In this week’s Off Script column, Shani Sauerman aka Isla Noon, reflects on why, upon discovering her music was used to train AI, she isn’t scared.
A few weeks ago, Australasian music rights organisation Apra Amcos shared a post that spread like wildfire in the online New Zealand music community. The post announced in ominous all-caps: “PROOF OF THEFT: AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND SONGS STOLEN BY AI COMPANIES”.
Listed targets included household names like Crowded House and Lorde, but it wasn’t long before smaller local artists shared that their music had also been stolen. I hesitantly clicked through to AI Watchdog, the online tool that allows you to search a database of music hijacked by AI companies. There, in black and white, were three of my own songs, identified as having been taken without license and used to train AI.
My stomach lurched. It felt genuinely violating.
Before I explain why I’m not afraid of AI music, let me first be clear about what is genuinely frightening: a future in which our lawmakers do not take the necessary action to address this kind of activity and ensure our copyright framework isn’t undermined. Acknowledging that many in my industry have covered this important topic in the past few weeks, and that it is a call to action I vehemently echo, I’d like to offer further thought.
My song Body is on that awful list. The song is a fairly raw account of my experience as a young woman grappling with the social noise about what my body meant to the world before I formed a relationship with what was always, but never quite felt like, mine first.
I feel fortunate that Body has connected with people, and I have come to understand that it has a lot to do with it being my genuine life experience. Therein lies a power AI can never take - no matter how sophisticated a songwriter attempts to masquerade as off the back of stealing from artists, it will never actually be human.
As Naomi McPherson, of the band Muna, recently quipped: “They can’t upload my soul.”
I, and many others, believe that the flood of AI music is likely to place higher value on music made by real people, because that’s where fans find genuine connection. While AI songs will inevitably trend, passionate music fans will always search for and invest in connection with real people they can relate to. Artists who have actually lived.
As the internet drowns itself in AI fakes, “real” will become rare, and thus all the more valuable and treasured to music fans. A pendulum swing that I believe might not just be on its way, but is already in motion.
Do we need our lawmakers to uphold the rights of creators, and ensure protections? Absolutely, and I am there alongside my fellow artists currently finding ways to fight for that.
But does AI music itself scare me? No, not really. Let it get lost in its own synthetic sauce while we’re out at live shows, sharing in genuine humanity with every person in those beautiful rooms.
Isla Noon (Shani Sauerman) is an alt-pop artist based in Auckland. Her album Out Of Body (REDUX) has just been released.