Grimes has discussed AI and streaming services, saying she thinks Spotify and others should have a section dedicated to it.
The singer recently revealed that she is currently beta testing her own AI voice mimicking software that will allow users to record vocals in Grimes’ voice, with a hit single from Kito featuring ‘AI Grimes’ released soon after.
Now, in a conversation with Jaguar on the UTOPIA Talks podcast, Grimes has discussed consent with regards to AI and the voice of artists being used by others.
“I think it’s good to have consent,” she responded. “It wouldn’t personally bother me, but I just still think it’s good to respect people, like if they don’t want that… It is a lot, you are like foregoing creative control. And so you sort of have to be like open to that.
“I think there’s systems that can make it a bit easier. Like we really want a petition to Spotify to, you know, it’s like you have your top tracks and then your new your albums and then your new releases and features,” she added.
“Like if they made also an AI section, then it would be easier to like to compartmentalise that stuff. And then people could also understand that it’s not like the artist’s outputting and it becomes less confusing and quality control I think would be a bit easier…”
With regards to using the vocals of deceased artists, Grimes added: “It’s so tricky. I would say no. But then I also feel like someone like Prince would probably be kind of down. So, I mean, if I was just making a call, I would say like friends of Prince could do it, you know, like Lizzo could probably do it, but like, I wouldn’t do it.
“I don’t know, I feel like maybe that’s like a reasonable way to handle it. I don’t know. It’s tricky. That one’s really tricky. I really don’t know. Because, if I was dead and I before all of this happened, I’d really want people to do it. But I don’t know if everyone else would.”
The singer and producer also discussed the issue of copyright, which she has previously shared her hatred of. “Copyright sucks. I don’t think art belongs to anyone,” she told Jaguar.
”Why shouldn’t everyone be able to use your voice or whatever? Like it just seems cool and exciting and then beautiful things might come from it, when people like big artists do these writing camps, they search the world for the best people to come in and write and they spend all this money doing it, and it’s like you could just not spend that money and just give your voice out to the public. And like, you’d be drawing from a much wider pool, you know, like the outcome the net outcomes of great art would be.”
She added: “I think there’s too much control, like top down control over everything right now. Even if you look at TikTok, like the early days of TikTok, I feel like a lot of the viral music was like really bizarre and really cool and stuff that would never be on the radio, like Imanbek Rose’s song like that would never just be on the radio, you know?
“Like, there was just like, weird stuff going viral and then, like, slowly, like the stranglehold, the gatekeeping stranglehold kind of came over TikTok. And now it’s just like we’re not seeing the same level of, I think, interesting stuff coming out.”
In late April, Grimes confirmed that she had parted ways with Columbia Records. She had only been on their roster since March 2021. She also spoke at the annual International Music Summit (IMS) in Ibiza on April 28, where she delivered the keynote speech moderated by BBC Radio 1 Dance DJ Jaguar. In her speech, she went into topics surrounding artificial intelligence, music rights management and technology.
“I feel strongly that there’s way too much gatekeeping in music,” said Grimes. “Copyright sucks. Art is a conversation with everyone that’s come before us. Intertwining it with the ego is a modern concept. The music industry has been defined by lawyers, and that strangles creativity.”
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