“It could just take over and we don’t want that to happen”
Ex-Beatles bassist Paul McCartney has shared his concern on the impacts of the use of AI in music, despite utilising the technology to separate vocal stems in his 2023 release ‘Now and Then.’
McCartney voiced his fears that without sufficient legislation, AI will take over the music industry.
Within the global music industry there has been a rise in concern about using existing works to train AI models.
A group of 13,500 signatories including Thom Yorke and Bjorn Ulvaeus, have issued a joint statement that demands AI companies cease training their models on copyrighted work.
The use of AI trained by previous works ultimately invalidates human production as these programs are able to copy, replicate and create remarkably accurate music.
McCartney highlighted in his statement, “We’ve got to be careful about it because it could just take over and we don’t want that to happen particularly for the young composers and writers [for] who, it may be the only way they’re gonna make a career. If AI wipes that out, that would be a very sad thing indeed.”
The battle against these impacts of AI have already come to a head. The New York Times has recently taken legal action against the AI leaders, Open AI and Microsoft, who have absorbed huge amounts of human knowledge and creativity. Notably Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation signed away the rights to use all their content to power up Open AI’s fake brains.
AI-powered music generation platforms Suno and Udio are also in the midst of a lawsuit filed by the RIAA. They alleged that the platforms committed “copyright infringement on an almost unimaginable scale.”
Paul McCartney is joining the campaign to ensure that artists get paid a fair amount for use of their works.
His declared stance on AI interestingly contradicts the artists’ use of AI to separate the late John Lennon’s vocals cleanly from a piano piece, for The Beatles final 2023 release.
The track featured live performances by the living Beatles members McCartney and Ringo Star, alongside pre-recorded guitar stems by George Harrison.
As these large AI platforms grow stronger, contemporary artists, songwriters and musicians find themselves increasingly threatened.
Albeit parts of the industry welcome the tool, when artists like Paul McCartney speak out, artistic boundaries are formed.
Ultimately, songwriters and musicians need to be able to make a living off their new and existing works.
