🎧 Spotify In Hot Water Over AI-Generated Band

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And Amanda jam Nation. Well, Spotify, I use Spotify. Do
you know it's the devil's work? Tell me why you
think it is?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I just like saying it's the devil's work.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, a lot of our artists feel they are underpaid
IS and us.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
It will eventually rip us off, you know that, how well,
just AI will end up being us.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, I haven't mentioned II yet. Let me just talk
about There's two things, one of them is AI. But
the first thing I want to mention is that the
Spotify CEO, his name is Daniel k e K. He's
under fire from artists and industry advocates. He has announced
an investment of over a billion dollars into a military
tech startup developing AI tech for war. So here's a

(00:43):
guy who's head of the music streaming service with many
musicians who wouldn't be happy with that.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, music, it's all about peace and love.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, this is the thing, isn't it? And so this
his contribution, his investment has made that small German startup
one of Europe's most value startups. And other people, of
course will now be getting part of that. But a
lot of musicians are bailing out of Spotify because of
its and a lot of people who subscribe to Spotify
are bailing up because of it. As a Sydney artist

(01:14):
here from the behind the band pool Room has said,
people talk about no war and they're paying thirteen ninety
nine a month to a company who's boss is doing
exactly this. I don't want to fund war with my subscription.
What a strange investment for him to make when you
think musicians and people investing in music that seems at
odds with with AI war technology. True, and speaking of

(01:35):
AI and Spotify, this is a new band called Velvet Sundown.
This has gained over nearly five hundred thousand monthly listeners.
It's been boosted by Spotify's algorithms. It's been featured in
many playlists. Have a listen sounds a little bit like
the Teskei Brothers. I like this kind of music that's science.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Sounds like music you hear at one of those cafes
where dismissive staff ignore you as you standing there, and
then they go, yeah, buddy, what do you want see?

Speaker 1 (02:07):
I like this music. I hate this is another song,
Well shut up and let me talk. There's another song
by Bilbert Sunday, The thing that Reddit has discovered is
that they are fully AI. So the band, I'll give
you their names. There's a vocalist Gabe Farrow, the guitarist
Lenny West, are bassist Milo Rains and a free spirited

(02:29):
percussionist oriyan Rio del Mar. They're all aixis. There's photos
of them all AI. The music is all AI. And
what's what people are horrified about this is that Spotify
has put this into people's algorithms. It would be for me,
you'd say, you know, maybe, for example, if you like

(02:50):
the Teskei Brothers, you might like this, and then it
leads you into playlists.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
But the brothers are real.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
They're real. But what they're finding too is they're leading
you into various playlists and so you find that a
number of the songs you're listening to on playlists are
AI generated and Spotify doesn't have to pay artists any money.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Pops in your algo.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
But what they've done here is that they have like
AI artwork, fake members, but the promotion of it has
been boosted very much by the playlist and their algorithms.
So this is turning up on Spotify and people are going,
they're not even real, They're not even real.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
And they look like they're on drugs. They're looking slightly drawn.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Imagine they've even made up nicknames Ryan Rio del mar
so interesting that if you look at that animated that
might change how you feel about You don't even care. Okay, well,
I'm passionate about this.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I'm passionate about it. You won't see me using the AI.
I don't do that. No, what you do, I'm just
hard rock and roll.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
What you did with what was your band again, bad
Element is you just exploited schoolboys for the sake of
a pizza. You got schoolboys to record your song. No,
I just chart exploitation. I'm not subscribing from you. The Gazavan,
they sound great, cut.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
It off and it was good pizza.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
That restaurant equality stuff from the frozen one

Speaker 2 (04:17):
The expensive freeze section at Aldi, not the cheap part.