The music industry is coming to terms with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) seeping into productions, as the Grammys recently clarified that AI-generated music will be eligible for awards in the 2024 award cycle. 

On July 4, the CEO and President of the Recording Academy, Harvey Mason Jr. clarified to the AP in an interview: “AI, or music that contains AI-created elements is absolutely eligible for entry and for consideration for Grammy nomination. Period.”

He stressed that the Academy will not give a Grammy or a nomination thereof to the AI portion of the track. For example, if an AI voice model performs lead vocals on the track, it could be eligible in the songwriting category but not in the performance category and vice versa, the AP reported. 

This is because “what is performing is not a human creation,” Mason explained, according to the AP. He said that as long as human is contributing more, and in a meaningful way, it will “always” be considered. For now, the Academy says it will not be awarding AI itself any awards.  “We don’t want to see technology replace human creativity. We want to make sure technology is enhancing, embellishing, or additive to human creativity.”

These clarifications from the Academy CEO comesafter the organization updated its rules and eligibility criteria on June 28 that said, “a work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any categories.” 

AI prevalence has skyrocketed since the emergence and widespread use of the AI chatbot ChatGPT since November 2022.

Some artists, such as Grimes, have openly welcomed the use of the technology, and even said she’s willing to split 50% royalties with any creators who use her voice track for a successful song.

On the other hand, the rapper Ice Cube, famous for his work in the late 80s and early 90s, called with N.W.A., called AI demonic and said he would sue anyone mimicking his voice on AI tracks, along with the platforms that host the song. 

According to Mason, the Grammy’s have been heavily considering how to deal with the inclusion or exclusion of AI and even held a summit with industry leaders on the future of AI in music.

He said he’s “imagining” that the technology will be involved in a lot of records and songs this year. To that point, two days after the new Grammy rules were announced Paul McCartney revealed “the last Beatles record” was produced with AI extractions of John Lennon’s voice.

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