Music made by AI to be eligible for Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards have now addressed the rising prospect of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in music. The presence of AI in the music industry brings both fear and excitement in polarising factions, with some bemoaning artistic redundancy and others welcoming possible benefits. Whatever side of the fence your feet fall, AI certainly presents the awards ceremonies with a hurdle.
Last month, the ceremony organisers changed guidelines to welcome music created by AI as eligible. However, according to the rules, “a work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any category.” Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason Jr recently defined the parameters of the new rule.
“Here’s the super easy headline statement: AI, or music that contains AI-created elements, is absolutely eligible for entry and for consideration for Grammy nomination. Period. What’s not going to happen is we are not going to give a Grammy or Grammy nomination to the AI portion,” Mason told Associated Press. “As long as the human is contributing in a more than de minimis amount, which to us means a meaningful way, they are and will always be considered for a nomination or a win.”
The Recording Academy has reportedly reviewed several options regarding the eligibility of AI-generated music, namely, through research and informational tech summits. Following such action, the Academy has set defined boundaries in the songwriting and composition realms.
For example, if the vocals on a record are generated using AI, it would be ineligible for performance categories but could still receive a nomination in the songwriting category. “Conversely, if a song was sung by an actual human in the studio, and they did all the performing, but AI wrote the lyric or the track, the song would not be eligible in a composition or a songwriting category,” Mason continued to explain.
“We don’t want to see technology replace human creativity,” he added. “We want to make sure technology is enhancing, embellishing, or additive to human creativity. So that’s why we took this particular stand in this award cycle.”
Last month, speaking to Rolling Stone, Mason explained that, with the rapid rise in AI software and its abilities in the creative arts, the Academy saw fit to make necessary changes during this year’s award cycle. “If the tech was five or ten years out, we probably would hold a beat on getting the language into the rules,” he said. “But because of the prevalence and relevance of the topic and the style of creativity that’s happening, I believe we could see AI participating in a song that is in our process this year or next year.”
As AI becomes a growing presence in the music industry, artists and listeners are right to be apprehensive. However, in this article, we explain why music might not be the end of the world for musicians.
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