Over 1000 songs released in China have AI voices. Some have over 100 million streams

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I am curious to see how audiences and listeners will react to this... if it will 'trend', or if it will cause our music industry to cash in on music featuring no human artist (no one to pay) for these songs ...

We often think that automation can only take low-skilled jobs, and those working in art or science, for instance, are completely safe. But in reality, machines seem to be coming for art as well. We previously reported about an AI that created original paintings and images from text input — but what we’re going to tell you next may blow your mind.

Recently, one of the biggest music streaming service providers in China, Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) revealed that an AI-based voice synthesis system sang more than 1000 songs released by the company in the last three months. The AI called Lingyin Engine can mimic the voices of human singers and then produce original songs in those voices. Not only were the songs embraced without suspicion — but they were wildly popular.

If new songs can be made with AI generated voices on demand, doesn't that threaten the artists? Imagine rap songs - what's going to happen when the lyrics of the latest viral rap are monetized online - can they really be that good?

So imagine, you are a songwriter, who always wanted one of their songs to be sung by the Late rockstar Elvis Presley. Lingyin Engine can make this happen — sounds crazy, but it’s true. The AI will sing your song in the synthetically produced voice of Elvis, just like the way you want.

Unfortunately, not everybody can get their hands on the Lingyin Engine. TME has patented the technology and now it’s using it to release songs in the voice of both deceased and currently active Chinese singers, who are popular among the listeners.

I refuse to believe that the synthesizing achievement can not be suitably engineered without LingYin. That's just a patent money-grab. The collective efforts of all of the software engineers around the planet will be able to approximate it well enough. And when that happens you can have Richard Nixon sing "Happy Birthday to you."

This will be a "rights' issue - if lawyers aren't asleep... especially if someone develops code to "enter a sample" of a voice and then regurgitate it to you with words you provide.

What’s more fascinating about the Lingyin Engine is that once it has mimicked a singer’s voice, it can create numerous songs using that voice in any language and style. To companies like Tencent Music, which spent millions of dollars every year on singers, this may look like the best business opportunity as now they can create songs without singers.
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With the rise of AI singers, soon human singers might start copyrighting their voices because technologies like Lingyin Engine could make them obsolete anytime. Once it has a singer’s voice sample in its database, it won’t ever need the singer to produce a song.

(emphasis mine)

What do you all think?

a reply to: Maxmars

I think there is a place for it, but like a delicious meal cooked by a real human, there is an “element” that will be missing. A machine, a computer can do things so precisely, and sure it can be great, but we will know something is off.

I feel like they are trying to erase humanity and real things little by little.

Real candlelight. Remember when restaurants had that, and how romantic it was? The ambiance it created just can’t be replicated with battery operated candles.

Real cloth, linen, percale, cotton. Remember REAL jeans and how they felt? They also lasted forever. I think we have a whole generation that doesn’t know what it feels like.

Remember when fast food mean food cooked fast and it was normal food?

a reply to: JAGStorm

I am alarmed at this development - only because of the threat it appears to pose to vocal artists in general.

The tech is fascinating, but I fear we might exploit it poorly (from a performance point of view.) I expect this will lead to voice mimicry coming under serious scrutiny from a legal perspective.

Still, I found the idea fascinating... although the potential ramifications merit real scrutiny.

a reply to: Maxmars
It will soon be pointless for anyone to be creative,as the machines will be more so.

What else will soon be pointless?

Keep creativity and art a human thing-otherwise what is left?
Just the machine.

F#k that world.