Will.i.am has become the latest Hip Hop celebrity to speak out against the rise of artificial intelligence, claiming he wants to protect his face from the new technology.
The Black Eyed Peas founder stopped by Sirius XM on Friday (May 5), where he spoke extensively to DJ Whoo Kid and his co-hosts, Mack and Jen, about the growing influence of A.I. The co-hosts asked him whether he believes that artists should be concerned about this new technology — and the “Let’s Get It Started” rapper didn’t hold back on his thoughts.
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“We all have voices, and everyone’s compromised because there are no rights or ownership to your facial math or your voice frequency,” he said. “So, forget songs. Banks. People calling up your bank pretending to be you. Forget songs. Just family matters and wiring money. You’re getting a FaceTime or a Zoom call and because there’s no intelligence on the call, there’s nothing to authenticate A.I. call or a person call.”
He continued: “That’s the urgent thing, protecting our facial math. I am my face math. I don’t own that. I own the rights to ‘I Got A Feeling’, I own the rights to the songs I wrote, but I don’t own the rights to my face or my voice? There’s new laws and new industries about to boof. This time next year you’ll be like, “will.i.am said that on that radio station.” Fact is, these are all new parameters that we’re all trying to navigate around because the technology is that amazing and with amazingness comes regulations and governance that we have yet to implement.”
Like Will.i.am, Snoop Dogg is also not a fan of AI technology.
Baller Alert caught up with Tha Doggfather on April 19, and asked him about the possibility of a proposed joint collaboration between the two legendary rappers using artificial intelligence.
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While Snoop Dogg isn’t wholly opposed to the collaboration, he’s not into the idea of an AI-generated album featuring his late friend and the King of New York.
“I don’t really know about that, with the AI,” he said. “Because, that’s kinda like, computerized voices. You know? [But] I think if they can find some old tracks with their vocals, and put them together, that sounds better to me.”
But when Drake and The Weeknd‘s voices were used in an AI-generated song on April 14, Universal Music Group was prompted to release a statement.
“UMG’s success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists — as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already,” the statement began.
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“With that said, however, the training of generative AI using our artists’ music (which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law) as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs, begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation.”
The statement continued, “These instances demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists. We’re encouraged by the engagement of our platform partners on these issues–as they recognize they need to be part of the solution.”
