Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be on everyone's mind these days — and last week, both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees held hearings on the controversial and game-changing tech.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled "Oversight of A.I.: Rules for Artificial Intelligence" took place on Tues. May 16th; the House Judiciary Committee hearing titled "Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property: Part 1 – Interoperability of AI and Copyright Law" occurred the following day.
Although the hearings focused on different aspects of AI, both raised timely questions about the future of AI and how it will affect different industries — including music.
The Senate hearing, led by the Chair of the Privacy, Technology, & the Law Subcommittee, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), focused on the potential consequences of AI such as job loss, impacted elections, disinformation, and privacy, but also on potential solutions to mitigate these concerns such as transparency and government regulation.
Throughout the hearing, senators questioned the witnesses on what they believe can be done to ensure a safe advancement of these rapidly growing technologies. The witnesses consisted of:
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Samuel Altman, CEO, OpenAI
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Christina Montgomery, Chief Privacy & Trust Officer, IBM
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Gary Marcus, Professor Emeritus, New York University
When it came time for Senator Blackburn (R-TN) to question the witnesses, it came as no surprise that the Tennessee Senator raised concerns about the effect of AI on the music community. Notably, she made clear that the creative community should have a choice in whether or not their copyrighted works are used to train AI models. The Senator even raised concerns that OpenAI's jukebox has songs similar to Garth Brooks — indicating that it was trained on his music.
In response, Altman stated that he agrees that creators deserve control over how their content is used and that we need to figure out a way that they benefit from this emerging technology.
Blackburn further questioned Altman on how artists would be compensated for the use of their copyrighted works in training AI models. Although he agreed that was needed, Altman did not have a plan for ensuring that artists are compensated.
Blackburn's time for questioning expired, but it was noted throughout the hearing that this would be the first of many Senate hearings on AI and the Recording Academy will continue to monitor what this could mean for music.
The next day, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet held its own hearing on AI. This hearing, led by Subcommittee Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA), focused on AI and copyright — a topic that the Recording Academy has been focused on throughout 2023. The hearing's witnesses included:
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Dan Navarro, GRAMMY nominated songwriter, singer, recording artist, and voice actor
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Sy Damle, Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP and former General Counsel of the U.S. Copyright Office
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Chris Callison-Burch, Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania and Visiting Research Scientist, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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Ashley Irwin, President, Society of Composers and Lyricists and Emmy Award-winning music director, conductor, composer, arranger, and producer
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Jeffrey Sedlik, President & CEO, PLUS Coalition, Member, Joint Committee on Ethics in AI, and professional photographer.
In his opening statement, Issa highlighted that copyright laws exist to encourage and award creative expression. He also noted that this was the first of many hearings and that the end goal was to safeguard the rights of existing creators.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) expressed similar sentiments in his opening statements by calling for attention from Congress and AI developers to ensure that AI does not displace human creators or threaten the ability for the creative workforce to thrive.
Over the course of the hearing, representatives and the witnesses toggled with the question of what, if anything, should congress do to ensure they strike the right balance between protecting and promoting creators and ensuring a safe advancement of AI technology.
In an attempt to answer that question, three key components were established when it comes to the use of copyrighted materials being used to train and develop AI technology. These three components were credit, consent, and compensation.
As the hearing went on, committee members came back to these three pillars. Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) posed this question to Navarro: as a generational singer, why is it not enough to just give credit to an artist if their voice is being used in AI-generated work?
Navarro, who is a member of the Human Artistry CampAIgn, a coalition the Recording Academy helped launch in partnership with other stakeholders in the music community, responded that royalties are generated when an artist's work is used, so if they did not give consent then credit is not enough.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), whose district includes Hollywood, brought up a recent study that found that 11% of AI learning comes from the entertainment industry. He stated that although AI can be used to enrich the works of the creative industry, behind all of that work are the actual creatives — the people. Schiff continued that copyright is the foundation that allows American artists to earn a living and creates jobs for the sake of creating art.
In addition to copyright regulation, the right to publicity was also raised. One witness, Professor Callison-Burch, made a point to mention that when AI generated work sounds similar both in voice and in content to a copyrighted material such as a Taylor Swift song, that even though AI generated music may not be a copyright infringement, setting up right to publicity safeguards is an important measure to protect artists' rights.
The purpose of the hearings was to gather information and insight from people who are well versed in the creative and AI worlds. Although no policy decisions were made over the course of these two hearings, this is just the start of Congress working to ensure that AI enhances — not stifles — the creative community and American music creators.
