So I don't have a neat solution. But I'm pretty sure a zero tolerance policy towards using AI will not work. Eventually you'll need to start pulling significant albums off the site and the site will become a relic of the pre-AI age. And I don't think some sort of AI threshold makes sense either. What would it even be? How would we know if it was met? The filter for AI noise has to build around notability in some way, not simply the fact that AI was part of the creation process.
I don't think a neat long-term solution is possible unless someone builds a universally-recognized central authority (on what's AI and what isn't) that can be accessed by other sites via an API. That's not going to happen any time soon, if ever.
In the medium term, we'd probably have to convince @Albummaster to build additional UI (and some data fields, etc.) to flag and rate potential AI album entries. Since we already have a member-level system to handle trust formation (I realize it's not ideal because it's not meant for that, but it's a lot better than nothing), we could say something like, "Level 4 or higher gets to flag possible AI albums, Level 3 or higher gets to score the likelihood of each one being AI on a 1-100 scale, and Level 7 or higher gets to remove the flag based on evidence/proof that no AI was used." (Which, ideally, would be provided by the person removing the flag in the form of links, etc.) AM could copy some of the UI and code from what he's already done for quality ratings.
At that point, each album otherwise gets treated like any other except for the fact that the scarlet-letters "AI" appear beneath the album title if the likelihood ratings go above, say, 80% maybe? That would be similar to what Youtube does now, at least visually. Also, if proof exists that the album is AI, you could hide the rating UI stuff and make the album's "AI" scarlet-lettering effectively permanent.
In the short term, I'd say just muddle through it — the problem isn't quite at crisis level yet, so we might have a year or two before the situation becomes completely untenable.
AI banning is already coming. It's been in place on Bandcamp for quite some time...a zero tolerance. It's coming to Spotify, and even youtube is starting to catch fire for monetizing AI content The pressure is on streaming services to not allow it because the "artists" are abusing the platforms and making money for music that no one actually created.
I do not, and will not, support music that is completely or even mostly AI generated. It's bad for the industry. It's bad for the true artists. It's bad for the consumer. It's bad for the environment. It breeds dishonesty. And, realistically, the music flat out sucks. There may be areas in which AI is a good thing. There are definitely areas in which AI is NOT good. Music is one of them. And I'll say it...if you need AI to engineer your music better, then you need to work on becoming a better engineer. Same for writing, singing, and playing. Get better at the art instead of cheating it.
I see absolutely zero reason to make room for some talentless hack sitting in his basement telling his computer to "make me a hit album", and then watching as he lies and deceives people into giving him money and praise for creating nothing. And I believe that the music industry is going to follow that...because the music industry does not like to get ripped off.
I hope that BEA maintains a stance that AI albums should not be allowed. Period. And right now...there are already pretty easy ways to detect AI content. I hope there is no bend on this. And I believe that if there IS continued no allowing AI on BEA, that BEA will be sitting at the front, not the back of the line.
I know that AI albums are here, because some people add them. And I know that not everyone checks to see if they are AI. That doesn't mean they should be allowed. My stance is that if I find one, I flag it for deletion. And I hope that I never receive instruction to do otherwise. _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
I know that AI albums are here, because some people add them. And I know that not everyone checks to see if they are AI. That doesn't mean they should be allowed. My stance is that if I find one, I flag it for deletion. And I hope that I never receive instruction to do otherwise.
I forgot to mention — that "Glasstrees" album (and all other albums under that name) got banned from Bandcamp, presumably for being AI, so that one can be safely deleted. I guess I should have downloaded it, but they wanted money, so... 🫢
I think @asimpkins and I were both referring to a hypothetical future scenario there, in which it becomes increasingly difficult (and perhaps even impossible) to determine if a piece of music is AI-generated just by listening to it or running it through audio-analysis software. In that case people will increasingly have to rely on crowdsourced investigations for this, conducted by individuals known to be human. (We don't know that in my case obviously, but that's only because I'm not trying.) Maybe that day will never come, but saying "that day will never come" doesn't seem to have slowed the bad guys down very much so far.
I’m with Romanelli on keeping mass-produced releases with very little human input off the site. Where I’m hesitant is making a blanket rule about AI use now. There’s a big difference between asking AI to generate an entire song and using it to come up with a drum loop or help with post-production. As the tools evolve and musicians find new ways to use them, a rule we make today could box BEA into decisions that make less sense down the line.
More broadly, I think we’re still at the beginning of a much bigger shift. I expect there’ll be pressure on the music industry to set some limits on where and how AI is used, partly because so many people’s livelihoods depend on creative work. I don’t know what those limits will look like, but I think plenty of people will still seek out work made by other humans, and the people making it will still want to be paid and recognised for it.
I'm more with asimpkins that I think the AI policy needs to be more nuanced, at least until we've lived a little longer with AI to know which direction we are headed in.. MJ’s flagging idea is pragmatic. Flag the most obvious cases of suspected mass production, like Unreal Rock Songs, and open the less clear-cut cases up for peer review. AI ,or not AI, is going to be a sliding scale as MJ mentioned but I'm not sure it's possible to measure it and where any threshold should be for displaying an 'AI' label. A binary yes or no is probably too aggressive as probably lots of music production tooling now uses AI in the background (AI is a loaded label really as programmable drum loops, samples etc have existed for decades).
The difference between the example of YouTube (and their 'AI' denotation) and a streaming site or record store is that YouTube allows any content creator to upload videos whereas a music label would have curated the artists that they want to promote, which brings me back an earlier point in this discussion about streaming services and record labels acting as gatekeepers: they decide what they’re willing to carry.
If an album is only listed on one streaming service, that listing alone isn’t enough to justify adding it to BEA. That’s in line with BEA’s policy from before AI became a consideration, and it matters even more now if that service has a loose AI policy. They decide what albums are available for people to listen to and somewhat mitigates the need for BEA the only ones making the AI judgement. _________________ Bluesky · Facebook · Spotify
Yeah, it's pretty easy to write off AI music where a human just prompted AI to create complete songs that "sound like X combined with some Y". Maybe they provide a bit of additional feedback, then just pick their favorites and release it. That's pretty low value and anyone can do it. But there's a lot of space and potential to collaborate with AI to brainstorm, tweak, and enhance human created music. Think of human written melodies but performed in new sounds, tones, or voices generated by AI. Most of the examples right now fall into that easy call territory, but it's going to get a lot more complicated.
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MadhattanJack
Romanelli
albummaster
