Will a new song with AI-generated vocals be streamed over 10 million times on Spotify before 1 June 2024?

Started Jun 15, 2023 07:00PM UTC
Closed Sep 12, 2023 09:00PM UTC

Topics

Science & Technology

Seasons

2023 Season

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to radically change the way music is created (Berklee College of Music). In April, the AI-generated song “Heart on My Sleeve” went viral, amassing 600,000 streams on Spotify before being pulled from the streaming service (The Guardian). This song was created using AI tools to make the vocals sound like they were performed by Drake and The Weeknd. These high-profile cases have brought conversations around AI music to the forefront and are the latest in a list of concerns around intellectual property rights, copyright law, and art (The Verge).

Resolution Criteria:

For the purposes of this question, “a new song with AI-generated vocals” refers to a song released in 2023 or later where AI was used to generate or perform the primary vocals or where AI is credited as a performer or artist of the song. Whether or not a song was AI-generated will be determined using official credits, statements by the humans involved in making the song, and/or reputable news media reports. To qualify for resolution, a song must show up in the artist's popular songs list with over 10 million streams, or reputable reports must indicate that the 10 million stream threshold has been crossed. A song written by AI (e.g., ChatGPT) but performed by humans would not count. The use of human vocals as an input into an AI vocal filter will count (example).

Additional Reading:

Question clarification

Issued on 08/08/23 02:42pm
To count toward resolution, a song must be streamed over 10 million times on Spotify. Streams on other platforms (e.g., YouTube, Apple Music, etc.), will not count towards resolution of this question.

Resolution Notes

K-pop group Aespa released the song "Welcome to My World" featuring Naevis. Naevis is credited as an artist on Spotify and has been described by members of Aespa and Aespa’s record label as an "AI-generated artist" and an "AI-artist" with a "newly created voice" (NME, Koreaboo).

INFER confirmed the song had over 26 million streams as of 12 Sept 2023. We apologize for the delay in resolving as we discussed the question with stakeholders and investigated how the song was made to confirm whether or not it should count toward resolution.