Billie Eilish, Jon Bon Jovi, and Ryan Tedder among artists to sign open letter protesting “predatory use of AI” in music
The letter slammed irresponsible AI practices as an “assault on human creativity must be stopped”.
Image: Michael Hickey / Getty Images
Billie Eilish, Jon Bon Jovi, Ryan Tedder, and Robert Smith are among a list of artists who have signed an open letter protesting the “predatory use of AI” in music.
Issued by non-profit organisation Artist Rights Alliance, the letter – titled ‘Stop Devaluing Music’ – warns that artificial intelligence has the potential to “steal professional artists’ voices and likeness, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem” if left unchecked.
It also calls for developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services to “cease the use of AI to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists”.
The letter states: “Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere.”
“Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rights holders. When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music and our livelihoods.”
“Some of the biggest and most powerful companies are, without permission, using our work to train AI models,” the letter continues. “These efforts are directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-created “sounds” and “images” that substantially dilute the royalty pools that are paid out to artists. For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.”
“Unchecked, AI will set in motion a race to the bottom that will degrade the value of our work and prevent us from being fairly compensated for it. This assault on human creativity must be stopped. We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likeness, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem.”
It concludes, “We call on all AI developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services to pledge that they will not develop or deploy AI music-generation technology, content or tools that undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artists or deny us fair compensation for our work.”
Over 200 artists have signed the letter, including Elvis Costello, the estate of Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, and Pearl Jam among others.
