A song created entirely through artificial intelligence has made history by topping a Billboard country music chart, and sending shock waves through the industry.
WTOP’s Nick Iannelli spoke with ABC News correspondent Alex Stone to discuss an AI-generated song that’s shaking up critics and the music industry.
A song created entirely through artificial intelligence has made history by topping a Billboard country music chart and sending shock waves through the industry.
The track, called “Walk My Walk,” hit Number One on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales Chart. The success has sparked heated debate among artists and fans about what this means for the future of music. WTOP talked with ABC News correspondent Alex Stone about the AI-generated song, and discussed people’s reactions.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
- Nick Iannelli:
When people hear that country AI song that’s new, do they know it’s fake?
- Alex Stone:
Well, it’s hard to tell. So, it’s the most downloaded country song right now, coming from the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales chart.
This song is called “Walk My Walk” by an artist called Breaking Rust, and it’s been downloaded over 3 million times in less than a month. It’s beating out actual humans right now for the top spot on the Billboard charts.
- Nick Iannelli:
It’s one thing if you’re seeking out AI-generated music, you know what you’re getting.
But if you’re expecting real human beings and real music, and then you get AI music starting to creep into your actual listening experience, that can be disturbing for people.
- Alex Stone:
This is all the talk on social media right now, because it’s getting mixed reactions in the industry. Some people are saying, ‘Hey, this is the future.’ Others are saying, ‘This is terrible.’ Some believe it’s an experiment.
So it’s all over social media. Billboard says Breaking Rust is, in fact, an AI artist, and that it’s one of at least six artists to chart in the past six months alone who are AI. There have been some R&B and Gospel music artists as well.
One has amassed over 44 million streams. That’s created by a songwriter who then, instead of having somebody perform it, just puts it in the computer and has the AI create the actual song after the songwriter does it.
But, we were talking about Tilly Norwood a couple of weeks ago — a 100% AI-generated actress whose creators were going out to agents to try to cast her in movies. She looks incredibly real, and real Hollywood was freaking out about it, saying, ‘This is not cool. This is not good.’
So you’ve got it in the music industry and the movie industry as well. And companies say, hey, in the future, they don’t have to deal with humans who have demands and want to get paid and get royalties and need breaks and have vocal problems and all of that. You don’t have to deal with any of it.
But on the other side of it, do consumers find it creepy? And I mean, at least based on the download numbers right now on “Walk My Walk,” unless it’s just people checking it out to see what it’s all about, it seems that the song is popular among people and they’re downloading it. It’s now No. 1 on the chart.
There are others who are saying, ‘Who cares? If you can’t tell that it’s AI and it’s good music or a good movie performance, then who really cares?’ But there’s the other school saying, ‘No, that’s creepy, if you don’t know.’
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