An image from Breaking Rust’s YouTube page. Credit – Breaking Rust<\/p>\n
W<\/span>elcome back to In the Loop, TIME\u2019s new twice-weekly newsletter about AI. We’re publishing these editions both as stories on Time.com and as emails. If you’re reading this in your browser, why not subscribe to have the next one delivered straight to your inbox?<\/p>\n Subscribe to\u00a0In the Loop<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Top of the charts?<\/strong><\/strong> This week, many headlines<\/a> declared that an AI-generated song, \u201cWalk My Walk\u201d by Breaking Rust, had become the biggest country song in America. This is unequivocally not true.<\/p>\n \u201cWalk My Walk,\u201d a laughably generic country song about independence and defiance, had middling organic momentum on streaming<\/a> and search<\/a> before it topped Billboard\u2019s Country Digital Song Sales chart last week. The song is currently nowhere to be found on updated daily streaming country charts on Spotify or Apple Music.<\/p>\n But because very few people actually buy digital songs anymore, it only takes a few thousand purchases to top the Country Digital Song Sales chart. This dynamic raises the possibility that someone took this specific tack to generate momentum. This would not be a new phenomenon\u2014Billboards\u2019 digital sales have been a target for manipulation for several years now, forcing the company to make several tweaks<\/a> to tamp down on gamesmanship.<\/p>\n Feeding frenzy. <\/strong>So \u201cWalk My Walk\u201d is No. 1 in one metric, but not a meaningful one. Regardless, the headlines around its chart-topping have created a flywheel effect, creating more interest and outrage around the song. Some people now like it and some hate it\u2014but people are clicking either way, driving it No. 2 Spotify\u2019s Viral 50 USA chart.<\/p>\n \u201cThe permissiveness of Billboard with their charts has been a systemic problem for many years, especially in country music\u2014and that\u2019s what’s facilitating this whole news cycle,\u201d says Kyle Coroneos, the founder of the website<\/a> Saving Country Music. \u201cWhoever is behind the single, this is exactly what they wanted: to make headlines by going No. 1 on a country chart, and then you get the feeding frenzy, and it bursts through the zeitgeist.\u201d<\/p>\n Slow creep<\/strong><\/strong>. Still, the \u201cWalk My Walk\u201d discourse shows how AI continues to permeate the music industry in increasing ways. There has been at least one AI artist <\/a>on a Billboard chart for the past four weeks. And studios like Universal Music Group have been striking deals with AI companies. \u201cThe whole industry needs to stand up and say, \u2018How are we going to deal with these AI tracks?\u2019\u201d Coroneos says. \u201cThis isn’t a year from now, this is happening right now, and it’s affecting real-life human creators who are also trying to get to the top of these charts and are failing.\u201d<\/p>\n This week, my colleague Harry Booth was in Lisbon for Web Summit, where he interviewed the Contextual AI CEO Douwe Kiela onstage. Backstage, he interviewed Eline Van der Velden, the creator of AI actress Tilly Norwood. Norwood is highly controversial, receiving backlash<\/a> from Morgan Freeman, Emily Blunt, and others.<\/p>\n Van der Velden, an actress and comedian herself, told Harry that she sees AI actors in a category more akin to animation or comic books, rather than a replacement. \u201cI know what it\u2019s like as an actor to not have a lot of work, so I totally sympathize with that. But at the same time this is happening, AI is here, we can’t put it away anymore, and so I like to look at the positives,\u201d she said. \u201cIt may in some instances even be more ethical to use AI actors. I\u2019ll let you think of those instances.\u201d<\/p>\n Van der Velden also said that the massive blowback against Tilly had only increased the amount of people interested in working with her. (The Streisand effect strikes again.)<\/p>\n The AI actor Tilly Norwood, generated in the style of the \u201cWill Smith eating spaghetti\u201d meme.Eline Van der Velden <\/span><\/p>\n On the other side of this divide is director Jon M. Chu. A couple weeks ago, I interviewed him in preparation for the release of Wicked: For Good, whose prequel brought in more than $750 million at the global box office. Chu sits at the center of Hollywood, and grew up in Silicon Valley revering engineers.<\/p>\n But he\u2019s now much more worried about the impact of the tech industry on storytelling. \u201cThe incentive now is not creativity and tools to foster innovation: It’s about colonizing our minds,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re inside our curiosity: They have examined what you’re curious about and picked it apart, and are going to drag you over here and here and here.\u201d<\/p>\n Read More<\/strong><\/strong>: Jon M. Chu Has a Vision for America<\/a><\/p>\n Threat actors used AI agents to carry out a large-scale cyberattack, Anthropic wrote in a report<\/a> on Thursday. The company wrote that the threat actor\u2014who they believe was a Chinese state-sponsored group\u2014used Claude Code to try to infiltrate into roughly 30 global targets, including on tech companies, financial institutions, and government agencies, and were successful \u201cin a small number of cases.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe barriers to performing sophisticated cyberattacks have dropped substantially,\u201d Anthropic wrote. \u201cThe very abilities that allow Claude to be used in these attacks also make it crucial for cyber defense.\u201d<\/p>\nWhat to Know: AI Music<\/h2>\n
Who to Know: Tilly Norwood and Jon M. Chu<\/h2>\n
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AI in Action<\/h2>\n
What We\u2019re Reading<\/h2>\n