Ksenia Monet became the first AI-generated artist to debut on the Billboard airplay chart, and the success raises questions about what the future might hold for human artists aiming to achieve the same feat.
How was I supposed to know? It appeared on the Adult R&B Airplay chart at number 30 on November 1. The song first gained popularity online, especially on platforms like TikTok, garnering enough streams and purchases to debut on both the R&B Digital Song Sales chart and the Hot R&B Songs chart in September.
Created by Mississippi poet and songwriter Telisha “Nikki” Jones, Xania Monet (pronounced zuh-Nee-ah, rhymes with Shania) sings Jones' lyrics set to R&B music using Suno, an AI music-generating platform.
“Ksenia is an extension of me, so I look at her as a real person,” Jones said. CBS Morning Wednesday. “I just take what I like to do and mix it with technology.”
Monet's ability to translate his online momentum into a radio broadcast in just four months has fueled fears that artificially intelligent artists pose a real threat to the livelihoods of human artists. As a result, there have been renewed calls for legislation to protect the rights of real musicians in an industry that would otherwise have few protections.
“It’s like a great Southern R&B artist,” said Tristan (Treeze) Douglas, radio host at urban contemporary radio station Flow 98.7 in Toronto. “It reminds me of the sound of Beyoncé or Fantasia.”
But Douglas says he has concerns because Monet isn't real, and he doesn't want to misrepresent a real musician as one created by artificial intelligence.
WATCH | Lyric video for the song “How Should I Know”:
Monet first appeared on the Internetit's in mid-July. WITH the AI artist then released 44 songs on Spotify and gained approximately 769,000 followers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, as well as another 1.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The AI artist struck a multimillion-dollar record deal in September, although it's not entirely clear who will benefit.
Romel Murphy, Monet's manager, told CNN The AI performer's goal is to enhance the artistry of Jones' lyrics.
“We used AI as a tool, which is what it was designed for. We used it to enhance our craft,” Murphy said. “We created real R&B music, music that is based on truth – real lyrics, her real life experiences and life lessons. Artificial intelligence helped us bring the message to life and bring it to the world. But the artistry and the message behind it are all human qualities.”
Whatever the creation's intentions, Douglas said he's not ready to hear AI music on the radio.
“I think here at Flow we know what our listeners want. And while this artist may have numbers elsewhere, it doesn't – it doesn't feel right to us,” he said. “Right now, I would say that Flow is for real artists.”
While Douglas understands that artificial intelligence can be used in many different ways to create new music, he believes the technology can be a slippery slope.
“I support a tool to release a product. I just don't support the whole tool being a product… What happens when it's time to go on tour? Are we going to get holograms?”
Given that the station receives “tons of music submissions” from people hungry for their big break, Douglas believes there needs to be a broader discussion about whether AI-generated music should have a place on radio.
“There are tons of real artists here in town, not to mention around the world, just waiting to be discovered and heard,” he said. “Let’s put the time and effort into this.”
Artists are concerned that the real people who bring emotion and life experience to their music may be displaced by technology that can generate content at an unmatched speed. Joey La Neve DeFrancesco, founder of the advocacy group United Musicians and Allied Workers, said it's difficult for artists to make a living today due to the popularity of streaming platforms.
“We hear a lot from our members and from people around me that this is terrible,” he said. “This is another very clear indication of how desperately we need regulation of AI and digital music more broadly, because there is virtually nothing there.”
AI artists like Monet don't become successful overnight, no matter how it looks online, he said. Instead, he says it's a result of streaming services, record labels and other major industry players pouring millions of dollars into supporting fake artists, siphoning money away from real artists.
“We see how the music industry works: They can push whatever they want to the top,” DeFrancesco said. “Without regulation, we'll see more and more of this.”
But as generative AI technology continues to rapidly advance across all sectors, it is unclear exactly how its use in the music industry can or should be regulated.
Miro Oballa, an entertainment lawyer and partner at Taylor Oballa Murray Leyland in Toronto, says copyright law often lags behind technological advances, which is why there are few laws governing the use of AI in music creation.
“For the most part, I would say the general consensus now is that something that is entirely machine-made is not eligible for copyright protection,” he said. “We need human input.”
As for the said law, Oballa says it will take some time to find the best approach.
And he noted that there will be challenges in legislating how AI can and cannot be used in the industry.
“I mean, you can legislate anything, but I don’t think that’s the right way to do it.”
As for why music company executives want to support artists using artificial intelligence, Oballa says the business case likely revolves around minimizing risk.
“People get nervous. People have anxiety problems. People end up having kids, people's priorities change, don't they? Sometimes people develop addiction problems, don't they? There's a whole range of things that can come into play that can disrupt the predictability and reliability of a consistent, repeatable creative output,” he said.
“This is where the AI artist starts to have some appeal, and where perhaps the interests of the industry and artists begin to diverge.”
