I never imagined a day where I would hear Young Thug singing in fluent darija, but here we are. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), we can now fully clone the distinct voices of some of our favorite singers by simply plugging their vocals into AI systems. As a result of this new technology, a slew of realistic (or at least close enough) videos of mainstream artists like Kanye West and The Weeknd singing songs they’ve never covered, and would probably never cover even in an alternate dimension, have cropped up on social media, garnering the attention of superstars like Drake, who a couple of weeks ago wrote on his Instagram Stories “This is the final straw AI,” in reference to a viral AI-generated cover song featuring his voice rapping to Ice Spice’s breakthrough hit, Munch.
While AI Kanye West singing Hey There, Delilah may seem like a harmless lark, for others in the industry, these passable mimicrys are seen as a potential threat to real artists and a danger to the music industry as a whole, opening up a pandora’s box of legal issues. Last month, Universal Music Group (UMG) took a stance by asking streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music to block AI developers from using UMG artists to train the software, citing intellectual property concerns. “We have a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators,” a UMG spokesperson told Financial Times. “We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.”
For now, courts and lawmakers are only beginning to sort out questions of ownership when it comes to AI, and veteran music and copyright lawyer Alexander Ross told Insider that the AI-generated cover songs could be illegal. But in the meantime, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite AI-generated Arabic song covers, from Michael Jackson, The Weeknd, and Ariana Grande collaborating on Abdelkader to Drake singing El Bekht, before they’re wiped off the internet for good.
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@slaikofficial The Weeknd « Ya Tabtab » AI Cover 🤖😂 #iacover #aicover #cover #ia #ai #aisong #aisongcover #theweeknd #nancyajram #lebanon #🇱🇧 #yatabtab ♬ son original – slaik 🧩
@arabicpassion #drake #raghebalama #nassinidonya #aicover #coverai ♬ son original – Arabic passion
@arabicpassion #rihanna #lamiss #mesaytara #coverai #aicover ♬ son original – Arabic passion
@slaikofficial Réponse à @LYMS Kanye West « Ya Rayah » AI Cover 😂🤖 #iacover #aicover #cover #ia #ai #aisong #aisongcover #kanyewest #rachidtaha #dz #🇩🇿 #oran #wahran ♬ son original – slaik 🧩
