Stream the Silent A.I. Protest Album
Over 1,000 UK Artists produce album of random noise and sound in protest to U.K. law copyright changes.
Regular readers will know that I am quite anti A.I. large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok; or the music versions such as Suno or art versions such as Midjourney. More specifically, I’m quite anti how A.I. companies are using this technology and the way they’ve gone about building it—by using copyrighted material without permission to sell their product.
The ethical arguments against it are, as far as I’m concerned, much more sound than those for. Even more, A.I. development seems very much undergirded by a transhuman philosophy that I believe to be anti-human. In short, I have massive ethical, philosophical, and theological reasons for why I am anti this type of A.I.
I’m old enough to remember the Napster controversy. Back in those days, the argument for Napster was that it was ‘just like’ sharing a copy on tape of your favorite music with a friend. The problem with this argument is that ‘just like’ was doing a lot of heavy lifting! Napster lost their case because everyone knew that ‘just like’ was not ‘the same as’, and, in fact, it actually wasn’t ‘just like’ at all! It was an entirely different animal!
A.I. is not ‘just like’ an artist learning and coming up with original work based on what they’ve learned. It’s an entirely different animal. In fact, it’s not an animal at all. Attempts to explain what it does simply cannot do so without anthropomorphizing ones and zeroes. A.I. doesn’t ‘learn’ nor can it be ‘inspired’. It is not at all like an artist. It is a tool developed by for-profit corporations to regurgitate variations of copyrighted creative work at scale, with no reimbursement to those who created the data it uses to function.
1,000 U.K. artists launch album to protest
Many agree with these sentiments. And if you do too, here’s one interesting way you can protest these developments.
Over 1,000 UK musicians and groups have come together and launched a 'silent' protest album against the UK government proposing to change copyright law to allow A.I. companies to have carte blanche, free use of copyrighted material. The UK is wanting to force artists to have to go through a complicated "opt out" process if they don't want their material used, which seems entirely backwards.
The album, entitled Is This What We Want? consists of recordings of empty studios and random ambient background noise—fitting, of course, as that's what the present trajectory with A.I. in the arts is going to get us. Or as my youngest (who has been somewhat enamored with the project) describes it: “This is what A.I. probably sounds like.”
One track even consists of composer and producer Hewitt Jones' cats moving around.
The album includes artists like Damon Albarn, Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Hans Zimmer. (Full list here.)
The twelve tracks of the album spell out a message: "The British government must not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies."
All proceeds from the album go to the charity Help Musicians. And at the same time, streaming it on Spotify makes them pay for music that is not, well, music. Also fitting, of course, as that what A.I. generated music may in fact be.
“In the music of the future, will our voices go unheard?” - Kate Bush
It's available on all the streaming platforms. Spotify below.