Grammy Awards to Take into Account Drake and The Weeknd’s Viral Song with AI Vocals for Nominations

The individual responsible for a popular AI-generated song has entered the track for consideration at the Grammy Awards. The Recording Academy has specified that certain awards are not applicable to such works. Nevertheless, Ghostwriter, the anonymous creator of “Heart on My Sleeve,” has submitted the song in the categories of best rap song and song of the year, which are both recognized for songwriting excellence. The Academy has indicated a willingness to acknowledge compositions primarily composed by humans, even if the recording itself is predominantly AI-generated.

Ghostwriter composed the lyrics to the song instead of leaving it to, say, ChatGPT. But instead of me singing or rapping those words, they used a generative AI model to mimic Drake and The Weeknd’s vocals, helping the song come to life. The artists’ label, Universal Music Group, wasn’t happy about it and filed a copyright claim to remove “Heart on My Sleeve” from streaming services. Before that, however, the song collected hundreds of thousands of listens on Spotify and more than 15 million on TikTok.

In recent months, Ghostwriter and their team have made pitches to industry bigwigs such as the Academy’s higher-ups, according to The New York Times. As it turns out, Ghostwriter may actually have a shot at picking up a Grammy. “On the creative side, it’s perfectly valid because it was written by a human being,” Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. told the Times.

However, there seems to be one major obstacle at the moment. To be eligible for a Grammy, a song must have “general distribution” throughout the United States through brick-and-mortar stores, online stores, and streaming services. Ghostwriter is reportedly aware of this limitation, but it’s unclear how they plan to address it.

Either way, this may well be the canary in the coal mine that rewards the use of generative AI in art. Many creatives are worried about this. Some have accused operators of generative AI systems of using copyrighted work to train their language-learning models, while a central issue in the ongoing strike by operators is whether performers are fairly compensated for the use of their digital characters. A controversial topic is also whether the outputs of generative artificial intelligence models can be considered truly original works.