LOS ANGELES \u2014 Inside the Mayk.It app, I don\u2019t have to work hard to sound nearly perfect.<\/p>\n
Mayk.It is an AI-powered music startup, funded with an initial $4 million investment from major venture capital firms like Greycroft, former Spotify executive Sophia Bendz and celebrities like YouTuber MrBeast and voice-tweaking enthusiast T-Pain. The Santa Monica-based company hopes to do for singing and production what Instagram did for photography and TikTok for video editing \u2014 make it uncannily easy to express yourself at a semiprofessional level on social media.<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence is the talk of governments and industry today. In the arts, screenwriters, illustrators and musicians are nervously eyeing the tech\u2019s potential and the possibility of being outmatched (and laid off) in favor of such software.<\/p>\n
On the roof deck of Mayk.It\u2019s office, co-founder Stef\u00e1n Heinrich Henriquez played a video from a forthcoming version of its app, Covers.ai. The clip showed him capably singing Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cShake It Off,\u201d only he\u2019d barely hit a note. He\u2019d created an AI model of his voice, and the app rendered a video of him performing it. It could have made him sing anything, or with the app\u2019s built-in voice models, sing as anyone else.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring my time at TikTok, I saw a lot about how music is changing,\u201d Henriquez said. He and co-founder Akiva Bamberger, both in their 30s, previously worked at TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about musicality anymore. It\u2019s quantity over quality. If you try to perfect just one song, you have less chances to hit an algorithm on any of these platforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a new approach,\u201d he continued, still buzzing after attending the SoCal EDM festival Lightning in a Bottle. \u201cI\u2019m not even thinking about instruments anymore. Do I need to combine a beat with a melody and lyrics and an actual voice? Maybe I don\u2019t. I think you still want to put in some piece of yourself, but with less and less work. We have to simplify even further and make more decisions for a beginner so that they don\u2019t get lost in decision paralysis. That\u2019s where AI comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later that week, I cracked open Mayk.It to find out how easy it can be to sound great. Since its debut, users have created millions of tracks, according to the company\u2019s co-founders. The app offers an array of backing beats, from Afro-pop to country to ambient, made by human producers. I chose \u201cSeductive Nights,\u201d a moody R&B loop, and turned to Mayk.It\u2019s ChatGPT-powered lyrics generator for inspiration (Mayk.It also uses its own proprietary voice-synthesis technology).<\/p>\n
Worried about AI decimating your livelihood? Mayk.It can put that into couplets. \u201cWill I ever find my way?\u201d it suggested as vaguely ominous lyrics, after my prompt about feeling insecure about the coming AI wave. \u201cCan I trust the dreams I make?\/ Is my future safe?\u201d<\/p>\n
I hit record and sang a melody, but I barely needed to. Mayk.It can correct your pitch, add effects, edit audio and mix it into a tight draft with as few clicks as it takes to add an Instagram filter. Mayk.It can then drop your finished track into its own social platform, or TikTok and Spotify.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can help more people participate in music,\u201d Bamberger said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done the work of going into the studio for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayk.It is one approachable use case for AI\u2019s potential in music. But it\u2019s telling that a technology once deemed science fiction can now so casually do the job of singer, producer, audio engineer and label executive, right from your phone.<\/p>\n
From the AI-generated \u201cFake Drake\u201d and the Weeknd collaboration that caused a ruckus this spring, to a forthcoming new Beatles track constructed from dusty demo tapes set for a September release, to Universal Music Group\u2019s big investment in generative ambient music (i.e., created automatically without human musicianship), to shell shocked film composers and frantic label executives, it\u2019s obvious AI could rattle the music industry just as MP3s and Napster did decades ago.<\/p>\n
But while AI\u2019s technology can be gobsmacking, its practical uses and legitimate dangers aren\u2019t yet clear. The ethics and applications of this fast-advancing technology are still up for grabs. Will it be an extinction-level event for the industry, or a tool, like sampling or drum machines, that did not, despite much initial hand-wringing, replace musicians?<\/p>\n
The rhetoric around AI can lean apocalyptic. \u201cMitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war\u201d read one open letter from the Center for AI Safety signed by dozens of tech industry figures like Sam Altman and Bill Gates, as well as Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.<\/p>\n
After the 2022 debuts of services like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion, which conjure close-enough text conversation and compelling images out of bare prompts, massive impacts on industries are undoubtedly en route. The Biden White House, in its \u201cBlueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,\u201d said that \u201cAmong the great challenges posed to democracy today is the use of technology, data, and automated systems in ways that threaten the rights of the American public.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe history of the growth of technology companies two decades ago serves as a cautionary tale for how we should think about the expansion of generative AI,\u201d said Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair, in a May op-ed. \u201cWe once again find ourselves at a key decision point.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Music may seem marginal compared with sectors like biotech or defense, where AI is in full swing. But file-sharing services like Napster helped siphon tens of billions of dollars from the entertainment economy, and Spotify trained consumers that media should exist in an ephemeral cloud rather than on objects you own. Those impacts resonated well beyond the pop charts.<\/p>\n
From the advent of vinyl records to samplers and 808s, from studio software like ProTools to media platforms like iTunes and Spotify, technology has always shaped and reshaped how music is created and consumed. AI is already present in many of the ways we interface with music, from recommendation algorithms to production tools like voice modulators.<\/p>\n
