Young Guru Expresses AI Concerns After Hearing Kendrick Lamar Imitation
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Artificial intelligence has increasingly taken over conversations and everyday life over the years. Famed audio engineer Young Guru could not hold his tongue about his concerns, namely after hearing an AI-generated Kendrick Lamar voice.
“This has dominated my Howard group chat for a couple days,” the 49-year-old wrote on Instagram. A video showing how the fake Kendrick came together accompanied his post. “Ok I’m at the point where I can voice my concerns with our current state of AI. I have followed as many versions of what AI could do for some years now. I remember being at MIT and students showing me a project where they were actively feeding a computer ‘All’ the jazz records that ever existed.”
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Guru admitted that he did not expect the technology to advance this fast, and while it is impressive, there are some potential issues. “Of course my mind goes to the ethical and legal aspects of what can be done with programs like Tacotron 2. […] It’s not the tech, it’s the evil that men do with the tech. There are legal aspects because at this present moment you can’t copyright a voice,” the Grammy winner said before citing the 1988 Midler v. Ford Motor Co. court case.
He continued, “You can copyright a song, or a speech but not the voice itself!!! You can literally create a song or an album in the voice of your favorite musician. And this is just music. The ability to create a Manchurian Candidate scares me. Think about that in every industry. There are still states that don’t even have a law against revenge porn.”
Artificial intelligence caused contention last August when Capitol Records released FN Meka, the first-ever AI rapper. Meka was created by a team of non-Black men who taught the rapper to use racial slurs. The public backlash led Capitol to immediately abandon the venture.
