An AI-generated track featuring the simulated voices of Drake and The Weeknd went viral over the weekend, prompting speculation it was a publicity stunt for a startup tech firm. The song, titled Heart on My Sleeve, has received widespread play on TikTok and Twitter. AppSumo's Mitchell Cohen called the track 'a genius marketing stunt,' while a TikTok account shared an AI version of Drake covering the 2007 Colbie Caillat track Bubbly.
The owner of the website that was linked to is a startup firm called Laylo, which says it's geared for creators to gain additional followers and subscribers with their tools. This article contains content provided by Google YouTube and UMG. It also states that the BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
UMG has warned that Drake and The Weeknd may not be able to protect themselves from a "passing off" claim, where they profit from misleading the audience into believing it is genuine. It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell if artists are actually singing or rapping on new generative artificial intelligence tools.
In February, superstar DJ David Guetta performed a song that he created using AI-generated Eminem vocals, while French hip-hop act AllttA created an AI-created track by Jay-Z using his familiar voice. Meanwhile, Universal Music Group has asked music streaming services including Spotify and Apple Music to stymie scraping content that can enable music generative AI tools to work.
YeezyBeaver, a 22-year-old from Oklahoma whose YouTube channel features Kanye West performing various songs started creating generativeAI music thanks to a post on Ye Discord fan server linking him with voice models along with instructions how insert them into So-Vits-SVC tool set capable in generating new tunes
A producer going by “Ghostwriter” created the new song featuring Drake and The Weeknd, which has generated millions of listens on TikTok and Spotify. There are many unknowns, including whether the song is genuinely AI-generated or if it's a real collaboration between the Canadian superstars released as “AI” as a marketing stunt.
Universal Music Group (UMG) has taken an adversarial stance towards AI-generated music, sending letters to streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify to stop users from scraping their content in order to generate AI-produced copies.
The two-minute AI-generated song collaboration between Drake and The Weeknd titled “Heart on My Sleeve” left fans astonished by its 'terrifying accuracy.' Mitchell Cohen from software sales website AppSumo conducted a deep dive investigation into the creator behind this track. He discovered that Laylo founder Alec Ellin had tweeted about "AI hip-hop voices" just two days before releasing Heart on My Sleeve.
This isn't the first time Drake has been targeted by controversial technology but it raises questions regarding authenticity within rapidly evolving generative artificial intelligence tools in music creation process