The \u201cAI slopification of music\u201d is here, said Ece Yildirim<\/strong> in Gizmodo<\/strong><\/em>. It\u2019s gotten so difficult to decipher which songs are human-made and which are synthetically produced by artificial intelligence that Spotify, the world\u2019s largest audio-streaming service, announced recently it\u2019s going to append a \u201cverification badge\u201d on trusted artists\u2019 pages. It stopped short, however, of an AI ban. That would have hurt outfits like the Velvet Sundown\u2014an indie band that garnered millions of streams on Spotify last summer. Fans later learned that the group was \u201ccompletely AI-generated,\u201d including a phony album cover featuring the smiling faces of four fake members. Another music streaming platform, Deezer, reported recently that \u201c44% of its daily uploads were AI-generated songs,\u201d and an \u201coverwhelming majority of people couldn\u2019t tell AI-generated music apart from songs written and performed by actual humans.\u201d Humans have been making music for 35,000 years. But AI could be about to end our run.<\/p>\n Billboard<\/em> allowing fake artists on its charts isn\u2019t helping, said Peter A. Berry<\/strong> in Bloomberg<\/strong><\/em>. For 113 years, the music and entertainment brand has served as an \u201cinstitutional gatekeeper,\u201d and its rankings were always a \u201ccompetition between human beings and the limits they naturally possess.\u201d But in November, Billboard<\/em> opened its hallowed charts to nonhumans for the first time, allowing streams of songs by AI performers like country music act Breaking Rust and R&B singer Xania Monet to count alongside Taylor Swift<\/a> and Beyonc\u00e9. If Billboard<\/em> wants to create a separate chart for AI creations, fine. But humans shouldn\u2019t be \u201ccompeting against machines\u201d that can \u201cgenerate abilities that aren\u2019t naturally there.\u201d<\/p>\n Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/span><\/p>\nMusic The Week<\/span><\/h2>\n