On February 3rd, French DJ David Guetta posted a video on Twitter showing him behind the DJ booth at one of his concerts. Eminem’s voice comes out of the speakers. “This is the future rave sound. I’m getting awesome and underground.” The line repeats once and the drop begins. After a cut, the video shows the 55-year-old on a couch and he says, “Eminem Bro” while Eminem’s voice can be heard again in the background. But it’s not Eminem that’s being heard. The Frenchman goes on to explain that he had the voice recreated using an AI program. This is how the text came about. On February 8th, the video, with different cuts, was also published on YouTube.
Let me introduce you to… Emin-AI-em ? pic.twitter.com/48prbMIBtv
— David Guetta (@davidguetta) February 3, 2023
AI-produced content
The DJ titled his post “Let me introduce you to… Emin-AI-Em”. He has also announced that he will not commercialize the production. So on the surface it’s a PR stunt, a gimmick. However, as is also noted in the Twitter comments, this makes it clear that it is time to get clear about what AI actually means for the future of creative work, especially in view of the rapid development of publicly accessible artificial intelligence in recent times. Your creations don’t come out of nothing. They are modifications of existing intellectual property that are not protected from such access, supported by sophisticated probabilistic models. The ethical and legal subtleties of dealing with this kind of non-consensual reproduction of personal work and, as in the case of voices or faces, personal characteristics are fields that have not been thoroughly worked through so far. In the same place, however, it is also required to either get Eminem to actually record the lines or to simply release the song like that.
The number of pieces of music generated by artificial intelligence has been increasing rapidly for some time. Eminem is a frequent role model for the creations, presumably due to the highly recognizable voice and lyrics. In 2022, the label “Capitol Records” briefly relied on the almost completely virtually created rapper FN Meka. However, criticism of the generated lyrics containing the N-word and the overall aesthetic of the project led the label to end the collaboration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhBWRh-h71g
The steps to the finished piece of music are currently much more complicated and require more initiative than simple text productions. With Google, however, one of the largest technology powerhouses in the world is developing a dedicated music AI that should simplify the process. When “Music L” will be publicly available, however, is not certain.