Decoder with Nilay Patel
01:04:44 · S10, Nilay Patel, Mitch Glazier
[01:04:44] S10: you this. [01:04:45] S3: I I only got a few minutes left and I I wanna stick one turn at the end to talk about how you measure for platinum certification because that's also up in the air. Sure. But let me just ask you one more question here on labeling. We spent a lot of time at The Verge covering labels for images and media, right? There's all these standards that exist. I have one poor reporter, her name is Jess Weatherbed and she just, she has been forced to learn everything about the C2PA standard and content, synth ID It's and [01:05:13] S4: all these important though. [01:05:15] S3: They're very important and we spend a lot of time covering them because they have to work and they have to work on a number of different places in the chain, right? They got to work in the camera, they got to work in Photoshop and then they got to work on Twitter and everyone has to agree. And if Elon Musk does not want SynthID to show up on his platform, it doesn't matter if it worked in the camera. This is a big chain. It seems harder in music, like much harder because I don't know a bunch of bedroom DJs are probably not going to participate in your technical scheme for labeling when they upload to DistroKid. An artist getting a beat from a producer over iMessage, who knows if that metadata will survive. You might have to watermark the sound files themselves in some deep intrinsic way and that can get you into all kinds of trouble because now you're screwing with the audio files at the software level and artists don't like that. How do you make labeling work at all?
01:06:10 · Mitch Glazier, Nilay Patel
[01:06:10] S4: Yeah. Like, you're you're like hitting on our on our daily meetings. So I mean, there are sort of the international organizations like DDEX for example that can help align fields and stuff like that. C2PA which can give you sort of like a model for providence. But at the end of the day, it has to be the platforms and the distributors that are willing to do it. Because when it comes to generative AI, right, the record labels are not tagging and putting generative AI up on Spotify. Right? If that's out of the DIY world that somebody going to a music generator, downloading it, putting it up through DistroKid. Right? So your gateway is DistroKid TuneCore. It's the distributors. You know, are they using AI detection technology to determine that it's fully generated? You might not be able to use AI detection technology to say your song is 5% of this or use it for attribution yet, but you can definitely use it to say this is fully generated AI. And if so, are they willing to tag it so that it works with Apple and Spotify's platform? And then on the platforms themselves, this is sort of like the parental advisory program. It might be voluntary and everybody might have a little bit of different way of implementing it. But fans are pretty clear. Like when something's labeled as parental advisory, which probably just draws more young people to listen [01:07:32] S3: to it. Did to me.
01:07:32 · Nilay Patel, Mitch Glazier
[01:07:32] S3: to it. Did to me. [01:07:33] S4: When it's label it's labeled as parental advisory, like people kind of get it. They know it's become sort of a culturally known thing. I think labeling for AI for fully generated AI can definitely get there, but the distributors have to be willing to play. It can't just be the platforms because if it doesn't go downstream, they're gonna go in different directions. And already Deezer is going in one direction, Apple is going in another direction, Spotify is going in another direction. And to me, the fully generated problem, which is a DIY problem is a distributor problem. And we have to provide incentives to the distributors to get them to take responsibility and play ball. [01:08:13] S3: Do you think that technology exists to support the policy there? Right, you need a technology that can detect AI media. I'm not sure that any of that exists or works well.
01:08:13 · Nilay Patel, Mitch Glazier
[01:08:13] S3: Do you think that technology exists to support the policy there? Right, you need a technology that can detect AI media. I'm not sure that any of that exists or works well. [01:08:24] S4: I think it exists and works well for fully generated AI music. Yeah. I mean the... We also do a lot of testing at the RIAA, that's another thing that our tech team does and then we sort of disclose the results back to the folks who gave it to us. Like we won't disclose it to anybody else, but if if you want to know what our test says about your technology, we'll we'll tell you. And I think when it comes to fully generated eye, there's plenty of detection technologies out there that do a really good job. Once you get below that, right, time time will make it better. So I don't know that we could sort of get into a lot of gradations right now but Deezer very successfully on a platform level uses AI detection technology and then labels what it detects as fully generated AI and it's got a very low false positive.
01:08:24 · Mitch Glazier, Nilay Patel
[01:08:24] S4: I think it exists and works well for fully generated AI music. Yeah. I mean the... We also do a lot of testing at the RIAA, that's another thing that our tech team does and then we sort of disclose the results back to the folks who gave it to us. Like we won't disclose it to anybody else, but if if you want to know what our test says about your technology, we'll we'll tell you. And I think when it comes to fully generated eye, there's plenty of detection technologies out there that do a really good job. Once you get below that, right, time time will make it better. So I don't know that we could sort of get into a lot of gradations right now but Deezer very successfully on a platform level uses AI detection technology and then labels what it detects as fully generated AI and it's got a very low false positive. [01:09:14] S3: I want to end by talking about the certifications for platinum records and so on. It's an important part of what you do. All the artists want their little records on their wall. It's amazing that it's still records. One of our jokes at The Verge is also that no one knows how to count anything that Nielsen ratings, I should probably disclose we are now part of the company that owns Luminate which powers the billboard charts. Sure. The billboard charts and their methodology is always in flux. Actually, I think as of this year they're in a fight with YouTube. YouTube does not want to be counted on the billboard charts because some methodology or counting is very political. [01:09:49] S4: It is.
01:09:49 · Mitch Glazier, Nilay Patel
[01:09:49] S4: It is. [01:09:50] S3: You literally give awards for counting to a big number. That is in flux as artists gain more attention on TikTok. And I have probably heard that Nicole Kidman song and the whole thing on TikTok in fragments. I've never listened to the whole thing all the way through and I'm certainly never going to buy a copy of it. Again, all in flux and then somewhere in there is a bunch of AI remixes and now I'm going to, I've listened to Pop Star by Drake 10,000 times because Darth Vader is singing it to me. How are you thinking about that methodology is who is creating what AI is in the mix and we're listening to more and more fragments to discover songs on social platforms than anything else? [01:10:30] S4: I swear to God, you are like in my daily meetings. This is all I... So... [01:10:34] S3: All... Can I just tell you and I'm happy to hear that? I drive The Verge team crazy because I'm like, the music industry is the future always. And they're like, no one wants to listen to it. So thank you for indulging me. I appreciate you.