Humans can no longer tell AI music from the real thing: survey

It has become nearly impossible for people to tell the difference between music generated by artificial intelligence and that created by humans, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The polling firm Ipsos asked 9,000 people to listen to two clips of AI-generated music and one of human-made music in a survey conducted for France-based streaming platform Deezer.

“Ninety-seven percent could not distinguish between music entirely generated by AI and human-created music,” said Deezer in a statement.

The survey was conducted between October 6 and 10 in eight countries: Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States.

Deezer said more than half of the respondents felt uncomfortable at not being able to tell the difference.

Pollsters also asked broader questions about the impact of AI, with 51 percent saying the technology would lead to more low-quality music on streaming platforms and almost two-thirds believing it will lead to a loss of creativity.

“The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they’re listening to AI or human made tracks or not,” Deezer CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a statement.

Deezer said there has not only been a surge in AI-generated content being uploaded to its platform, but it is finding listeners as well.

In January, one in 10 of the tracks streamed each day were completely AI-generated. Ten months later, that percentage has climbed to over one in three, or nearly 40,000 per day.

Eighty percent of survey respondents wanted fully AI-generated music clearly labelled for listeners.

Deezer is the only major music-streaming platform that systematically labels completely AI-generated content for users.

The issue gained prominence in June when a band called The Velvet Sundown suddenly went viral on Spotify, and only confirmed the following month that it was in fact AI-generated content.

The AI group’s most popular song has been streamed more than three million times.

In response, Spotify said it would encourage artists and publishers to sign up to a voluntary industry code to disclose AI use in music production.

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