Listeners to a local Pokemouche radio station last month thought they were being treated to a new song by an up-and-coming francophone artist, Océanne Chamberland. However, Océanne Chamberland does not exist. She is not a stage character à la David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, or a virtual quirky character akin to Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz, she is the result of an AI-generated song and artist profile, created by Pierre Côté. Côté, who wrote the lyrics of the song himself and generated the singer and instrumentation, is the founder of AI tech company RTA Intelligence. The song was added to the line-up at CKRO-FM through an automated system. The station primarily airs French content, with their website describing their line up as “pop-rock classics from the 70s to today, without forgetting the essential Acadian hits that make us proud.”
The song, titled Je m’offre à toi (“I offer myself to you” in English), was broadcast on the morning of February 14, marking the first time an AI-generated song has been broadcast by a radio station in French-speaking Canada. Manager of CKRO-FM, Michel Jacob, told CBC that no one at the station had any idea that the song was primarily AI and would not have played it had they known. Côté, on the other hand, is thrilled, telling CBC that he hopes this can set a new precedent to usher in an era of AI musicians. “The point is, it’s now possible for virtual artists like Océanne Chamberland [to] create a really good song in French and play on every station.”
While AI has already infiltrated many other corners of our lives, there are still a lot of unprecedented ethical and legal questions that arise in these situations. Many generative AI models are trained on unlicensed datasets from the internet, making it unclear whether the AI is really writing, or just compiling stolen assets from thousands of existing artist’s pieces. Jean Surette, executive director of Music New Brunswick, refers to Océanne Chamberland as existing in a “grey area” of artistic credit. She says Côté can still be referred to as an artist for writing the lyrics, however her main issue comes with the presentation of Océanne Chamberland as authentically real. The album art for the song (which is viewable on YouTube), features an AI-rendered depiction of Chamberland, a thin white woman in a bra, with giant eyes and lips, which Billboard Canada describes accurately as “reproducing and exacerbating problematic norms.”
Across the music industry, the rise of AI has posed a threat to both livelihoods and creative freedoms. Streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube have both begun to add self-created AI songs, as well as welcoming other AI generated content, all under the guise of real musicians. Halifax-based musician Ian James was prompted by Spotify to promote his new album in January, which was a surprise to him as he had not released any albums. Somehow, an album of AI generated tracks titled Street Alone was his newest release. He describes many of the tracks as “hold music,” with simple beats and repetitive melodies. It is unclear how the creator of these tracks was able to upload them directly onto James’ page, but it raises some concerning questions about artistic authenticity. “If a name isn’t proprietary, and titles aren’t proprietary, what’s going to keep an AI music company from using the name of existing musicians and using the names of the songs they’ve released?” James asked CTV.
Throughout the industry, it is clear that AI is here to stay. The Beatles released a song last year, Now and Then, which used AI tools that isolate John Lennon’s voice to base the song off an unused demo tape. The song then went on to win best rock performance at this year’s Grammys. As well, many companies such as Suno, are making AI music much more accessible to everyone. While more accessibility to the arts is always a plus, there is simply too much up in the air regarding the protection of artist’s rights and royalties for many of these practices to be considered ethical. Last year, the Artist Rights Alliance released a letter asking AI developers to “cease the use of artificial intelligence to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.” This letter was signed by a number of big names across music genres including Billie Ellish, Metro Boomin, and Noah Kahan.
