The song is viral. A duo of the two biggest record sellers in the world, Toronto Canadians The Weeknd and Drake, of course… On a clean piano line, Drake raps with his low and slow delivery. He is joined by the “michaeljacksonian” voice of The Weeknd. We listen, attentive, without imagining for a moment that they are not the ones who sing. “Heart on My Sleeve” is simple and catchy, an effective track as pop loves them so much. The sound is a little weird, but maybe it’s a leaked demo? Or a new concept from the artists? Whatever.

A few hours after its release on Friday April 14, listening exploded: 9 million on TikTok, hundreds of thousands on YouTube, 250,000 on Spotify… Yet neither Drake nor The Weeknd sing. The melody, texts, voices were entirely created by artificial intelligence (AI). The anonymous ghostwriter does not give any clues as to his identity but immediately announces that it is a “fake”. Monday evening April 17, the title is withdrawn from all platforms.

Concretely, in the same way that Dall-E generates images from text, or ChatGPT writes entire essays based on a few indications, the generative AI technology in music uses “deep learning” (“l ‘deep learning’) to compose a quality melody from sketchy instructions by accessing the repertoire of existing artists.

This is what Niva, Magenta, Aiva, SingSong, Vall-E… Google has also designed MusicLM, apparently so powerful that they are slow to market it. The algorithm analyzes voices, melodies, style, texts and recreates, like ChatGPT, new songs.

Thus, David Guetta had fun creating a text for Eminem on ChatGPT and then having it “sung” by Emi-IA-Em, the rapper’s avatar. In the same way, Rihanna took over Cuff It, by Beyoncé, Michael Jackson Die for You, by The Weeknd – it’s confusingly realistic – Ariana Grande sings Aya Nakamura.

Marvellous ? Technology could indeed open up new artistic paths, have fun with unexpected combinations and would allow the gasworks – sometimes so industrial that we forget the artistic – that are pop stars to produce more, faster, and at lower cost. And why not tailor-made up-to-the-minute creations made for the listener, according to their mood or tastes?

Right now, for example, we’d love to listen to a Rihanna song that’s danceable and reggae at the same time – after all, she’s been promising it to us for years and she seems overwhelmed, maybe artificial intelligence can do the job for her . Or a Bob Dylan song about the French political climate. Or finally the new album by Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011.

Reading these lines terrifies you? Do you think artists will soon be obsolete? And then, who gets the copyright? Can whoever came up with the idea for such a song claim a percentage of its creation? Do the singers own the full license of their voice? Will we soon have to create, as for cheeses and champagne, a controlled designation of origin?

Panicked, labels are now asking platforms to prevent their tracks from being downloaded by artificial intelligence sites to protect them. It is unlikely that they will achieve a long-term result. The Human Artistry Campaign was created for this purpose. Bringing together some 40 music organizations and unions, they champion the idea that “only humans are able to communicate the endless complexities, nuances and complications of the human condition through art – be it music, performance, writing or any other form of creativity. »

They campaign for the legal framework of artificial intelligence. “AI must be subject to free market licenses for the use of works. Creators and copyright holders must retain sole control over how their content is used. AI developers should ensure that any content used for training purposes is approved and licensed by the copyright owner, including content previously used by any pretrained AIs they may adopt. Additionally, the voices and likenesses of performers and athletes should only be used with their consent and fair market compensation for specific uses. »

They also demand that these laws only protect human creators, not software. We would therefore not have the same rights as the machines. AI-interesting…