Grammys CEO: We Expect That AI Songs Will Get Submitted for Nominations This Year
What a mess and further devaluing of the composer, artist, and musician. I know I sound like an old guy complaining about how technology is going to put real musicians out of work, but AI has the potential to literally do that. I have talked about this in other blog posts.
Check out this article in Rolling Stone. AI is making a play in the awards space for music creation and performance. “At this time what we’re doing is continuing to value and celebrate human creation,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. says. Sorry....not buying it Harvey.
- DF
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. walked Rolling Stone through the Grammy's new rules to focus on human creation, plus his conversations with the songwriter behind the viral AI Drake song.
NO TOPIC HAS stolen the music industry’s attention this year more than artificial intelligence. The tech has proven capable of making basic melodies, speeding up the producing process, and helping mimic the vocals of superstars. As record labels, artists, and fans look on both with curiosity and caution about how AI is going to revolutionize music creation, the Grammys weighed in late last week with a significant step for the award show, establishing a new rule that generative AI on its own is not eligible for awards, only human creators. The full language of the new rule is here.
To be clear, this is not a complete ban on AI itself. Songs with AI assistance can still be submitted, but as Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. told Rolling Stone, only the parts where a human creator was in the driver’s seat will be considered for awards. AI voice clones themselves will not be eligible for awards this year regardless of permission granted. But a human songwriter could still be awarded for the written compositions on songs that featured AI vocals, and a human artist can be eligible for their performance on a song that an AI algorithm wrote. And if a performance includes AI but is still more so a human-made track, that performance will be allowed.
“At this time what we’re doing is continuing to value and celebrate human creation,” Mason Jr. says. “This is an attempt to find the right answer. We don’t proclaim to have all the facts and all the answers on exactly the best way to treat AI. No one does. We’re trying to do our best and try and make sure we get this right and we’ll continue to assess as this tech advances. I want to make sure that we’re able to continue to serve and protect music people, music makers, and the music community by the decision we make at the academy.”
