The most streamed artist in the world has added his voice to a growing chorus of warnings from the music industry over the perils of artificial intelligence.
Puerto Rican rap and reggaetón megastar Bad Bunny has released "a furious rant", said BBC Newsbeat, about a viral TikTok that uses AI to "replicate his voice". In a post this week on WhatsApp the star – real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – said that anyone who liked the song did not "deserve to be my friends".
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Record labels are "very unhappy that their copyrighted work is being used to train generative AI tools", said The Verge's "Decoder" podcast. And a lot of artists "are even more unhappy that their voices are being used by AI systems".
Key issues include how original creators can be "properly remunerated for use of their works to train AI". And "who, if anyone, owns the AI output"?
Almost always, he said, "training an AI model on unlicensed material is copyright infringement". But as output may not technically contain originally protected material, "we're in uncharted territory".
One thing is clear, Ulvæus said. The changes coming to music, and "society as a whole", are "monumental".
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