Music Theory's Chris White Calls for Labels on Art by AI in Chicago Tribune Op-Ed
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Chris White, assistant professor of music theory, recently co-authored an Op-Ed for the Chicago Tribute calling for labels on creative content made by artificial intelligence (AI). He writes:
In March, a picture of an aggressively fashionable Pope Francis created by artificial intelligence went viral on social media.
In April, the song “Heart on My Sleeve,” featuring vocals filtered to sound like Drake and The Weeknd, gained immense online popularity.
In May, movie producers expressed increasing interest in using AI to generate scripts, raising red flags for striking screenwriters.
And just last week, Microsoft called for government agencies to develop labels to indicate the role of AI in literature, visual design and music.
We do need labels for AI-generated content; however, the need goes beyond the concerns expressed by tech executives.
While the private sector is primarily interested in deepfakes and copyright infringement, we believe content labels are necessary to protect the creative community and ensure the preservation of the human-to-human connection that lies at the heart of art and entertainment.
Anxieties over algorithms competing with, or even surpassing, human creativity are nothing new. In the 1950s, the computer pioneer Alan Turing introduced the Turing test as a basic yardstick for evaluating AI’s ability to generate content that resembles human efforts. The test challenges evaluators to determine whether a text or an artwork was made by a human or a machine.
If an AI vocal filter convinces you Drake sang “Heart on My Sleeve,” then that AI “passed” the Turing test.
But what happens when we can’t tell whether something was made by a human or a computer?