Decoder with Nilay Patel
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.
01:10:46 · Mitch Glazier
[01:10:46] S4: Yeah. I mean, so this is... You have your finger on pulse. This is exactly the type of super thing you have. So right now we're still in the world of, you know, 1,500 streams equals one unit. What what used to be sort of the the sale of a of a CD. Now it's obviously singles based more than albums based, although we still do certify albums. And if you look at sort of the chart eligibility program that is now being implemented outside of Billboard and OCC, but in other places of the world, they have made rules to say unless it's substantially human, we are not going to allow it to be eligible to be on the chart because you're taking... You're literally taking the place of a human artist on number 49. And we're just not going to allow that. Billboards so far will allow it, but they'll label it. We haven't... Because we certify albums that were released by record companies, we haven't yet run into the issue of like the AI slop or the machine created piece. Right? But when... As we get more into assistive AI as creators start to use AI more and you look at the chart eligibility of like substantially human, does a stream as part of that 1,500 mean that it still has to be a human stream? Yes. I'm sure that we will Yeah. Come down on that side. But what does substantially human mean? I think over time that might change. It might be different three years from now than it is today. But at the core, it's got to be in the control of the creator. It's... And and some people would argue that putting in nine words into a music generator is an act of creation. They are going to. Yeah. And that they are a creator and therefore it's the same thing. It's not the same thing. Not saying that craft doesn't change over time and that in songwriting it's also different than in than in producing and creating a recording. Using AI in the songwriting process may look very different than it does in the recording process. So we have to sort of think about that too. But as far as Golden Platinum goes, we are still in the reliably safe zone of being able to like know, you know, with a great deal of certainty exactly what we're doing. I think the evolution over time is gonna be on how creators use AI more than it will need to be on something that's fully machine readable or created.