Martin Clancy, a researcher at the Centre for Digital Humanities at Trinity College in Dublin and editor of \u201cArtificial Intelligence and Music Ecosystem,\u201d said that the difference between this wave of AI and prior transformative tech is its sheer adoptive speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere used to be a time lag between the invention and social adoption of tech. How long was it from the turntable being invented to DJ Kool Herc? A hundred years,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took 30 years for samplers to become affordable consumer items. AI is different because of the scale. The cost is cheap, so money is being poured in, and all the tech is stacking on top of itself. We\u2019re not only getting unintended consequences but unintended designs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labels are racing to respond to these tech advancements, like Meta\u2019s new AI-powered text-to-music generator trained on 20,000 hours of licensed music. In June, Sony Music created an executive VP of AI position. At a recent Universal Music Group retreat for top executives, Michael Nash, executive vice president and chief digital officer for the label group, said that AI was a prominent topic: \u201cEvery single label CEO said, \u2018I need to talk to my team about AI.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Many credit \u201cHeart on My Sleeve,\u201d a serviceable simulacrum of Drake and the Weeknd produced by TikToker Ghostwriter977 using AI technology, as a wake-up call to the tech\u2019s norm-shattering potential. (UMG\u2019s stock lost nearly a fifth of its value in the weeks after the track took off on social media; at the company\u2019s behest, the track was eventually removed from streaming sites.) A version of Hole\u2019s grunge classic \u201cCelebrity Skin\u201d with AI-swapped vocals from frontwoman Courtney Love\u2019s late husband, Kurt Cobain, sent Gen X reeling. A British indie band, Breezer, sidelined its own lead singer in favor of AI-modulated vocals from Oasis singer Liam Gallagher, who approved of the gambit. \u201cHeard a tune it\u2019s better than all the other snizzle out there\u201d Gallagher said on Twitter, about \u201cAISIS.\u201d \u201cMad as f\u2014 I sound mega.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fear that artists could be replaced by their own digital avatars, or that labels could conjure infinite music based on digital modeling, became a live issue.<\/p>\n
But several executives said that such obvious copyright infringements were stunts, not serious threats.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a shame that the early headlines came from voice and likeness imitation,\u2019 said Mike Caren, the founder of APG, the independent publishing and record company that first signed YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Don Toliver and Charlie Puth. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be a given that AI can learn from all recorded music, that\u2019s a poisoned well. But Fake Drake was human songwriters with a voice filter on it, that\u2019s nothing innovative. I hope it doesn\u2019t sour people or limit their thinking on AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tech is in service of the artist and their intent, rather than artist replacement in service of tech,\u201d Nash said. \u201cWe obviously take a strong position on protecting rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even a more radical artists-rights activist like Kevin Erickson, director of the Future of Music Coalition, is skeptical that AI could outright replace artists, or will inevitably learn on the backs of protected work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get a sense that there are built-in limits to how much public interest there will be in using AI to have a digital approximation of a singer that didn\u2019t actually perform,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Referencing a recent Supreme Court decision about fair use, he said that \u201ccoming out of the Warhol case, the law doesn\u2019t favor a reading of allowing permission-less ingestion of wide swaths of recorded music for training. We already have policy tools available to make meaningful interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The deeper concerns may lie in the subtle shifts of power and incentives that come from knowing how capable AI is at making music.<\/p>\n
The music industry has been upended by so many forces \u2014 streaming replacing downloads, COVID decimating touring, inflation hiking costs \u2014 that many artists and composers fear a body blow from AI could be fatal to their careers.<\/p>\n
Shruti Kumar, 35, is a film composer and producer who has worked with Hans Zimmer and Henry Jackman, collaborated with Alicia Keys, Nas and Fiona Apple, and conducted at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Her father worked at DARPA (the U.S. military\u2019s tech research division) and her mother was an economist; Kumar is not naive about this tech\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n
When she talks to peers about AI, \u201cThe mood is negative because we\u2019re already scared as it is,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a union, and we\u2019re deep in our own struggles with streaming. The economics of music are already not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s worried that the executives who will create policy around AI have fundamentally different incentives than artists. \u201cWill creative work be valued in a business where executives are finance and tech people?\u201d Kumar asked. \u201cScreenwriters are on strike right now to prevent themselves from becoming [treated] like musicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erickson said that the creep of AI is already being felt in more behind-the-scenes capacities, like library music used in TV shows, podcast background music or syncs for advertisements. Those unglamorous corners of the music business provide necessary income for many working artists and composers, and he fears a general devaluing of that work when AI can do it capably for near nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cLarge services like Spotify have been in a battle to lower royalty costs, and now they potentially have the ability to swap out certain parts of their catalog for AI approximations, like study or sleep playlists or generic workout music,\u201d he said. \u201cSpotify\u2019s \u2018discovery mode\u2019 is taking advantage of its platform power to steer listeners towards something it pays less for. That\u2019s downward pressure on the music licensing landscape, even if you\u2019re not making the kind of work that AI can generate.\u201d<\/p>\n
(In June, the Recording Academy announced new eligibility rules for the Grammys, so that only \u201chuman creators\u201d can win awards. Compositions may incorporate elements of AI in the vocals or instrumentation, but songwriting entries must be primary written by people.)<\/p>\n
While Fake Drake will probably not cause the real one to have to sell off his estates, some AI-driven ventures like UMG\u2019s partnership with Endel, an \u201cAI sound wellness company,\u201d may give musicians pause. Though ambient background music for streaming playlists rarely draws attention, it\u2019s a huge and lucrative corner of Spotify and other platforms.<\/p>\n