An AI-generated song from an entirely AI-generated artist just topped a Billboard chart for the first time.
The “artist,” Breaking Rust, topped the Country Digital Song Sales chart with the track “Walk My Walk." The AI artist has also quickly accumulated about two million monthly listeners on Spotify.
While the music industry and creatives grapple with the implications of this AI success, the song's popularity shows many listeners can't tell the difference or simply don't care whether a human created it.
To understand what this milestone means for the music industry and human creativity, I talked it through with Marketing AI Institute and SmarterX founder and CEO Paul Roetzer on Episode 180 of The Artificial Intelligence Show.
This news is jarring but not surprising, Roetzer says. It’s part of a trend that started long before the current generative AI boom.
“I would put this in the camp of inevitabilities,” he says.
He explains that for years, platforms such as Netflix and major music labels have been using machine learning to predict hits. They analyze massive datasets on audience preferences, genres, and other variables to forecast what’s popular.
“All generative AI did was layer in the ability to create the stuff instead of needing humans to create it,” Roetzer explains.
So an AI-generated hit by an AI artist isn’t a sudden leap, but a logical next step that uses a "mashup of traditional machine learning, making predictions about human behaviors”. Then voila, generative AI creates a song on demand.
The success of Breaking Rust is being driven by basic market forces: If people will listen to and pay for AI-generated content, platforms will provide and promote it.
The No. 1 chart position of an AI song is proof that there’s an audience for it. That means algorithms on platforms such as Spotify will likely serve up more AI songs if people keep listening.
“It's like, ‘Hey, people don't actually care. Let's serve up whatever they want,’” Roetzer says. “This is the future of Facebook, of anything that Meta touches. Just give people what they want as long as they stay on the platform long enough.”
This AI-generated song hit raises emotionally charged questions about the value of human art. Roetzer, who comes from a family of writers and artists, admits to being conflicted.
“I don't know how I feel about it; I kind of hate it, I think,” he says.
But he also sees a potential upside. This trend could create a clear distinction in the market, pushing audiences to seek out and value "authentically human" work more than ever. It could follow a similar path to how the Etsy marketplace created a space for handmade goods.
He hopes this leads to a renaissance for human talent over AI.
“AI doesn't diminish the value of a human actually doing music,” Roetzer says. “In fact, in my opinion, it makes you appreciate that they can do it without these AI tools. Makes you appreciate their talents even more.”
The debate might come down to what we believe creativity is. Even if an AI can create a song that audiences prefer over one created by a human, Roetzer argues the creative process remains fundamentally different.
AI-generated art is the product of mathematics and prediction. Human art draws from experience and emotion; AI is predictive.
“In the end, human creativity means more because it came from someone who has experienced life,” Roetzer says.