Recently Sir Paul McCartney produced a song that had an AI John Lennon to create a complete Beatles song. The creative use of technology to recreate a long lost band member has raised a number of questions about the use of AI when it comes to musical recordings.
Recording Academy head Harvey Mason Jr has weighed in on the subject and given a definitive answer as to what will and will not be allowed when it comes to the Grammy Awards and musical creations.
While only human creators may win the Grammy Award, the Recording Academy will allow music that has elements created using AI. Mason said, “here’s the super easy, headline statement: AI,
or music that contains AI-created elements is absolutely eligible for entry and for consideration for Grammy nomination. Period.” He added, “what’s not going to happen is we are not going to give a Grammy or Grammy nomination to the AI portion.”
For example, if Sir Paul’s creation has John Lennon’s AI voice singing the lead, the song could be eligible in a songwriting category, but not in a performance category; since according to Mason the lead singing was, “not a human creation.” However, if Sir Paul sings the lead and uses AI Lennon in the background, then the song would be eligible for the performance category. BUT, if Sir Paul used AI to write the song, then it could not be entered in a songwriting category.
Mason pointed out, “as long as the human is contributing in a more than de minimis amount, which to us means a meaningful way, they are and will always be considered for a nomination or a win. We don’t want to see technology replace human creativity. We want to make sure technology is enhancing, embellishing, or additive to human creativity. So that’s why we took this particular stand in this award cycle.”
The Recording Academy has allowed technologically enhanced musical creations for many years; since the onset of the auto tune and other such creations because in the end it was a human voice who ultimately uttered the words to begin with.
The annual Grammy Award nominees will be announced later this year for a February 4 presentation of the winners. Speaking on the Grammys, Mason said, “it’s impossible to predict what is submitted, but people are using the technology. I’m imagining it’s going to be involved in a lot of records a lot of songs this year, so we’ll see if some of them get nominated or not, but I’m sure there’ll be some that will be submitted.”