Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic in the entertainment industry in the past year. From scanning real-life actors for artificial intelligence to the emergence of AI-generated music, the industry has since doubled its condemnation (and support) for the said technological advancement.
Now, a Drake and The Weeknd song was submitted for Grammy consideration - will it be allowed?
Drake, The Weeknd AI Song
According to a Variety report, a Drake and The Weeknd AI-generated song has been submitted for Grammy consideration - it contains their voices but they have nothing to do with it.
The said song went viral in April 2023, and it has since made waves on social media on how accurate it was. Ghostwriter, a content creator who wrote the song, used Drizzy and Abel's voice for the song's vocals.
The song, titled "Heart on My Sleeve," has been submitted for Grammy consideration. According to The New York Times, it was submitted for the Best Rap Song category and Song of the Year categories, which are awards both given to songwriters, instead of performers.
Based on some Grammy guidelines, this is technically possible. The Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. talked to the publication and said that "it's absolutely eligible because it was written by a human."
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Is 'Heart On My Sleeve' Eligible for a Grammy Nomination?
Harvey Mason Jr. clarified the Recording Academy's rules on artificial intelligence-produced tracks.
"We're not going to be giving a nomination or an award to an AI computer or someone who just prompted AI. That's the distinction that we're trying to make. It's the human award highlighting excellence, driven by human creativity," he said at the time.
The rule explicitly states that a work that contains "no human authorship" is not eligible for any category. However, in Ghostwriter's case - he wrote the song, and it was submitted to songwriting categories.
However, there's a battle they have to face. The Grammy rules say that songs must have "generation distribution," which means that they must have been released via stores, retailers, and or streaming services.
The thing is, Universal Music has asked platforms to take down AI-generated songs. However, third-party uploaders have uploaded it online. According to Ghostwriter's representatives, they are "aware" of this obstacle.
To put it simply, "Heart on My Sleeve" can be eligible for songwriting categories because it has been written by a human and not an AI. But, it wouldn't be eligible for performance categories, because the vocals contained "no human authorship." Now, the only thing is that Grammy voters have to decide if the song was distributed properly for it to be nominated.
"If a human writes a track and AI is used to voice-model, or create a new voice, or use somebody else's voice, the performance would not be eligible, but the writing of the track and the lyric or top line would be absolutely eligible for an award," Mason clarified.
