Meanwhile, record labels risk losing profits.

The new reality for the music industry is part of a broader shake-up in the entertainment industry wrought by increasingly sophisticated A.I. The technology is already used by movie studios for special effects. In the future, studios hope to also enlist it to write scripts and provide voices for actors-all of which comes with serious legal considerations.

For now, the music industry's legal protections against A.I. mimicry are uncertain. The phenomenon is so new that there are no laws that specifically address it or case rulings to serve as a guide.

"Anyone who tells you that the legal implications are clear, one way or the other, is making stuff up," says Neil Turkewitz, a former Recording Industry Association of America executive who has emerged as one of the leading critics of how today's generative A.I. has been developed.